Assur and/vs Wrong. Work Required to do Teshuva.

So earlier we discussed perhaps what the maimer of במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד in light of Chovos Halevavos the Rambam and we suggested that we pointed out that in the Rambam emesey minei u'bei that the Rambam on the one hand describes that the ba'al teshuva shouldn't feel meruchak from ma'alas hatzadikim that it's כאילו לא חטא מעולם so clearly it's holding that up as the ideal and then toch kedei dibbur in the same halacha he quotes that maimer. So we suggested that במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד because of the added sense of shiflus that they feel because of the cheit because of that or the Rambam because kabisha de'yitzra or whatever the case may be. So that compensates for the fact that chatu and that puts them on par with the tzadik gamur. That's what we suggested. So I noticed before sort of apropos of what we're holding in subya but in Yoreh De'ah shin samech bais so the Rama writes as follows. He's commenting on the dinim that the Mechaber quotes that

אין קוברין רשע אצל צדיק ואפילו רשע חמור אצל רשע קל וכן אין קוברין צדיק חשוב בינוני אצל חסיד מופלג.

That's all the Mechaber. So again the way the lashon is אין קוברין רשע אצל צדיק A etzel B so A is the one that is objectively of the lower madreiga. So apropos of that in shin samech bais seif hey the Rama writes אבל קוברין בעל תשובה אצל צדיק גמור. So he doesn't say קוברין צדיק גמור אצל בעל תשובה he says קוברין בעל תשובה אצל צדיק גמור meaning don't think that the ba'al teshuva is of a lesser madreiga. Ai but the Rambam Chovos Halevavos they all quote the gemara of במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד. So first of all why is it the din shouldn't be like that? Adaraba it should be that there's a nafkamina that אין קוברין צדיק גמור אצל בעל תשובה and not only isn't that the din but the way the Rama says the chidush he says it in the opposite direction. Right? He says that the chidush is that קוברין בעל תשובה אצל צדיק גמור. So that's exactly the pshat we said. No that that and the Gaon is metzayein I mean he says עיין סוף פרק ה דברכות but presumably he means that gemara of well I don't know but either way lichora the Rama is very much in line with what we spoke about that the מקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים presently that again whether it's the ongoing kabisha de'yitzra whether it's the added shiflus whatever it may be. The Rama explicitly says there in that halacha the kabisha de'yitzra so that added dimension to their avoda that's what makes it that's what compensates and כאילו לא חטא מעולם and that but the standard of course is the tzadik gamur. But the chidush is no that the ba'al teshuva regains that he regains that status and hence the way the Rama writes it is that קוברין בעל תשובה אצל צדיק גמור. Shin samech bais hey. We're holding here in the perek gimmel. The fifth of the seven devarim that are sort of axiomatic for doing teshuva. V'hachamishi שידע באמת כי התשובה אופן רפוא מדאיהו. That the teshuva is the way to cure his. his illness. Ve-ha-derech el ha-arukah and teshuvah provides the path to the healing, מרע מעשהו גנות מפעלו. I don't know what are the two leshonos, I don't know again. It's very hard in translation to be able to pick up on nuances. I don't know. מרע מעשהו גנות מפעלו, so maybe it will suggest two possible understandings, I mean, both ideas are true. Maybe one, maybe one of them is what the Chovos Ha-Levavos has in mind. Maybe me-roa ma'asehu means that the person did an aveirah, that there's an objective devar ha-assur that they did, me-roa ma'asehu. Gnuse mifalo in this context, again, when juxtaposed to me-roa ma'asehu, that it shouldn't just be redundant, so itachen that what gnuse mifalo refers to is that the emes is that in cheit, there's really the cheit needs to be corrected on two levels. One level is, again, I did such and such, so that needs to be countered, that needs to be rectified. But then, in doing such and such, it reflects on me, it reflects on the person. Gnuse mifalo, meaning the gnus that according to this reading, that the gnus that his action reveals about him, about the oseh ha-ma'aseh. A person eats, eats something that he shouldn't eat, okay, so that's me-roa ma'asehu. Gnuse mifalo is, so I was acting like a baal ta'avah, I was a baal ta'avah, I was acting in an animalistic way. So there's the action and then there's the gnus that it exposes, again the gnus again meaning the gnus which arises from mifalo according to this reading, the gnus that it exposes in the person. Again, the idea is the idea is true. Maybe, the tentativeness is whether that's what the Chovos Ha-Levavos is expressing here or not. Which is another way of saying that the Rambam in perek aleph and in perek beis talks about teshuvah from ma'asim. And then in perek zayin the Rambam talks about teshuvah from middos ra'os, again he calls middos de'os. Which is parallel to what we're talking about now, that there's if a person steals, he steals, if he cheats on his taxes, he cheats on his taxes. But then there's also a middah of chemdas mammon. Why did he cheat? Why did they, why did he steal? Why did he cheat on his taxes? There's some kind of character flaw there as well and teshuvah is the and both require teshuvah, both require teshuvah. And that's what the Chovos Ha-Levavos says, a person needs to be convinced of the fact that the teshuvah is potentially efficacious on both levels. It's a way of redressing the objective wrong, the objective evil of the action, and it's a way of also rectifying the gnus that it revealed, that it exposed about the person. Alternately, maybe maybe he has in mind, not everything that that we're not supposed to do is has a stamp of assur on it. Sometimes the correct lashon is that it's wrong, that it's inappropriate, that it's machoar. That's how the Lev Tov paraphrases the Ibn Tibbon translation here. And the fact that those things that are subsumed in those under those terms are not labeled assur doesn't mean that it's mutar. It doesn't mean it's right. It's wrong. Why doesn't it say assur? Maybe there's something circumstantial about it. Maybe, so for instance, maybe an illustration in Chazal would be the Gemara in Kiddushin says that Rav mangid, Rav used to give malkos, amande mekadesh bashuka, amande mekadesh biviah. None of these things, I don't know if you could say that these things are assur. To be mekadesh bashuka, is that assur? You wouldn't say that it's assur the way neveilos v'treifos are assuros. But it's wrong behavior. It's not something a person should do. You wouldn't again, can there be circumstances short of pikuach nefesh in which it would be appropriate? Yitachen ken. And maybe that's why we don't label it assur. But under all other circumstances, practically it's something a person's not supposed to do. Not everything that that is wrong to do, that that we are guilty for doing, is something that's labeled assur to begin with. And maybe רוע מעשה וגנות מפעלו, maybe those two terms reflect those two types of categories.

