A man walks into a dry cleaner the day before Rosh Hashanah with a pair of pants and asks, “Can you have these ready by tomorrow?” The person at the door replies, “Sorry sir, this isn’t a dry cleaner. This is a shul.” The man looks confused. “But the sign says, ‘We do t’shuvah here.”
At first glance, the man has missed the mark. But maybe he came to the right place—because t’shuvah is cleaning. Not for clothes, but for the soul.
And who makes it through a year without stains? Regret that clings. Words we wish we could take back. Moments when we acted too quickly—or not quickly enough.
Before we can begin the cleaning, we first have to notice what we’ve absorbed. We are all like sponges—soft, porous, always soaking things in. Over time, we become saturated. That’s when things start to leak through—in sharp words, quiet bitterness, or a heaviness we can’t quite name. That’s when it’s time to release, to wring it out and begin again.
As the Talmud teaches: “Nothing stands in the way of return.” Judaism assumes we’ve struggled—drifted, sopped in quite a mess. But it insists: change is possible.
So how do we begin, especially when we don’t realize how much has built up inside until it spills out?
Molly, a generous mother caught in the sandwich of caring for parents and adult children, snapped one day at a neighbor. Later she realized: it wasn’t the misunderstanding, it was saturation—too much pain absorbed until it spilled over. That was her wake-up call. Time to wring out the sponge. That’s hatarah, the first step of t’shuvah: to stop pretending we’re fine.
That’s why so many t’shuvah practices begin with cheshbon hanefesh—soul accounting. Before confession, before repair, comes awareness. And awareness opens the door to compassion.
This work is not done in isolation. Jewish tradition invites us to gather—not only to pray or hear the shofar, but to witness one another’s courage. In a world that urges us to move on, the High Holidays say: pause. Let truth rise, in the presence of others doing the same.
There is something unique about being together—the quiet encouragement of someone singing beside us, the tears across the aisle, the holiness of being seen. We help each other be brave. And that courage leads to the next step: viddui, confession.
In the machzor, it’s communal, but in life, it’s intimate. One person saying: “I was wrong. I hurt you. And I want to make it right.”
A man living with chronic pain snapped at his wife when she reminded him to take his cane. Later, he realized his sponge was full—of grief and frustration. He told her: “You didn’t deserve that. I wasn’t angry at you. I was angry at what’s happening to me. But I shouldn’t have made you carry that.”
That’s viddui. Not justification, but honest naming. Sometimes that’s enough to begin healing. Sometimes the harm lingers, like a floor still sticky after a spill. But confession matters—not because it fixes everything, but because it tells the truth.
You may know this story: a man devastated by gossip goes to his rabbi. The rabbi tells him to cut open a pillow and scatter the feathers. When the man returns, the rabbi says, “Now gather them.” “Impossible,” the man says. “Exactly,” replies the rabbi. “So it is with our words.”
But the rabbi doesn’t say “give up.” He says: start the repair. As Pirkei Avot teaches: Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor, v’lo atah ben chorin l’hibatel mimena—“It’s not your job to finish the work. But neither are you free to walk away from it.”
There’s one more step: kabbalah l’haba—the commitment to do things differently.
A woman noticed a painful pattern with her son. Every visit, she flooded him with advice. He pulled away. She realized the advice came from fear—fear he didn’t need her. So she practiced silence. The next visit, she caught herself and simply said, “I’m so glad you’re here.” And he stayed a little longer. She couldn’t change the past, but she changed the pattern.
That’s kabbalah l’haba: not just stopping but understanding the roots and choosing a new way.
So let’s keep going with the sponge:
Recognition is realizing it’s full.
Confession is wringing it out.
Apology is turning to the one who got splashed.
Responsibility is wiping up the spill.
Repair is tending to what was stained.
And kabbalah l’haba is noticing sooner, setting boundaries, asking for help.
Because the goal isn’t to stay clean—it’s to stop the spill before it hurts someone else.
Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha v’nashuvah—Help us return to You, Adonai, to the self still soft enough to absorb love, truth, and awe.
This is the sacred work of t’shuvah: not becoming someone new, but returning.
And maybe that’s why we don’t just step into the new year—we ring it in. Not with champagne, but with the wake-up call of the shofar.
The shofar doesn’t entertain. It interrupts. It presses—like a hand on a sponge—just enough to release what’s been hidden inside. It clears the space. It awakens the soul. And it leaves us rinsed, open, and ready—ready to absorb something new.
As we enter the year 5786, may we release what no longer serves us, return to our truest selves, and open our hearts to absorb love, truth, and awe anew.
Rabbi Cantor Sharon Steinberg has been serving as the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shira of South Palm Beach County since 2015. Prior to that, she spent 20 years as a cantor in the DC Metropolitan area first at Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, MD and then Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA.
