Teshuva

The second paragraph at the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva:

ודאי החוטא כאשר ישכיל אשם מחטאתו יכבד עליו מאד עונשו בכל יום כי יודע כי יצא הקצף עליו ויש לו מנוס לנוס שמה והמנוס הוא התשובה ועומד במרדו והנה ברעתו ובידו לצאת מתוך ההפיכה ולא יגור מפני האף והחמה על כן רעתו רבה ואמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה על ענין זה משל לכת של לסטים שחבשם המלך בבית האסורים וחתרו מחתרת פרצו ויעבורו ונשאר אחד מהם בבית הסוהר וראה מחתרת חתורה והאיש ההוא עודנו עצור ויחבוט ממנו אמר לו קשה יום הלא המחתרת חתורה לפניך ואיך לא מיהרת הימלט על נפשך.

So the mashal of Chazal that Rabbeinu Yona quotes is that you have a band of robbers who were imprisoned and then they tunnel out of the jail and the warden is angry with the one who doesn't take advantage to escape. So the mashal can be a little bit confusing because right, in the mashal itself, l'chora they're not supposed to be escaping. So a little bit confusing what Rabbeinu Yona, what Chazal have in mind, l'chora is the following. That this, why in the mashal, why is the sar beis haso'ar upset with the one robber who doesn't seek to escape? Because he understands that his failure to escape shows a certain contemptuousness to the power of the king to punish him. And in the mashal, again, I guess in real life you could have such a scenario where this wasn't the pshat of what happened, but in the mashal what happens is that the reason the person doesn't seek to escape, what that reflects is a sense of bittul for the king. What can the king do to me? And the king's imprisonment isn't something which scares me, I can deal with it. So that take, that's what's intended in the mashal. The nimshal being that if we're told as we are that there's a din v'cheshbon, if we're told as we are that there's a s'char v'onesh for everything and then we don't do teshuvah, so it, even if consciously we're not thinking this in so many words, but what it reflects is a certain contemptuousness for the s'char v'onesh. If let's say it's a very cold day outside and you tell someone make sure you bundle up before you go outside. So if the person ignores that advice, so it shows a certain again, sense of contemptuousness for the cold. No, doesn't concern me, I'm not scared of that. If the person is scared of what he's being told, of how cold it is, so then he take takes the precautionary and preventive measures. And if he doesn't respond, again, it shows a sense of bittul and that's what the Midrash is expressing. That's right, in the very next paragraph where Rabbeinu Yonah continues

ולא ימצא כח התשובה זולתי בעם הארץ אשר הם ישנים שוכבים ולא ישיבו אל לבבם ולא דעת ולא תבונה להם למהר להמלט על נפשם.

That the first category, he adds another category in the very next line, but the first category again is that not necessarily one is being consciously contemptuous, but just one sleepwalks through life so oblivious to reality, but one's actions, even if they're not intended, one's actions are contemptuous. Then he says yesh mehem that it's taka a conscious contemptuousness,

ויש מהם נדחים מעל השם יתברך לא יאמינו בעונש החטא.

