Rambam Teshuva Perek 2

So we’ll take a look a little bit here in Perek Bet of Hilchot Teshuvah let’s say. Eizehu teshuvah gemurah?

זה שבאת לידו דבר שעבר בו ואפשר בידו לעשות ופירש ולא עשה מפני התשובה לא מיראה ולא מכשלון כוח.

Keitzad?

הרי שבא על אשה בעבירה ולאחר זמן נתייחד עמה והוא עומד באהבתו בה ובכוח גופו ובמדינה שעבר בה

uferash velo avar

זהו בעל תשובה גמורה. והוא ששלמה אומר וזכור את בוראך בימי בחורותיך עד אשר לא יבואו ימי הרעה והגיעו שנים אשר תאמר אין לי בהם חפץ. ואם לא שב אלא בימי זקנותו ובעת שאי אפשר לו לעשות מה שהיה עושה אף על פי שאינה תשובה מעולה מועלת היא ובעל תשובה הוא אפילו עבר כל ימיו ועשה תשובה ביום מיתתו ומת בתשובתו כל עוונותיו נסלחין שנאמר עד אשר לא תחשך השמש והאור והירח והכוכבים ושבו העבים אחר הגשם שהוא יום המיתה. מכל מקום שזכר בוראו ושב קודם שימות נסלח לו.

Umah hi hateshuvah?

הוא שיעזוב החוטא חטאו ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד שנאמר יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו וכן ינחם על שעבר שנאמר כי אחרי שובי נחמתי ואחרי הודעי ספקתי על ירך ויתוודה בוידוי דברים ויאמר כל עוונותי למעשה ידינו אשר בך ירוחם יתום.

Halacha Aleph gives a snapshot of teshuvah in action and Halacha Bet gives the definition of teshuvah. How does one know then when one sees the snapshot how does one know that this really illustrates what the Rambam lists in Halacha Bet? Maybe the veyesiro mimachshavto wasn't really there in this person and אף על פי כן he wasn't nichshal the second time. So yitachen there's a remarkable he’arah here that the dinim the requirements let's initially talk about what the Rambam mentions only in the first sentence of Halacha Bet. ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד it's not the pshat that these are as it were just dinim requirements which the chiyuv teshuvah imposes upon a person. But it's a metzius that unless a person unless one's mental state is such that ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו so then it's not just that he's gonna it's not just that in mitzvas teshuvah there's gonna be something missing but in metzius in metzius he's gonna be nichshal again. Veyesiro mimachshavto is not only is not only a kiyum if if I put my tefillin shel rosh over here on my head the din is that it should be bein einecha not on my head the din is that it has to be bein einecha. ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד says the Rambam. reflection, a metzius. It's not the Baraita v'hu alma, the opposite way, but what, either way. If, if, if one sees such a snapshot that it's b'oto perek, b'ota isha, and and the result is different, so then takeh you know that that prior to to that scene of which one is given a snapshot, that there was ויסירנו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו. Yas'ranu mimachshavto is very, again, as we see here, everything is crucial. But yas'ranu mimachshavto means וכי משל למה הדבר דומה. You have two people. They both go for a physical, an annual physical, or maybe they haven't gone for an annual physical for a long time. It's been 30 years since either of them ever went to the the doctor. And so the doctor gives them the physical and they're both overweight, they both have high blood pressure, they both have high cholesterol. And the doctor individually reads each one the riot act, tells them the the state you're in is very dangerous, rachmana litzlan, you're a candidate for a heart attack, this, that. And unless unless you change your lifestyle, unless you change your eating habits, v'chulu v'chulu, so it could be not good. And both of them, their habits are very deeply ingrained, they've been living this way for 30 years. So one of them says, so one of them's response to the doctor is again he's thinking of all the the change that the doctor is is demanding. So he says, "Okay, I'm going to give it my best. That's it. I'm going to give it my best." And the other one, when he hears what the doctor's prognosis is if he doesn't come around and if he doesn't if he doesn't carry out what the doctor says, so his reaction isn't, "I'll do my best," but his reaction is, "It will be done." What's the difference? The difference is the first person psychologically isn't convinced that he's really going to be able to carry it out. He says he's going to do his best, but he knows the doctor's asking for such fundamental change, he's going to do his best. But the minute a person says "I'll do my best," even though obviously by definition a person can never do more than his best, amaiseh, when we say it that way, so it means that we are already taking into account the possibility that we won't be successful. And that's why instead of promising results, we say, "I'll do my best." So in many other contexts, that's takeh appropriate, right? In many other contexts, that's appropriate because that's all in chutz m'yiras shamayim, so a person should only talk about making an effort. But in yiras shamayim, so then there the second person is yas'ranu mimachshavto. The second person says it's inconceivable that it will continue. The first one says he's going to do his best. That's what yas'ranu mimachshavto is. And you know, if we reflect on it for a minute, one can easily appreciate how that yas'ranu mimachshavto can make the difference between teshuva being effective and a person takeh being able to carry out and and live up to the kabbalos as opposed to where it doesn't stick.

