Return: Matot-Masei 5785

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If a person makes a vow to �������������� or takes an oath imposing an obligation on themself, they shall not break their pledge; they must carry out all that has crossed their lips. ( Numbers 30:3 )


It never fails: we reach this Torah portion, Matot-Masei, in high summer and I go, ���Wait, what? Already?��� The words in this single verse are like hyperlinks. ����������, vow. ����������������, oath. �������� �������������� ������������������ ������������������, �������������������� ����������������������, ���������������������� ���������������������������  Surprise! It���s a reminder of Kol Nidrei. 


Every year this Torah portion comes around like an alarm I had forgotten I���d set on my phone. The time for intensive teshuvah is coming. The time for taking stock of our choices and our patterns, our promises and the places where we���ve fallen short of who we intended to be. 


I just spent five days at a rabbinic retreat. And unlike my usual travel, even to rabbinic events, this retreat specified that there would be no use of technology. We shut off our wifi and our phones. I hadn���t had a retreat like this, without access to the outside world, in 20 years.


Many Jews maintain this practice every Shabbat. My version of that is, I don���t read the news on Shabbes. I notice how often my fingers twitch to load the Guardian or the Times or the Post, and I resist the impulse to look. I take one day a week away from the maelstrom of the news.


But this was more than that. This was no-contact. I didn���t sneak a look at my synagogue email inbox. I didn���t text my teenager to see how his day was going. I didn���t work on sermons or high holiday prep. I prayed, and meditated, and learned, and reacquainted myself with my soul.


Or at least, that���s what I imagine will have just happened. I wrote these words a week early, because I know I won���t be able to write them on retreat, and I won���t be able to fully be present if I have this hanging over my head to be written on the day I return to my desk, which is today.


I���ve never done a retreat with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality before, but I���ve spent the last several months studying with them online. And one of the things I love about the way they operate is the way they talk about the perennial meditative work of returning to the breath.


They call it teshuvah. Return. 


We talk about teshuvah as a thing that happens during the high holidays. We think about who we���ve been, where we���ve missed the mark, who we want to be in the year ahead. Maybe we apologize to some of the people we���ve wronged. Maybe we apologize to God, or to ourselves.


But teshuvah is constant. We notice that we���re off-course, and we focus up and return to the present. We notice we���re distracted, and we return to paying attention. We realize we���ve been short-tempered or untruthful or unkind, and we pull ourselves together and try again.


I love the idea of returning to the breath as teshuvah. It reminds me that we are always making teshuvah. Sometimes in big ways ��� like the person who texted me last week to ask how to make teshuvah when an apology isn���t possible. And also in small ways, with each breath.


Teshuvah is a re-alignment. We notice we���ve wandered, and we course correct. We realize we messed up, and we probe into why so we won���t do it again. We recognize we made a promise, maybe an implicit one, about who we intended to be and we���re not living up to it right now.


Return to the breath. Return to our intentions. Return and try again. That���s what this week���s Torah portion, Matot-Masei, says to me every year. ���If a person makes a vow������ All of our best intentions about who we were going to be this year: those are inner vows, they���re promises.


And because we are human, we always fail to fully live up to them. And because we are Jewish humans, we have this amazing inheritance: a teshuvah process that helps us do better. Here we go again. Seven weeks from tomorrow is Selihot, the havdalah service that kicks off the season.


The old year isn���t over yet, but we can see the new one on the horizon. This is the time to start taking stock. That whole plan of living up to our highest ideals: how are we doing on that, this year? It���s Rosh Hodesh Av. Tisha b���Av is in a week, and then it���s a seven-week climb to renewal. 


We can show up to the high holidays without having thought much about any of this, and the holidays will still be real. They���ll still be able to work some of their magic in us. But we can also show up having taken this work seriously, starting now. That���s my invitation to all of us. 


There has never been a better time to return. Honestly there has never been another time to return. The only time we have is right here, right now. Every moment is a new beginning, an opportunity to return and to live up to being the people the world needs us to become.



This is the d'varling I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

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Published on July 25, 2025 17:00
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