I think that the Ramban has in the kisvei Ramban, so I was looking for it in the Beis Medrash and I didn't find it. In the kisvei Ramban there's amongst the kisvei Ramban there's a drasha le'Rosh Hashanah. So I think what we're about to discuss is there in the Ramban. The Ramban talks about how teshuvah is, as Rabbeinu Yonah presents it, a tremendous tovah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But then, as Rabbeinu Yonah himself here develops, once we're given that opportunity of teshuvah, rachmana litzlan not take advantage of it, so the opportunity, the beracha also creates an obligation. It's also mechayev. Every obligation, every beracha the Ribono Shel Olam gives us is also mechayev. The Ribono Shel Olam gives us a beracha of we have different kishronos, different abilities. Every beracha is also a mechayev. So teshuvah is one of the greatest tovos. It's a mechayev also if a person doesn't do teshuvah. They say it from Rav Yisrael Salanter the same idea, but again the Ramban already has it in the drasha le'Rosh Hashanah. Rav Yisrael Salanter said it in the Gemara at the end of Yoma. The Gemara tells this story how there had been some kind of sichsuch, one-sided sichsuch between Rav and a certain butcher. And the butcher had offended Rav, had acted improperly towards Rav. רב הוה ליה מילתא בהדי דההוא טבחא. So the Gemara tells that אתא לא קמיה במעלי יומא דכיפורי. The butcher, who should have taken the initiative because he was the party who was in the wrong, didn't come before Rav on Erev Kippur. So Rav says amar ihu, Rav says eizel ana l'piyusei. I'll go try to be mifayes him. I'll take the initiative to try to repair the relations that he strained. פגע ביה רב הונא. So on the way, Rav Huna met Rav when Rav was on his way to the butcher. אמר ליה להיכא קאזיל מר? Where are you going, Rav Huna asked Rav? So אמר ליה לפיוסיה לפלניא. I'm going to be mifayes so-and-so. He doesn't tell him who did what. So amar, so Rav Huna apparently must have known and he knew the person, so אמר אזל אבא למקטל נפשא. No, you're really going to kill him. Azal v'kami alei. So Rav went and he stood before the butcher. הוה יתיב וקפלי רישא. He was at work so he was chopping a bone. That's what the butcher was doing. Dali einei, the butcher lifts his eyes v'chazyei, he sees Rav, amar lei Abba at? Rav Huna was m'kurav to Rav. It was appropriate for him to refer to him as Abba, but for the butcher should not have been referring to him that way. Abba at? Zil, throw him out, get out of here, לית לי מילתא בהדך. בהדי דקפלי רישא and And then he resumes his work. So when he's chopping the bones, אשתמיט גרמא ומחי בכוה וקטליה. And a bone jumps up and it pierces his throat and kills him. That's the end of the story. So why was why was Rav going? So the pshat is like this: the Rosh in siman chaf daled has as follows:

וישם אדם ללבו ערב יום הכיפורים לפייס כל אדם שנוטר לו איבה

k'de'aminan Rav d'havah lei... it tells a different story which he begins with another story that's here in the Gemara as well.

גבי רב דהוה ליה לרבי חנינא מלתא בהדיה אזל גביה תריסר מעלי יומי דכיפורי ולא איפייס

v'aminah nami hasham רב הוה ליה מלתא בהדיה דההוא טבחא. So the lashon of the Rosh is mashma

ישם על לבו ערב יום הכיפורים לפייס כל אדם שנוטר לו איבה.

If you know that someone's angry at you, not necessarily because you wronged him. Someone's angry at you, but maybe totally your נקיות כפים ובר לבב, through no fault of your own, the other person's angry at you, that אף על פי כן on Yom Kippur there's an inyan to try to be mefayes that person. So it's not the pshat, it's not the pshat like we think, that's what's that's I once heard someone point out in the Rosh. It's not the pshat that we think that before the gmar din, before the chasima, so we want to make sure that people whom we might have offended that were mochel us. Avada if if we're aware of people whom we may have offended, so we right away or or certainly not later than erev Rosh Hashanah should be should be asking them for mechila. The pshat rather here is that even if not, I didn't Reuven didn't necessarily wrong Shimon, but he knows that Shimon is notel lo eivah. So as we say in the at the end of the avoda we describe there's a whole there's a paragraph with descriptions of of Yom Kippur. So one of them is יום שימת שלום וריעות. On Yom Kippur it's supposed to be a day when there's tremendous achdus amongst klal yisrael. And that's what the inyan is of

ישם על לבו ערב יום הכיפורים לפייס כל אדם שנוטר לו איבה.