ועל מה זה ינחמכם על שובה שנאמר כי אחרי שובי ניחמתי ואחרי הודעי ספקתי על ירך.

I think the avodas hamalech here in this halacha contrasts the position of the Rambam with that of Rabbeinu Yonah. Rabbeinu Yonah says in terms of the sequence as to how a person does teshuvah, so Rabbeinu Yonah says, I think it's over here, let's see over here, so Rabbeinu Yonah says that when the sense of remorse comes, will depend upon the following. If a person has for a long time consistently been involved in things he shouldn't or too minimally involved, and then he has a hisorerus to do teshuvah, he has a hisorerus to improve, so even though clearly that hisorerus reflects an appreciation that things are not as they should be now, l'maiseh a deep and profound remorse won't be possible until a person puts a certain distance between himself and the former lifestyle, between himself and the cheit. It's only after a person experiences the contrast, so then he really has a perspective, then he has a deep perspective on what was really missed previously. A person can have again fill in the blank with whatever's most meaningful, whatever's most appropriate. A person can have a hisorerus at first that the way he davens is something's missing, he doesn't feel anything. And that hisorerus will takeh get him to do teshuvah, but l'maiseh the real sense of remorse is only going to be once he does the teshuvah and once he sees and tastes ta'amu u'reu and experiences the difference, the upgrade, so then takeh I can't believe all these years what I was doing. So it's acharei shuvi nichamti. Mah she'ein kein says Rabbeinu Yonah if you have a person where the cheit wasn't sort of typical to his lifestyle, but you have the cheit which was an aberration. The cheit very much this is a person he's very makpid on again fill in the blank, very, very makpid on it. Vayehi hayom for some reason again it goes against everything that he's always so careful about, so scrupulous about and he's over an aveirah, so that person there the charata will be immediate. There the person doesn't need the distance from the cheit, he doesn't need the change and transformation of teshuvah, there it will be immediate. The Rambam doesn't draw that distinction. Rambam doesn't draw that distinction. He just describes the sequence of teshuvah that the remorse again as this pasuk meaning Rabbeinu Yonah I think it juxtaposes to this pasuk, I'm not sure if it's the pasuk of modeh v'ozev yerucham, he juxtaposes a second pasuk to say that there are different... Back in פרק א הלכה א when the Rambam gives us the nusach of the viduy:

חטאתי עויתי פשעתי לפניך ועשיתי כך וכך והרי נחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה.

