Pre-Selichos 5778 – Teshuva on Aspects of the Gavra; Reaching Potential

The Rambam writes: כל אדם ראוי לו להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו. Since every person is endowed with the capacity, the ability to chart his own way, his own path, ישתדל האדם לעשות תשובה. Person should, translate imprecisely for the moment, try to do teshuva ul’naer kapav mechata’av and to shake himself clean from his sins, כדי שימות והוא בעל תשובה, so that when he dies he will die v’hu baal teshuva, כדי שיזכה לחיי העולם הבא. To appreciate the depth of this opening sentence in the Rambam we need to follow up on the Rambam’s cross reference earlier in Perek Hey where the Rambam defines this reshus, this ability, this capacity with which every one of us is endowed. Rambam writes in Perek Hey, Halacha Aleph: רשות כל אדם נתונה לו. Everyone has the ability, the capacity, אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך טובה, if he wants to steer himself to the path of good, v’lihiyos tzaddik, hareshus biyado, the person has that ability, conversely וכן אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך רעה, v’lihiyos rasha, hareshus biyado. A person can choose the opposite path as well. The Rambam elaborates in Halacha Beis rejecting categorically any belief in predestination. The Rambam writes midway through the second line of Halacha Beis: אל כל אדם ואדם, every single individual. We shouldn’t make the mistake that the Rambam is talking to others, no, the Rambam makes it clear he’s talking to each one of us.

אל כל אדם ואדם ראוי להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו, או רשע כירבעם.

By way of explanation the Rambam adds, not only to be righteous but להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו. Kemidumeh, one of our biggest aveiros is underestimating ourselves, not recognizing the extraordinary potential which each one of us has. Intellectually, artistically, athletically, everyone’s different. You can’t describe everyone’s potential in the same terms, but religiously, spiritually, every single person has the ability, has the capacity to be a tzaddik, tzaddik k’Moshe Rabbeinu. The Baal HaTanya begins his sefer very famously with the gemara in Niddah, the drush of Rabbi Simlai, that mashbi’in oso, before the neshama comes down to this world, every one of us, before our neshama came down to this world, so in בית דין של מעלה a shvuah was administered תהי צדיק ואל תהי רשע. It’s crucial that we know ourselves, that we be aware of our potential. The Ibn Ezra in commenting and explaining Lo Sachmod, how the Torah can legislate what a person cannot covet, addressing the question but isn’t it something which is just an instinctive reaction? You have nebech a poor destitute person, homeless rachmana litzlan on a harsh Cold night and he looks in and he sees a house heated, lit up with plentiful amounts of food. So it's not a conscious deliberate decision to be chomed, it's an instinctive reaction. So how can the Torah, how can the Torah legislate that? So the Ibn Ezra answers human nature is such that a person doesn't covet what's impossible. And if a person would recognize that what he has presently has been providentially decided and decreed, and what the other person has presently has likewise been providentially decided and decreed, so then a person can't covet that 'I want what that person has'. A person can always davven for the future. We don't desire, we don't aspire to what's impossible. If we're not aware of our potential liyos tzaddik, להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו, we won't aspire to it. And if we won't aspire to it, we certainly will not achieve it. But perhaps that extraordinary reshus, that extraordinary capacity is something each of us had when we began our journey in life. Perhaps it's a capacity that on the day of our bar mitzvah or bas mitzvah, we had that potential for religious spiritual greatness liyos tzaddik, even tzaddik k'Moshe Rabbeinu. But as the years have passed and we've sullied ourselves with cheit, so maybe that capacity has been compromised and maybe that potential has diminished. So as the Rambam here in the beginning of Perek Zayin, הרשות כל אדם נתונה לו כמו שביארנו, that reshus that I described earlier in Perek Hey, it's not only the תינוקות של בית רבן who possess that capacity and who have that potential, everyone at every stage of his or her life, barring the highly, highly egregious exceptions of Perek Vav, everyone maintains that reshus. Cheit may have sullied the person, but the רשות כל אדם נתונה לו to exercise the koach ha-teshuva, not just to be better, but to exercise the koach ha-teshuva liyos tzaddik, להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו remains. The Rambam's not indicating to us that it's easy. The correct translation of yishtadel is to exert oneself. Yishtadel ha-adam, a person should exert himself la'asos teshuva, but the point is that that רשות להיות צדיק כמשה רבינו is a reshus which inheres within each of us. Underestimating oneself not only will affect one's initial performance, but underestimating oneself also affects one's reaction when taking stock of that performance. If I think of myself as an eighty student, so that affects the way I study for the examination and it certainly affects the way I react when I get my grade. If I get the eighty, if I get the seventy, I measure it against that expectation. There's a certain complacency if I think of myself as an 80 student and I get the 80, so then I'm going to be content and complacent. If I think of myself as a 100 student, so then there's never going to be room for complacency.

