Who wrote the script you are still living by?

A sentence spoken to a child in five seconds can become a verdict carried for fifty years: “You are not made for learning.” “You have no discipline.” “That is just who you are.”

At first the voice comes from outside. Later the person repeats it to himself. Eventually he no longer experiences it as a sentence, but as an identity.

The most dangerous phrase may be: this is who I am. At that moment a habit becomes fate and a weakness becomes a definition.

Maimonides begins the principle of free choice with a clear statement: every person has permission and choice. Free will does not erase the past or deny responsibility. It declares that the past does not have to write the future.

Shabbat Shuvah asks us not only what we regret, but also which old sentence we need to stop obeying.

Who wrote the script you are still living by? Is it still true?

Do not let the person you once were write the entire script of the person you can still become.

What old sentence about yourself are you still obeying even though it may no longer be true?

Read in depth

A child struggled greatly in school. He was not the fastest child in the class, and when he had to read aloud he became confused. One day, after another wrong answer, someone nearby blurted out: “Leave him alone. He is simply not made for studying.”

The person who said it may have forgotten the sentence that same day.

But the child did not forget.

At first he heard the sentence from outside. Later he began saying it to himself. When he struggled on a test he said: of course, I am not built for this. When someone suggested that he join an advanced class, he said: that is not for me. When he grew older and wanted to begin studying seriously, he again heard that old voice inside: you know who you are.

Thirty years passed. The person who said the sentence may no longer remember it. But the sentence still wakes up every morning together with the child who long ago became an adult.

It is astonishing: sometimes one person says a sentence for five seconds and another person serves a fifty-year prison sentence because of it.

There are people walking through the world under a verdict no court ever imposed on them.

“I am not smart.”

“I am lazy.”

“I have no discipline.”

“I am an angry person.”

“I cannot change.”

“In our family everyone is like this.”

“I never manage to stick with anything.”

And the most dangerous sentence of all: “That is just who I am.”

Because the moment a person says “that is who I am,” he is no longer describing a behavior. He is turning it into an identity.

That is what I want to speak about on Shabbat Shuvah.

In Haazinu, Moses says: “When the Most High gave nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9).

On the plain level, the verses speak about the ordering of the nations and Israel’s special status. Rashi explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged the boundaries of the nations in relation to Israel, and the Torah immediately declares: “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9).

I want to take from here, not as the plain meaning of the verse but as an insight for teshuvah, one word: boundaries.

There are boundaries that the Holy One, blessed be He, placed in the world. There is reality, there are facts, there are things a person must accept. But there are also boundaries that no one placed around us except ourselves.

Sometimes someone drew only a pencil line, and we built a wall on top of it.

Perhaps in childhood you failed at something. From that was born the sentence: “I cannot.”

Perhaps you once tried to change and fell. From that was born the sentence: “I never persevere.”

Perhaps you grew up in a home where people were often angry. From that was born the sentence: “That is how we are.”

Perhaps for years you behaved in a certain way, until the behavior suddenly acquired the status of personality: “That is my nature.”

But the Torah does not allow a person to turn his past into destiny.

Maimonides devotes an entire chapter of Hilchot Teshuvah to the principle of free choice. He writes: “Permission is granted to every person. If he desires to incline himself toward the good path and be righteous, the choice is in his hand; and if he desires to incline himself toward the bad path and be wicked, the choice is in his hand” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 5:1).

Then Maimonides writes an even sharper sentence: “Every person is fit to be righteous like Moses our teacher or wicked like Jeroboam” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 5:2).

This does not mean that every person will receive Moses’ prophecy or reach his unique stature. Maimonides is speaking about moral responsibility. There is no decree from Heaven saying: this person must be righteous and that person must be wicked.

Why does Maimonides place this entire discussion specifically inside Hilchot Teshuvah?

Because if there is no choice, there is no teshuvah.

If “that is just who I am” is a final sentence, what does it mean to “return”?

If my past absolutely determines my future, what is Yom Kippur for?

The entire concept of teshuvah stands on one enormous declaration: the person you made yourself yesterday does not have to be the person you make yourself tomorrow.

This is a place where the yetzer hara can be very sophisticated.

When it wants a person to sin, it says: “Only once.”

After the person has failed many times, it changes its argument and says: “There, you see? This is who you are.”

At first it minimizes the act.

Then it enlarges the act until it becomes an identity.

That is the trap.

A person who gets angry says: “I am an angry person.”

A person who fails to persist says: “I have no perseverance.”

A person who falls in a certain area says: “This is what I am.”

But there is an enormous difference between two sentences: “I am a person who becomes angry often” and “I am an angry person.”

The first describes a condition that needs repair.

The second sounds like an identity card.

“Until today I did not manage to persevere” is a description of the past.

“I am incapable of persevering” is a prophecy about the future.

And who gave you permission to prophesy?

Perhaps one of the wrongs a person commits against himself is taking all of yesterday’s failures and using them as evidence against tomorrow’s possibilities.

That leads to the question I want everyone to take home:

Which sentence about yourself are you still faithfully obeying, even though the person who said it forgot long ago that he ever said it?

