Sha’ar 2:7-2:8: Reaching 50.1% of Lifespan as an Impetous to Teshuva. The Rebelliousness of Thinking I Don’t Have to Do Teshuva.

Good morning Rabosai. So here in Os Zayin at the beginning of HaDerech HaSheini after quoting the ma'amar Chazal של שלושה הקדוש ברוך הוא שונאן Rabbeinu Yona continues with the pasuk

ונאמר אכלו זרים כחו והוא לא ידע גם שיבה זרקה בו והוא לא ידע.

Yada in the sense of allowing it to register. U'mei'hatemiya v'hapliya, what's so astonishing and what's almost inexplicable כי יעמוד האדם בחצי ימיו. A person can already literally be at midlife. Right? As is conventionally pointed out the way in our vernacular we use middle aged is very far from accurate. Right? We speak of someone in his fifties as being middle aged as though his life expectancy were 110. But Rabbeinu Yona means literally

כי יעמוד האדם בחצי ימיו ויראה כי הימים הולכים ודלים

and he sees that there are fewer days in front of him and more days behind him in terms of his life vayachel harisos habinyan and his body is beginning to show evidence of decline. The Gemara in Shabbos says that even in hilchos Shabbos you can have the melachas boneh by adam because based on the pasuk in Parshas Bereishis ויבן ה' אלוהים את הצלע אשר לקח מן האדם and Hakadosh Baruch Hu forms it into Isha. It's described as an act of binyan as vayiven. So binyan refers to the guf ha'adam. ויחל הריסות הבניין ויחסה המזג בטבע השיבה והיבשת and the freshness, the vitality has begun to dissipate and instead there's this dryness כעניין שנאמר ימי כצל נטוי ואני כעשב איבש and I become dried up. I wither like the grass. Ivash. איך טחו מראות עיניו ומהשכל לבבו. How can it be that his eyes are plastered over as it were? How can it be that he's blinded from seeing? How can it be that he is too insensitive to discern

ולא יראה כי נוסע הוא אל המקום מקום בית עולמו הלוך ונסוע יומם ולילה

that he doesn't see that he's approaching his ultimate destiny in terms of olam hazeh הלוך ונסוע יומם ולילה. So here in the end of the paragraph Rabbeinu Yona apparently shifts very significantly. The beginning of the paragraph talks about יבואו ימי זקנה ויגיעו ימי שיבה. So according to the Mishna b'Avos which Rabbeinu Yona is going to quote shortly in Os Tes so yemei zikna is בן שישים לזקנה בן שבעים לשיבה. So when you read the beginning of the paragraph so Rabbeinu Yona seems to be saying that as a person hits that milestone in life of age 60, of age 70, so that should prompt the person. That should awaken and galvanize the person to do teshuva. Here in the second half of the paragraph he seems to be saying that once a person is more than 50% of the way there so then that realization should impact him. And that realization of being again more than 50% of the way to yemei zikna to yemei seiva should. should influence him. And what does he mean by chatzi yamav? I don't know, mistama he means, I don't know, either he means thirty for chatzi yemei zikna or maybe ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה, maybe he means thirty-five. But either way, he seems to expand and indicate that it's not when just when the person reaches the yemei zikna, yemei seivah, but when he's 50.1 percent of the way, maybe not to zikna, but maybe to seivah, at that point already there should be a certain sobriety and a certain koved rosh which a person feels. You find something similar actually in the inyana de'yoma. The Rama writes in סימן תקפ״א that

וידקדקו לבחור אחר ש״ץ היותר הגון והיותר גדול בתורה ומעשים שאפשר למצוא שיתפלל סליחות ביום נורא.

And then the Rama adds, there's also a desired age, שיהיה בן שלושים שנים. Optimally, again, if we can get all our lechatchilas, none of these are me'akev bediavad, but if we're able to accommodate all our lechatchilas, we want the baal tefillah to be at least thirty years old. What's the significance of thirty years old? So in the Sha'ar Hatziyun the Mishna Berura writes as follows, it's here in os chaf beis:

אבל בחיפשי בארחות חיים שהוא מקור לכל דברי הכלבו כידוע מצאתי שם גם כן הגירסא שלשים.

The girsa taki is sheloshim, that the hakpada is that the shatz should be thirty. What's the significance of thirty in context of being a shaliach tzibbur?

אבל לשון שם מתוקן יותר וזה לשונו שם בהלכות תפילה וצריך לדקדק שיהיה בשניו כמספר שני העובד מעבודה.