And that's what Rav was was looking to do. So that's the pshat in in what Rav was doing. So what does Rav Huna tell him chacham adif minavi so what does Rav Huna tell him that that Rav is going l'miktal nafsha? So that's what Rav Yisrael Salanter says that kol zman the tabach wasn't doing teshuvah and wasn't coming to Rav, okay, so that was one level of aveira. So then when he was given the opportunity that Rav was taking the initiative and Rav was making it easy for him to be chozer b'teshuva, so then the again the greater the opportunity, the the easier, the greater the bracha, so then the greater the degree of responsibility if one doesn't take advantage of it. Rabbeinu Yona here has a little bit further here in shaar alef he he quotes two psukim. He quotes a pasuk... it's in paragraph yud alef if you have the the one which is broken down to paragraphs here. He says

דע כי מי אשר חטא על דרך מקרה כי התאוה תאוה ויחזק עליו יצרו ויכפהו ולא נחלצו רעיוניו לחוש בפיגוע ולא מהרו לגוע בים התאוה ויחרב על כן יגרהו היצר בחרמה ונפל במכמורה לפי שעתה ואיתר ויוצא רוח היצר רע מבעתו ולא מאשר חפץ רצונו למצוא עונו ולעשות כמוהו אחרי זאת ראשית תשובת האיש הזה החרטה ולשים יגון בלבו על חטאתו להיות נפש נענה ומרה כלענה אחרי כן יוסיף בכל יום יראת השם בנפשו ויתן חתת אלקים בלבבו בכל עת עד אשר יהיה נכון לבו בטוח בהשם.

umodeh ve'ozev yerucham,

הזכיר תחילה ומודה על החרטה והוידוי ואחר כך ועוזב. אחרי איש המתייצב על דרך לא טוב ותמיד וגבר חטאת דורך בכל יום ובשנה באיוולתו ושב במרוצתו גם פעמים רבות,

and the teshuva of this person is לעזוב דרכו ומחשבתו הרעה, lehaskim lekayem lekabel that he won't lehosif lachato.

אחרי כן יתחרט על עלילותיו הנשחתות וישוב אל השם. ועד נאמר אחריו כי אחרי שובי ניחמתי, אחרי אשר יסרתני ויוסר ושבתי מדרכי הרעה ניחמתי אחרי כן ואתחרט על מה שעבר מדברי עוונותי.

So Rabbeinu Yonah has a very fascinating distinction in terms of the chelkei hateshuva, in terms of whether or not the charata comes first and then the and then a person first works on the charata and then the azivas hacheit comes mimela or whether a person works on the azivas hacheit and later comes to charata, so Rabbeinu Yonah says it depends upon the on the chotei, on the context of the cheit. A person whose cheit was sort of an aberration. It's not not not a lifestyle. It was an aberration. See he's very very makpid in shmiras halashon and he slipped and said something he shouldn't have said. He's very very makpid on tefilla betzibbur and he whatever he made a mistake, he turned off his alarm when he when he shouldn't have and and turned over once when he shouldn't have. So if it's an aberration, so then he says that right away a person can have the charata. A person's in a position to feel the charata because the cheit in which he was nichshal is something which which which he feels, he feels very deeply, anguish because it's because it goes against everything he believes, everything he's to which he dedicates his life, he can feel the charata right away. Mah she'ein kein a person who needs to change a whole lifestyle. So such a person, even when he understands that what he's doing is wrong, he's too close to really feel the charata. It's only after he he works on the azivas hacheit, he puts a certain amount of distance between himself and the cheit. So then given that distance, given the fact that he now recognizes how meaningful a life is when he uses his time for talmud torah and for and for and for mitzvos, now he can really feel, once there's that distance because he's been to'eim, so now he can really feel the the charata. So here the sequence will be the reverse. Here the sequence will be acharei shuvi, only then nichamti. The Rambam doesn't doesn't draw this distinction. The Rambam in perek beis of hilchos teshuva when he describes the sequence of teshuva, so he doesn't have Rabbeinu Yonah's distinction. Umah hi hateshuva, what the halacha that we were looking at last week in beis beis,

ומה היא התשובה הוא שיעזוב החוטא חטאו ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד שנאמר יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו וכן יתנחם על שעבר שנאמר כי אחרי שובי ניחמתי.

