On the Nature of the Laws of Repentance in Maimonides – Lesson 1 – Rabbi Michael Abraham

[Speaker A] Hello everyone,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And for anyone new here at the institute, all the more so. In general, during this month I understand that you’re still supposed to be arranging your schedules, both at the institute and at the university, so feel free to reach out if there’s anything we can help with, if you want advice, I don’t know, whatever it may be. You can reach out to anyone, but of course you’re also welcome to reach out to me — certainly about the lecture itself, but also more generally, as the year begins. If there’s something here in the procedure that you don’t understand, I probably won’t understand it either, but at least I can try to find out and help direct you to the right person. As for technology, that’s really not my territory at all. Anyway, in general, feel free to reach out about anything you want.

As part of the Elul program, we’re planning to do a series that meets twice a week, not once — though that “twice a week” comes with rather limited guarantees. What that means in practice is that we basically have two Sundays and three Tuesdays. So even at twice a week, we end up with five meetings. There’s also the Tuesday lecture, another one that meets once a week, and that will happen three times. Elul is never really a period in which you can cover something in great detail, so I thought we’d spend some time on the Laws of Repentance, on the essence of the Laws of Repentance. It touches on all sorts of aspects of how Jewish law is understood in general, and also what lies beyond it, and there’s some value to the continuity of a series of lectures. Meaning, it’s not just a random collection of topics, so it’s worth doing it in a more continuous way.

All right, so I want to begin, before we approach understanding the Laws of Repentance and their meaning — and when I speak about the Laws of Repentance, I mean Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance. Because one could speak about the laws of repentance and their meaning in general, but Maimonides, within his Laws of Repentance, included many more things that do not seem directly related to the laws of repentance. And I want to understand the meaning of Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance — which of course will also require us to go into the general meaning of the laws of repentance, and then why Maimonides inserted those additional things, why he thinks there is a connection among them. Okay? But for this purpose, I’ll begin with a difficulty in Maimonides’ words. Maimonides writes — one moment. Back to technology.

[Speaker A] I’m sharing on Zoom and also here on the screen.

[Speaker C] Yes,

[Speaker A] On Zoom it’s for the recording. Does anyone see anything? One second, trying to recover. It’s not recovering. Maybe try F5 or something that switches the

[Speaker C] display to books. It could be that it isn’t sharing the screen.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I switched to dual screen and it still isn’t broadcasting. Fine, so I’ll read it to you. From memory. One more point: the recordings of these lectures will be uploaded to the WhatsApp group, which isn’t specifically connected to the institute, but if someone wants it — if you missed something, want to review something after class or something like that — you can find it there. There’s a WhatsApp group for my lectures, you can access it through my website or however you like. Actually it goes up on the site itself too. Ah, now I think it’s broadcasting. Good. So Maimonides writes as follows, positive commandment 73: commandment 73 is that we were commanded to confess the sins and iniquities that we committed before God, exalted be He, and to say them together with repentance. And this is the confession. And his intention is that one should say: “אנא השם חטאתי עוויתי פשעתי ועשיתי כך וכך” (“Please, O Lord, I have sinned, I have done wrong, I have transgressed, and I have done such-and-such”), and elaborate in speech and ask forgiveness in this matter according to the eloquence of his language. Then he adds also regarding sacrifices and things like that: “ובני ישראל יתוודו חטאתם אשר חטאו” (“And the children of Israel shall confess their sin that they committed”), and he brings the sources from the Torah and so on.

In terms of the definition, notice that here for example he writes: it has already been made clear to you that for all kinds of sins, great and small, even failures regarding positive commandments, one is obligated to confess them. And because this command, which is “והתוודו” (“and they shall confess”), came together with the obligation of a sacrifice, one might have thought that confession alone is not an independent commandment, but only something secondary to the sacrifice. Therefore they had to clarify this in the Mekhilta in these words: one might think that only when they bring offerings do they confess; from where do we know that even when they do not bring offerings? Scripture says: “דבר אל בני ישראל והתוודו” (“Speak to the children of Israel, and they shall confess”). And still, this only implies confession in the Land; from where do we know even in exile? Scripture says: “והתוודו את עוונם ואת עוון אבותם” (“And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers”), and likewise Daniel says: “לך השם הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים” (“To You, Lord, belongs righteousness, and to us shamefacedness”), and so on. So it has been made clear to you, as we said, that confession is an independent commandment, and it is an obligation upon the sinner, for whatever sin he has committed, whether in the Land or outside the Land, whether he brought a sacrifice or did not bring a sacrifice — he is obligated to confess, as He, may He be exalted, said: “והתוודו את חטאתם אשר עשו” (“And they shall confess their sin that they did”). And the wording of the Sifrei is: “והתוודו” — this means verbal confession, and so on.

So what is his definition, essentially? First of all, he says that confession is an independent commandment. But in the basic definition, look at the first line: he says, we were commanded to confess the sins and iniquities that we committed before God, exalted be He, and to say them together with repentance. That is the basic definition of the commandment. What do you infer from that? Is repentance itself a commandment? Is repentance something separate from confession? A separate commandment — so there would be two commandments, repentance and confession. But Maimonides has no other commandment here. On the face of it, it seems not, right? If you repent, the commandment is to confess together with the repentance. But if not, then not. Like, okay, if you wear a four-cornered garment, then put tzitzit on it. If you don’t wear a four-cornered garment, then no. Right? That’s what it seems like. On the face of it, this seems to be a conditional positive commandment. A conditional positive commandment — yes, many people confuse this with a non-obligatory fulfillment. You know the distinction between an obligatory commandment and a non-obligatory fulfillment? An obligatory commandment is something you must do; a non-obligatory fulfillment means that if you do it, you have fulfilled a commandment, but if not, nothing happened. Okay?

Now, with the commandment of tzitzit, for example, even in later authorities you can find people expressing themselves as though it were a non-obligatory fulfillment. But that’s a mistake. It’s not a non-obligatory fulfillment; it’s a full obligation. It’s just a conditional obligation. What does that mean? If you wear a four-cornered garment, you must attach tzitzit to it. If you don’t wear such a garment, then no. But once you are wearing a four-cornered garment, you are obligated to put tzitzit on it. It’s not that if you put tzitzit on it you get a commandment, and if not then nothing happened. Rather, the obligation depends on certain circumstances coming into being — namely, that you are wearing a four-cornered garment. It is not an unconditional obligation, but a conditional obligation. Yet once the condition is met, once the circumstances arise, the commandment is absolute. It’s not a non-obligatory fulfillment; it’s an obligation. Okay?

