Virtual Drasha: A Life Without Sin (Vayeilech)

Rabbi Silber's Virtual Drasha on Parshas Vayelech returns to Moshe's declaration, "I am 120 years old today; I can no longer go out and come in," reading it through the Arizal's teaching that in the final 40 days of life the neshama grows stronger while the body weakens, until the ability to sin itself fades. From there Rabbi Silber overturns the common view of teshuva as a mere "Band-Aid" for mistakes: teshuva is not simply restorative, it is transformative, capable of catapulting a person to a higher spiritual level than he ever occupied before he fell. He teaches that a life sealed off from the possibility of sin is also sealed off from teshuva, and therefore not truly a life at all — and that the deeper the failure, the greater the opportunity for a person to rebuild himself into someone new.

• Teshuva is not a Band-Aid that merely restores what was lost — it has the power to lift a person higher than he ever stood before.
• A life without the possibility of sin is also a life without the possibility of teshuva, and that is not a life worth living.
• The greatest opportunities for growth come not from our successes but on the heels of our most profound failures.
• Failure does not mean you are permanently damaged goods — brokenness is what makes a person open and ready for real change.