So the viduy clearly mirrors the teshuva. So the ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה is the combination of יסירנו ממחשבתו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו. The V'nichamti is the Yisnacham al she'avar. But the boshti isn't reflected in פרק ב הלכה ב. The boshti the Rambam mentions in the nusach of the viduy but it's not reflected here in פרק ב הלכה ב. So lechora, a pshat is like this. Simple pshat. משל למה הדבר דומה. You have a seventeen year old teenager gets his license. So he wants to use the car. So his parents tell him that you can use the car but under the following guidelines. You have to be home no later than 11:00 at night. You can't be in the car with more than one other person, and you shouldn't have the whatever radio, CD playing so that you can concentrate on your driving. So he goes, he packs the car with his friends, he's on the road at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and the CD is playing and he wrecks the car. He wrecks the car. So mistama, when he realizes the trouble he's created for himself, so he's takeh gonna decide he's not gonna do that again, and he's really gonna be resolute about it, and he certainly has deep remorse about what he did. But the busha is gonna be when he comes home and he has to look his parents in the eye and tell them. The busha doesn't happen when he wrecks the car. So that will trigger everything else. But the busha won't be triggered until he has to stand before his parents and he has to tell them it wasn't before 11:00, it was 1:30 and then when he has to look them in the eye and tell them kach ve'kach asisi, then there's gonna be the boshti. So the busha is when a person is mitvadeh again as it were. So that's the moment, not when a person is looking into himself. At teshuva a person is looking into himself. So when a person looks into himself he has to be יסירנו ממחשבתו, he has to be ויגמור בלבו, he has to be Yisnacham al she'avar. The viduy is when a person is now, as it were, reporting back to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that's the moment when the person should feel the and be able to say boshti. Rambam writes that יודע תעלומות שלא ישוב לזה החטא לעולם. So the meforshei HaRambam explain here, that I believe the Kessef Mishnah, that leha'id means either of two things. Leha'id can mean to give testimony, in which case the translation would be that the Yodea Ta'alumot Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the subject and that Hakadosh Baruch Hu ya'id alav שלא ישוב לזה החטא לעולם. But that would imply, first of all it's strange, but second of all it would imply that if Rachmana litzlan after doing teshuva a person ever repeated the chet again, so that would mean that obviously Hakadosh Baruch Hu bish'ata wasn't me'id שלא ישוב לזה החטא לעולם, so the whole teshuva was nothing. So the Nosei Keilim here say that no, leha'id also means something else. V'a'ida... to call someone else to bear testimony, to call someone else to witness something and be prepared to, it's also a transitive to make someone else into an eid. And according to that, so then the subject of יעיד עליו יודע תעלומות is not Hakadosh Boruch Hu yodeia ta'alumos, but the subject of yo'id alav is the person doing teshuvah, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the object of the verb here. יעיד עליו יודע תעלומות, a person calls Hakadosh Boruch Hu to witness, not to tell us what he knows about the future, but a person is so sincere about his resolve that he's willing to say Hakadosh Boruch Hu, look, you see that what my resolve is now, שלא ישוב לזה החטא לעולם. No, again, he's not asking Hashem to be meid. He's not asking Hashem to be meid about the future. Hashem is not being meid about the future. He's asking Hashem to see where he is at the moment. It does. I think we're all, we're all holding by yetziras mehamachshavah. That's where we're holding, you know, whether at some point after some time there's regression. So the point is, it has to be that at the point when the person's doing teshuvah, at that point it's yetziras mehamachshavah. Sometimes people relapse. People quit smoking. And itachen it's with the yetziras mehamachshavah or not for whatever reason three months, six months, three years later for some reason they pick up a cigarette and there was a regression but it doesn't mean that three years earlier it wasn't yetziras mehamachshavah. The footnote has Pachad Yitzchak an amazing he'ara. He thinks that there is a very, very, very important machlokes between the Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah. The Rambam again says that the standard for again the kabbalah l'haba within teshuvah is that a person, you know, has to be willing to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and say look, you see how deep and how determined my kabbalah is, that I'm determined to never do this again. Alongside this, so Rav Hutner proposes the following with this one crucial hakdamah. Rabbeinu Yonah has in sha'ar rishon esrim ikarei teshuvah. Rav Hutner says it's not that Rabbeinu Yonah thinks that all twenty of these are mamash indispensable within teshuvah. He says what's indispensable is the azivah, implying kabbalah as well obviously, is the azivah, is the charatah and the viduy. That's what's indispensable. And the others are very relevant to teshuvah, but they're not actually indispensable. So now, says Rav Hutner as follows:

והעיקר השני עזיבת החטא כי יעזוב רשע דרכו ויגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף לשוב עוד בדרך הזה.

Okay. Yeah, this is the same paragraph that we were talking about before where he talks about when the nechama comes and the posuk that he contrasts with acharei shuvi nichamti and modeh ve'ozev yerucham. Okay. So noch a mul:

כי יעזוב דרכו הרע ויגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף לשוב לדרך הזה עוד.

So what does he do? He wholeheartedly resolves, I'm not going down that path again. That path which resulted in the cheit, I'm not going down that path again.

ועיקר התשעה עשר עזיבת החטא בהזדמן לו והוא בתוקף תאוותו.

So what's the difference between the ikar ha-tishah asar and the ikar ha-sheni? Ikar ha-sheni was azivas ha-cheit that

יגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף כי לא יוסיף לשוב לדרך הזה עוד.