In any event, it seems that here too we are dealing with a conditional positive commandment. Meaning: if you repent, then the proper way to do that is with confession. If you did not confess — if you did not repent, sorry — then you are not obligated to confess. Okay? But what is the problem with that definition? As the Minchat Chinukh says — maybe we’ll look at him in a moment — he basically says this: what happens if I repented but did not confess? That’s how Lithuanians handle the subject of repentance, right? We don’t sing about repentance; we clarify the legal category. So what happens if someone repented but did not confess along with it? Then the repentance is incomplete, and therefore what? Meaning — then he was not atoned for? And he has also neglected a positive commandment?

[Speaker E] I don’t think there’s neglect of a positive commandment. Huh? I don’t think it blocks the repentance.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah! Right. Meaning, whether it blocks repentance or not is not written here. Maybe yes, maybe no. But one thing does seem quite clear: it’s neglect of a positive commandment. Right? Meaning, if this is like wearing a four-cornered garment and not attaching tzitzit to it, then here too: you repented but did not confess, so the circumstances that obligate you came into being, and still you failed to do what you were obligated to do — so you have neglected a positive commandment. But that creates something very strange, says the Minchat Chinukh. Let’s compare two people. One repented but did not confess, and the other did not repent at all. Whose condition is better? The one who didn’t repent at all, right? His sin was not atoned for, but he also does not have neglect of a positive commandment. By contrast, the one who repented but did not confess has, in addition to the original sin, the neglect of a positive commandment as well. Now, as for the original sin, perhaps repentance helped already — maybe it was atoned for after all — but as long as I don’t know that, it could be that his condition is actually worse than that of someone who did not repent at all. And that is highly implausible. Right? The Minchat Chinukh is basically saying: what do you mean, someone who did not repent at all is better off than someone who repented imperfectly? Very implausible.

Okay. That really gives us two possibilities. Maybe indeed it means that confession does not prevent atonement. If repentance itself were a commandment, that might be a problem, but Maimonides doesn’t seem to see repentance as a commandment. Yet perhaps confession does not block atonement. So if you repented without confession, your state is not worse than that of someone who did not repent at all, because after all, your sin has been atoned for. Someone who did not repent had no atonement for the sin. As for neglecting the positive commandment, the Minchat Chinukh says it is implausible that we would say there is such neglect here. No — it cannot be that your condition is worse than that of someone who did not repent at all, even just with respect to confession. Leave aside, for the moment, the atonement for the original sin. Just compare the state of someone who repented without confession to that of someone who did not repent at all. It is implausible that the person who repented without confession is worse off. So how should we define this?

[Speaker C] Also, if repentance itself is a commandment, then a person would basically need to sin in order to fulfill the commandment of repentance…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, just like a four-cornered garment — you are not obligated. Only if you sinned do you have the commandment. If you didn’t sin, your state is fine, everything is good. So that’s one direction.

[Speaker F] But then how can one say there is no neglect of a positive commandment in someone who did not confess?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t simply say that — on the contrary, the simple reading is that there is neglect of a positive commandment. He only says it’s implausible. It is implausible that someone who repented without confession is worse than someone who did not repent at all. Therefore, something in the definition here doesn’t make sense. He adds further that Maimonides, at the beginning of the Laws of Repentance, formulates it a bit differently.

[Speaker A] Did the fellow abandon us? Did the input abandon us and the fellow is disrespecting me?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He got a bit tangled up wherever he is, yes. What does Maimonides write at the beginning of the Laws of Repentance? In the introduction, after all — in the introduction to each collection of laws, Maimonides lists the commandments connected to that collection of laws, right? As part of his enumeration of the commandments. You know this: Maimonides basically did something extremely systematic on the way to the Mishneh Torah. He describes this himself. Meaning, first he had to count all the commandments, since that is the corpus he then organizes, and then he creates the skeleton of the Mishneh Torah. He looks at all the commandments, divides them into categories — Agriculture, Vows, Women, yes? Everything he has in the Mishneh Torah. He simply looks at the commandments, and then divides them among all those categories. So there are fourteen books, and within each book there are many collections of laws. At the beginning of each collection of laws he lists the commandments discussed there — and the total number is the 613 commandments that he counted in Sefer HaMitzvot. That is why Sefer HaMitzvot is the step that comes before the Mishneh Torah. And in order to build Sefer HaMitzvot, he developed the roots — the principles according to which he counted, sorry, enumerated the commandments. Meaning, he did everything in a very methodological and self-aware way. He was completely conscious of his methodological steps. Okay?

In any event, here are the commandments he counts as belonging to the Laws of Repentance: the Laws of Repentance contain one positive commandment, namely: that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess. And the explanation of this commandment and the principles that follow from it on its account are in these chapters. So — is there a commandment to repent, or not? Certainly. It says: that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess. And the fact that there are two details here shouldn’t bother us in terms of there being one commandment. The commandment of the four species has four details. It is certainly one commandment. There are commandments made up of multiple details. That’s not the point. So I don’t care how many commandments there are here from the perspective of enumeration. What matters is that in his wording, it sounds like there are two obligatory elements, each of which is required in this commandment. One is to return, and the second is to confess. That differs from his formulation in Sefer HaMitzvot. In Sefer HaMitzvot he says one should say the confession together with repentance. Okay? So if you repent, then say confession. It is not presented there as two separate obligatory elements that each must be done. If it had said, “one positive commandment, namely: when the sinner returns from his sin before God, he should confess,” that would have been fine. That would have matched what it says there. If he had added a “when,” okay? “When he returns from his sin and wants to return, he should confess.” Then the obligation would be confession — when? When he wants to return. And that is exactly what is written in Sefer HaMitzvot. But no, here there is no such “when,” okay? And in other printings too there is none — it’s not a printing mistake. So the Minchat Chinukh really asks how to reconcile these two expressions, and he struggles with this a bit. He discusses the question that according to Maimonides it is explicit that confession also blocks atonement. Confession also blocks atonement. Which only intensifies the difficulty. Why? Because if confession blocks atonement, then that means that someone who repented without confession is like someone who did not repent at all with respect to the original sin. He was not atoned for. And besides that there is also the neglect of the positive commandment of confession. Okay? So now you don’t even have the offset I proposed earlier, where I said, well, his condition is still better because the sin was atoned for. He has a problem with neglecting the positive commandment of confession, but the sin was atoned for. In that sense he is better off than someone who did not repent at all. Maimonides says no — confession holds up repentance. So if it blocks atonement, then his condition is only worse. So the Minchat Chinukh’s question becomes even sharper. How can it be that someone who repented without confession is in a worse state than someone who did not repent at all?

