Teshuva on Middos vs. Maaseh

The Rambam Perek Zayin of Hilchos Teshuva: כל הרשות לכל אדם נתונה לו כמו שביארנו. Given that every person is endowed, empowered with bechira, ישתדל האדם לעשות תשובה ולנעור כפיו מחטאיו, a person should exert himself to do teshuva, to shake himself free from his sins, כדי שימות והוא בעל תשובה, so that when he dies, he'll die as a baal teshuva כדי שיזכה לחיי העולם הבא. Halacha Beis:

לעולם יראה אדם את עצמו כאילו הוא נוטה למות ושמא ימות בשעתו ונמצא עומד בחטאיו.

A person should see himself as though he's headed in the direction of imminent death Rachmana Litzlan. Shema yamut bishato and were that to materialize without his responding, nimtza omeid bachatav, he would be left mired in cheit Rachmana Litzlan. לפיכך ישוב מחטאיו מיד. Therefore a person should do teshuva immediately. ולא יאמר כשאזקן אשוב. A person shouldn't say, I'm young, when I get older I'll do teshuva. שמא ימות קודם שיזקין, lest the person die before he becomes old.

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

When do we, when do we operate with this type of mindset of כאילו הוא נוטה למות ושמא ימות בשעתו? It certainly isn't a mindset that we're supposed to operate with in all contexts. So when al pi din, when al pi halacha should that be one's frame of mind? When not? What's more, both the Rambam's hava amina here as well as his maskana are difficult to understand. The hava amina is that it would have been a legitimate position to say keshe'azken ashuva, later in life I'll do teshuva. And the maskana is no, but rather yashuv miyad mechataiv. Neither aligns with what the Rambam indicates earlier in Hilchos Teshuva. From the Rambam earlier in Hilchos Teshuva, there's a very, very strong mashmaos that the Rambam holds that the deadline for mitzvas teshuva, what's the zman for mitzvas teshuva? A person does an aveira Rachmana Litzlan and he's aware of the aveira. What's the timeframe for mitzvas teshuva? So the mashmaos of the Rambam in Perek Beis is that the deadline is Yom HaKippurim. The zman of the mitzva is from whenever the person has the yedias hacheit, whenever he becomes aware of the cheit and the zman extends to and the deadline is Yom HaKippurim.

לפיכך יום הכפורים הוא קץ מחילה וסליחה לישראל לפיכך חייבים הכל להתוודות ולעשות תשובה ביום הכפורים.

So where does the hava amina come of keshe'azken ashuva? And for that matter, where does the maskana come from that yashuv miyad mechataiv? Neither aligns with what the Rambam indicates earlier. Let's leave those questions for a moment. In Halacha Gimmel, continuing in Perek Zayin, in Halacha Gimmel, ואל תאמר שאין התשובה אלא מעבירות שיש בהן מעשה. Don't think that mitzvas tshuva, chiyuv tshuva is limited to actions, כגון זנות וגזל וגניבה. Rather,

כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו, כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות שיש לו ולשוב מהן.

The same way a person has to do tshuva for actions, a person has to do tshuva for deios ra'os, for character traits, for character flaws. Min haca'as, the Rambam gives us a checklist here, not an extensive, not a comprehensive one.

מן הכעס מן האיבה ומן הקנאה ומן התחרות ומן ההיתול ומרדיפת הממון והכבוד ומרדיפת המאכלות וכיוצא בהן מן הכל צריך לחזור בתשובה.

