Hilchos teshuva 9

Halakha Dalet.

דרכי התשובה להיות השב צועק תמיד לפני השם בבכי ובתחנונים ועושה צדקה כפי כחו ומתרחק הרבה מן הדבר שחטא בו ומשנה שמו כלומר שאני אחר ואיני אותו האיש שעשה אותן המעשים ומשנה מעשיו כולם לטובה ולדרך ישרה.

The Kesef Mishne, Perek Kama deRosh Hashana,

אמר רבי יצחק ארבעה דברים מקריעין גזר דינו של אדם ואלו הן צדקה צעקה שינוי השם ושינוי מעשה.

So the Rambam understands that shinuy ma'aseh delo keRashi. Shinuy ma'aseh doesn't mean in terms of the cheit, because it's clear that again in the context of the Gemara the daled devarim which are מקריעין גזר דינו של אדם, it means that there's something extra, right, that a person supplements the teshuva, he supplements the teshuva with tzedaka. Me'ikar hadin a person doesn't have to give tzedaka as part of doing teshuva. He supplements it with tze'aka, with shinuy hashem, so shinuy ma'aseh means something above and beyond whatever shinuy is necessary just for the actual teshuva. So that's what the Rambam says the pshat in shinuy ma'aseh is ומשנה מעשיו כולם לטובה ולדרך ישרה. How does he do that? So the Rambam doesn't tell us, that's not what he's gonna have to write another Mishneh Torah, no? And even then maybe it's not doable. Every one of us has to individualize it in the context of one's own life. But it could be the Rambam actually does, could be the Rambam actually does tell us how to do it and could be again the individuality notwithstanding that there is a uniform prescription that the Rambam is giving. If you go back to Perek Aleph Hilchot De'ot, so in Halakha Aleph the Rambam illustrates the extremes, the ends of the spectrum with regard to various de'ot. And then Halakha Gimmel tells us

ששני הקצוות הרחוקות זו מזו שבכל דעה ודעה אינן דרך טובה.

It's not derech tova, the extremes are not derech tova. And therefore if necessary יחזיר עצמו למוטב וילך בדרך הטובים והיא הדרך הישרה. Further reinforcement halacha daled.

הדרך הישרה היא מדה בינונית שבכל דעה ודעה מכל דעה שיש לאדם.

And the clincher is at the end of halacha hey.

ומצווים אנו ללכת בדרכים אלו הבינונים והם הדרכים הטובים והישרים.

So itachen that when in our halacha, when the Rambam says משנה מעשיו כולם לטובה ולדרך ישרה, klohr at the very least, it also means vehalachta bidrachav. At the very least, maybe that's entirely what it means, but at the very least it can't be that the phrase derech yeshara is a coincidence here. And when you think about it, the Rambam's mida beinonis touches upon virtually everything we do in life. When you think about it, hagam that it's a mitzvah pratis in the minyan taryag. But if you look, halacha daled again, back in perek aleph, halacha daled. Keitzad? Around two three lines in, Keitzad?

לא יהיה בעל חמה נוח לכעוס ולא כמת שאינו מרגיש אלא בינוני. לא יכעוס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו כדי שלא יעשה כיוצא בו פעם אחרת.

So a person has to moderate and modulate emotions based on the mida habeinonis.

וכן לא יתאווה אלא לדברים שהגוף צריך להם ואי אפשר לחיות בזולתם כעניין שנאמר צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו.

A person's supposed to moderate and modulate physical desires based on the mida habeinonis.

וכן לא יהיה עמל בעסקו אלא להשיג דבר שצריך לו לחיי שעה כעניין שנאמר טוב מעט לצדיק.

A person is supposed to in terms of how much he works, and lichora in terms of how much he works, so that goes into the initial decision of, not the only factor, but it's certainly a factor in what profession he enters. If there's a profession that doesn't allow for the mida beinonis, if there's a profession that says no, you can earn parnassa berivach, but there's no such thing as working less than a fifty-sixty hour work week. If you're able to stay awake when you get home at night you'll have a lot of money to count, but only if you still have enough koach to stay awake at that point when you get home.

ולא יקפוץ ידו ביותר ולא יפזר כל ממונו אלא נותן צדקה כפי מיסת ידו ומלווה כראוי למי שצריך. ולא יהיה מהולל ושוחק ולא עצב ואונן.

Shouldn't be frivolous, shouldn't be morose, down in the dumps.

אלא שמח כל ימיו בנחת בסבר פנים יפות וכן שאר דעותיו.