Now here — the Minchat Chinukh discusses this at length there, but I won’t get into all those details. There is no good answer there. You won’t find a good answer there to this contradiction in Maimonides. Nor do I know one…

[Speaker C] Maybe it just means he wrote it, that’s it, he didn’t think it through all that much. Who? Maimonides? No, just — he slips here and there…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One of the rules with Maimonides…

[Speaker C] Maimonides creates a contradiction between here and there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s the question. I’m willing to accept statements of that sort, and I also think they are true about many medieval authorities. With many of them, close verbal readings are just pointless pilpul, because they did not write with precise wording. They wrote whatever seemed right to them in fairly free language. But with Maimonides, one of the rules is that Maimonides is precise in his language. Meaning, you can infer things from his wording, and that’s… he says this himself, so it’s not just some later invention. I recently wrote on my website about contradictions in the Shulchan Arukh. There’s an article by Eliav Shochetman saying there’s no point reconciling contradictions in the Shulchan Arukh, because it was never intended to be fully coherent. It wasn’t meant to be a halakhic book in that sense. It was meant to be a kind of schematic summary of the Beit Yosef, more or less of the prevalent views that emerge there, and there is no obligation there to rule here the same way he ruled there. Sometimes he brought only one opinion from among several that appear in the Beit Yosef, and not the view he himself decided in favor of. In the Beit Yosef he intended to decide. The Shulchan Arukh is only some sort of summary. Professor Benayahu argues with him — whether that is correct or not, it doesn’t matter — but with Maimonides it is certainly not like that. Maimonides intended to rule; he says so unequivocally in the introduction. That is also why, in Maimonides, you won’t find him bringing several opinions the way the Shulchan Arukh does. There is no such thing. It is very rare, and when he says “it seems to me” here and there, okay — but it is not his way to bring more than one opinion. His purpose is to decide. And in Maimonides this is certainly a law code. The Shulchan Arukh — it is not a simple question what exactly the nature of that work is.

Anyway, there is a contradiction in Maimonides here. Even the placement of laws in Maimonides is very significant; one can infer a great deal from where Maimonides places a law. That’s a very important question. There are some very interesting examples of this. Once I had a debate with Yaron Yadan — you know Yaron Yadan? He used to be a Haredi yeshiva head, then he left, and since then has been engaged in preaching against the Orthodox Torah and halakhic system and all sorts of things like that. Among other things he says that a man may do with his wife whatever he wants, have intercourse with her this way and that way — in short, it sounds terrible to the ear, a very severe slander against women. So I told him that he reads Maimonides like an ignoramus, because in Maimonides that ruling appears in the Laws of Forbidden Relations, not in the Laws of Marriage. The Laws of Marriage mark out the mutual rights and the relationship between husband and wife. What are you entitled to demand from your wife? What is she entitled to receive from you? Right? If it had appeared there, then indeed you might interpret it as meaning the husband can decide whatever he wants and force it on his wife, and she has nothing to say about it. By the way, Maimonides explicitly says elsewhere that this is only with the woman’s consent, but that’s not the point — even if that weren’t elsewhere. The point is that it appears in the Laws of Forbidden Relations. And what does that mean? It means there is no halakhic prohibition on any particular kind of intercourse you want. No one there was discussing whether this is against the wife’s will — what does that have to do with anything? No one was talking about the question of the husband-wife relationship, his rights toward her and hers toward him; that belongs in the Laws of Marriage. In the Laws of Forbidden Relations we are discussing which sexual acts are prohibited and which are permitted — not whether you are forcing your wife. Even if both of you agree, there are things the Torah does not agree to: adultery with a married woman, even if you both agree; or with your sister, or who knows what, things like that. That is the Laws of Forbidden Relations. Those laws deal with what the Holy One wants from you, not what rights your wife has to demand from you. It’s just a simple reading.

So here is an example of applying this basic rule in Maimonides: the place where a law appears is a very important interpretive tool for understanding the nature of the law in question. There are all sorts of further implications as well.

Anyway, back to our issue: what is going on here with this contradiction in Maimonides? I’ll tell you what I think the correct resolution is. In Sefer HaMitzvot, Maimonides writes in many places that he is counting all the commandments the Torah commanded us. All the commandments the Torah commanded us. What does that mean — a commandment the Torah commanded us? A commandment with a source in the Torah. By the way, according to Maimonides this must be an explicit source, not even a source derived by interpretation. In his second root he says that if the source is a rabbinic interpretation, then the commandment that comes out of it is rabbinic. According to Maimonides, the source has to be explicit in the Torah.

Now where is there an explicit source in the Torah for the commandment of repentance? Nachmanides disagrees with him and brings the verse “ושבת עד ה’ אלוהיך” (“And you shall return to the Lord your God”), right? We’ll read it soon, this week or next. But Maimonides, on that verse — yes, look at law 5: all the prophets commanded repentance, and Israel will be redeemed only through repentance. Where is the Torah here? What does “all the prophets” mean? That’s not in the Torah. And “ושבת עד ה’ אלוהיך”? No — that’s prophets. And the Torah has already promised that in the end Israel will repent at the close of exile, and immediately they will be redeemed, as it says: “והיה כי יבואו אליך כל הדברים האלה ושבת עד ה’ אלוהיך ושב ה’ אלוהיך את שבותך וריחמך” (“And it shall be, when all these things come upon you, and you shall return to the Lord your God… then the Lord your God will restore your captivity and have mercy on you”), and so on. So how does he understand “ושבת עד ה’ אלוהיך”? As prophecy, right? A promise. This is what will happen in the future — “and you shall return to the Lord your God.” The Torah is prophesying or promising what will happen; it is not a command. Nachmanides on that verse indeed challenges this and says no, it is a command — there is a commandment to repent. But Maimonides explicitly says not.

