“And it will be…he will bless himself in his heart saying – Peace will be with me, though I walk as my heart sees fit…HASHEM will not be willing to forgive him…” (Devarim 29:18-19)

Parents often tell their children, “If you behave properly, then you will get a very special prize which I know you really want. But if you misbehave, you won’t get it!” As often happens, a child will misbehave and forfeit his right to the prize, usually with the parent first saying, “I’ve had enough! You won’t get your prize now!” If the child responds to this with a shrug, “Whatever. I guess I don’t deserve it”, then the parent is forced to live by his word (even though he still wants to give him the prize) and not give the child that really special prize. But there are actually two reasons that child doesn’t deserve the prize. First, he didn’t fulfill his original obligation to behave. Second, his lack of remorse and desire to improve are reasons unto themselves not to give the child an opportunity to attain the prize.

However, the parent is really hoping is that when he says, “You can’t get your prize”, the child will respond, “I am sorry! I won’t do it again! I will try harder next time!” With this type of response from the child, the parent will very often accept his repentance and reinstate him in his good graces. In other words, when the parent says, “There is no way you can get this prize because of your behavior!” it doesn’t literally mean there is no way! It just means that the child will have to exercise a greater effort to receive the prize.

The Shelah Hakodesh (Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Avraham Ha-Levi Horowitz 1555-1630) writes (Kidushas Hazivug 341) that there is no sin which cannot be undone through teshuva. It is just a question of how hard one will have to work to do proper teshuva. With this concept, there are those who explain the above verse (29:18) in this week’s parsha: Klal Yisrael sometimes will act like that wanton child, sinning in spite. To this Hashem responds, “I will not accept his teshuva!” The Torah is not telling us that there is no way that he can receive forgiveness – he will just have to transcend the normal way of repenting in order to obtain forgiveness in this particular situation.

People try to clean their slates in Elul, and keep them clean throughout the month. But now that we are only a few days before Rosh Hashanah, many people may have given up hope. They throw in the towel saying, “There is no way that Hashem will accept my repentance!” One should be aware that even those thoughts of emptiness and despair are an offering to Hashem on their own. Just as the person who sins with contempt will have to work extra hard because he will not have the normal Divine assistance that comes to one who is trying to repent (לא יאבה ה’ סלח לו), those who feel anguish and despair because they want to repent will receive extra Divine assistance helping them to forge forward in the teshuva process.

Hashem famously said to Acher (Elisha ben Abuyah), “Everyone can do teshuva except for Acher.” While Acher took this at face value and gave up hope, Hashem was actually not telling Acher not to do teshuva; rather He was telling him, “Try harder, because teshuva can work even for you!”

We should keep in mind that as we feel despair at our non-success, we have gained a greater level to possibly have Divine assistance, that will propel us to a successful teshuva. If start with this attitude, we will hopefully receive the assistance we need from above to be successful in doing teshuva shelayma, which will then hopefully bring us a good and sweet new year.