Rosh Hashana: Different Tracks to Teshuva

Rosh Hashanah is a paradoxical day. One of the central paradoxes associated with Rosh Hashanah, the Rambam tells us in the beginning of Hilchos Teshuvah that Viduy is me'akev kapparah, that even if a person is chozer beteshuvah, but if he's not misvadeh, so then he doesn't receive kapparah. Very famously, the Minchas Chinuch, and then the Rav has in Ish HaHalacha, he elaborates on this. Minchas Chinuch talks about the sugya in Kiddushin, הרי את מקודשת לי על מנת שאני צדיק וכולי, harei zu mekudeshes, sofek mekudeshes at any rate. Ay, but there was no Viduy? שם רשע וצדיק לחוד כפרה לחוד. That the Viduy isn't necessarily me'akev in terms of the shem rasha, in terms of dispelling the shem rasha, but for kapparah it is, for kapparah it is. If there's ever a time when a person needs and longs for kapparah, it's on a yom hadin. If there's ever a time when a person wants to be eligible for kapparas avonos, it's on a yom hadin so that it will affect the scales of judgment. And yet, there's no Viduy on Rosh Hashanah. Keyaduah, many machzorim have a note to this effect. The Arizal even says that one should skip the first Avinu Malkeinu, that the אבינו מלכנו חטאנו לפניך, the Arizal says one is not supposed to say on Rosh Hashanah. So on the one hand, it's something that we can understand why it is. משל למה הדבר דומה: imagine a coronation of a melech basar vadam. So what's the atmosphere, what's the mindset that's created? That all his subjects are professing and affirming their ever-abiding loyalty and their hachna'ah to him. That that's what the mood is supposed to be of a coronation. So imagine in that context that someone comes with total sincerity, someone comes over to the king and says, "Your Majesty, you don't really know me, five years ago when you were only a prince, you visited our village, remember there was someone who rather irreverently threw a bucket of dirty water over you? Well, that was me, I have to confess and I feel terrible, and nichamti uboshti bema'asai, asisi kach vekach, לא עוד אני חוזר לדבר הזה." And he says it with a hundred percent sincerity. So we understand that it's totally, totally inappropriate because at a time of coronation you can't even have an allusion to anything other than complete obedience and complete hachna'ah to the king. So Rosh Hashanah is a time of hachtarah, so how can you have Viduy? You can't have Viduy, you taka can't have Viduy on Rosh Hashanah. It's a stirah to the malchuyos of the day. It's antithetical to the hachtarah of Rosh Hashanah to say that Ribbono shel olam, yeah you told me not to do this but asisi kach vekach, but I did it anyway. Okay, so then we understand why, we understand. So we're going to discuss I laid I saw I think a very similar mahalach I think it was in the Nesivos Shalom. I'm not sure if it's exactly the way we're going to say it but I think the general thrust is is there as well. There is a Gemara in Shabbos in Perek Kol Kisvei. The Gemara says that

כל המשמר שבת כהלכתו אפילו עבד עבודה זרה כדור אנוש מוחלין לו, שנאמר שומר שבת מחללו אל תקרי מחללו אלא מחול לו.

What does meshamer Shabbos kehalachaso mean? Is there any other way to keep Shabbos other than kehalachaso? I'll write my own Shulchan Aruch and I'll keep Shabbos according to my Shulchan Aruch? According to my Shulchan Aruch so many of the halachos are mutter. So mistama what it means is that a person can be shomer Shabbos but not the spirit of the day. A person can be shomer Shabbos all the... he'll be nizaher from melacha and he'll be careful not to be metaltel muktzah and all that other shevusin on Shabbos, but it's not... there's no ruchniyus to the day. Shabbos Shabbos kehalachaso. Okay. Al kol panim,

כל המשמר שבת כהלכתו אפילו עבד עבודה זרה כדור אנוש מוחלין לו.