והדרך השבוקה מרוע מעשיו וגנות מפעלו שבו יתקן טעותו וישב אבדתו.

So I think this we had, where was it back in Perek Aleph that we had that lashon also this double lashon, השבת מה שאבד ממנו. We had that back in the beginning of Perek Aleph, and when we suggested that that teshuva again, not only offsets the negative of what the person did, but allows him to make up the lost opportunity. And maybe that's the lashon of vayishev avedaso is adding.

כי אם לא יתברר אצלו זה יתייאש מכפרת הבורא יתברך ומרחמיו ולא יבקש ממנו המחילה על מה שקדם לו מרוע מפעלו.

If a person thinks it's futile, so we don't engage in futile endeavors. K'mo she'amar,

כן אמרתם לאמור כי פשעינו וחטאותינו עלינו ובם אנחנו נמקים ואיך נחיה,

and was the teshuva on this from the Borei by way of Navi,

חי אני נאום השם אלוקים אם אחפוץ במות הרשע כי אם בשוב רשע מדרכו וחיה. והשישי שיחשב עם נפשו.

So if you remember earlier, where was it? End of Perek Gimmel? End of Perek Sheni? Oh thank you, yes, yes. והתבונן לחשב עם נפשו. So I was speculating whether in addition to the simple pshat that it means to make a cheshbon hanefesh, does it also mean to calculate, you know, what al pi the Rambam later in Hilchos Teshuva about hifsid nafsho and gemal lenafsho ra. But ve'lachora here, yachashev im nafsho, again assuming that it's intended with the same meaning, here it ve'lachora just means a cheshbon hanefesh. I don't think it the other possibility doesn't really doesn't really fit well in this context.

והשישי שיחשב עם נפשו במה שקדם לו לבורא עליו מן הטובות ומה שקדם לו מהמרותו תמורת ההודאה עליהם.

So this is a very fascinating perspective on cheit, right? That says the Chovos Halevavos, the magnitude of cheit can only be understood if a person just compartmentalize that the Ribbono Shel Olam said not to do X, Y, or Z and then I did it. Or the Ribbono Shel Olam said to do X, Y, or Z and I didn't do it. So then yes, that identifies the cheit, but a person will be underestimating the chomer hacheit. Because to appreciate the chomer hacheit, a person has to place it in a broader context of one's relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hehashishi, again, the mashal being, the mashal being that someone embezzles. Okay, so that's a terrible thing to do. But if it's also the case that this is a person who was unemployed and didn't really have such strong qualifications or credentials for this job and the manager took him in as a chessed and trained him and gave him responsibility and then he goes ahead and embezzles. So on the one hand it's the same if you compartmentalize it, if you isolate it, it's the same crime, it's the same infraction, but obviously seen in its broader context it's compounded many times over because of the degree of betrayal involved. If he had come with superlative credentials and he hadn't been done any favor in being hired and he'd only been there for a week, it's not that he'd been treated so nicely for so long, okay, so embezzling is a terrible thing. So that's what his crime is, that's what his infraction is. But if you have all this background, so then that compounds the cheit. So says the Chovos Halevavos, we need to have that perspective on it as well.