Now Maimonides’ method is that if there is no verse, there is no commandment. And there is no other verse. Not only because of his interpretation of “ושבת”, but because he says here only that the prophets commanded it, which means he does not find a Torah source commanding repentance. So according to Maimonides, there is no commandment of repentance. Right? Likewise later: great is repentance, for it brings a person near to the Divine Presence, as it says: “שובה ישראל עד ה’ אלוקיך” (“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God”), and so on. These are all promises, poetic lines, prophecies, things of that sort. According to Maimonides there is no command to repent. Okay? Therefore, if there is no command, it cannot appear as a commandment in Sefer HaMitzvot. Because Maimonides’ rule is that a counted commandment is only one that has a verse in the Torah commanding it. In positive commandments too, of course. In prohibitions there are requirements like “beware,” “lest,” and “do not,” certain forms the Torah must use for something to count as a prohibition. And with positive commandments too, you need a Torah source, otherwise it is not a commandment; it is not counted as a commandment.

So in that sense, I understand very well why in positive commandment 73 Maimonides does not treat repentance as a commandment, but only confession. “והתוודו את חטאתם אשר חטאו” — that is a commandment, because it is written in the Torah as a commandment. But regarding repentance, there is no command, so it cannot be a counted commandment. What happens in the Mishneh Torah? The Mishneh Torah counts everything we need to do. What if there is something we need to do but there is no Torah command about it? For example, rabbinic laws. Hanukkah and Purim, say. In Maimonides there is a section in the Book of Times called the Laws of Hanukkah and Purim, the reading of the Megillah, right? What does it say at the beginning there? Two commandments: one positive commandment, the reading of the Megillah, from the rabbis; and the second, Hanukkah — sorry, the second is the Hanukkah lamp. Okay? But those are not part of the 613 commandments. They are not part of the 613 commandments; they are rabbinic commandments. After all, in the first root Maimonides practically shouts at the BaHaG for counting Hanukkah and Purim among his 613 commandments, saying: what do you mean, rabbinic commandments — how did you make them Torah commandments? Okay? So Maimonides is clearly saying these are rabbinic commandments, but in the Mishneh Torah he devotes an entire legal section to them. Why? Because the Mishneh Torah is not Sefer HaMitzvot. Sefer HaMitzvot counts all the commandments we were commanded in. What counts as “we were commanded”? That there is a command in the Torah. If there is no Torah command, then it will not be a commandment in Sefer HaMitzvot. But in the Mishneh Torah he writes everything that has to be done — not only counted Torah commandments with an explicit Torah source.

Now I ask: does one need to repent? Certainly one needs to repent. Therefore in the Mishneh Torah it will appear. The Mishneh Torah includes everything one must do: rabbinic commandments, things derived by reason, other obligations not written in the Torah for one reason or another, and still they must be done. So there too, certainly, repentance will appear. In Sefer HaMitzvot it cannot appear, because there he counts only what we were commanded in — that’s all.

And so the distinction is simple. In Sefer HaMitzvot it says that if he repents, then in the course of repentance he should confess — because there is no commandment to repent, since we were not commanded to do so in the Torah. Here, at the beginning of the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides is talking about what one must do. So one must repent and one must confess; both things must be done. Therefore he counts them both. Because the Mishneh Torah counts everything we need to do. And what does that include? First and foremost, of course, the commandments the Torah commanded us — positive and negative commandments. Besides that, things derived by reason, rabbinic decrees, whatever you like, things derived from interpretation — which for Maimonides are “words of the scribes,” another category — laws given to Moses at Sinai, all sorts of things. Even a law given to Moses at Sinai is not counted in the enumeration of the commandments according to Maimonides. It too, in his view, belongs under “words of the scribes.” But certainly one still has to do it. In the Mishneh Torah, laws given to Moses at Sinai will certainly appear. In Sefer HaMitzvot they will not, because according to the rules for counting the 613 commandments, Maimonides does not count them. Understood? So when we compare Sefer HaMitzvot to the Mishneh Torah, we have to do so very carefully. These are books with different purposes. In Sefer HaMitzvot you count everything we were commanded in. In the Mishneh Torah you deal with everything we need to do. And “what we were commanded in” and “what we need to do” are not the same thing. There are things we were not commanded in, and yet still must do.

[Speaker G] I want to understand a little better what place repentance has in the system if it’s not a Torah commandment — if you separate it from that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not that they’re disconnected, but rather that there is no formal commandment to repent.

[Speaker G] But confession exists as a Torah commandment, while repentance itself is…?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A conditional commandment. If you repent, then you need to confess. A conditional commandment. But repentance itself is not an obligation. Like a four-cornered garment: if you wear one, put tzitzit on it; if you don’t, nothing happened.

[Speaker C] So what really is the meaning of repentance? If you’re commanded all the time not to drive through a red light, and once you did drive through a red light, okay — then don’t do it again.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question. The Meshekh Chokhmah asks it on that very verse “ושבת עד ה’ אלוקיך”, and he explains it. Why doesn’t Maimonides count the commandment of repentance? Because it’s a redundant commandment. What does the commandment of repentance say? Don’t sin, and continue keeping the Torah. Well, fine, that’s already contained in the original command. Suppose you ate pork. Fine, it already says you mustn’t eat pork. So it already says: don’t eat pork. Why do we need another command to tell you to return? And the Meshekh Chokhmah is mistaken. Because the commandment to return is not a commandment simply to go on not eating pork. There is a process by which you are supposed to return from a sin you committed. Confession is one part of it, but not the only part. According to the standard division of Saadia Gaon, there are four parts to repentance: abandoning the sin, regret, resolving for the future, and confession. All of those — abandoning the sin is redundant. If repentance just meant abandoning the sin, then of course one must abandon the sin because it is a sin. Right? Resolving for the future is not redundant. You don’t just need a resolution; you need not to do it, that’s all. Okay? Regret too is not redundant. It makes sense that one ought to regret it, but that is not included in the commandment not to eat pork — that if you ate it, you must regret it. Right? And certainly not verbal confession. So with confession there is an independent commandment, and there is no question there. But there are two other elements here as well, and those are not trivial. Somehow the Meshekh Chokhmah assumes that the whole purpose of repentance is merely to bring us to a state where we won’t keep sinning. And then he says: if so, it’s redundant. The fact that it’s defined as a sin already tells you not to keep sinning. You don’t need yet another commandment called repentance. But that’s not right. That is not the essence of repentance.

