Sha’ar 2:15 – Calibrated Awareness of Mortality as a Trigger for Teshuva and Simcha

Hi good morning I hope everyone is well. We had began our derech hashishi yesterday. We tried to provide some context for the meimra chazal that Rabbeinu Yonah quotes of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך that כל שכן ישב היום שמא ימות למחר that it's only within a certain context that a person is supposed to have this perspective. Emmes is even though it doesn't—that doesn't need any proof, it's just so so self-evident that that's the case, but it's further underscored by if one contrasts the just the previous derech hachamishi that we had with the derech hashishi. So the derech hachamishi during Aseres Yimei Teshuva, so Rabbeinu Yonah's schedule that he advocates for Aseres Yimei Teshuva—just again the previous page if you

recall—ראוי לכל ירא אלקים למעט בעסקיו להיות כיונה נחיתם ולא יפרח ביום ובלילה ועתים להתבודד בחדריו ולחפש דרכיו ולחקור להקדים אשמורות ולעסוק בדרכי התשובה

etc. He says very, very little of that here in the derech hashishi, right? There's a tiny fraction of that type of schedule in the derech hashishi. Why? Because it's quite clear that the derech hachamishi of Aseres Yimei Teshuva, the schedule that Rabbeinu Yonah is recommending is not sustainable. It's not practical, it's not sustainable year-round. In derech hashishi, Rabbeinu Yonah is describing something where on the one hand, again, a person is יצא אדם לפעלו ולעבודתו עדי ערב because the person needs to deal with the full range of realities and responsibilities of life, and yet within that the person integrates, the person integrates within that this notion of ישב היום שמא ימות למחר. The other again, it's straightforward, but it's worth our just reviewing and thinking through for a moment. So basically the derech hashishi is something that should spur us to daily teshuva. Now, it's interesting at the beginning of the shaar hasheini. So when Rabbeinu Yonah says, when Rabbeinu Yonah tells us that he's going to present these six different perspectives to allow to arouse a person to do teshuva. So remember in the second paragraph here of the shaar hasheini, so Rabbeinu Yonah writes ויוסיף מהם בנוחי זהר לשוב בכל יום ונפשו לטהר. So here too, Rabbeinu Yonah already was urging that teshuva be something daily. But it's clear that the difference between what he presented at the beginning and now what he's presenting at the end is that at the beginning, it wasn't motivated by, it's not stimulated by the perspective of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. In the beginning, the daily teshuva is a response to just remembering Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Just when a person feels that he's in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that arouses the person to do teshuva. משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say, let's say rachmana litzlan I wronged someone. And then I'm going to see him, or I see him. We're in the same—we sort of inhabit the same daled amos. So every time I see the person, so I'm reminded of that outstanding account, as it were. that should be resolved, that should be settled. So what Rabbeinu Yonah was saying initially is that without a person reflecting upon mortality and without a person reflecting on not wanting to live in a way that things get left undone, just זכירת הקדוש ברוך הוא is something that should arouse a person to teshuvah. Here in the sha'ar hashishi, Rabbeinu Yonah is saying again that a person can further reinforce that aspect of daily teshuvah with this perspective of

שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. ואומר בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים.

A person should always be wearing white clothing,

ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר. לבן בגדים משל על נקיות הנפש ותשובה.

Like you have in Zechariah, right, when you have the nevuah of Zechariah where Hakadosh Baruch Hu says Hasiro habegadim hatzo'im to remove the soiled garments. So the garments being soiled represents cheit and therefore conversely the whiteness of the garments represents nekiyus hanefesh. לבן בגדים משל על נקיות הנפש בתשובה. Could be also that the reason for this imagery is what Rav Chaim Vital and others explain, that a person's body is compared to the clothing for his nefesh. That the essence of the person is not his physicality, but the essence of the person is the nefesh, but the nefesh inhabits the body. So then the same way, the body is clothed in clothing, so then the truth is that the body itself is really only a levush and it clothes a person's nefesh. Cheit is associated with the person's untamed, unrestrained, unsanctified physicality. Cheit is associated with the gufaniyus of a person with, again, that physicality, the physical urges and the middos raos which are rooted in our physicality. So mimeila, since that's where cheit emanates from, so the way one depicts teshuvah is that the begadim, i.e., the physicality, is something that has been sanctified. לבן בגדים משל על נקיות הנפש בתשובה. Hashemen, what does it mean ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר? That there shouldn't be any shortage of oil on one's head.

משל למעשים טובים ושם טוב. טוב שם משמן טוב. עוד אמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה

be'inyan hazeh. Mashal to ishto she-mallach, that the wife of a ship captain, שהיתה מתקשטת ותוסם באפכינה. So she was applying her cosmetics. ובעלה עובד אורחות ימים. But he was on a sea voyage.

ותאמרנה לה השכנות הלא בעלך הלך בדרך למרחק ועל מה זה לשווא תתייפי.

Why are you beautifying yourself? אמרה להם בעלי מלח אולי תהפוך רוח הים. Maybe there will be a strong wind וקל מהרה יבוא וימצאני. And maybe they'll have to reverse course very dramatically, very quickly. Vehinneni mekusheshes. So I want to be ready at all times. ויש על האדם ליישב בנפשו be'heyoto shaanan ve'shalev

איך ידאג לבבו ויירא ורעד יבא בו ביום המוות בבואו נחפז לעלות ליתן את החשבון ואיך יתוודה בעת מותו בלב נשבר ודכא וכן יעשה כל הימים יתוודה בלב נדכא ויהיה מורא שמים עליו.

Again, as is true in general for this limmud we commented on I think on the one hand, especially these lines here, they're very heavy. But me'idach gisa the truth is that it's not a formula for walking around sad and depressed. It's really a formula for abiding simcha for simcha that can endure. When a person lives his whole life with an awareness of the value of life, with an awareness of accountability, so then the way he'll live his life is one in which he'll live properly, meaningfully, and the simcha that he'll have from avodas Hashem from his'askus be'Torah u'mitzvos will be a simcha that lasts and endures. But if a person sort of lives instead of carefully, carelessly, instead of reflectively a person lives reflexively, so none of that changes the realities of life. You know if a person, you know if if a person is in a certain situation and he closes his eyes, so it doesn't change the reality. Right? When I close my eyes, so you know I'm sort of, I don't know, maybe I'm trying to deny a reality, but it doesn't change a reality. So a person can can develop a modus vivendi of meaningfulness, of authenticity, which will position him again to live a life that's going to be full of meaning instead of ultimately full of regrets. And and yes, so there is an element, there is an element of again, the person is not carefree, but the carefulness allows for an authenticity and a simcha that that endures. Okay and so maybe we'll stop here for now and בלי נדר אם ירצה השם we'll we'll resume after at 12:45. Everyone should have a good productive morning rabosai, be well, be safe be'ezras Hashem.