There's a chiyuv tshuva for midos ra'os also, above and beyond whatever concrete actions may or may not have resulted. What's more, the Rambam says the challenge, the mitzvah to do tshuva here is more formidable. ואלו העונות קשים מאותם שיש בהן מעשה. They're more difficult to contend with. שבזמן שאדם נשקע באלו קשה הוא לפרוש. When a person has become mired in a mida ra'ah, it's not so easy to disengage and disentangle oneself. Let's come back to the question: When, al pi halacha, are we concerned for rachmana litzlan misa in the short term? So it's actually a sugya later in this year's masechta, it's a sugya later in Gittin. So the halacha is as follows: Let's say you have an eishes kohen and her husband went limdinas hayam. So obviously once upon a time that meant that there was no daily contact and no recent contact either. So what's the halacha? The halacha is that she continues to eat truma. ושמא מת לא חיישינן. When she sits down to eat breakfast and the question is, should we be choshesh? Is there a safek that maybe, maybe he died? And therefore let's say they have no children from the kohen. And the question is, is she still entitled to eat truma? The answer is שמא מת לא חיישינן. What happens if he gives his wife a get and says, הרי זה גיטך שעה אחת קודם מיתתי? This get should be chal a minute before my death. So then she becomes asura to eat truma right away because even though שמא מת לא חיישינן, שמא ימות יש חיישינן. But it's clear, lich'ora, that the Gemara doesn't mean that in every context shema yamusa chaishinan. Lo shamanu me'olam that there's a chiyuv to daven Mincha Gedola because maybe a person won't be alive for Mincha Ketana. They say the Chasam Sofer had such a hanhaga. The Chasam Sofer was a very big tzaddik and a takeh, who was taka niftar after davening Mincha Gedola before Mincha Ketana. Okay, but that's hechere madregos, that's the Chasam Sofer's level of tzidkus, but obviously there's no such din. A person takes a neder to bring a korban. So the assei of bringing the korban in a timely manner... timely matter, timely manner is bal te-acher. He has to bring it by the next of the sholosh regalim. There's no din that he has to get up the next day and go to Yerushalayim and bring the olah, bring the shlamim that he was misnadev because shema yamut. So it's clear that the Gemara doesn't mean that in every context al pi halacha shema yamut chayshinan. So the chilluk is this. If we're talking about a delimited period of time, this afternoon, the time from mincha ketana to mincha gedola, from mincha gedola to shkiya, so שמא ימות לא חיישינן. We're talking about the time from now till the next of the sholosh regalim, a delimited period of time, שמא ימות לא חיישינן. But when he says הרי זה גיטך שעה אחת קודם מיתתי, so we're not talking about the next afternoon, the next week, the next month. We have to look at his whole life. At some point until we reach the point of u'vilah hamaves lanetzach, at some point everyone dies. And there al pi din a person has no right to assume even based on actuarial tables when when the domain that we have to consider is is a person's lifetime, so then shema yamut chayshinan. And that's the halacha that if he says הרי זה גיטך שעה אחת קודם מיתתי, so a person can't can't say, we're not allowed to reason in that case where the domain is his whole life, so when is he going to die? We don't know. We don't know. לא ידע האדם את עתו, we don't know. So memeiyla shema yamut chayshinan. The Rambam says there's a chiyuv to do teshuvah not only for a concrete ma'aseh, but for middos ra'os as well. In the Rambam's phraseology, de'os ra'os. It's possible, it's not impossible to perhaps do teshuvah for middos ra'os in a short period of time, maybe a רבי אלעזר בן דורדיא teshuvah, but bederech klal as the Rambam indicates, because אלו עונות קשה לפרוש מהם because adam nishka bahem, bederech klal the teshuvah for middos ra'os is a protracted process. Unlike the teshuvah for a concrete ma'aseh which may have been somewhat flukish or freakish. It doesn't necessarily indicate that there's a deeply rooted mida ra'ah in the person. No, there might have been an element of flukishness, freakishness, a lapse, a short-term inconsistency. So there, the zman for teshuvah, the zman for teshuvah is from the time of yedias hachet until Yom Kippur. And Yom HaKippurim is the deadline. When it comes to middos ra'os, when it comes to tikkun hamiddos, so there it's a lifetime avodah. It's not an avodah of a day or a week, it's a lifetime avodah. I'm young, I have plenty of time. The hava amina is keshe'ezkan ashuv. I have plenty of time. Oh, but al pi din, now this, since we're looking at the person's lifetime, so this is now analogous to הרי זה גיטך שעה אחת קודם מיתתי. So al pi din, a person is mechuyav to see himself as being noteil olamos and shomeir yamim v'shaita. Paradoxically, but not really paradoxically, once we understand it, the fact that the teshuva is a longer process, is a lifetime avoda rather than a day's avoda, a moment's avoda, that's mechayev that the teshuva should begin miyad. Ad kan in terms of the pshat in the Rambam and what the Rambam tells us. There is a certain paradox in Elul. On the one hand, as the daily t'kias shofar is designed to instill eimas hadin, to instill fear, there's an acute awareness that יום הדין ממשמש ובא. And yet on the other hand, we basically go about our routines. Again, especially for Bnei Ashkenaz, we're not carving out time for slichos, we're basically going about our routines. Maybe that's because of yeridas hadoros. Maybe we shouldn't be going about our routines. But it's not yeridas hadoros. When you look in shaar sheini of shaarei teshuva, so Rabbeinu Yonah makes a point of saying that during aseres yemei teshuva, a person who's sensitive will be mema'eit to the extent that it's possible from doing melacha and just devote himself to teshuva. But there's no intimation of that in Rabbeinu Yonah for Chodesh Elul. No intimation that that's what the expectation is that a person should be doing in Chodesh Elul. So on the one hand, davening concludes every morning with t'kias shofar, instilling eimas hadin. And then we go about our daily schedule. And that's what we're supposed to be doing. That's not our hisrashlus. It's supposed to be that way. The Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer that we discussed a little bit last week, that the rishonim quote, says that when Moshe Rabbeinu went up for the last of the three 40 day periods, so they blew שופר שלא יטעו עבודה זרה. ומכאן התקינו חז"ל לדורות that we should blow shofar throughout Elul that we should do teshuva. The shofar then was שלא יטעו עבודה זרה. And bemagbil lachach, and parallel to that, so our t'kias shofar is that we should do teshuva. Elul, what distinguishes Elul from aseres yemei teshuva? Aseres yemei teshuva is a time to do teshuva. What does it mean to do teshuva? To be able to genuinely experience nichamti uvoshiti, to feel remorse and embarrassment, humiliation at cheit, to genuinely have a resolve of איני חוזר לדבר זה, and to articulate that before Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Kazeh ve-kazeh asiti, kach ve-kach asiti, nichamti u-voshiti be-ma'asai, לעולם איני חוזר לדבר הזה. That's doing teshuva. Elul is a tekufah of living teshuva. When a person does teshuva, he's not necessarily living the teshuva yet. A person can do teshuva in a moment. But living the teshuva means, if in the prior 40 days that Moshe Rabbeinu went up on Har Sinai, it culminated in avodah zarah, so when a person now, when Klal Yisrael now goes through an identical period of time without avodah zarah, so they're not only doing teshuva, but they're living teshuva. Their avodah in Chodesh Elul is the source of our avodah ledorot. Elul as a time is an opportunity because it's a longer period of time than Aseres Yimei Teshuva. It's a time not only to do teshuva, it's a time to live teshuva. There's an idea which one finds in the sefarim. Rashi tells us that mem yom is the shiur liyetzirat havalad. If Rachmana litzlan a woman miscarries kodem mem yom, so she's not temei'at leida. It doesn't trigger tumas leida. Mem yom is a shiur liyetzirat havalad. Right, Rashi says in Parshas Noach that the ארבעים יום וארבעים לילה of the mabul was

