This Shabbat is called, “Shabbat Shuva,” based on the words of Hoshea,
שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד ה׳ אֱלֹקיך
Return, Jewish people, to your God
(We learn from here that Teshuva is so great that it brings us up to God’s throne)
כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶךָ
for you have stumbled in sin
He goes on list the steps of Teshuva, Vidui/confession, etc..
then he says,
אַשּׁוּר ׀ לֹא יוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ עַל־סוּס לֹא נִרְכָּב וְלֹא־נֹאמַר עוֹד אֱלקינוּ לְמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ
Assyria won’t save us, we will no longer ride on horses, and we will no longer say, “God,” to our handiwork.
The Chatam Sofer is bothered by this line, “We will no longer say God to our handiwork.”
How does that fit in to the Teshuva process?
He says, in his Derasha to Shabbat Shuva, that most sins happen because of the test of parnasa. It seems to us, through nature, that we do our business, and we are involved in our work, and we think that brings us sustenance. But that is a mistake, because our parnassa/sustenance comes from Hashem. That is what the prophet was warning us about. Don’t say god to your handiwork.
Don’t think that your strength makes it happen.
Focusing on this will cause you to strengthen your emunah and bitachon, making it easier to do Teshuva, because, he says, most sins are caused by money; we don’t believe that our money comes directly from Hashem. Whether it comes in the form of people being tested to work on Shabbat (like in the days of old), forging, using dishonest weights and measures, lying or cheating…whatever it may be, all of those sins come from a lack of Emunah and Bitachon. Therefore, once a person realizes that his handiwork does not make it happen, he will be able to do Teshuva.
And what about the part about no longer riding on a horse? What does that have to do with any of this?
Rav Yehuda Sadka says that in the time of Hizkiyah HaMelech, there was a movement against him. He wanted to everyone to learn and strengthen themselves in Torah, so that Hashem would protect them, but others wanted to build up their army. In the end, the army of Assyria came to taunt them and said, “Even if we gave you horses, you would not know how to ride on them.”
In the end, God wiped out their army in the middle of the night. So that is what it means that Assyria will not help us, and we will not ride on horses.
The Malbim quotes Abarbanel, that the pasuk says about Hizkiyah, “There was no king like him,” means that Hizkiyah surpassed all kings in his Middah of Bitachon, as in the story above, with Sanheriv.
Part of the Teshuva process is to get to the source of the sin, which is a lack of Emunah and Bitachon (what we are working on).
The Keren Orah, in Masechet Taanit ( 15b), quotes Eliyahu HaNavi, who asked the people how much longer they would be jumping back and forth, by which he meant that they were not totally committed, either to God or to Avodah Zara.
They were jumping back and forth, and he says that that jumping back and forth applies to us as well. We rely on Hashem, but then sometimes we get weak and we go back to our strength and our power. We keep going back and forth. We have to finally make the decision, to say, “Hashem Hu HaElokim- it is only Hashem.”
It is interesting that we say Hashem Hu HaElokim at the end of our Yom Kippur prayers, because this was the line that the people said when Eliyahu Hanavi finally showed them, when the fire came down from heaven and burned his korban, and it was finally clear to everybody that there were no other forces but God. They stopped jumping back and forth, and they said Hashem Hu HaElokim.
When we are at that level, Teshuva will fall into place. In the words of the Keren Orah,
כי עיקר התשובה בזה הוא לבטל כל מחסה כזב ובטחון שוא ומעם ה' לבד יהי' עזרתינו ולו לבד נתפלל ונודה
The main Teshuva is to annul all false refuge and false reliance, and God alone will be our help, and we pray only to Him, and we thank only Him.
That is why, in the Selichot, we say that the One that answered Eliyahu Hanavi should answer us.
They said that when it became clear, at Har HaKarmel, that only Hashem was in charge; Hashem Hu HaElokim.
When we have that clarity, the One that answered Eliyahu Hanavi will answer us.
B’ezrat Hashem, we will have that clarity. God will answer all our prayers, and our teshuvah will be proper and be accepted, because we realize that there is no gain by sinning.
Have a wonderful day and a Shabbat Shalom.