And ikar ha-tishah asar is עזיבת החטא בהזדמן לו והוא בתוקף תאוותו and ve-amru be-Sefer ha-Chinuch, I'm sorry,

ואמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה איזהו בעל תשובה אשר תשובתו מגעת עד כסא הכבוד.

And he goes on to quote the same Gemara in Yoma that the Rambam quotes here in halacha alef, in fact, basis halacha alef, כשנבחן ויצא נקי באותו פרק ובאותו מקום ובאותה אשה. So Rav Hutner says something extraordinary over here. He says that for Rabbeinu Yonah, the bar, the standard for the kabbalah le-haba is

יגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף לשוב לדרך הזה עוד.

A sincere, wholehearted resolve not to go down that path. Lema'aseh, that notwithstanding, one could imagine that if that person were thrust into a certain set of circumstances, that the provocation, the girui would be so great that he wouldn't be able to withstand it. ועיקר התשעה עשר is an azivas ha-cheit so great that no matter what, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the provocation, he won't be nichshal again. That's why again המשל למה הדבר דומה, you have someone, he was an alcoholic Rachmana litzlan. So azivas ha-cheit of the ikar ha-sheni, and tell me the ikar ha-sheni would clearly in Rabbeinu Yonah, which is me'akev, I mean there is such a thing as teshuvah which isn't מגעת עד כסא הכבוד, but that's not the, the minimal bedi'eved standard of teshuvah. That's the, that's the highest form of teshuvah. So he resolves that he's not going to drink anymore. So he resolves he's certainly not going to Rachmana litzlan go to a bar. And what's more, he'll make it his business when he's walking that the route that he takes shouldn't even go in front of a bar. And if he's invited to any gatherings where there are going to be alcoholic drinks, he's not going to go to these gatherings. And

יגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף לשוב לדרך הזה עוד.

One can easily imagine that if such a person without realizing it, he goes to a business luncheon and he was told that there was going to be, he had no reason to think, maybe he was even told there wouldn't be any drinks there. And then he gets there and there are takeh drinks and he can't, he can't leave. He's going to lose his job if he leaves, his boss wants him to be there, and he's there for two hours. One can easily imagine that the

יגמור בכל לבבו כי לא יוסיף לשוב לדרך הזה עוד,

that's what Rabbeinu Yonah is saying, may not be enough to save him from any and every provocation. So what Rav Hutner says is that for Rabbeinu Yonah, the standard is only what he describes in ikar ha-sheni and that Rabbeinu Yonah sets the standard lower than the Rambam. The Rambam says the standard is no, the teshuvah means that a person has to be able to look at me, you see my resolve, my resolve right now is such that no matter what the provocation, no matter you can pick me up and you can put me down in any set of circumstances and I will not repeat the cheit. Rabbeinu Yonah does not set that standard. This is a question here and we're going to comment on it now, maybe just throw it out and leave it up for you to feel, why the Rambam at the end of Halacha Bais repeats וצריך להתוודות בשפתיו ולומר עניינים אלו שגמר בלבו. What does that add to what he said in Halacha Aleph that כשיעשה תשובה וישוב מחטאו חייב להתוודות לפני האל? The same question comes up again in the second half of Halacha Gimmel when the Rambam says צריך לפרוט את החטא. So he already said v'asiti kach v'kach. Okay. So what's the pshat? What's the difference between saying nichamti and hisnachamti? By the Rambam in פרק א הלכה א, as well as the pasuk that he's quoting in Bais Bais, is nichamti. The way the Rambam writes it in the Halacha is yisnachaim. What's the difference? It's especially very, I don't know, I can't prove that this is true, it's a speculation. That the Hispa'el, because it's again generally reflexive, also sometimes can perhaps express a certain intensity, that it reflects a certain intensity. In which case the pshat would be when the Rambam describes what a person should be aiming to feel, he says it b'lashon Hispa'el, that the remorse should be deep and profound and intense. When a person is taking credit for what he's done, so then doveiv sisfas yisheinim, a person should, halavai that we can say nichamti and that that should be true. First half of Halacha Gimmel,

כל המתודה בדברים ולא גמר בלבו לעזוב הרי זה דומה לטובל ושרץ בידו שאין הטבילה מועלה לו עד שישליך השרץ וכן הוא אומר ומודה ועוזב ירוחם.

