You've done it again. Your latest commit introduced a bug into the codebase.
Hopefully, you didn't bring down production, but the bug still has to be fixed.
So what do you do? Do you simply roll back the commit and call it a day? That would be easiest, but it would do nothing to prevent the bug from being reintroduced.
A good developer worth her salt would track down the source of the bug, maybe write a test around the edge case, and then fix the bug at its source, improving the code for those coming after her.
I've been thinking of that over the last few days in the context of the ten days of Teshuvah between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Teshuvah is generally translated a "repentance," but people familiar with Hebrew will notice that it actually comes from the root for "return" (תשב). When we do Teshuvah, we aren't so much repenting for being bad people; instead, we are returning to our true selves, our pure essential goodness that we all have by virtue of our soul, which is created in G-d's image.
But just like the situation with our programmer, true Teshuvah is more than just going back to how things were. If we don't address the issues at their source, we will slip into the same cycles. Real Teshuvah brings us closer to G-d, closer to our souls, and leaves us better for the experience.
As the Ba'al Hatanya (Rabbi Shneur of Liadi, 1745-1812) explained in his treatise on Teshuvah (Igeret Hateshuvah chapter 9), our connection to G-d is like a rope that is woven from many threads. When we sin, some of the threads get cut. Teshuvah is like retying the rope.
But when you tie a rope that was severed, something interesting happens; the two ends of the rope end up closer than they were before you cut the rope!
So this coming Yom Kippur, let's focus, not on repenting, but on getting closer, whatever that means to you. Whether it's closer to the person you want to be, closer to your family, closer to G-d, or even, yes, closer to the state your codebase should be in.
Shanah Tovah,
Yechiel and Ben
