Teshuvah is returning to our original holiness, said a rabbi I once knew, when we have missed the mark. The journey back from extreme states, those sometimes called mental illness, is one of relearning how to live on this particular earth, in this particular universe: the names and electron configurations of the elements; the depths of soil horizons in the city; how to use the train and bus lines; the phone numbers of friends; and the need for thanks or amends.
Humans are communal creatures; at Yom Kippur and at evening we take responsibility for collective wrongs and acknowledge collective sufferings. Teshuvah, the journey back from collective extreme states, such as the devastations of war or industrialism, is also one of relearning how to live on this particular earth, in this particular universe: shelter; solar panels; swords into ploughshares; cleaning water; mourning or amends. We are not so impudent, says the Keriat Shema, daily prayer at bedtime, as to declare before You that we are righteous and have not sinned or carried wounds. Feeding the soil microbes compost tea is healing and atonement. Sunflowers patiently abate lead, including that left by bullets. Soil is sanity, as are stars.
Teshuvah is to return to You, my Beloved, says the Song of Songs, when the voice of the turtle dove and all the other sounds of the earth and environs — here in Boston this summer the calls of chickadees and cardinals, the drops of desperately needed rain, and the thunder of an estimated three-foot-wide meteor breaking up over Massachusetts Bay — are heard in the land.
Lisa Greber is a peer, writer, activist, budding permaculturist, and space aficionado currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked in various aspects of the environmental field for decades. She comes from an interfaith (patrilineally Jewish) family. She was at the inaugural Rosh Hashanah event for the launch of Rabbi Katy Allen’s Jewish community Ma’yan Tikvah in the fall of 2007 and served for a time as a nature chaplain intern for that organization.
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