Shame is called the master emotion. It binds us into debilitating, self-loathing beliefs that we are dammened.

In this class, we explore the root of shame, which goes back to Adam and Eve's primordial sin. After Adam's fall, shame seeped into the fabric of humanity.

Return or teshuva has the same letters as shame - boshet.

The very core of Teshuva - return is the return to our higher selves, which is eternally pure.

Our ability to hold dualities and bring awareness to our shame-ridden patterns brings shame into the light.

This is the return of humanity back to the place of love, compassion, joy and bliss our true birthright.

Listen to this powerful class, which was shared on the Live Kabbalah Lightwarrior community during our weekly classes.

We are standing in the Ten Days of Teshuvah, the luminous span between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These days are considered among the highest of the year. The Torah, the Prophets, and our sages devote profound attention to Teshuvah—return. Rambam systematizes it. The Rishonim and Acharonim expand it. Yet at the core, Teshuvah is not only about fixing what we did. It is about returning who we are.

Two Levels of Return

Classically, we speak of two levels:

• Teshuvah Tata’ah (Lower Return): “Tashuv Hei”—the lower hei of the Divine Name rises back to its source. This is the realm of action, speech, and thought. We own what we did, regret it, and commit not to repeat it. It is essential.

• Teshuvah Ila’ah (Higher Return): The higher hei—associated with Binah—returns to its root. This is the return of the self to God. Not only our deeds, but our consciousness, awareness, and inner life realign with Source. It is the work of becoming present to the divine soul within the body.

Both are true Teshuvah. One repairs behavior. The other restores being.

The Hinge: Shame and the Voice Beyond It

There is a subtle, holy key here. The Zohar plays with the Torah’s first word, Bereishit, as “Yarei Boshet”—“the awe of shame.” Shame (boshet) entered the world in Eden when Adam and Chavah hid. Since then, much of human education and religion has been tinged by shame: “You are wrong; be better or else.” Shame says, “I am bad,” not “I did something bad.”

Teshuvah asks for something more courageous. It asks us to hear, inside the embarrassment, the Divine call: “Ayeka—Where are you?” If shame collapses the self, awe opens it. “Yarei Boshet” reframes shame as a doorway. The awe is the awareness that there is Something higher than my failures and even higher than my excellence. In that awareness, I can step forward, meet the moment, and return.

Why We Miss the Mark

So often our misdeeds are symptoms. Beneath them lies disconnection—old wounds, unworthiness, learned patterns. Lower Teshuvah treats the symptom; higher Teshuvah goes to the root. It is not self-flagellation. It is bringing unconscious pain into compassionate light, and letting the soul lead.

Our tradition insists: we are created b’tzelem Elokim. We are not doomed by original sin. We are called to original belovedness. Teshuvah is the art of remembering that truth and living from it.