We should look to see that the shatz should be of an age when a Levi would come to do avodah, מכ״ה שנה ולמעלה, above twenty-five, והמצוה מן המובחר מבן ל׳ שנה. Because a thirty-year-old is 50 percent of the way to zikna. And as a result, ולבו נכנע ונשבר יותר. And such a person experiences the hachna'ah more deeply than a younger person. Let's maybe begin the next paragraph here a little bit. Ve'yesh anashim rabim, there are many people, says Rabbeinu Yonah, ימנע מהם אור התשובה. The light of tshuvah is due to their own fault withheld from them, why? כי הם זכאים וטהורים בעיניהם. Because they think that they're very pure in their own eyes. Their self-image is that they're totally completely pure. ולא יתאוששו על תיקון מעשיהם. Right, in Pesukei D'Zimra from Tehillim we have avdu eshtonosav, so eshtonos means thought. So there we have it as a noun, here we have it as a verb, ולא יתאוששו על תיקון מעשיהם, they don't give any thought, they don't reflect al tikun ma'aseihem, כי ידמו בנפשם שהם מתוקן. If I don't have any chesronos, I have nothing to be mesaken. If I don't have any aveirah, I don't have any need to be involved with the avodah of tshuvah. Says Rabbeinu Yonah והם חטאו לה' מאוד. So that phrase is extraordinary for two reasons. Number one, kishleatzmo, it's a very strong indictment of והם חטאו לה' מאוד. Number two, the phrase comes from Chumash, right? ואנשי סדום רעים וחטאים לה' מאוד. That's where Rabbeinu Yonah is borrowing the phrase from. I think we've commented, we've had occasion to comment, that we shouldn't assume that when Rabbeinu Yonah or other Rishonim employ a phrase that way, we shouldn't attribute it only to rabbinic idiom. That rabbinic idiom is so rich with phrases from Tanakh and phrases from Chazal. That's certainly true, but it's a mistake to assume that that's all there is to it. I think Rashi, I think, please double check this, I didn't, but I think Rashi comments on ואנשי סדום רעים וחטאים לה' מאוד is מכירים את רבונם ומתכוונים למרוד בו. That what chata'im lashem me'od, that excessively, that they're extremely sinful, is reserved for rebelliousness. And yitachen that that's what the hemshech is here in the Sha'arei Teshuva. והם חטאו לה' מאוד. Halo katuv, it's a pasuk in Kohelet,

כי אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא.

So when a person maintains that I have no aveiros, so he's rejecting Hakadosh Baruch Hu's assessment. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says via Shlomo Hamelech be-ruach hakodesh. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says

כי אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא.

That everyone, everyone has shortcomings, flaws, imperfections, and this person is זכאי וטהור בעיניו. So yitachen in using that phrase from Parshat Sedom, Rabbeinu Yonah is saying that that's a bechina of meridah for a person to reject Hakadosh Baruch Hu's assessment and substitute his own. How does the person arrive at this self-delusion? Either of two ways.

באנשים ההם אשר הם מאשר הם בוזים לדברי העוונות לא ירגישו ולא יבינו למו.

Right? משל למה הדבר דומה. If a person has the ethical awareness and sensitivity that it's wrong to step on someone's toe, so then if he steps on someone's toe, he's going to notice it, and he's going to realize that he made a misstep, right? But if the person rejects that, if that's a person's modus operandi is that he's always stepping over people, so then he doesn't even notice when he does it. When there's the buz le-divrei avonos, when the person is scornful of, when he's contemptuous of avonot, so then mimeila it doesn't even register on a person that he did it. Right? If something is sort of routine or inconsequential in one's eyes, so then it doesn't make an impression. It doesn't make an impression. How many times yesterday did you tie your shoes? I don't know. It doesn't make an impression upon me. It's a routine thing, it's an inconsequential thing. It doesn't. doesn't make make an impression. If a person is rachmana litzlan he's contemptuous of aveiros so then yeah it doesn't make any impression because of that when he looks back he doesn't he doesn't see anything which is a miss. Alternatively או הודע אליהם חטאתם ונשכח מליבם אחריהן or there was an initial awareness of cheit but they forgot. Here too the the implication in Rabbeinu Yonah is that what's important enough a person doesn't so easily forget. And if a person can easily forget something so that also there's an element of buz in in allowing it so easily to be forgotten. Many many years ago I I heard the I heard a drasha from Rav Reuven Feinstein shlita and he quoted he quoted from his father from Rav Moshe. Later later I saw I think that this was later printed in Darash Moshe that Rav Moshe said as follows. I don't remember whether he gave this mashal exactly could be that that it's a hosafa of mine what he said but the punchline is this. Let's say there are certain events certain moments in people's lifetime that no one forgets. So I don't know you're you're a little young for this but I don't know people who are at least age 30 can tell you where they were on 9/11 19 years ago when they first heard about what was happening with the with the Twin Towers. When something makes enough of an impression upon a person a person doesn't doesn't doesn't forget it. If you're a baseball fan and and you get to go to the seventh game of the World Series so you remember exactly where you sat and you remember exactly what happened in the in the in the in the game. If it's important enough it makes an indelible impression. So Rav Moshe said this is a very I don't know very scary thought to be perfectly honest but Rav Moshe said when a person learns Torah every every bit of Torah should have such chashivus for him. It should be such an incredible extraordinary invaluable unequaled experience entertainment that he shouldn't be able to forget it. The yesod again is that there's a direct correlation between how important something is and how much of an impression it makes upon us and therefore how likely we are to remember or to forget. And that's the same yesod here that Rabbeinu Yonah is giving as an explanation for why it's it's something which is a very very chamurdike infraction the fact that a person forgets because if I can forget so it means that it's something which is it wasn't all that important and because of that it it didn't have that didn't make a lasting impression upon me. Okay so we'll we'll stop here for for now and אם ירצה השם בלי נדר we'll we'll resume at one o'clock. Okay rabbosai have a good productive morning be well be safe.