So the Rambam describes that the sequence is also Rabbeinu Yonah's second scenario, that the sequence is always first comes azivas hacheit, then comes the full-blown sense of remorse. So that takes care of one of Rabbeinu Yonah's psukim, the pasuk of כי אחרי שובי ניחמתי. What is the Rambam going to do with the pasuk of umodeh ve'ozev yerucham which Rabbeinu Yonah sees as describing הזכיר תחילה ומודה על החרטה והוידוי ואחר כך ועוזב. So maybe according to the Rambam, this pasuk isn't describing the sequence of teshuvah, but maybe this is describing what's necessary for kapparah. Because if you go, let's say within the Rambam himself, if you go back to פרק א הלכה א, so the Rambam says keitzad mitvadin? He says

אנה השם חטאתי עויתי פשעתי לפניך ועשיתי כך וכך והרי ניחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה, זהו עיקרו של וידוי.

So when the Rambam formulates the vidui, so then he mentions the nechamah, the remorse on the past, and then he mentions לעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה. When the Rambam describes the actual teshuvah, so then the sequence is reversed. When he's describing the actual teshuvah, he says that first comes the azivas hachet and then comes yisnachem al she'avar. So lechora the pshat is as follows: That in terms of how the actual teshuvah unfolds, so it's כי אחרי שובי נחמתי. The first thing a person does is he works on azivas hachet. And the truth is it's only with that azivas hachet that he can really have the proper remorse. In terms of the vidui, so the vidui sort of describes things מן העבר אל העתיד. It's not necessarily describing the emotional, the inner transformation, but it's describing מן העבר אל העתיד. This is what happened in the past, it's a timeline. This is what happened in the past, and about what happened in the past nichamti uvoshti, and in terms of the future לעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה. So in the vidui, so then we follow the timeline. In terms of how the actual teshuvah unfolds, so the actual teshuvah the Rambam says first a person there has to be a certain distance for the person to really feel that degree of remorse which is required by charatah. Again, you see that the charatah isn't stam sort of a superficial sense of regret but it's a profound sense of remorse. That profound sense of remorse a person can again only appreciate what it means to use his time, what a waste it is to be mevatel zman and what it means to use his time to limud Torah after he's been doing it. A person can only understand the difference between davening bechavanah and davening superficially after for a while he's been davening bechavanah. So if the charatah means stam a regret you can have it right away, but if it means this profound sense of remorse it has to be כי אחרי שובי נחמתי. In terms of the vidui, in terms of when it's articulated, we follow the timeline. So yitachen that that heyos that the vidui is meakev in kapparah, so the pasuk in Mishlei is sort of describing the vidui. It's not describing the inner dynamic and sequence of teshuvah, it's describing the vidui. Umodeh ve'ozev yerucham, ayen alav. Earlier, a little bit before this, Rabbeinu Yonah has a recommendation for us. He says ראוי לכל בעלי תשובה. Right, it goes without saying that the way that the term is used colloquially nowadays is very misleading, right? We use the term baal teshuvah for someone who grew up in a home that wasn't observant as opposed to someone who, aderaba, the real ba'alei teshuvah are all of us who grew up in homes that are observant and אף על פי כן have what to do teshuvah. We're more ba'alei teshuvah, I don't mean that leshevach, I mean more ba'alei teshuvah in the sense that the chata'im are less excusable. So the term the way we use it nowadays is misleading. So when Rabbeinu Yonah is talking about...

וכן ראוי לכל בעלי תשובה לכתוב במגילת ספר הדברים אשר נכשלו בהם ובמצוות אשר קיצרו בקיומם ולקרוא בספר זכרונותם בכל יום.

So what what does it mean? Why why is it necessary every day, why is it recommended that that every day a person should be sort of reading a list of of of past errors past mistakes? So I think the next paragraph in in the Sha'arei Teshuvah sheds some light on it.

והנה מדרגות רבות לתשובה ולפי המדרגות יתקרב האדם אל הקדוש ברוך הוא.