כל הרשות כל אדם נתונה לו כמו שביארנו להיות צדיק להיות צדיק כמו משה רבנו.

A person can never be content or complacent in taking stock. Kol zman that that we come up short of that goal, so it means that we need to improve, it means that we need to react with teshuvah. Rambam continues לעולם יראה אדם את עצמו כאילו הוא נוטה למות. A person should always see himself as though he's in a perilous state, and he may, rachmana litzlan, be on the verge of dying. ושמא ימות בשעה ונמצא עומד בחטאו. And if, rachmana litzlan, he'll die now, so he'll die while mired in cheit, while laden with the burden of cheit. לפיכך ישוב מחטאו מיד. Consequently, a person should repent immediately. ולא יאמר כשאזקן אשוב. He shouldn't say when I'll become, when I'll get older, according to the actuarial tables I have another 10, 20, 30, 40 years. ולא יאמר כשאזקן אשוב שמא ימות קודם שיזקן because the actuarial tables are predictions, they're not guarantees.

הוא ששלמה אומר בחכמתו בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר.

The Rambam of course is quoting, if you take a look in page 3, the Rambam is quoting from the Gemara in Shabbos. It's noted hasam, the lines are indicated. The Mishnah says in Pirkei Avos רבי אליעזר אומר שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. Repent the day before your death.

שאלו תלמידיו את רבי אליעזר וכי אדם יודע איזה יום ימות.

Does a person know what day he's going to die?

אמר להן וכל שכן ישוב היום שמא ימות למחר ונמצא כל ימיו בתשובה.

So Rabbi Eliezer says yeah, that's exactly the point, a person doesn't know, so he should do teshuvah today.

ואף שלמה אמר בחכמתו בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר.

So the Rambam is paraphrasing, elaborating upon that Gemara. But one element of the Rambam's elaboration is especially suggestive. What's the frame of mind, what's the hava amina that Rabbi Eliezer is coming to counter when he says shuv miyad? What was the default position before Rabbi Eliezer came and uprooted us from that default position? So the Gemara doesn't really make that clear. What's the alternative to doing teshuvah today? The Rambam says that the alternative is a mindset where a person says k'she'ezken ashuv. When I grow old, so then that's when I'll repent. But this is difficult to understand. There is a machlokes between the Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah as to what the timeframe is for mitzvas teshuvah. If you take a look on page 5, Rabbeinu Yonah at the very beginning of Shaarei Teshuvah writes

ודע כי החוטא כאשר יתאחר לשוב מחטאתו יכבד עליו מאד עונשו בכל יום.