So one only needs a pasuk? The fact that a person says ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu and he doesn't think about what he's saying, he hasn't thought about any chata'im, whatever, he's turning pages in the Selichos, in the Machzor. You don't need to quote a pasuk umodeh v'ozev yerucham, you wouldn't need a Gemara in Taanis, you wouldn't need a Gemara to tell you that, you wouldn't need to quote a pasuk for that. What you need the Gemara for, again Rashi there understands the Gemara the Rambam is quoting differently, but what you need the Gemara for the way the Rambam understands it, the way the Rambam interprets it, is that there certainly can be a metzius that a A person feels badly about what he's done, but he's not fully resolved to change. A person can be I think when you read descriptions of people who engage in abusive behavior, so the cycle, the pattern is, let's say if it's Rachmana litzlan, domestic abuse, a husband to a wife or something or a friend. So the husband is abusive, physically, whatever, Rachmana litzlan, and then he apologizes, and Takka, Takka sincerely, those are the descriptions you read, but then the cycle keeps on repeating itself, cycle keeps on repeating itself. Doesn't mean that the apology was insincere in the sense that when he said, I'm sorry, and I shouldn't have done it, that that was, that he was just being disingenuous about that, it doesn't necessarily mean that. But what the what the constant repetition of the cycle does mean is that there was a וידוי דברים ובלא גמר בלב לעזוב. And that's what the Gemara is telling us, that maybe you would, maybe we would have thought that that's also worth something, that's also worth something. And that's what the Rambam is telling us, no, that the Gemara is pointing out, that the Gemara is pointing out that וכל זה אינו שווה לי, if a person isn't going to act on it. So wonderful, so I feel badly about having done A, B, and C, but if my feeling badly about having done A, B, and C doesn't translate into a kabbalah l'haba that that will keep me from repeating those those chatoim, so it's it's it doesn't it doesn't reach a critical point. I mean if you if you need to freeze something, you don't, okay, so it's very nice that you knocked the temperature down to 40 degrees, down to 36 degrees, but it doesn't translate, it has to it has to add up. Okay let's just take a look at at one more halacha. B'perek Beis d'Teshuvah וכל עושה תשובה צריך להתחנן לפני השם בבכי ותחנונים. Actually before we do that, in in Halacha Aleph, the lashon of eizehu teshuvah gemurah can be misunderstood in the sense that one could think, oh, the Rambam is describing the ideal optimal Teshuvah, but l'maiseh it's not so. That's not what the Rambam is intending to do. How do you know that? Because if you take a look in Perek Zayin in Halacha Gimmel, so the Rambam writes

אל תאמר שאין התשובה אלא מעבירות שיש בהן מעשה כגון זנות וגזל וגניבה וכשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו כך הוא צריך לחפש בדקותו ואלו שיש בידו מהם מן הכעס ומן האיבה ומן הקנאה ומן התחרות ומן ההיתול ומרדיפת הממון והכבוד ומרדיפת המאכלות וכיוצא בהן מן הכל צריך לחזור בתשובה ואלו העוונות קשים מאותן שיש בהן מעשה שבזמן שאדם נשקע באלו קשה הוא לפרוש וכן הוא אומר יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו.

So the ideal, in the what happens in Perek Beis Halacha Aleph, so the ideal is not that despite the fact that he's omed be'ahavaso bo that he's not nichshal. The ideal is that he's חוזר מהדעה הרעה שיש בו and there's no longer omed be'ahavaso bo. So ela mai the pshat is as follows. You'll take a look in Hilchos Teshuva, so the Rav has this extraordinary, extraordinary insight into Hilchos Teshuva. People have been studying Hilchos Teshuva for eight hundred years and I think this is the most yesodostika thing that's ever been said about the Rambam's Hilchos Teshuva. That if you look Hilchos Teshuva is divided into two parts. There's Hilchos Teshuva before the Rambam describes bechira chofshis and then there's Hilchos Teshuva after the Rambam describes bechira chofshis. Bechira chofshis the Rambam devotes prakim hei and vov to and then after the discussion of bechira chofshis comes the Rambam and says you know what? You've got to do teshuva. What was he talking about before? And it's only in Hilchos Teshuva part two that the Rambam talks about doing teshuva not only for concrete maisim but also for doing teshuva for deios raos. So the Rav says that until the Rambam presents just how far-reaching and fundamental one's bechira chofshis is, so at that point teshuva is sort of just trying to tip the balance between competing instincts. We have yeitzer haras, we're drawn to do things that are assur. Baruch Hashem we have a yeitzer hatov also. We know there's a din vecheshbon. On that level teshuva can be that whereas previously I allowed myself to side with the yeitzer hara and to be נגר אחרי יצר הרע, so teshuva in terms of targeting a specific concrete maiseh, so now I'm mechazek the yeitzer hatov, that the yeitzer hatov I align myself, I align myself with the yeitzer hatov. But it's not such a fundamental change in the person. The Rambam doesn't talk at that stage, the Rambam isn't telling us about the teshuva about deios raos. No, the emes is I still have a lot of that deio ra inside of me, and omeid be'ahavaso bo, omeid be'ahavaso bo. Ela mai, mipnei hateshuva, so he aligns himself with the other forces within himself. Then after the Rambam's description of bechira chofshis, so the Rambam says no, now he says let's talk about teshuva again. Let's talk about doing a much more fundamental teshuva. Let's talk about doing teshuva not just on the level of maisim, not just on the active, concrete level. No, let's talk about getting to changing, to transforming, to refining a person's very middos. So the Rambam means איזו היא תשובה גמורה again within the context that I'm talking in perek beis. It doesn't mean based on all of Hilchos Teshuva. Halacha daled:

