I have kept silent long enough but something has to be said to save people from confusion.
Anything you see about sackcloth and ashes is the opposite of how to bring Moshiach. The Rebbe spent 40 years emphasizing that Moshiach (the letters of Moshiach = simcha - joy) comes through joy and even doing tshuva (repentence) is through joy.
And someone wants to come and suck out all the simcha from well-intentioned Jews, berating them to put on a sack and ashes which is TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE TO THE COMING OF MOSHIACH!
Here are the Rebbe's words from THIS WEEK: parshas Va'era 5710, which jumped out at me when I read them.
Teshuvah does not consist of fasts and self-mortification (nor distributing charity instead of fasting), nor does it consist of the recitation of Vidui, the list of confessions. It means, rather, "that the sinner should forsake his sin... and firmly resolve in his heart never to do it again." As the Alter Rebbe writes likewise in Iggeres HaTeshuvah: "The mitzvah of repentance as required by the Torah is simply the abandonment of sin... -- that one must resolve in perfect sincerity never again to revert to folly...." This is something that can be done even on Shabbos, when one may neither fast nor recite the confession.
See more further down in this post.
Also, if you have 20 minutes to listen to a great Baal Shem Tov story, click on the link here, which basically brings the same point: The Best Bests the Harsh Maggid (presented by Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber Wineberg, found at www.sichosinenglish.org/audio/stories/)
This whole sack and ashes business is further evidence that without being connected to the head of the generation, people can become completely confused, rachmana litzlan.
The need to change one's habits is underlined by the fact that it is teshuvah that prepares the way for the coming of Mashiach. As Rambam writes:[1279] "The Torah has promised that the Jewish people will ultimately repent at the end of their exile, and will then immediately be redeemed." Likewise:[1280] "Mashiach will come in order to bring back the tzaddikim in teshuvah."
Teshuvah does not consist of fasts and self-mortification (nor distributing charity instead of fasting), nor does it consist of the recitation of Vidui, the list of confessions. It means, rather,[1281] "that the sinner should forsake his sin... and firmly resolve in his heart never to do it again." As the Alter Rebbe writes likewise in Iggeres HaTeshuvah:[1282] "The mitzvah of repentance as required by the Torah is simply the abandonment of sin... -- that one must resolve in perfect sincerity never again to revert to folly...." This is something that can be done even on Shabbos, when one may neither fast nor recite the confession.
It is thus clear that teshuvah is basically changing one's habits. As Rambam expresses it,[1283] "he changes his actions" to the point that[1284] "It is utterly sinful to tell a penitent, 'Recall your former deeds,'" because he has changed his habits and now keeps his distance from those deeds.
The avodah of teshuvah therefore does not take much time. One can do teshuvah in less time than it takes to say Al chet or some other confession. (When a bill of divorce is being written, for example, the witnesses to the get are given only a short time for meditation on teshuvah.[1285]) For teshuvah basically requires that one "firmly resolve in his heart...," and this can be done very briefly,[1286] "in one hour and in one moment."
(Once, at the end of a visit by the Rebbe Rashab to Germany, a group of local Jews accompanied him to the railway station. While he was waiting for the train to leave, one of them commented that there was one minute left to departure. The Rebbe Rashab responded: "In one minute one can still do teshuvah."[1287])
In this brief moment, however, there has to be a change in one's habits. (As was stated earlier, even an easy endeavor can suffice -- provided it entails such a change.)
As quoted above, the Zohar states that teshuvah can be done besha'ata chada u'b'riga chada. Since the root sha'ah also means "turning",[1288] a message is hinted at in these words: b'riga chada ("in a mere moment") there can be -- and should be -- sha'ata chada ("a single turn," a reorientation in a new direction).[1289] And this is the basic meaning of changing one's habits, even in a small matter.
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