והשישי שיחשוב בנפשו במה שקדם לו מהבורא עליו מן הטובות ומה שקדם לו מהמרותו תמורת ההודאה עליהן.

So really because of the gift of life, the biggest gift, the gift of Torah, the gift of everything else that we have, so instead of hakaras hatov, so we turn around and we go against the devar Hashem.

ושישקול עונשי העבירה עם עריבותה ועריבות גמול הצדקה עם צערו בעולם הזה ובעולם הבא כמו שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה הוי מחשב הפסד מצוה כנגד שכרה ושכר עבירה כנגד הפסדה.

Right, if we would stop to do that, so then we'd realize that cheit is perverse. If a person would be shokeil עונשי העבירה עם עריבותה, so the fleeting enjoyment that we get, that we derive from cheit, let's say you go to an amusement park and there's a ride you really want to go on, the ride of your life. Okay, so let's say a ticket costs five dollars. Okay, good. It's going to be a really fun ride, costs five dollars. Let's say a ticket costs five million dollars. The ride is going to last two minutes and you're going to pay five million dollars. There can't be a ride that justifies that. Hashevii,

חזק סבלו להימנע מן הרע שהרגיל בו והסכמתו לסור ממנו בלבו ובמצפונו כמו שכתוב וקרעו לבבכם ואל בגדיכם.

So Chovos Halvavos says, in order to do teshuvah, we need to prep and prime ourselves that there is difficulty involved. When the pasuk says, again going to one school of thought represented by the Ramban on parshas כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו, so karov means that it's at hand. There's nothing beyond us in being able to do teshuvah. It doesn't mean that it's easy. There's a difference between something can be כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד, I mean this this desk is right in front of me, it doesn't mean that it's easy for me to lift. It may require a very real effort to do so. So ki karov eilecha doesn't mean it's easy. It means beficha uvilvavecha la'asoso, lo bashamayim hi, lo mei'eiver layam. It's something that a person has the autonomy to be able to do, but it doesn't mean that it's easy. It doesn't mean that it's a cakewalk. And that's what the Chovos Halvavos says that a person, let's say, to break a habit, at your age the habit can only be so many years or so many years, you get older the habit can be decades in the formation. It's not easy to break a habit. It's not easy to break a habit. לרע אשר הרגיל בו, whatever it is, I don't know, saying brachos without kavanah, or whatever, whatever we do habitually. It requires very real concerted effort. And Chovos Halvavos says again, to do teshuvah, so we have to know what we're signing up for. What we're signing up for is very much doable, is very much possible, it's within, again, it's within our daled amos to do it, but none of that means that it's necessarily easy. The Rambam also, when he talks about teshuvah on midos, which is the same as what the Chovos Halvavos is talking about, he's talking about something which is a habit. Ve'eilu ha'avonos, ha'avonos of dei'os ra'os, קשים מאותן שיש בהן מעשה, שבזמן שאדם נשקע באלו, kasheh hu lifrosh. It is difficult, it is difficult. And the fact that in doing teshuvah we experience difficulty, that shouldn't deter us. That's not a, I don't know, in some contexts if you're encountering difficulty, so then it's a sign that you're doing something wrong. And that is true in some contexts. But in doing teshuvah, lav davka that that's the case. If it's breaking a habit, so it's hard, it's hard. The same way if a person is addicted to smoking, so he can break the addiction, but he has to be psychologically ready for withdrawal symptoms. So when we break a habit, so there needs to be, we need to prime ourselves for chozek sivlo, that there needs to be a strength to endure להימנע מן הרע אשר הרגיל בו. Vehaskamaso lasur mimenu belibo uvematspono. And again there has to be this resolve inwardly to steer clear of the cheit. And I don't know what the two words libo and matzpono are.

ובהתחזק בבירור אלו השבעה דברים בזאת תטהר ממנו התשובה מעונותיו. הנה הוא ממשיך בפרק ב.