A person can do Teshuvah on many different levels. It's not pshat that either a person does Teshuvah or he doesn't do Teshuvah. There are many different levels on which we can do Teshuvah. So this same yesod that we said before that when a person has to, again according to the Rambam this is always true for Teshuvah, according to Rabbeinu Yonah sometimes, but that the more distance a person has between himself and and the aveirah, the more remorse that that he's capable of feeling and the more profound the Teshuvah that he's capable of. So mistama the pshat Rabbeinu Yonah is not only that that I should keep track to make sure that I get around to doing Teshuvah for every every chet rachmana litzlan, but lecho what it also means is this. Okay, so let's say today ba'asher hu sham I I I do I do a Teshuvah for for my chata'im. It's it's almost impossible almost impossible and 99 point whatever percent of the time, that's not going to be the best Teshuvah of which I'm capable. The Teshuvah itself happens incrementally in terms of levels of Teshuvah. Same way a person in Avodat Hashem in general, even let's say not Teshuvah, in Avodat Hashem a person climbs rung after rung. So the same thing is true in terms of the madregos of Teshuvah. In terms of the madregos of Teshuvah a person also moves rung after rung. So if I if I dismiss from my memory, I lose sight of of those chata'im for which I did Teshuvah, so ein hachi nami I did a Teshuvah, but but there are madregos rabos within Teshuvah. And yitachen as Rabbeinu Yonah says that even the most basic madrega of Teshuvah the Ribono Shel Olam forgives a person, but in terms of being mitaher himself, in terms of being able to come closer to the Ribono Shel Olam, so then the the better the Teshuvah, the greater the Teshuvah, the greater the tahara which which the Teshuvah affords. It's the same idea I think we mentioned it, I think it was last week last Thursday that we mentioned the Chovot Halevavot idea of doing Teshuvah on Teshuvah. And it's one of the reasons that Rabbeinu Yonah basically depicts Teshuvah as a lifetime avoda because to to be able to to move from one madrega to another madrega of Teshuvah, to again it means as the person grows so then he's capable of of a more profound... type of teshuva. is capable of a higher madrega of teshuva. And for that reason, if we sort of just target our aveiros once, so then we're going to do halevai bezras Hashem a teshuva on some level, and halevai we should do that, but we won't go beyond it. The other thing which Rabbeinu Yona sensitizes us to here is he says that in that private record that a person has, so it should not only list דברים אשר נכשלו בהם, but also המצות אשר קצרו בקיומן. That part of the cheshbon hanefesh that a person is supposed to make and part of the record that a person is supposed to maintain is not only rachmana litzlan was I mevatel a mitzvah or was I over an aveira, but even when a person was mekayeim a mitzvah, what was incomplete about the kiyum hamitzvah? The Mesillas Yesharim says that's the pshat in the double lashon of yemashmesh bema'asav and yefashpesh bema'asav, that one is to tell us to look to see whether or not it was a mitzvah, whether it was an aveira rachmana litzlan. But the other is within the mitzvah gufa to see what could have been done better. The Nefesh HaChaim says that's the pshat in the posuk of

כי אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא.

So he says it doesn't mean that the pshat is that there's no one who only does mitzvos and doesn't do aveiros. No, the posuk is saying אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב and within the tov, lo yecheta. There's no person who even when he does good, that the good is so perfect and so complete that it doesn't bear scrutiny and that it doesn't need improvement. That's what Rabbeinu Yona says, that as we make our cheshbon hanefesh, so it's not only דברים אשר נכשלו בהם rachmana litzlan, but it's also מצות אשר קצרו בקיומן. It's not only a question: did I make a bracha? It's also a question of what kind of bracha I made. The ikar harishon which Rabbeinu Yona lists is charata.

יבין לבבו כי רע ומר עזבו את ה' וישב אל לבו כי יש עונש ונקם ושילום על העון כענין שנאמר לי נקם ושילם. ונאמר גורו לכם מפני חרב כי חמה עונות חרב. ויזכור על מעשיו הרעים ויאמר בלבבו מה עשיתי איך לא היה פחד אלהים לנגד עיני ולא יגורתי מתוכחות על עון ומן השפטים הרעים כי רבים מכאובים לרשע לא חמלתי על גופי ולא חסה עיני עליו משחת מפני הנאת רגע אחד ונמשלתי לאיש שיגזול ויחמוס ויאכל וישבע ויודע כי אחרי אכלו ואחרי שתו יגרס השופט בחצץ שניו.