So why indeed doesn’t Maimonides count it? It seems to me that what Maimonides is really refusing to count here — and he interprets “ושבת עד ה’ אלוקיך” as a promise or prophecy or something like that — is because Maimonides understands that there is a simple rational obligation to repent. Why? Because once this principle has been introduced — namely, that if you repent, the sin you committed is atoned for — then that alone is the factual novelty. Just the fact itself: if you repent, your sin is atoned for. No one has yet told you that you must repent. They only told you that if you do repent, the sin will be atoned for. Now understand: anyone committed to Jewish law, anyone who serves God, obviously ought to repent. That is simple reason, right? What the Torah contributes is a factual novelty, not a normative novelty. It introduces the fact that if you repent, the sin is atoned for. But the obligation to repent doesn’t need to be newly introduced. That is simple reason. Once you say that if you repent, the sin is atoned for, then obviously you should repent, just as obviously you should not sin.

Now, one could get a bit pilpul-ish about this. Let me give you an example, from things I’ve discussed in a few places. Suppose I made the blessing over an apple, “בורא פרי העץ” (“who creates the fruit of the tree”), okay? And now after making the blessing, I don’t feel like eating it. Do I now have to eat in order to rescue the commandment — sorry, the blessing? Everybody thinks you have to eat; that’s the common view, right? But there is a commandment to bless before eating; there is no commandment to rescue blessings. The Ritva discusses this, by the way, in Chullin, around page 106 or something like that. The Ritva says no: if you made the blessing intending to eat, then the blessing is not a blessing in vain. Therefore if you don’t feel like eating, don’t eat. Though he phrases it interestingly. He simply says that the blessing is not in vain, but if in such a case it had counted as in vain, it sounds as though he might have held that one would need to eat in order to rescue the blessing. So the wording there is not entirely clear.

There is a Gemara in Nedarim 14. The Gemara there discusses — leave the actual case there, I’ll give you my own example because that one is complicated. Suppose a woman received a divorce on condition that she not drink wine for five years. Forever wouldn’t work because that’s not a complete severance, but let’s say five years, okay? So now she goes and marries another man, children are born, and after four years she now feels like drinking wine. Okay? What happens if she drinks wine? The divorce is retroactively annulled because she violated the condition. Then her marriage to the second husband is annulled, because she is the first husband’s wife — she was never properly divorced from him. The children from the second man become mamzerim, right? Everything is now either all right or very much not all right. The question is whether she is forbidden to drink the wine. In interpersonal terms, obviously she is forbidden to drink it. She ruins her children; they become mamzerim and their lives are destroyed. But I’m not asking about interpersonal ethics. I’m asking formally: is this a prohibition involving forbidden intercourse, adultery? If she drinks wine, all the relations she had with the second husband become forbidden relations retroactively. Right? Adultery — with a married woman, not just generic immorality. I think there is no prohibition here, aside from the interpersonal dimension. There is no prohibition against turning relations that were permitted when done into forbidden relations retroactively. There is a prohibition against engaging in forbidden relations, or submitting to forbidden relations. But there is no prohibition against worsening an already completed situation retroactively. You are forbidden to have forbidden relations. But once the relation took place, it was not forbidden at the time. Now I can turn it into a forbidden relation. Where is there a prohibition against turning a relation into a forbidden relation? That’s what I’m driving at. Why are the children mamzerim? Because someone who has forbidden relations…

[Speaker C] then the children that come from that are mamzerim.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But at the moment she drank the wine — after the children were already born from the new man — she retroactively undoes her divorce.

[Speaker C] She’s the first husband’s wife.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But at the time of the relations, they were not forbidden relations. So then later I change their status and make them forbidden relations. Where is there a prohibition against turning already completed relations into forbidden ones? If a relation is defined as forbidden, then I’m forbidden to have it or to submit to it. Fine. But if I did the act permissibly and only afterward do something that indirectly turns that past act into a prohibition, the question is whether I violated a prohibition. Which prohibition? I’m not having the intercourse now; that already happened, and at the time it was permitted. So what prohibition did I violate now? I think this is an amoraic dispute in Nedarim 11.

But this is relevant to what you asked earlier. It means there is at least room to hesitate a bit about that reasoning I mentioned earlier: the reasoning that says that if the Torah introduced the idea that repentance constitutes atonement for a sin I committed, then there is no need to command repentance. It’s obvious by reason that one should repent in order to atone for the sin. In light of what I’ve just said, there is some room for pilpul. If I committed the act, and then later repair it — so what? It is not the same thing. Not the same in two senses. Because once I have a sin, and I can now erase the sin, it may indeed be simple reason that one ought to erase the sin. I’m asking a different question: is there a prohibition against turning an act I did in the past into a sin? That is not the same question. Or perhaps there is no prohibition. More than that: perhaps there is reason to repent, but it is still not a formal commandment. When I ask whether the woman violates something by drinking the wine, I am asking a formal halakhic question. Is this a prohibition of forbidden intercourse? What is she doing now? She is drinking wine. What does that have to do with intercourse? She is not having relations with him now. So how does this become a prohibition of forbidden intercourse? When exactly did she commit that prohibition? She is drinking wine now. So if I ask formally whether this is a prohibition of forbidden intercourse, the answer is no. If you ask me whether God approves of someone who turns her past relations into forbidden ones — that’s not a matter of formal prohibition at all. There is certainly strong reason to say: obviously not, don’t do that. But the formal discussion is not the same as the discussion of what it is fitting to do. And that is a very important distinction for our purposes; we’ll see it again later.