מדרכי התשובה להיות השב צועק תמיד לפני השם בבכי ובתחנונים ועושה צדקה כפי כחו ומתרחק הרבה מן הדבר שחטא בו ומשנה שמו כלומר אני אחר ואיני אותו האיש שעשה אותן המעשים ומשנה מעשיו כולן לטוב ולדרך ישרה וגולה ממקומו שגלות מכפרת עון מפני שגורמת לו להכנע ולהיות עניו ושפל רוח.

As the Kesef Mishneh and the Lechem Mishneh both point out, this is the Rambam's very interesting way of interpreting and presenting Rabbi Yitzchak's ארבעה דברים מקרעין גזר דינו של אדם. Maybe just for now just one he'arah. So there's Tshuva, which is פרק ב' הלכה ב', and then there's Darkei HaTshuva. De'hainu, that the emes is Tshuva one can sort of capture in a moment, a few minutes, maybe it's an hour of hisbodedus. A person thinks, there's hakaras hachet, there's a resolve of azivas hachet, v'hasirenu memachshavto, and acharei shuvi nichamti. But the Rambam says, the emes is that Tshuva should then trigger a lifestyle. Should trigger a lifestyle. It shouldn't be something which is just compartmentalized, but it should trigger a lifestyle. That's why if you have the Rambam Hilchos Ta'aniyos... if you grab the Rambam Hilchos Ta'aniyos... I don't know if there's time... If you sort of have this Rambam in mind, פרק ב' הלכות תשובה, the Rambam says something extraordinary in Hilchos Ta'aniyos.

יש שם ימים שכל ישראל מתענים בהם מפני הצרות שאירעו בהם.

And then of course, right, there's some days he's going to list in Halacha Beis: Tzom Gedalya, Asara B'Teves, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, Tisha B'Av. Fine. So,

יש שם ימים שכל ישראל מתענים בהם מפני הצרות שאירעו בהם כדי לעורר הלבבות ולפתוח דרכי התשובה ויהיה זה זכרון למעשינו הרעים ומעשה אבותינו שהיה כמעשינו עתה עד שגרם להם ולנו אותן הצרות.

Again:

יש שם ימים שכל ישראל מתענים בהם מפני הצרות שאירעו בהם כדי לעורר הלבבות ולפתוח דרכי התשובה.

So when you read this Rambam Hilchos Ta'aniyos with the Rambam Hilchos Tshuva echoing, so then you realize the Rambam says something unbelievable. That Tzom Gedalya is not just that a yom tzom is a yom tshuva, which avaday it is. It's not just that we sort of don't go about our regular schedules, our routines, for those 12 or 24 hours, and we devote them to tshuva and tefilla. No, we're supposed to walk away from the ta'anios with darkei hatshuva. And again, darkei hatshuva here in the Rambam doesn't mean a moment of tshuva. Doesn't mean that if you do tshuva, okay, so now we should go stand in a corner for five minutes and davven and give one extra contribution to tzedaka. No, the Rambam says tomid. That the ta'anios basically, it's that we're supposed to walk away from the ta'anios with a derech tshuva to continue subsequently in the aftermath of the ta'anis. א גוטן וגמר חתימה טובה.