So it basically encompasses virtually everything a person does, which means that if a person wants one yesod to be משנה מעשיו כולם לטובה ולדרך ישרה, it's time to look at everything everything he does through this lens. Now yitachen and again lechorah it's certainly the pshat in משנה מעשיו כולן לדרך ישרה. Is it possible that letovah here, again, even though letovah is also used to describe the middah beynonit again at the end of aleph-hey, והם הדרכים הטובים והישרים, but is it possible from the fact that the Rambam didn't say כולן לדרך טובה וישרה but said כולן לטובה ולדרך ישרה that tovah means to add even more to that. Let's say presumably whatever degree of kavanah a person has in davening. Don't know if it's kayem vehalachta bidrachav to have more kavanah. Whatever, whatever level of intensity a person has, whatever level of focus and concentration a person has on learning. Don't know if it's kayem vehalachta bidrachav if he'll be somewhat more focused and concentrate even, even more. So yitachen that the letovah is also adding those things which wouldn't be touched upon by the vehalachta bidrachav. But lechorah it seems pretty compelling that that's what the Rambam means when he says derech yesharim. It's not just stam an undefined sort of an undefined term or prescription. The pshat is that. So in Shishi, Perek Vav, Pesukim Yud-Zayin, Yud-Chet.

ושמרתם תשמרון את מצות ה' אלקיכם ועדתיו וחקיו אשר צוך.

And then Pasuk Yud-Chet,

ועשית הישר והטוב בעיני ה' למען ייטב לך ובאת וירשת את הארץ הטובה אשר נשבע ה' לאבתיך.

