Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. There's an important principle in emotional wellness that's necessary for Teshuva. As we’ve mentioned in the past, the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People bases the whole approach on habit number one, which is to be proactive. Proactive is a made-up word. It's the opposite of reactive. Reactive means that when somebody hits you on the knee, there's a reflex that your knee pops back. That's a reaction.
Proactive means that you don't necessarily have to react, but you can make a decision- between the stimulus and the reaction, there's your decision on how to act. And that's what we call freedom of choice. We are not just creatures of habit, we are not predetermined by who our parents are, what our atmosphere is, or what the situation is. We can choose. That is the necessary belief for, and the first prerequisite to change.
Rav Hutner points out, that's why the Rambam discusses freedom of choice in Hilchot Teshuva, You wouldn't think it belongs there, but he says that without the belief in freedom of choice, nobody can change. That's why it’s the first step of Teshuva.
The Rambams hs many beautiful quotes on this concept.
-Number one, the Rambam says, Man has permission- if you want to go on the right path to become a sadik, you can. And if you want to become a rasha as well, you can.
When discussing the beliefs of those days, he says we shouldn't think what the foolish goyim and many Jewish people as well, that God decides that a person's going to be a righteous or a wicked person when he's born. That's not true. And he uses the following powerful line: Every person can be as righteous as Moshe Rabbenu (that doesn't mean you can be a prophet like Moshe Rabbenu, but you could be as righteous as Moshe Rabbenu) or as wicked as the king Yaravam. And he goes on to list all types of traits: You could be kind, you could be cruel, you could be miserly, you could be generous. In all the Middot, no one is forcing you and no one's decreeing you and no one's pulling you one way or the other.
That’s what it means that, “good and bad doesn't come from God.” God doesn't decide if you are going to be good or bad. You decide if you'll be good or bad. And ultimately what happens afterwards is up to you. And therefore, he says, since we have that ability, we should do Teshuva because we can change. He uses powerful words, “This is an important principle. This is the pillar that the entire religion stands on, to believe that you can change if you want to change.”
It’s step one. People think, “That's it. I'm stuck. I have a certain character trait. I have a certain way about me,” And you might be right, but there's a little secret, Rabbenu Yona says T the beginning of Shaar Teshuva, which is that if a person does his best Hashem comes along and finishes it off like it says, “someone that comes to purify himself, they help him along.”
He quotes, “God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your children.”
Just like if a person has clogged arteries, you could put a stent in to clear them out,
So too, when a person does Teshuva, he might have clogged spiritual arteries or clogged emotional arteries. He might have a tendency towards getting angry. He might have a tendency towards desire or any other negative trait. But when a person does Teshuva, he can change. But if you don't believe you can change, then you're just stuck. There's a famous story of how they train elephants to stay locked down.
When the elephant is little, they tie a rope around his foot that's strong enough to hold him down, and he tries and pulls and pulls and he can't, he can't get out of it. And then as he gets older and stronger, he stops pulling. He doesn't realize that that rope can't hold him down anymore. He just doesn't believe otherwise, so he's stuck and tied to the rope. And the same is with us when it comes to change. If we believe we're tied down and we can't change and we base ourselves on our beliefs of yesteryear, well, maybe then we couldn't have changed, but we're older, we're more mature, we learn more, we heard more, we can change.
That's the first step towards the teshuva process- to believe you have freedom of choice and you can change.
Have a wonderful day.