The footage out of Boro Park this week is shocking.
Watching Jews go out of their way to placate a person who has brought immediate danger and hostility to Am Yisrael.
Thanking him for “all that he has done for the community”.
And in a sefarim store, no less!
And once again, we are already hearing the beginnings of the follow-up debate.
“It’s not so simple.”
Calls for more “nuance.” More “open-mindedness.”
So many of us are asking – how on earth did something like this become possible?
The timeless words of this week’s parsha offer us some much-needed guidance:
Ki karov eilecha hadavar me’od. B’ficha ubilvavcha la’asoto
“Because the matter is very close to you. In your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”
With these words, Moshe Rabbeinu is teaching us something extraordinary about teshuvah.
When we get stuck in wrongdoing, returning can feel distant and complicated.
But Torah tells us:
Ki karov eilecha hadavar me’od.
Teshuvah is so, so close.
It is not some secret code. It does not require years of study or a complicated, nuanced debate.
Teshuvah begins with the powerful simplicity of reconnecting to the truth.
Returning to what, deep down, we already know.
Two thousand years of galut can bury that clarity under layers of apology, appeasement, fear, and the constant need to explain ourselves.
Our time in galut has lasted long enough to create instincts so deeply rooted that even scenes like the ones we witnessed this week can somehow be explained away.
But then we enter the days of teshuvah.
And every year, at this very moment, we read Moshe Rabbeinu telling us:
Despite all the noise – you are not as far away as you think.
The truth is not as far away as you think.
The Jewish heart is not as far away as you think.
B’ficha uvilvavcha la’asoto.
Our hearts were never disconnected from Hashem. The clarity is still right there. We can tap into it right now, if we choose to.
So the avodah of teshuvah does not involve noisy debate or anything complicated.
The avodah of teshuva is to see clearly above the noise, and return to what has been close to us all along.
Have a beautiful Shabbos.