So Ramban famously this is his second pshat that he offers in these pesukim. Says that ושמרתם תשמרון את מצות ה' אלקיכם that which is explicit, which is explicitly spelled out and specified in the mitzvos, and then extrapolate from there to do hayashar vehatov in all cases. And that's what he says, u'shmartem tishm'run is the prat. And then but don't be content with being mekayem the pirtei hadvarim, but extrapolate from there to the yesodos and apply them elsewhere. Now yitachen that for the Rambam the flow is the same but different in the sense that it seems in light of Perek Aleph of De'os that the way the Rambam interprets ve'asisa hayashar vehatov is that it refers to vehalachta bidrachav. That's the pshat in terms of how the Rambam understood this pasuk. But for the Rambam also it's the same sort of flow in the pesukim. ושמרתם תשמרון את מצות ה' אלקיכם that most mitzvos are takeh more narrow in terms of the implications of the particular mitzvah. But then in order that one's whole life be al pi torah, one's whole life be avodas Hashem, so then in particular pay special attention ve'asisa hayashar vehatov. We'd hit teshuva again, להיות השב צועק תמיד לפני השם בבכי ותחנונים. So the way we paraphrase this maima of Rav Yitzchak, albeit in the Yerushalmi's version of the maima in the machzor is ותשובה ותפילה וצדקה מעבירין את רוע הגזירה, right? It's only three of the four. I think the Yefeh Naim already quotes on this Gemara in Rosh Hashana that in the Yerushalmi, the parallel maima only has three, it doesn't have daled devarim, it has gimmel devarim. And the pasuk that the Gemara quotes, though again even though we paraphrase it as uteshuva utefilla utzedaka, but the pasuk the Gemara quotes, the pasuk text is ויצעקו אל השם בצר להם וממצוקותיהם יצילם. So you see that the response to the tzea'ka is yatzilem. If you sort of juxtapose Hilchos Tefilla, when the Rambam defines the chiuv tefilla, so he doesn't use the lashon tzea'ka. It's just lehispalel bechol yom. In the koteret it's לעבוד את השם בתפילה, but then in the halachos, lehispalel bechol yom. In Hilchos Ta'aniyos, there too the Rambam doesn't speak about just tefilla, there I think it's not tzea'ka, I think it's with a zayin, I think it's ze'aka, I think zo'ek is what the Rambam has. But bracketing what difference if any there is between those two terms, so both here in Hilchos Teshuva, and again and the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva is reflecting the pasuk from Tehillim that the Gemara quotes, both here in Hilchos Teshuva and Hilchos Ta'aniyos, the Rambam doesn't speak of tefilla in terms of lehispalel, but in terms of again either tzea'ka or ze'aka. So the simple pshat would seem to be that the context in Hilchos Ta'aniyos befeirush is when there's an eis tzara, so then zo'akin and you blow the chatzotzros. That there are different modes of tefilla depending upon the circumstances. And the daily chiuv tefilla involves one mode of davening and let's say be'eis tzara whether it's ra'av, dever, or כי תבוא מלחמה בארצכם, any of those rachmana litzlan, so there it's a different mode of tefilla. The pshat is what this Rambam reflects, and again the Rambam is reflecting the Gemara's pasuk. If a person has the religious sensitivity on the one hand and the religious and emotional health and wellbeing on the other hand, a person is supposed to experience het as an esh zara, which is why the tefilla that accompanies teshuva, the Rambam doesn't describe as lehitpalel. It's not שלא יהיה החוטא מתפלל להשם, but he's tzo'ek. Tze'akah is the mode of tefilla in an eis tzarah. Rambam speaks again from the Beis Yitzchak about shinui ha'shem. And the Rambam says: What's the significance of shinui ha'shem? Klomar she'ani acher, I'm different, I've changed my ways, ואיני אותו האיש שעשה אותן המעשים. Of everything on the list, the shinui ha'shem seems to be, I don't know, seems to be superficial. Everything else on the list is very, very substantive. But the shinui ha'shem, okay, so don't call me Reuven, call me Shimon. It seems a little, well, a little bit, a little bit superficial. So I don't know, I don't know, but maybe part of what the Rambam means is as follows. Maybe to consider the following scenario, and then after that return to the Rambam, bli neder and im yirtzeh hashem. Sometimes people are wondering, let's say on a job interview, to what extent to try to, I don't know, downplay or hide the externalities of being shomer torah u'mitzvot. Whether it means can I take my yarmulke off entirely for the job interview? If I, I don't know, ordinarily as I walk with the tzitzis out, should I tuck my tzitzis in? So let's talk about the yarmulke. So whatever, whatever the technical answer is in terms of walking and being be'gilluy rosh, whatever the technical answer is, it's highly, highly, highly inadvisable for the following reason: A person is looking to camouflage who he is, what he is, so then he creates pressure for himself. So what's he going to do when at the end of December there's an office party? But again, he's He sort of came in on the and put himself on a track of trying to, again, as much as is possible, camouflage who he is and and the difference in terms of how he conducts himself and what he can and can't do. So what happens at the end of December? It gets complicated. And what happens when when one's told sometimes within the workplace there are the groups of and a person works as part of a group, so what happens if the whole group goes out for drinks? And again, so you know, I got the job, you know, wanting to look like everyone else and seem like everyone else, so now there's tremendous pressure to maintain that. And and that pressure doesn't push a person in a good direction. Ma sheken, a person comes in with a yarmulke, not a, not wearing a big yarmulke bishvili, you're not trying to be in their face, in the interviewer's face about it, just comes in as who he is, as who he is, he comes in with a yarmulke. Is it possible that he won't get the job because of that? Yes, it's possible. I mean, they'll make sure to do it in a way that they can't be sued for discrimination, but they they have the advice on how to do that, so yes, it's possible that a person will not get the job because of that sometimes. Many, many times he will get the job אף על פי כן. But then it's a clear, again, a, not only does it preempt the pressure we were just talking about, the negative pressure we were just talking about, but it creates a positive pressure on oneself. Because once once you walk into the job interview making a statement, you know, I'm an Orthodox Jew, so you create a positive pressure on yourself to live up to that. So not only does it preempt the negative pressure of how do I continue to posture not to be any different and and sometimes it doesn't work. But on the contrary, you not only do you preempt the negative pressure, you create a positive pressure. Because once I make a statement, you know, this is who I am, I'm an Orthodox Jew and and I don't look to hide the fact and on the contrary, the fact that that I allow it to be seen, I'm proud of that fact. So then that creates a positive pressure that a person has to live up to that. Itachen that part of what the shinu shem represents is if if I tell people, don't call me Reuben anymore, call me Shimon, because what I did under the name of Reuben, I I need to disassociate myself from that, I need to move beyond that, so it's not something superficial. It creates a very real pressure to now live up to that public statement. No one, any sensitive person, a person has to really, really dull his conscience to a tremendous degree not to lie awake at night worried about being inconsistent. No one wants to be a hypocrite. And and again, no sensitive person wants. And when we do things that that are wrong and and that go against what we believe in, so it is a source of anguish and it should be a source of anguish. So if a person makes the statement, no, I'm not Reuben anymore, henceforth I'm Shimon, because Reuben did x, y, and z, as Reuben asisi kach vekach and and that's not me anymore, so that creates a tremendous positive pressure to to stick to the truth. It is really something which is very substantive. I don't know that that's the extent of what shinu shem represents, but itachen that's also part of it. Okay, so we'll stop there for now and we'll, bezras Hashem, we'll continue on Tuesday.