So here as well, in any case, it seems to me that if you ask whether there is simple reason to repent, obviously there is. Is that included in the formal prohibition against eating pork? Suppose I ate pork. Now I ask myself: is there a commandment to repent for that? If I repent, it will be atoned for. So I have erased the transgression. Does the prohibition against eating pork now instruct me to repent? The answer is no — at least on the side I proposed earlier. But that does not mean there is no rational reason to repent. You are still erasing the pork prohibition. The reasoning is certainly there. The question is whether it enters into the formal halakhic definition of the prohibition against eating pork. That is not the same as asking whether by simple reason I would understand on my own that I should repent.

[Speaker D] The source is “permission is granted to him to repent.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get there — you’re right. That whole chapter basically says the same thing, and it comes after two chapters, chapters 5 and 6, which deal with free choice. Then in chapter 7 he says: since every person has permission to repent. Why, in the laws of grace after meals, doesn’t he write: since every person has permission to bless or not to bless, therefore let him recite grace after meals? Or honor parents? Or keep the Sabbath? Or whatever. Why specifically here does he point this out? Why are the two chapters on free choice located in the Laws of Repentance? Right? All these are questions we’ll get to, and they go right to the heart of the point I’m making here.

What I want to say is that according to Maimonides, the commandment of repentance is not a commandment — but there is obviously rational force obligating us to repent. In the Mishneh Torah, when he lists what we need to do, of course repentance is included. In Sefer… in Sefer HaMitzvot, when he asks what we were commanded in, repentance will not appear there as a commandment; only confession. Okay? And I think that this sheds a somewhat different, more general light on the entire structure of the Laws of Repentance. It’s not just some discussion of the legal category of the commandment of repentance. The whole idea of the Laws of Repentance revolves around this point. What I want to claim is that the Laws of Repentance come to tell me what I need to do even without a command. That is the essence of the Laws of Repentance in Maimonides. Everything I ought to do despite there being no command for it.

That is why, for example, there are repetitions in the Laws of Repentance. Maimonides writes about love of God and fear of God at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance. We’ll still discuss that, but he repeats it elsewhere too. Even Torah study for its own sake, and all sorts of things like that, doing commandments for their own sake, and so on. All of that appears in the Laws of Repentance. Why not in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah? There too he writes about love and fear of God. That is the place for laws relating to love and fear of God. So why does he repeat it in the Laws of Repentance? Because in the Laws of Repentance he is not talking about the part that we are formally obligated in. The part we are obligated in appears in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah. In the Laws of Repentance he talks about why one should do it not because of obligation, but because of reason. Therefore I claim that the Laws of Repentance are really the laws that obligate us by reason — that is what “Laws of Repentance” means in Maimonides. We’ll see this systematically. This is really the idea that weaves through Maimonides’ entire Laws of Repentance.

And by the way, as I said earlier, this is one of the reasons chapters 5 and 6, which deal with choice, appear specifically here. In every commandment or prohibition there is an element of choice, right? We can choose whether to perform the commandment or not, whether to commit the transgression or not. So why, in a context like grace after meals as I mentioned earlier — why doesn’t Maimonides preface it by saying: since every person has permission and can bless or not bless, therefore let him recite grace after meals; let him keep the Sabbath; let him not eat forbidden foods; whatever you want. Why specifically here does he write that? Why do chapters 5 and 6 appear in the Laws of Repentance and not in the Laws of Grace after Meals? I claim that it is because in the Laws of Repentance — let’s move one step further — in the Laws of Repentance what we are really being called on to do is to be choosers. When we sinned, in a certain sense we did not choose. We let go of the reins, of our control and our decision-making, and that is why we sinned. In philosophy this is what is called the problem of weakness of will. Okay? So when a person sins — a person committed to Torah and commandments — his sin is a kind of loss of choice, loss of control. He is responsible for it because he is guilty of it — I’ll still get into the details — but I’m speaking generally here. And therefore repentance is basically the act of returning to being a chooser. That is why, in its essence, the concept of choice appears specifically in the Laws of Repentance. In the laws of grace after meals, choice is a condition: because you have choice, you are commanded to bless after eating. Someone who has no choice cannot be commanded. Right? But in the Laws of Repentance, the commandment — or rather the obligation — is to return to being a chooser. That is the point. It is not a condition for the obligation; it is the content of the obligation. Therefore the discussion of choice appears in the Laws of Repentance. Okay? Here it belongs to the essence of the matter, not merely as a condition as in other commandments.

And from here it is also clear why we are not commanded in it. How can one command me to be a chooser? One cannot command me to be a chooser. If I choose, then I’m already choosing. If I do not choose, what will it help to command me? Either way, what would that accomplish? Right?

This is like Rabbi Chaim Vital in Shaarei Kedushah. He asks there why the Torah does not command the refinement of character traits. First of all, just as an aside in parentheses, it actually does command it. There isn’t such an omission as in the famous story about Rabbi Chaim. It does command it; every list of commandments counts it. To walk in God’s ways — just as He is compassionate, so you shall be compassionate; just as He is gracious, so you shall be gracious. Not jealous and vengeful — leave out a few things we probably aren’t supposed to imitate — but there, that is the commandment to cleave to God’s ways. I think Rabbi Chaim Vital is not mistaken, though. It seems to me that the point is this: “to cleave to God’s ways” means to behave as He behaves. Refinement of character does not speak about behavior; it speaks about the soul. Refining the traits of the soul means asking how my inner inclinations function. In other words, what I do in practice is a counted commandment. I need to be compassionate; I need to behave compassionately, like the Holy One behaves compassionately. But who says I have to repair my inner character so that I actually feel compassion and not be inwardly cruel? If a person is cruel in all 248 of his limbs, but there is a commandment to give charity, to help another person, then he helps another person. He has fulfilled the commandment to walk in God’s ways, because he behaves like God. But he has not refined his character. You are talking about character traits — these are properties of the soul, not forms of behavior. Okay? Therefore I think Rabbi Chaim Vital is right to ask why there is no commandment to refine character traits, because there isn’t one. There is a commandment to behave like the Holy One, not to refine character traits.

