The Ten Days of Repentance

When our Sages say that repentance preceded the world, they mean to say that the world was created from the outset with ascents and descents. The descent is not a malfunction in the system but part of the course. Just as the heart needs to contract in order to pump blood, and just as breathing requires both inhaling and exhaling, so too our lives are built of movements forward and back. Sin is not a goal, but it is part of life. It exposes the break, the weakness, the place where we are not whole. And out of this the power awakens to rise higher. The descent creates a new depth that would not be revealed without it, and therefore every fall carries within it a seed of repair and ascent. In every descent the power to rise and grow to a higher level is already latent.

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