כנגד המם יום שהיו כביכול מטריח הקדוש ברוך הוא ביצירת ממזרים.

Mem yom is a shiur of yetzirah. So in sefarim you find the idea that for a person to make a significant advance in a tikkun ha-middah or kinyan ha-middah, I don't know that it means entirely necessarily, but to make a significant advance in a tikkun ha-middah or kinyan ha-middah, the shiur is mem yom. That the person applies himself intensively mem yom to working on that middah. A person is looking to work on the middah of zerizus for instance. So for 40 days he has that foremost on his mind, and he does everything, again, initially the zerizus is artificial in the sense that he's not doing it naturally. He's not doing it reflexively. He's pushing himself to do it. But if the person perseveres for mem yom, there's a significant advance, a significant degree to which he's koneh something, he consolidates something. Yitachen that a perspective on Elul is that Elul is sort of a me'ein of what the Rambam is describing in Perek Zayin. It's a microcosm of it. And that's why there's no inyan in Elul to withdraw, lifrosh, lehistager. That's not the avodah of Elul. That's conducive to when the avodah is just doing teshuva. But when the avodah is the living the teshuva, so aderaba, the context But one's daily life looking to live teshuvah during this tekufah. Elul connecting with aseret yemei teshuvah affording the sheim mem yom is a me'ein. It obviously doesn't contradict what the Rambam says in terms of not having the deadline of Yom Kippur, but it's a me'ein, it's a microcosm. It affords us the possibility to be doing teshuvah for what generally requires a process of teshuvah rather than a moment of teshuvah. For a teshuvah that needs to really happen, it needs to be lived and implemented. As the situations arise to improve and implement that middah or middos that the person is working on. That's part of the opportunity and the berakhah of chodesh Elul.