When a sinner procrastinates in doing teshuvah, every day his sin and his liability therefore is compounded. Every day. Every day. כי הוא יודע כי יצא הקצף עליו. He knows that kivyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu's wrath has been incited against him, ויש לו מנוס לנוס שמה, there is refuge available to him and ve-hamanos hu hateshuva, the refuge is teshuva, והוא עומד במרדו והנה ברעתו, and yet he contemptuously remains in this state of sin. So Rabbeinu Yonah clearly, there are other places in Shaarei Teshuva as well where this is reinforced. Rabbeinu Yonah basically thinks that the chiyuv to do teshuva is immediate. As soon as a person becomes aware of chet, the chiyuv is to immediately respond by doing teshuva. In Perek Alef of Hilchos Teshuva, the Rambam doesn't indicate a timeframe. Talks about kesheyashov hachotei mecheto, but in Perek Beis, the Rambam does seem to suggest a timeframe. If you take a look on the fourth sheet here. יום הכפורים הוא זמן תשובה לכל ליחיד ולרבים. Yom Kippur is a time for teshuva individually and collectively. והוא קץ מחילה וסליחה לישראל, and it's the appointed time for forgiveness. לפיכך חייבים הכל לעשות תשובה ולהתודות ביום הכפורים. The simple pshat in this Rambam is that the Rambam is telling us is that this is the timeframe for mitzvas teshuva. If a person does a chet, heyos that the final judgment and the time of appointed for forgiveness is Yom Hakippurim, so the Torah gives us that much slack. The Rambam would of course agree that optimally a person should respond immediately by doing teshuva, but the deadline is Yom Kippur. If you take a look in the Sefer Hachinuch, the Sefer Hachinuch writes that explicitly. So how does the Rambam tell us, back to our halacha here in פרק ז' הלכה ב', that the mindset that Reb Eliezer is coming to counter is that otherwise, keshaszikinu shuvu, otherwise a person legitimately would have thought, I'll wait until I grow old. No, the mindset in light of what the Rambam tells us earlier in Perek Beis, the mindset should have been, I'll wait till Erev Yom Kippur, I'll wait till Yom Kippur, and Reb Eliezer should be saying, no, who knows if you're gonna have a Yom Kippur? Don't take for granted that you're gonna have a Yom Kippur. And yet the Rambam says, no, the Rambam says the hava amina, the mindset that Reb Eliezer is coming to counter is that otherwise we would have thought that it's legitimate to wait until a person approaches old age. What we're going to explore now is certainly as almost all exploration of teshuva is very much influenced by the Rav. I'm not sure that one can fault him for everything we're going to try to discuss. If you take a look on page six for a moment, a Rashi with which everyone's familiar. Rashi on Pasuk Gimmel at the beginning of Parshas Devarim, Rashi writes, the Torah identifies for us when Moshe Rabbeinu began this last marathon address to Bnei Yisrael. It was on Rosh Chodesh Shevat of the fortieth year. Says Rashi, quoting the Sifrei, מלמד שלא הוכיחן אלא סמוך למיתתו. The pasuk teaches us that Moshe Rabbeinu only rebuked Kol Yisrael. When he was close to death. Mimi lamad? Mi Yaakov. Moshe Rabbeinu learned this approach from Yaakov Avinu

שהוכיח את בניו אלא סמוך למיתה. אמר ראובן בני אני אומר לך מפני מה לא הוכחתיך כל השנים הללו כדי שלא תניחני ותלך ותדבק בעשו אחי. ומפני ד' דברים אין מוכיחין את האדם אלא סמוך למיתה כדי שלא יהא מוכיחו וחוזר ומוכיחו

etcetera. So the Sifri is very very hard to understand. There is a mitzva of הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך. The mitzva of הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך is if a person sees a fellow Jew violating an aveira, there is a mitzva to approach the person and lahachziro lemutav and to try to get him to correct. That the person shouldn't repeat the aveira. So naniach when a person is at age 20 so he sees someone doing an aveira, so what's he going to do? He makes a notation and in 100 years when he's getting close to his mea ve'esrim, so then he's going to... that's what the whole mitzvas tochacha in the Torah is? What does the Sifri mean? So clearly there are two types of tochacha that a person can give. Tochacha can target a cheit, maybe even a mida, but the tochacha is limited, it's pinpointed. But there's another type of tochacha which doesn't target a specific cheit. The object of the tochacha is not a specific act, is not a specific mida, but is the adam bechlaluso, the person as a whole. When Moshe Rabbeinu says to Kol Yisrael ממרים הייתם עם ה' מיום דעתי אתכם, that's not the same type of tochacha as, you know, I saw that you didn't make a bracha before you ate that candy bar and you really need to be careful about making brachos. When one catalogs you did this wrong, you did that wrong, בערבה בתופל בעבר הירדן במדבר and catalog one after another, so then the object of the tochacha is not specific actions but is the person as a whole. That type of tochacha says the Sifri is samuch lemisa. Mitzvas tshuva is similarly two-tiered. In perek aleph the Rambam speaks of

