Aseres yemei teshuva, which culminates on Yom Kippur, brings hope to some, and despair to others. The optimists say, “This year will be the year that I, with Hashem’s help, will turn things around!” The pessimists say, “It hasn’t happened until now, so why should I be able to turn things around this year? In fact, doing teshuva is so hard that I can’t believe that Hashem expects me to do it!”

The yetzer hara has many ways to keep us from doing the right thing. One of the ploys he uses is by making us feel that we are out of the race. I heard from a great educator the following approach. A Rebbe took his class on a trip to a 50-story building in the city and said, “The first one to climb the staircase to the top floor will get a special ice cream as a prize.” Most of the class runs to try to be the first one to the top, but there is one kid who doesn’t even try. The Rebbe asked him, “Why are you just standing in the lobby?” and he responds, “Why should I try? I know that I am not the fastest runner in the class, so there is no way I can win. If I start climbing the staircase, I will surely be a loser!” The Rebbe thought about his student’s answer, and then responded, “It is still worth the climb! Even if you don’t make it to the 50th floor, you still might make it to the 20th floor, and the view from there is still amazing!”

So too there are many pursuits: Even if we don’t complete them, just starting and taking them as far as we can is still worthwhile.

In a similar vein, the baalei mussar tell us that there are many levels of teshuva, and one should never be despondent and give up. This is because every level is a major accomplishment on its own, which brings a person to a completely different place.

However, there is also another approach that I saw in the name of the Sefer Haikarim. We say in Tehillim (130:4)כִּי־עִמְּךָ הַסְּלִיחָה לְמַעַן תִּוָּרֵא׃  – For with You is forgiveness, so that You be feared. The difficulty with this is obvious: The fact that Hashem will forgive us should not bring us to fear Him, but rather to love Him! The Sefer Haikarim responds that without the possibility of teshuva in the wings, we would consider ourselves a lost cause and even our fear of Hashem would suffer. But now, in aseres yimei teshuva, Hashem is close to us because he wants to forgive us (as the verse says, “bi’hiyoso karov”, “when he is close to us”). Since we know that Hashem is waiting to forgive us, this motivates us to do Teshuva, which will cause us to fear Hashem.

Hence, Aseres Yimei Teshuva, culminating with Yom Kippur, should be the most encouraging time of year. Hashem is here saying, “I am not giving up on you!” Let us do our part and stay in the game, so that we can reach greater levels of yiras Hashem.

Gmar chasima tova.