Elul 5785 – Hilchos Teshuva 4: Recognizing All of Our Aveiros (1:1)

כיצד מצות וידוי אומר אנא השם חטאתי עוויתי פשעתי לפניך ועשיתי כך וכך והרי ניחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה זהו עיקרו של וידוי.

So the Rambam tells us the ikaro shel viduy when a person is being misvadeh on a particular cheit, right?

איני חוזר לדבר זה. אם עבר אדם על אחת מהן.

So the scenario that the Rambam is depicting is a person is doing teshuva for a particular cheit. And nevertheless the Rambam says the leshonos חטאתי עוויתי פשעתי לפניך. So if the medubar is a particular cheit, so either he did it beshogeg or he did it bemeizid or he did it rebelliously; it's either chata'asi avisi pasha'si. Why does the Rambam have all three? So the Rav zichrono livracha said pshat because even though there is sort of a primary characteristic in what a person does and we do classify chata'im as shogeg or meizid or rebellious, but the truth is, in meizid there's also an element of shogeg, in shogeg there's an element of meizid vechulu. A person is meizid, but on the other hand, obviously,

אין אדם חוטא אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות.

If he had his priorities right, if he... so there's an element of shogeg to it. A person is shogeg; if it was important enough to him, so then the accident wouldn't have happened. So hagam that we do lehalacha, there is shogeg—you bring a korban beshogeg—and there is a primary defining characteristic, but on another level, the different modalities overlap. And that's what's reflected in the chata'asi avisi pasha'si. Perhaps an additional pshat would be as follows: The Chovos HaLevavos has an extraordinary view that the other Rishonim don't have, that when a person does teshuva, he can't single out a particular aveira. He has to be doing teshuva for everything for which he has to do teshuva. It can't be that I do teshuva for cheit X and leave chata'im Y and Z unaddressed and unattended to because it's a tartei desasrei. If I'm misnacheim on having been over al devar Hashem on ratzon Hashem, so how is it that I'm doing teshuva for cheit X and not for Y and Z? The other Rishonim clearly don't subscribe to that. The Rambam clearly doesn't subscribe to that. The Rambam says no, that teshuva can single out and a person can compartmentalize a particular cheit in terms of doing teshuva. But maybe the disagreement with the Chovos HaLevavos is not so absolute. But ein hachi nami, the Torah allows us to do teshuva for a particular cheit, to be misvadeh on a particular cheit, but there at least needs to be an acknowledgment. There can't be an implicit, as it were, denial or failure of recognition that Ribono Shel Olam, there are other accounts that I need to settle. And the pshat in the chata'asi avisi pasha'si is Ribono Shel Olam, hagam that maybe I haven't worked on myself sufficiently that I can honestly say nichamti uvoshti about the other chata'im. Maybe I'm not yet in a position to be doing teshuva; rightly or wrongly, I'm not yet in a position to be doing teshuva. But when a person does teshuva for a particular cheit, there needs to be this acknowledgment of Ribono Shel Olam. I recognize that this is part of a broader picture and therefore hagam that it's איני חוזר לדבר זה, that the person is really singling out and targeting a particular aveira, but there is this recognition of yes, chata'asi avisi pasha'si. And then according to that, the localization would be nichamti uvoshti bema'asai even in the plural, even if the teshuva right now presently is only targeting a particular aveira. The Rambam does have a slightly more detailed nusach, not specifically for the yachid but for the vidui in general, which he records in Hilchos Teshuva where he says:

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

So that's the nusach that he records in Hilchos Teshuva פרק א' הלכה א'. Now we turn to the second perek of Hilchos Teshuva, and there in Halacha Beis, the Rambam writes what is called vidui gamur, what is the absolute vidui, the complete vidui, and he says: ve-hu she-yomar, and this is what he should say, chatasi avisi pashati, and he says specifically וצריך לפרוט את החטא, and he should specify his aveira. Now what's interesting is, what's the difference between the vidui in Perek Aleph and the vidui in Perek Beis? In Perek Aleph the Rambam uses the plural nichamti u-voshti be-maasai whereas in Perek Beis when he's describing the vidui gamur, the vidui in its absolute sense, there the Rambam says he says chatasi avisi pashati and then he says וצריך לפרוט את החטא, he specifies the aveira.