Understanding Teshuba (Repentance) Through Tashlikh

מִי אֵל כָּמוֹךָ נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וְעֹבֵר עַל פֶּשַׁע לִשְׁאֵרִית נַחֲלָתוֹ לֹא הֶחֱזִיק לָעַד אַפּוֹ כִּי חָפֵץ חֶסֶד הוּא יָשׁוּב יְרַחֲמֵנוּ יִכְבֹּשׁ עֲוֹנֹתֵינוּ וְתַשְׁלִיךְ בִּמְצֻלוֹת יָם כָּל חַטֹּאתָם

Who is like You, [HaShem], who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of His people? He does not hold on to His anger forever, because He desires the kindness [of forgiving]. He will again have compassion on us, He will cover our transgressions, and He will cast all the sins of His people into the depths of the sea. (Mikha 7:18–19)

On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh HaShana (or on the second day, Sunday, when the first day falls on Shabbat, as it does this year), we perform a ceremony called Tashlikh. People go to a body of water: the sea, a river, or even a pool. There they recite a series of prayers, including the words of the prophet Mikha, chapter 7:18-19: “Who is like You, O God, who forgives sin and overlooks the transgressions of His people [Israel]? [Who is like You, HaShem,] whose anger does not last forever, because You wish to forgive us and [every year] You have compassion on us once again. You overlook our sins [when we repent] and cast all our transgressions into the depths of the sea.”

ABRAHAM ABINU

Tashlikh is a relatively new tradition. It is not mentioned in the Talmud, nor in Maimonides’ Mishne Torah, nor in Rabbi Yosef Caro’s Shulhan Arukh. The first to mention it was the Maharil (1365–1427), Rabbi Yaaqob ben Moshe Levi Moelin, famous for his works recording the customs of the Jews of Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages. According to the Maharil, Tashlikh consists of visiting a river on Rosh HaShana in order to remember the binding of Yitshaq. The Midrash tells that when Abraham Abinu was on his way to Mount Moriah to carry out God’s command, he came upon a river that should not have been there, and when he tried to cross it, the water reached up to his nose… Even though he had the perfect excuse to call off the sacrifice of Yitshaq, which in the end was canceled by Divine order, Abraham crossed the water and went ahead with God’s command. Tashlikh thus reminds us of the binding of Yitshaq, which took place on Rosh HaShana. That is why we mention it in the Tefilot of the day, and ask HaShem to take into account the merit of our patriarch’s act of unconditional obedience and judge us with kindness.

THE MYSTICAL SIDE OF TASHLIKH

Over time, and after the Ari HaQadosh praised this custom, the Tashlikh ceremony was adopted by virtually all Sephardic communities. But the meaning of the ritual gradually shifted, focusing more on repentance than on the memory of the binding of Yitshaq. The masters of Kabbala linked Tashlikh to the verse from the prophet Mikha quoted above, which says that HaShem “will cast all our transgressions into the depths of the sea.” What does this idea mean? That when we do Teshuba, when we sincerely repent of our sins and transgressions, God will erase them completely and “throw them to the bottom of the sea,” a poetic and metaphorical expression for what every penitent dreams of: the total deletion of the record of our transgressions. Notice that the prophet Mikha speaks entirely in the future: He will again have compassion on us, He will subdue our iniquities, He will cast our sins into the sea. Nothing in the verse says that our sins are already gone. And this explains something about the timing of Tashlikh. We do it on Rosh HaShana, the first of the ten days, when we have not yet apologized to anyone, confessed anything, or changed anything. Tashlikh is not the end of Teshuba. It is an opening prayer: before we begin, we ask HaShem that once we have repented, He will throw away whatever we leave behind.

THE OPPOSITION

Some famous rabbis, such as the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Yehiel Epstein, author of the Arukh HaShulhan, opposed Tashlikh. So did many Yemenite Jews, who follow Maimonides strictly, and the Sephardic Jews of the Spanish-Portuguese communities of Amsterdam and London. Why did they oppose Tashlikh? In some cases, such as the Spanish-Portuguese community, they left out of the traditional liturgy, that is, out of the formal prayers, many of the customs that came from Kabbala. Why? Because after what happened with Shabetay Tsebi, the false Messiah who abused Kabbala and turned it into superstition to lend credibility to his false claims, they decided not to allow deep mystical ideas into the service, so that they would not be misunderstood by the less informed.

I believe that in the case of Tashlikh, those fears are not unfounded! Why? Because many people innocently believe that by doing Tashlikh they are “throwing their sins into the sea,” and are thereby magically absolved of their transgressions. As if Tashlikh were a substitute for Teshuba. This is completely false. It is not what the prophet Mikha says, nor what the Sages who formulated this custom intended. The process of Teshuba, repentance, is very serious, and this mistaken but very popular view of Tashlikh trivializes it.

GENUINE TESHUBA

Teshuba is a transformative process through which we change not only what we do but also who we are. We devote ten days to Teshuba, from the beginning of Rosh HaShana to the end of Yom Kippur. Here, briefly, are the main steps of real Teshuba:

1. When I hear the Shofar, I must wake up from my spiritual slumber and picture myself standing before God, who, as my Creator, is also my Judge (the One who evaluates whether or not it was worth creating me).
2. I must acknowledge before the Supreme Judge that I am responsible for my actions.
3. I must admit my mistakes and recognize the bad decisions I made this past year.
4. I must also identify my bad habits, some of which have already become part of my personality.
5. During the days between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, I must repair and compensate those I have harmed, and apologize and ask forgiveness from those I have offended or hurt.
6. On Yom Kippur, I must confess my wrongdoings, articulating in a low voice, and feeling that I am standing before God, my mistakes, my bad habits, and my addictions.
7. I must ask the Creator to forgive me and give me another chance.
8. And finally, I must make the decision to change and improve, and plan a serious, workable strategy so that the changes are real and lasting, and my resolutions are not just empty words.

The popular idea that Tashlikh replaces Teshuba is scandalous and counterproductive. How can we tolerate the idea of replacing the entire process of drawing close to God, introspection, repentance, and growth with the notion that one can symbolically “throw all one’s sins into the sea”?

CONCLUSION

Tashlikh is a deeply rooted custom, especially in Sephardic communities, and that is why it is ESSENTIAL that teachers and rabbinic leaders explain to their communities that Tashlikh does NOT make our transgressions magically disappear. We recite Tashlikh to remind ourselves that the process of Teshuba is very serious: our transgressions remain recorded in the Divine memory. But if we repent and change, then we ask HaShem, not ourselves, to “cast our sins into the sea,” so that the records disappear “as if the sea had swallowed them.”

A modern comparison may help. When we delete a file on the computer, it does not disappear: it goes to the trash, and from there it can be recovered. Only when we empty the trash is the file permanently out of the system.

Teshuba works the same way. We do the first part: recognizing the mistake, regretting it, confessing it, deciding to change. That is sending the sin to the trash. But as long as the file is there, it still exists. Emptying the trash of our transgressions is not in our hands. Only HaShem can do that.

And that is exactly what we ask of Him in Tashlikh, before the ten days of Teshuba begin: that after we have done our part, and we have sent our sins to the trash, HaShem will empty it. That they will be gone from the system for good.