Two Sock Teshuva
“When all these things befall you - the blessing and the curse that I have set before you - and you return to your heart…” (Deuteronomy 30:1)
“...and you return to your God…then your God will return your captivity…and you will return and hear the voice of God…when you return to God with all your heart and soul.” (Deuteronomy 30:2,3,8,10)
This section of the Torah portion Nitzavim is obsessed with teshuva, return. With the probability that we will mess up, stray from our commitments, get knocked off balance by hardship, and still greet the possibility that we can return to God, to whole-hearted and soulful embrace of our purpose.
A while ago I was watching my toddler learning to put socks on. He quickly slipped a sock onto his left foot and tugged it up past his ankle. Success! Then he grabbed the second sock, attempted to put it on his right foot, but got stuck with an uncooperative big toe firmly outside the opening. After tugging with some frustration for a few minutes, a lightbulb went off. And so he started to put the sock on his left foot, where he’d experienced success just moments before. Two socks on, no problem! Granted, they were both on the same foot, but toddler logic insisted the job was done.
I was struck by this strategy as an apt metaphor for how many of us go about improving ourselves. We find something we know how to do, and we double down on it, rather than suffering clumsy efforts at developing the aspects of our behaviors that we have a harder time with. As if two socks on one foot will keep the other foot warm and safe!
The same with our hearts. We learn strategies for dealing with emotions that no doubt served us when we first developed them. But as our circumstances change, sometimes we double down on old strategies and get frustrated when we discover they no longer protect us from pain or causing harm. This passage of Torah suggests that when we encounter both blessing and curse, and then “return to our heart”, we will ultimately end up with “all our heart.” A wonderful midrash collects all of the biblical descriptions of what a heart does: “The heart sees, the heart hears, the heart speaks, the heart goes, the heart falls, the heart stands, the heart rejoices, the heart cries out, the heart is consoled, the heart grieves, the heart hardens, the heart softens…” It seems, if we want to do heart-work, we need to be open to the whole spectrum of human experience and feeling. An image of balance emerges - a heart with socks on both feet if you will.
The commentator Sforno has a striking commentary on what “returning to the heart” entails. “You must discern the contradictory parts, and return them to the heart together, to understand the truth from the lie, and in this you will recognize how far you have become from God in awareness and practice that aligns with Torah.”
I think Sforno is teaching about holding paradox, apparent contradictions that when held in a “both-and” spirit can actually give us more of a glimpse of truth than if we prematurely resolve the tension and choose one perspective over another. Torah can be understood as containing simplistic rules - do this, not that - and teshuva functions as our way of recognizing our failures and returning to observance of the rules. But Torah seems much more compelling to me as a guide to developing complex thinking and a subtle and rich way of moving through the world. One balanced by numerous contradictions and tensions. Are we free, or obligated? Are we concerned with our self, our tribe, or with all of humanity? Is God just, or just powerful? How do we hold political power and ethical values at the same time?
Whether I’m watching my toddler delight and struggle with putting socks on both feet, or talking with one of you about whatever blessings or curses we are encountering in life (and we all experience them in one way or another), the poet May Sarton has words that I want to offer for our hearts this season:
The angels, the furies
Are never far away
While we dance, we dance,
Trying to keep a balance
To be perfectly human(Not perfect, never perfect,
Never an end to growth and peril),
Able to bless and forgive
Ourselves.
This is what is asked of us.
May your teshuva return you a bit closer to balance and wholeness. Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