And why is that? Because even regarding the Holy One we are not speaking about “God’s inner character traits”; I don’t know what that means. What I know is how He acts in the world. So to walk in His ways means: just as He acts in the world, so should you act in the world. But refining character traits — I don’t know what it means to speak about God’s inner character traits. It doesn’t really have a clear meaning. So this too seems to be the simple explanation. It’s not just a way of rescuing Rabbi Chaim Vital; it is simply true. To walk in God’s ways is to act as He acts. But we were not commanded to refine our inner traits.

Still, Rabbi Chaim Vital assumes as obvious that we should do it. Why? Because reason says we should. Rabbi Chaim Vital says: why are we not commanded to refine character traits? Because the Torah speaks to human beings. If someone is not a human being, there’s no point speaking to him. What is there to say to someone with corrupt character traits? There is no infrastructure. Okay? And there are things you cannot command because they are conditions for your very being commandable. Without that — what would it help to command a cat? Will it help to command a cat? What do you want from it? It does what its nature tells it to do. You can command someone only under two conditions: first, that he has choice, that he is a being with free choice, not a cat. And second, that he has corrected character, that he truly understands that one should act properly, and if he does not act properly, then he repents, he returns, he takes care to conduct himself properly afterward. That is someone who can be commanded. Right?

Rabbi Kook, in his letters, takes Rabbi Chaim Vital one step further. He says that the Torah does not command the refinement of character because Rabbi Chaim Vital said the Torah speaks to human beings; someone who is not truly human cannot be addressed. But Rabbi Kook takes another step and says: if character refinement had been commanded, it would have ruined it. Rabbi Chaim Vital only says you can’t command it because there is no one there yet who is capable of being commanded. Rabbi Kook says no — if it had been commanded, it would destroy the whole thing. Why would it destroy it? Because then you would refine your character only because the Torah says you need to refine your character. But there are areas in which greater is the one who is not commanded and does. Rabbi Kook says about the rabbinic dictum “greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does” — that that is a novelty. Right? In the simple human intuition, if you ask people, they will tell you the opposite: greater is the one who is not commanded and does. He says there are cases where that simple intuition remains true: greater is one who is not commanded and does. For example, in character refinement. The moment the Torah would command you to refine your character, it would simply destroy your ability to have refined character, because you would only do it because there is a Torah command, in order to discharge commandment no. 116, and that is not what it means to refine character.

This is the well-known yeshiva joke. You know the one about the yeshiva student who reaches the chapter “האיש מקדש” in tractate Kiddushin and starts dating girls. He wants to get married, but he rejects them one after another. The spiritual supervisor comes and says to him: what are you, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel? Nobody is suitable for you? You think you’re the greatest of the great? Go work on your character with tremendous emotional intensity for a year, and then come back to dating. Fine — the fellow works on his character with immense fervor, repairs all his traits, digs into every corner of his soul. After a year he comes back to meet the girls, and once again rejects them all. So the supervisor says to him: what did you do all this past year? You’ve remained the same arrogant person you were. So he says: why, honored supervisor? Before I corrected my character, no one was good enough for me because I was arrogant. Now that I’m humble too, then all the more so no one is good enough for me. That is what it looks like when someone refines his character because the supervisor sent him to refine his character. You see? It’s a wonderful parable for why you can’t command character refinement. Because if we were commanded to refine our character, then not only is there no one to command, as Rabbi Chaim Vital says — more than that: if we were commanded, it would ruin it. Because what the Torah wants is for us to do it because we understand that a human being is someone with refined character. But if we do it in order to check off a box and discharge commandment no. 116, then we have not refined our character.

It’s like the famous story about the Enlightenment figure Adam HaKohen — the street in Tel Aviv was once a person. It is told that Adam HaKohen wanted to repent on his deathbed in order to refute the rabbinic saying that even the wicked, at the entrance to Gehenna, do not repent. The question is whether one can repent in such a situation. Does that count as repentance? You can’t refute the rabbinic saying that way, because if you repent under those circumstances, it’s not really repentance. There are situations in which one cannot repent. So too here: you can’t refine character if you do it because there is a command and you need to discharge an obligation. That is not refining character. Okay?

So the claim is, first, have refined character so that you can be the kind of person who can be commanded. But more than that: obviously you also have to be a creature with choice. That too is a condition for your being commandable. Right? If you have no choice, or if you do not use the power of choice you have, then what is the point of commanding you? Therefore Maimonides understands that on the one hand it is obvious by reason that one should repent; but on the other hand it is equally obvious that the verse “ושבת עד ה’ אלוהיך” cannot be a command, because there cannot be a command telling me to repent — a command telling me to be a being with choice, a choosing person. There can be no such command. Therefore Maimonides says: it is not a command. And therefore it does not enter the enumeration of the commandments. But in the Mishneh Torah it does enter, because there is certainly an obligation to repent. That is obvious. So there is a rational obligation, but that rational obligation cannot enter the system of formal commands, because if it did, it would be empty of content.

There is a similar example in the famous Nachmanides at the beginning of the portion Kedoshim: “קדושים תהיו” — “you shall be holy” — so as not to be a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah. The question is whether Nachmanides sees “you shall be holy” as a commandment. And the answer is no. How do I know? Because you can see it in two places. First, in the commandments Nachmanides adds to Maimonides’ list. He removes some commandments, yes? He knocks some out, and then needs to complete the count of 613. So he fills their place with other commandments. In all the ordinary editions of Sefer HaMitzvot, at the end you find Nachmanides’ additions and omissions. There are also his objections throughout the work, but at the end he summarizes what should enter the total of 613. There is an interesting question there too about why it has to be 613 at all. But in the end he accepts that framework and adds commandments. You will not find “קדושים תהיו” there. In the positive commandments he adds, “you shall be holy” does not appear. Everyone knows his commandment of conquering or settling the Land of Israel — that’s his fourth added positive commandment. But among those additions, you will not find “you shall be holy.”

And you can see it in another place too: in Maimonides’ fourth root. In the roots he lays out the principles for counting commandments. In the fourth root he says that one does not count commandments that encompass the whole Torah. There are later authorities who, in my opinion, became thoroughly confused there — for example in discussions of why the commandment of living in the Land of Israel is not counted. Some later authorities write that it is because it is a commandment that encompasses the whole Torah. That, in my opinion, reflects a misunderstanding of Maimonides and also a misunderstanding of the commandment of living in the Land of Israel. There is a certain Religious Zionist ethos that says the commandment of settling the Land of Israel includes the whole Torah. I think that is baseless. One can be a Zionist without twisting Jewish law for that purpose.