So the emes is that there too, there too, there's no mention of vidui. So what does it mean mochalin lo? Okay, so אין מקשין מדברי אגדה but אף על פי כן. So yitachen the pshat is as follows. Yitachen that what you see from the Gemara in Shabbos is that there is at times a parallel track. And the track that we identify and that we build based on the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva is one track for mechila, selicha, and kaparah. But you see from the Gemara in Shabbos, apparently at times there is a parallel track. So let's understand. The Gemara in Bava Kama tells us in Shabbos that the chachamim, Chazal used to go to greet Shabbos Hamalka, Shabbos Hamalkesa. Shabbos is associated with malchiyus, right? ישמחו במלכותך שומרי שבת. Shabbos is a day of malchiyus. I think Rav Pinkus talks in his sefer Shabbos Malkesa how the Torah again and again reiterates that Shabbos is on the seventh day. So clearly the Torah is not just giving us, imparting a piece of information about the calendar, but there seems to be more to it than that. So the pasuk which lists the various midos that we observe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's hanhaga of the world,

לך ה' הגדולה והגבורה והתפארת והנצח וההוד כי כל בשמים ובארץ לך ה' הממלכה.

That malchus is the seventh. Hadvarim... So then lechora the yesod that emerges from the gemara in Shabbos is that that parallel track of mochol lo is that if in the zman of malchiyos a person kehalchasa observes that zman, really, really, again, really observes that zman, so that's a parallel track of devarim bego. Every cheit is a stira to malchus shamayim. Voss heisht that a person, what do you mean a person does an aveira? The Ribbono Shel Olam, the melech malchei hamlachim says don't do that. Ribbono Shel Olam says do it. What does it mean that a person doesn't do it? Every cheit encroaches upon malchus shamayim. The same way kol yimos hashashana teshuva is a tikun for the cheit, in the zman of malchiyos, every day is a zman of קבלת עול מלכות שמים but when there's a special day of malchiyos, living that malchiyos, living that day the way it's supposed to be lived is a tikun on cheit also. Hashta de'asina lehacha so lechora that's the explanation for the paradox in Rosh Hashanah. Ein hachi nami. We're not allowed to say vidui on Rosh Hashanah because of the contradiction that it poses to malchiyos. You can't mention cheit in the context in a zman of malchiyos but that doesn't mean that ninalu shaarei kapara. What it means is that this other track, the track of kapara, of mochol lo through through living the malchiyos in the zman of malchiyos of אמרו לפני מלכויות כדי שתמליכוני עליכם that that's the the route to kapara on on Rosh Hashanah. The parallels, important differences obviously notwithstanding, but the parallels between Shabbos and and Rosh Hashanah so lechora you see further. What when the mishna says that we say ten pesukim of of malchiyos, zichronos and shofros. So the gemara says what the ten is keneged what. Where did where did Chazal get that it should be ten pesukim of of malchiyos? So the gemara has three three suggestions. Either it's keneged עשרה מאמרות שבהם נברא עולם or it's keneged the aseres hadibros or it's keneged the eser hillulus in the last kapitel of our pesukei d'zimra. So what's the pshat? Why are each of these relevant to how many pesukim of malchiyos that that we should say? So it's also very, very well known that each of the tfillos of Shabbos correspond to a different moment of malchiyos in the history of the world. The tfillah of Leil Shabbos is the malchus of maaseh bereishis. לעת נעשה בחפצו כל אזי מלך שמו נקרא so Friday night is keneged the malchiyos of maaseh bereishis, malchiyos Hakadosh Baruch Hu creating the world. Shabbos morning is k'neged the malkhiyos of Har Sinai. Of Hakadosh Baruch Hu as Melech being metzaveh. And Shabbos d'Mincha, אתה אחד ושמך אחד is ביום ההוא יהיה ה׳ אחד ושמו אחד, the zman of malkhiyos l'asid lavo. So the three, the three remazim that, that the Gemara suggests for the ten psukim: one is k'neged asara ma'amaros, because that's malkhiyos. One's k'neged aseres hadibros, also malkhiyos. And kimdumeh, according to some, the kapittel of the Halleluka, Halleluka el b'kodsho is also referring to l'asid lavo. And those are the three allusions that the Gemara has for, for the asara psukim. Maybe briefly just to identify and and give one but but incomplete perspective on another paradigm of Rosh Hashanah and יוסף ממה שקראתי לפניכם כתוב. Rosh Hashanah we know is a day of malkhiyos, a day of din. What's more, I once heard this he'arah, once you hear it, it hits, l'chora davar pashut, but nikarim divrei emes, that, that once you hear it, it's pashut. It doesn't, it's