Harav Shaul Yisraeli – from Aroch Siach, Yamim Noraim p. 142 <> The Ten Days of Repentance ( Teshuva ) were designed for the repentance of the individual, as Chazal say on the pasuk (Yeshayahu 55:6): “Seek out Hashem when He can be found, call out to Him when He is close.” The gemara (Rosh Hashana 18a) says that the time being described is the ten days from Rosh Hashana until Yom Kippur. What is shocking is that specifically during these days, the content of the prayers focuses on the aspirations of the Nation of Israel, aspirations that the individual is not capable of even contemplating to achieve. It is not the self-perfection of the individual but the perfection of the world – that everyone who He made will know that Hashem made him, that every creation will recognize that Hashem created him. How, then, can we consider these very days the days in which an individual strives to fix the negative results of his specific sins and transgressions?
One can also ask how teshuva is possible, considering that “a sin drags along further sins.” This idea is, after all, is behind the concept that a ben sorer u’moreh (wayward son – see Devarim 21:18-22) is killed because of what we expect his end to be (that he will become a much greater sinner than he began as). If we believe in a sinner’s downward spiral, how can we believe in teshuva breaking the unbreakable chain?
The teshuva of individuals occurs by means of their connecting themselves to the Jewish Nation. When we stand in prayer, we realize that we are part of an unending chain. As we stand, so did our fathers and their fathers in all the countries of their exile, in surroundings of hatred and suspicion, in atmospheres of ignorance. Our fathers purified themselves, admitted their sins, and searched for and found sins within themselves.
Judaism did not begin today or yesterday. When we place before our eyes the full scope of men and women, elders and youngsters, rows of people who come before us from the past, and, in our prayers, try to turn into people like them, we awaken in our midst the desire to actually be like them.
We say before our declaration of admitting sin, “We and our fathers sinned.” Why mention the sins of previous generations? What do we gain by doing this? We find this phenomenon in the Torah (Vayikra 26:40): “They shall admit their sins and the sins of their fathers.” What does this do? It is necessary so that we can fathom from what level we descended to our present level. Our fathers sinned, and we have sinned. We look at what they sinned in and what we sinned in, [which can be much more severe than what they did]. When we make this comparison, we immediately see clearly that we must not remain rooted in sin.