כל מצות שבתורה בין עשה בין לא תעשה שיעבור אדם על אחת מהן,

tshuva can also focus upon a specific concrete delimited ma'ase aveira, an act of commission or an act of omission. On that level so the aveira can be traced to a certain time. It happened over the course of a particular year and hence the time frame of Yom HaKippurim is relevant. But there's another type of tshuva as well, similar, not identical, to the distinction within tochacha. A tshuva that doesn't focus on a specific aveira but tshuva that focus upon the person as a whole. The focus, the focal point of the tshuva is not what I did this morning, what I said yesterday, but who I am as a person. What a person's focus is in life, what a person's orientation is in life, what a person's priorities are in life, what a person's values are in life. This you can't associate with a particular moment in time. You can't assign this to תשע"ח and you can't say that Yom Kippurim therefore תשע"ט הבא עלינו לטובה is the deadline. Here what one would have thought is that it's something that a person zrizim makdimim but lema'aseh a person over the course of his lifetime needs to refine and perfect himself. Here you would have legitimately thought she'azkanoshav comes Rabbi Eliezer and says שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. There's a danger in as we engage in the avoda of teshuva, as we recite Al Cheit, there's a danger of being only focused on details and specifics. But kol zman that a person is focused only on details and specifics, so the teshuva is really treating symptoms rather than underlying causes. And that's why the Rambam continues in halacha gimmel back here in perek zayin. Now that the Rambam is talking again about a teshuva not just for a specific moment in time, not with a focus where the object of the teshuva is an act but the object of the teshuva is the person, so the Rambam now says

ואל תאמר שאין התשובה אלא מעבירה שיש בהן מעשה כגון זנות וגזל וגניבה.

Don't think that teshuva is limited to concrete tangible actions. כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו just as a person has to repent from these

כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות שיש לו ולשוב מהן.

A person has to also repent for who he is, for his character, for its flaws, for its deficiencies. My father zichrono livracha was fond of telling the story that when the Ba'al HaTanya was in prison after they malshined on him, so the jailer who was assigned to him was a yodeia sefer. So the jailer says to the Ba'al HaTanya, what's the pshat when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Adam HaRishon, Ayeka? So the Ba'al HaTanya tells him what it says in Rashi, l'hikanes imo b'dvarim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu as it were is breaking the ice. So the jailer says, I still remember that from my cheder days, but I want to know how the Rebbe says pshat, I know what Rashi says pshat. So the Ba'al HaTanya tells him, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Adam HaRishon, Ayeka? Where are you? Where are you headed in life? What's your direction in life? What's your purpose in life? Ayeka. Another story that my father used to tell—I don't know if there was a name of a specific Rebbe associated with this one—that there was a Rebbe who used to like to take a walk out in the fields to be able to think, to be able to reflect. On one of his walks he met a hired watchman who was there protecting a certain field. So the Rebbe greets him and says, who do you work for? He tells him, I work for Count So-and-so. And then he turns to the Rebbe and says, and who do you work for? And the Rebbe is Avada avada we have to do teshuva for every specific infraction, for every individual mistake. But there also has to be a teshuva that relates to the person. The person as a whole. A person has to take stock. Ayeka? A person has to take stock, for whom do you work? A person has to take stock on what his goals are in life, what his values are in life. Why is it that in this context shema yamus besha'ato says the Gemara, says the Rambam? Generally in halacha we don't entertain such chashashos. There's an overwhelming rov that a young person is not going to die rachmana litzlan. ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה ואם בגבורות שמונים שנה and in every context in halacha, so a person doesn't have to take these possibilities into account. משל למה הדבר דומה? Let's say someone offers us a business investment. And it's a very promising one. The odds of the investment giving a very, very significant return are very, very favorable. 98%, maybe even 99% that a person is going to realize a very, very large return on his investment. The only catch is that to invest, to buy in, a person has to put in every single penny he has. Every single penny he has in all of his bank accounts, the value of his house, all his retirement accounts, every last penny in order to invest. So I don't claim to have any business acumen. But kimdoma that no one responsibly can make such an investment. Because zeh klal, a person does not ever assume a risk that he won't be able to cope with if it materializes. So if I'm being asked to put 500 in, 5000 in, so that's a great opportunity, it's a great investment. But if it means being totally wiped out and left rachmana litzlan homeless, penniless, so then 98% is not good enough. 99% is not good enough either. The Rambam says, and this also has its parallel in more technical halachic contexts as well. The Rambam says, what's on the line here? A person's nitzchiyus is on the line. Whether a person dies prematurely rachmana litzlan from our vantage point without having done teshuva. So what's on the line? Well, now that in perek zayin, now that I'm introducing you to not just teshuva on one specific aveira, not just a delimited teshuva. So what's on the line here is a person's nitzchiyus. Who, what a person will be eternally is at stake here. In such a context, a 98%, 99% probability is not nearly good enough. Let's see a little bit halachic Gemara.

ואל תאמר שאין התשובה אלא מעבירות שיש בהן מעשה כגון זנות גזל גניבה כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות שיש לו ולשוב מהן.