Maybe a teacher said it.

Maybe a father said it in a moment of anger.

Maybe a friend mocked you.

Maybe someone in yeshiva made you feel mediocre.

Or perhaps no one said it. Perhaps after a great failure you said to yourself: “I will never become what I wanted to be.”

Years passed, and you are still loyal to that sentence.

It is a loyalty no one asked of you.

Perhaps on Shabbat Shuvah it is time to break it.

There is another deep point here. Sometimes a person even uses humility to remain small. He says: “Who am I? I am not on that level. I am not the kind of person who studies like that. I am not the kind of person who prays like that.”

Rabbi Israel Salanter taught that the work of mussar begins with a person knowing himself. Knowing yourself does not mean burying yourself inside what you used to be. Recognizing weaknesses is meant to make work possible, not to announce that work is impossible.

Teshuvah does not require you to lie and say that you have no weaknesses.

The opposite.

Say the truth: I become angry quickly. It is hard for me to persist. I am drawn to honor. I postpone things. I have a weakness in a certain area.

But after every sentence like that, add one word:

Currently.

Currently this is difficult for me.

Until today I have failed.

This year I did not succeed.

Those are true sentences.

But they are not a verdict.

This may be a deep meaning in the words of the prophet Ezekiel: “When the wicked person turns from the wickedness he committed and does justice and righteousness, he shall preserve his life” (Ezekiel 18:27). The prophet does not say the past did not happen. He says that the past does not cancel the possibility of return.

The Holy One, blessed be He, does not say to the sinner: because you have done this many times, this is who you are.

He says: return.

The very call to teshuvah is proof that Heaven does not accept the sentence “that is just who I am.”

And perhaps here lies one of the most remarkable things about Yom Kippur.

We stand and confess things we did. We say, “We have been guilty,” “we have betrayed,” “we have robbed.”

Notice: we say what we did.

We do not say: this is who we are.

The confession is not an identity card.

It is exactly the opposite.

I can stand before the sin and say: I did this. I am responsible for it. I regret it. But I am not forced to keep doing it.

That is teshuvah.

Taking full responsibility for the past without giving the past full ownership of the future.

So I want to suggest a different resolution for Shabbat Shuvah. Before deciding what you will do this year, decide which sentence about yourself you will stop saying.

Not a fake positive slogan.

Not “I am perfect.”

Something more truthful.

Instead of “I never persevere,” say: until today I have not built perseverance.

Instead of “I am an angry person,” say: there is anger in me that I need to learn to manage.

Instead of “I am not made for learning,” say: I have not yet found the way in which I can build consistent learning.

Instead of “I already tried everything,” say: I tried things that did not work.

A small change in language can open an enormous door in the soul.

Because when you say “this is me,” there is nowhere to move.

When you say “this is where I am,” suddenly there is a road.

And here is the second punch of this message:

Perhaps for years you have been asking the Holy One, blessed be He, to open a gate for you while you stand on the other side holding it shut with the sentence, “I cannot.”

We say in prayer: “Open for us a gate at the time when the gate is closing.”

Perhaps there are gates the Holy One, blessed be He, has already opened.

We are the ones who have to agree to walk through them.

The person at the beginning was a child when someone said to him, “You are not made for studying.” Today he is fifty. The child grew up. The classroom is gone. The teacher is gone. Perhaps even the person who said the sentence is no longer in this world.

Only the sentence remains.

How sad it would be if a person reached eighty and discovered that he built an entire life around a sentence spoken about him when he was ten.

And how sad if a person stood on Yom Kippur asking the Holy One, blessed be He, for a new year while carrying into it the same old definition of himself.

We ask: “Write us in the Book of Life.”

Perhaps we should ask: in which book am I writing myself?

Am I still living according to a book someone else wrote about me?

According to what people said about me?

According to my failures?

According to my fears?

According to what I used to be?

Or am I finally ready to believe what the entire concept of teshuvah tells me: change is possible.

Not in one day.

Not without work.

Not without falls.

But possible.

Perhaps this is what I want to take from Haazinu into Shabbat Shuvah: there are real boundaries in the world, but do not turn your failures into boundaries that the Holy One, blessed be He, never placed around you.

Do not call a habit destiny.

Do not call a weakness identity.

Do not call the past the future.

Above all, do not stand before the One who gave you the gift of teshuvah and say to Him: “That is just who I am.”

Because if there is truly no possibility of being different, these Ten Days have no meaning.

Yom Kippur declares exactly the opposite.

Your past is real.

Your mistakes are real.

Your responsibility is real.

But your choice is also real.

So perhaps this year, before asking the Holy One, blessed be He, to write us a new year, we should erase one old sentence that we wrote about ourselves.

A sentence that closed us.

A sentence that diminished us.

A sentence that turned a fall into an identity.

And replace it with one sentence that Maimonides places at the heart of Hilchot Teshuvah:

“Permission is granted to every person.”

You have choice.

You have responsibility.

Therefore, you also have hope.

Do not let the person you were write the entire script of the person you can still become.