not to denigrate the he'arah, but on the contrary. I heard from the mashgiach in the Yeshiva of Staten Island once, he was talking before Rosh Hashanah. He says it's not the pshat that Rosh Hashanah has malkhiyos and Rosh Hashanah has din. Din is an aspect of malkhiyos. That's part of the prerogative and an expression of malkhiyos is that the Melech is dan. Not two separate dimensions. Not, the din is an aspect of malkhiyos. Okay. There is, there is a well-known comment from the Vilna Gaon, the yesod hadvarim, again, as is pointed out, goes certainly as far back as the Ibn Ezra. When the Shivtei Koh tell Yosef HaTzaddik after his dream: המלוך תמלוך עלינו אם משול תמשול בנו? So what does it mean? What are the l'shonos of maloch timloch and mashol timshol? So the Gaon says, but you take a look the Ibn Ezra already has the, the yesod, that they're telling him as follows: that melucha is when the subjects accept willingly, happily, enthusiastically. Memshala is when it's imposed. So the Shvatim are telling Yosef: You're dreaming of ruling over us. You should know: המלוך תמלוך עלינו אם משול תמשול בנו? Even if the day will ever come that you'll be able to impose yourself upon us, there will never ever be maloch timloch aleinu. It will never ever be me'retzonenu hatov. Hamaloch timloch aleinu even if, even if yavo yom, אם משול תמשול בנו, hamaloch timloch aleinu, it never ever will come to pass. That's what the Shvatim are telling Yosef HaTzaddik. So transpose that to Rosh Hashanah. So the malkhiyos of Rosh Hashanah means not some kind of begrudging, d'les breira acknowledgment of a reality that a person embraces ol malchus shamayim. That's what it means malkhiyos on Rosh Hashanah. Again, not just an acknowledgment of, of a reality, like it or not, that's not malkhiyos. It's also something, it's also something, but malkhiyos it's not. Malkhiyos means again, me'retzonenu hatov, a person embraces. Oh, so now there's tucky a paradox here. Din a person is supposed to embrace? The din, which is part of the malkhiyos... He was supposed to be, he was supposed to be excited about the, about מי יחיה מי ימות. It's also a defining paradox. I heard a tape, I don't think he was talking about this question, I don't think it was framed this way. I heard a tape once from Rav Shlesinger where he cited a remarkable passage in the Sefer HaChinuch. Absolutely remarkable passage in the Sefer HaChinuch. Sefer HaChinuch says the incredible chessed and tovah that having a Yom HaDin every year in Rosh Hashanah represents and the sense of gratitude that a person should have to the Ribbono Shel Olam for. Again, to be put on trial for one's life as a, that's a chessed, that's a tovah. So the Sefer HaChinuch says, says if there wouldn't be a Rosh Hashanah, he says, then a person would first be nidun beshaas misaso. He says by having regular, imagine as follows, imagine you have someone, the boss doesn't, there's no quarterly review, there's not even an annual review. After 10 years on the job, after 20 years on the job, after 40 years on the job, so then the boss all of a sudden reviews everything. So if there's a quarterly review, so then every quarter a person makes sure to, person takes an inventory of himself, makes a cheshbon hanefesh and he gets himself in mind. But no, there isn't, the boss doesn't call me in, doesn't call me in quarterly, doesn't call me in annually, so all of a sudden after 40, 50 yemei shenoseinu bahem, after 70, after 80 years, now so how in the world is a person going to be able to deal with everything that accumulated, all his missteps, mistakes, everything that accumulated? He says, but the boss calls you in at regular intervals and you know that, you know that, so that's a chessed that before aveiros accumulate, before the pile of aveiros rachmana litzlan is this high from so many years of כי כל העם בשגגה, before the pile grows that high, so the Ribbono Shel Olam calls us in when the pile is like this, the pile is so small. He says that's a din a person can contend with. That's a din that a person's, a person's chances of emerging from that din favorably are multiplied manifold when a person has such a din. The Sefer HaChinuch, again, it's something to think about in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah, but the Sefer HaChinuch, in terms of other perspectives as well, but the Sefer HaChinuch certainly provides one perspective on this paradox of embracing din. And how can it be that if din is an aspect of Malchuyos, Malchuyos is something that a person is supposed to willingly and enthusiastically embrace, the Sefer HaChinuch is one answer. There are other important answers as well. Something to think about. A gut yohr. Kesivah vachasimah tovah.