And the Rambam lists presumably what he's telling us are the most basic and most common character flaws and deficiencies: min haka'as, min ha'eiva, min hakinah, min hatachrus, u'min hahisul, מן רדיפת הממון והכבוד, u'miredifas hamachalos, vechayotzei bahem. So the Rambam says teshuva doesn't only relate to actions, it relates to character traits. It relates to the person. But there's a lack of parallelism here in the Rambam's lashon, very, very intentionally overt and glaring. The Rambam says: כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו, just as a person has to repent from active aveiros, so he should have said: כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות. Right? The parallel construct would have been to say that just as a person has to repent for his actions, so a person has to repent for his middos. But the Rambam doesn't say that. He says just as a person has to repent for his actions, so too a person has to scrutinize himself. A person has to engage in self-introspection and identify his deios ra'os, his character flaws and deficiencies. It's possible, but difficult, to deny actions. But the Rambam says it's very easy, and the default position is that we're unaware of character flaws. When they get projected into a specific action, so then you see it. It's right there. I don't have to be mechapes. I don't have to search. I don't have to search for it. No, the action was open and obvious. But the deios ra'os that a person has, a person can be oblivious to those deios ra'os. That same gemara in Niddah that we mentioned at the outset, that mashbi'in oso, תהי צדיק ואל תהי רשע, that each one of us, our neshamos were administered a shvuah that we should be tzaddikim because we have that capacity, we have that potential, we have that ability. So the gemara goes on to say: "And even if everyone tells you a tzaddik, even if everyone tells you a tzaddik, you shouldn't view yourself that way." Human nature is such that the natural tendency of most people, not all people, but the natural tendency of most people is that a person isn't critical of himself, doesn't view himself with the same critical lens that he'll view others. You know, often we'll learn or hear divrei mussar, divrei hisorerus, and often the reaction is, "Oh, the mechaber of the sefer puts it so well. The person who's darshening is saying it so well, saying so effectively, that's takeh what people do." But it's not so often the case that we recognize that the mechaber of the sefer or here that the person is talking to us and that all those potential chesronos and problems that need to be corrected, it's not just that he's correctly diagnosing what everyone around me needs to do. No, he's putting his finger, he's correctly diagnosing what I need to do. כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו, a person is generally speaking going to be aware of when teshuva is needed for a specific action, but tzarich lachapeis, a person has to have the openness and the willingness and the desire to search and to recognize the דעות רעות שיש לו. Min hakol, concludes the Rambam, tzarich lachazor biteshuva. A person has to repent from all such character flaws. ואלו עונות קשים מאותן שיש בהן מעשה, and these aveiros, says the Rambam, they're more formidable than the tangible ones, שבזמן שאדם שקוע באלו קשה הוא לפרוש, because when a person becomes mired in these, these represent ingrained habits which have been reinforced over an extended period of time, kashah hu lifrosh. It's possible, it's possible to do teshuva, to compress teshuva, to compress the revolution of teshuva into a moment. It's possible for a person to have a hakara that goes so deep, that cuts so deeply into the person, that in a moment he, she becomes a changed person. It's possible, but usually what happens in a moment is that a process begins. A person begins a process, a person identifies a need and begins a process. To take advantage of what remains of Chodesh Elul and Aseres Yimei Teshuva, we need to be aware that doing teshuva takes time, long periods of solitude and introspection. It's possible that in clapping the ashamnus and then on Yom Kippurim the al cheit, it's possible, it can happen in as short a time as a fleeting moment, but that's not the usual way it's going to happen, because אלו עונות קשים מאותן שיש בהן מעשה and kashah hu lifrosh. And usually when it's more difficult, when it's more formidable, it means that it's going to take time. Teshuva isn't something that can be buttonholed into the 20 minutes or 30 minutes that we allocate for selichos once the selichos season begins. It's something that requires attention, something that a person devotes time to. It's a process. Maybe the teshuva which targets a specific ma'aseh, so a person can feel the remorse and the embarrassment and the resolve pretty quickly. But to affect the change, to change a mida is something which requires tremendous concerted, consistent effort. And I wonder if sometimes we walk away having achieved less than we feel we could have and should have from this time of year, if it's because we underestimate the amount of effort that needs to be put in. And that's what the Rambam means when the Rambam says ישתדל האדם לעשות תשובה. Yishtadel means yisametz. It means that a person exerts himself to do teshuva. It doesn't necessarily, a person has that reshus of tehei tzaddik, תהא צדיק כמשה רבינו, but to realize that potential requires tremendous and concerted effort. Gut Yom Tov, Shabbat Shalom.