So Rabbeinu Yona also mentions the yesod we talked about a little bit the other night before Ma'ariv. Rabbeinu Yona emphasizes that charata will ensue if yavin levavo and yashev el libo. Again, charata isn't just sort of an intellectual acknowledgment. You know, when you get your, I guess, you get a test paper back and you get an X, okay, so you acknowledge that the answer was seven and you wrote eight. But charata is a sense of remorse. To have a sense of remorse, so Rabbeinu Yona says things have to, it's not enough to know, but things have to be internalized, things have to be felt. And therefore he says יבין לבבו וישוב אל לבו. Person has to, again, he has to find a way to internalize, not just to know. It has to be a yashav al libo. It's important in learning Shaarei Teshuva, befrat mussar bechlal. It's potentially very depressing. Again,

החרטה יבין לבבו ישוב אל לבו כי יש עונש ונקם ושלם על העוון.

It's very heavy. It's important not to skip these passages, but to read side by side the, again, towards the end of Shaarei Teshuva in Shaar Revi'i when Rabbeinu Yonah talks about the mitzvah achila in Erev Yom Kippurim, so Rabbeinu Yonah writes as follows. He says in, it's in Shaar Revi'i paragraph chet if you have it.

אם עבר אדם על מצות לא תעשה ועשה תשובה ידאג לעוונו ויכסוף ויחכה להגיע ליום הכפורים למען יתרצה אל השם יתברך, כי רצונו חיי הנפש והגוף לחי כל נוצר.

Because what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants is that we should live, not that we should be punished.

כמו שנאמר חיים ברצונו. ועל כן אמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה כל הקובע סעודה בערב יום הכפורים כאילו נצטווה להתענות תשיעי ועשירי והתענה בהם, כי הראה שמחתו בהגיע זמן כפרתו ותהיה לו לעדה על דאגתו לאשמתו ויגונו לעוונותיו.

The simcha of Erev Yom Kippurim, Rabbeinu Yonah explains, is the other side of the coin of the, again, the anguish which accompanies the teshuva process. And that's what, that's apparently how he learns pshat in כאילו נצטווה להתענות תשיעי ועשירי, meaning that it's that the simcha of doing teshuva, which is the simcha of impending kappara, is part of the same process as the charata and as the anguish which is involved in doing teshuva. And that's what Chazal have in mind when they say כאילו נצטווה להתענות תשיעי ועשירי, meaning, it's not that the mitzvah achila Erev Yom Kippur is a separate mitzvah. No, but it's they're inextricably bound up together. So on the one hand, there's a sense of eima, vafachad, of yagon, but there's an undercurrent again which on Erev Yom Kippur moves more to the surface and more to center stage, as it does again Motzei Yom Kippurim, but there's an undercurrent at the same time of simcha that we're in the process of being mesaken that. Simcha without the yagon is a fool's paradise. The yagon without the simcha is depressing and paralyzing potentially. A person has to maintain the right balance between the two. I think the Meor Einayim quotes from the Ba'al Shem Tov, I think it's the Ba'al Shem Tov he's quoting, that when the Torah says תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' אלהיך בשמחה, a person has to be mkayem mitzvos b'simcha. So I think he says beshem the Ba'al Shem Tov, it doesn't say anywhere that the mitzvah of teshuva is an exception for that. It doesn't say anywhere that 612 out of the 613 are b'simcha, but one isn't. So apparently it's also b'simcha, because the two can, and not only can, but they have to coexist, because the only way a person can really cope with the type of anguish that he should feel is when it's accompanied by the simcha that at this very moment in feeling the anguish, I'm also in the process of repairing it, of remedying it, and אתה נותן יד לפושעים וימינך פשוטה לקבל שבים. And it's that undercurrent of simcha again which becomes more, appropriately enough, becomes more prominent at later stages, but it's an undercurrent all along. And so we're supposed to take these things yoshev al libo, we're supposed to take it to heart, but with that undercurrent again of simcha which accompanies it.