The 10 Days of Turning Within – Shabbat Shuva

The Sabbath of (Re)Turning Within

This Shabbat is called “Shabbat Shuva” named after the prophetic reading in which the prophet Hosea calls on the Israelites to “return to God” (Hosea 14:2). If the way of God might be defined as righteous law, a life of truth and rationality, a life of love and compassion, a life of moral and spiritual vision and discipline, and so on, then we have a life-long complex task that will require great introspection, inner honesty and a strong drive to live a life of truth and accountability. One job of any spiritual path, including religious spiritual paths, is to help us in this task.

I recently taught about an imaginary spiritual retreat center, a retreat/treatment center that is built in time and the human soul. The center offers a yearly 10 Day Intensive devoted to returning to the way of God. The 10 Day Retreat, called “The 10 Days of Turning” (Aseret y’mei ha-teshuvah) in Hebrew, opened on Rosh Ha-Shanah, and continues until Yom Kippur.

Like any addiction treatment center, there is considerable focus on involuntary thoughts, feelings, emotions, urges, sensations and intuitions that drive our cognition, speech and behavior. Among our involuntary drives is the involuntary repression of memory of things that did happen, and the involuntary creation of memories of things that did not happen.

Our sense of self, including identity formation through memory construction, typically proceeds in this involuntary manner. Our memories are part of the construction of our identities. Our sense of self just seems to happen, until we, with mindfulness, decide to shape our sense of self around our moral and spiritual duties.

The spiritual discipline of memory plays a singular role in forming the sense of self around spiritual duties.  Remember, one of the names of Rosh Ha-Shanah is “Yom Ha-zikaron,” the Day of Memory. Our 10 Day Retreat/Treatment began with a day devoted to memory. The confessional on Yom Kippur confronts us. If we allow the confessional to reach within us, it can pull memories and false memories out the shadow so we can become people of truth,

True, people sometimes just forget things, but also people push things out of their memories because the memory is too painful, shameful or guilt-producing.  People create ego-self serving versions of things or exclude things entirely to fit their current sense of ego-self. Jung’s term for the place where exiled memories are sent “the shadow.” Essentially, we are hidden from ourselves, and the hidden often can drive our sense of self.

What are we to do? Spiritual work guided by our religion. Attend the 10 Day Intensive Retreat, the 10 Days of Turning. Work the program – it works!