Let Us Search Our Ways
Teshuvah for Ourselves, Others, and the World
By Dr Brian Berenblut, for the Jewish Ethics Project
נַחְפְּשָׂה דְרָכֵינוּ וְנַחְקֹרָה וְנָשׁוּבָה עַד ה׳.
Let us search our ways and examine them, and let us return to the Lord. (Eicha 3:40)
Born out of the pain of exile, these words appear in the Selichot prayers, in some versions of the Vidui on Yom Kippur, and in the Zichronot section of Mussaf on Rosh Hashanah. They speak to the heart of the Yamim Noraim, not just regret, but reflection, change, and return. Not part way, but עד ה׳ - all the way to God. The verse moves us through three steps: honest awareness, moral transformation, and meaningful return.
We begin with נַחְפְּשָׂה, - “let us search” - the call to careful and honest self-examination. It is not about harsh self-judgment, but about having the humility to face the truth about ourselves. In particular, we may notice how often our failings show themselves in the way we relate to one another. It means recognising when we have become less sensitive to the needs of others, when we spoke instead of listening, or stayed silent when we should have spoken. It means being willing to challenge the excuses that allowed us to diminish another person’s dignity. Teshuvah starts not with outward actions or feelings of guilt, but with truth, which requires humility.
Then we move onto וְנַחְקֹרָה, - “let us examine” - which takes us deeper. It asks not only what we did, but why. The Yamim Noraim challenge us to ask if we have become the people we ought to be, measured against the standards of justice, compassion, and integrity that Torah calls for. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein taught that teshuvah is not just an opportunity per se; it is the opportunity to amend for all the missed opportunities.[1] Kierkegaard expressed something similar: in The Concept of Anxiety he described anxiety as “the dizziness of freedom,” and in Stages on Life’s Way he portrayed repentance as the highest expression of the ethical life.[2] One modern paraphrase of his thought puts it this way: “The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you will never have.”[3] In our terms, וְנַחְקֹרָה calls us to confront the selves we abandoned and the moral commitments we failed to realise, and to ask whether they can still be brought to life.
Teshuvah here means owning not just isolated acts, but the direction of our lives. It transforms the pain of missed futures into renewed moral purpose, and challenges us to decide whether suffering - our own suffering and that which we witness in others - will harden us or deepen our compassion.
In times of national trauma or conflict, this kind of honesty is harder, but also more urgent. The Torah’s moral vision reminds us that even in self-defence, we must not lose our humanity: “And God created humankind in His image …” (Genesis 1:27). That image is present on both sides of a border, and in every child.
“Teshuvah is not about remaining in regret, but about making the choice to move forward with purpose.”
We culminate with וְנָשׁוּבָה עַד ה׳, - “let us turn back, all the way to the Lord” - a call for real change. עד usually means “up to” or “toward,” but Rav Aharon Lichtenstein suggested that it can also mean turning inward and upward toward God’s very essence. Teshuvah is not a small adjustment but a radical re-orientation of our whole lives. It starts by noticing what we have ignored, deepening as we face who we have become, and moves us to live with greater awareness and responsibility. We look “up to” God in order to chart our personal path to improvement. The Torah describes God’s ways in the language of compassion, patience, justice, and truth: “The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth…” (Exodus 34:6). And the Sages teach: “Just as He is merciful, so you shall be merciful; just as He is gracious, so you shall be gracious.”[4]
Teshuvah must extend beyond ourselves and embrace the world around us. The Midrash teaches: “See how beautiful and praiseworthy are My works … Take care not to destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one after you to repair it.”[5] In our age of ecological crisis, returning to God also means examining how we treat the earth, the air, and the fragile systems that support life. Creation is not just an image or idea, but the living stage on which all human life unfolds. This too is part of teshuvah.
The verse speaks in the plural: let us search, let us examine, let us return. Teshuvah is personal, but never only private. We confess together, sharing responsibility and supporting one another in truth and hope. Communities should live by this same ethic, making space for those on the margins, and building institutions shaped not only by efficiency but by compassion and integrity. Returning עד ה׳ means aiming for our best selves, and doing it together.
Eicha 3:40 calls us to take responsibility, not to seek perfection. Teshuvah is not about remaining in regret, but about choosing to move forward with purpose. Its aim is growth, in ourselves, in our communities, in our care for the world, and in how we treat others, especially those who differ from us. As Rav Kook teaches: “The degree of love in the soul of the righteous embraces all creatures, it excludes nothing, no people and no tongue.[6] By searching, examining, and returning together, we step closer to the Divine image in which we were created.
[1] Aharon Lichtenstein, By His Light: Character and Values in the Service of God, ed. Reuven Ziegler (Alon Shvut: Yeshivat Har Etzion, 2002), 222.
[2] Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, trans. Reidar Thomte, ed. Albert B. Anderson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 61; Stages on Life’s Way, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
[3] Widely attributed to Kierkegaard in modern anthologies and quotation collections but not found in his published works.
[4] Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 133b.
[5] Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13.
[6] Rav A. I. Kook, The Moral Principles (Midot Ha‑Raya), trans. Ben Zion Bokser, Paulist Press, 1978.
