Elul 5784 – Hilchos Teshuva 3: All Talk and No Soul

So to just round out our discussion of the Rambam's depiction of the mindset or concept of faith apropos of the opening phrase of Hilchos Teshuva yeish lo cheit, so it is reflected and reverberates again in the Rambam at the end of Hilchos Tum'as Tzara'as. The Rambam writes: זו היא דרך ישיבת הליצים הרשעים. That this is the path, this is how things evolve when evil scornful cynical people gather. B'techila, initially marbim b'divrei havai, k'inyan shene'emar וכל כסיל ברב דברים. So וכל כסיל ברב דברים means that the fool talks and there's a lot of verbiage and there's no substance, there's no content, there's nothing of value, of meaning, it's just empty, it's vacuous. U'mitoch kach, says the Rambam, באים לספר בגנות הצדיקים. And that gives way to disparaging tzadikim, k'inyan shene'emar תאלמנה שפתי שקר הדוברות על צדיק עתק. U'mitoch kach and then the next stage in this deterioration: יהיה להם הרגל לדבר בנביאים ולתת דופי בדבריהם. They'll become accustomed to cast aspersions on the words of the nevi'im. And ultimately, says the Rambam, ומתוך כך באים לדבר באלוהים וכופרים בעיקר. So here too the progression the Rambam's describing doesn't begin with chet. It culminates rachmana litzlan with kfira, but it just begins with an emptiness, with a vacuity which both reflects and instills a sense of cynicism. And once the person becomes cynical about life because life is so empty, so m'meila he's cynical about tzadikim, he's cynical about nevi'im, and ultimately cynicism is the antithesis of emunah, it's that same progression that the Rambam describes in Hilchos Teshuva.