The point is that when Maimonides in the fourth root speaks about commandments that encompass the whole Torah, he means commandments like “ושמרתם את כל מצוותיי” (“and you shall keep all My commandments”). Those are the examples he gives there. What are these commandments? Why are they not counted? Because there is no need — the commandments are already written. Why do you need another commandment telling me to keep the commandments? They are already written as commandments. That is Maimonides’ point. This root is about duplication, and that is redundant, so it is not counted. It is not because of some general rule that “comprehensive commandments are not counted.” Maimonides has no such rule. He has a rule that duplicated commandments are not counted, commandments for which there is no point in counting them are not counted. The commandments have already been given to us; why count yet another commandment telling me to keep all the commandments?

By the way, there are medieval authorities who say that such commandments are indeed commandments even though they are not counted. For example, I think Rav Nissim Gaon says in the context of when a positive command overrides a prohibition, that together with every prohibition there is a general positive commandment, “ושמרתם את כל מצוותיי”. It is not counted, but it is still a comprehensive positive commandment. Then it turns out that the positive command that overrides the prohibition is not confronting only the prohibition, but a prohibition plus a positive commandment. And then the question becomes: why does it override? That’s another issue. So he treats those as commandments. Maybe they are not counted in his total, I don’t know what his system is, but for Maimonides they are not counted in the total of commandments, though that does not mean they are not commandments. They simply are not counted because it would be redundant.

Anyway, that is the fourth root. There Maimonides attacks the BaHaG, because the BaHaG does count comprehensive commandments. And what example does the BaHaG count, which Maimonides attacks him for? “קדושים תהיו”. The BaHaG says that “you shall be holy” is a commandment to keep all the commandments. Fine? And Maimonides says we do not count commandments that encompass the whole Torah. That is how Maimonides understands “you shall be holy”: sanctify yourselves through the commandments, meaning, keep the commandments. It is like “keep all My commandments.”

And there Nachmanides says that “you shall be holy” is about sanctification specifically. It is not the whole Torah as Maimonides interprets it. Rather, sanctification in the sense that Rashi writes at the beginning of the portion Kedoshim — separation from sexual immorality and things of that sort. Therefore the BaHaG counts it, because it is not a commandment encompassing the whole Torah. It is a commandment like any other, and therefore he counts it. But notice: that is not the explanation Nachmanides himself gives for “you shall be holy.” Why doesn’t he use his own explanation to defend the BaHaG? Nachmanides, yes. For the same reason that he does not use his own explanation to count it as a positive commandment. Because you understand: if this could be counted as a positive commandment, then he could have saved the BaHaG with this explanation. The BaHaG counted it as a positive commandment, so one could say: ah, “you shall be holy” means do not be a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah — and that is why the BaHaG counts it among the commandments. Being a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah is not a commandment encompassing the whole Torah; it is something else. Okay? But Nachmanides understands that this cannot be counted as a positive commandment. Proof: he himself did not add it as a positive commandment. So this interpretation also cannot rescue the BaHaG. If the BaHaG had interpreted it that way, what would it help? You still could not count it as a commandment. So how do you explain that the BaHaG counted “you shall be holy” as a commandment? Even according to Nachmanides’ own view, that interpretation cannot save the BaHaG. Therefore he must find another explanation for the BaHaG — one that he himself does not accept — in order to defend him from Maimonides’ objection.

So I ask: why not, really? Why does Nachmanides think his own explanation does not allow “you shall be holy” to be counted among the commandments? We see that both from his own list and from the way he defends the BaHaG. Why not? The answer is what I call the scoundrel paradox. I’m not sure the phrase is mine — maybe I heard it somewhere once, I don’t remember. But I use it often. The scoundrel paradox means this: suppose we did count it among the commandments. Then someone who is a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah would no longer be a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah; he would be someone who neglected the positive commandment of “you shall be holy.” He would have violated Jewish law, so he would no longer be a scoundrel “within the permission of the Torah,” only someone violating a positive commandment. “A scoundrel within the permission of the Torah” means there is no formal prohibition, right? And still it is not proper to do it — that is what the phrase means. So if “you shall be holy” is really telling you not to be a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah, it cannot enter the enumeration of commandments. Because if it did, then he would not be a scoundrel within the permission of the Torah; he would be a scoundrel not within the permission of the Torah. It would just add another commandment not to overeat, not to overindulge sexually, or whatever examples Nachmanides brings there.

Now why is that so? What is the idea? Fine, so count it as a commandment. Why is it important to define it specifically as still being “within the permission of the Torah”? Put it into the count of commandments, and then it won’t be within the permission of the Torah anymore, and we’ll understand clearly what is demanded of us. What’s the problem? The Torah wants us to do it voluntarily. Not because we are commanded. It wants it to remain permitted, and nevertheless for us to understand that it is not proper to behave that way, and therefore not to do it. So this is a tangle. You cannot put such a thing into the count of commandments if you want to preserve that state of mind. Right? If it were in the count, then fine, we’d just have one more commandment. Just like character refinement. There are things we cannot put into the count of commandments, but not because we shouldn’t act that way. On the contrary, of course we should. Reason dictates that we should. But putting it into the count of commandments would ruin it. And it is the same with repentance.

Just like “ובחרת בחיים” — “and you shall choose life,” right? Why is that not a positive commandment? “Choose life” is explicit imperative language. I don’t know anyone who counts it as a positive commandment. Why not? Because you cannot command someone to choose. Right? We already spoke about that. So Maimonides says: but repentance is entirely about returning to being a chooser. If that is the essence of repentance, how can you command it? You can’t. For exactly the same reason that I do not count “choose life” as a positive commandment, I also do not count “and you shall return to the Lord your God,” but interpret it as prophecy and not as command. Okay? For the very same reason.

So if that is so, let me summarize this introduction. The essence of repentance is that it is not a commandment — meaning, it is an obligation that is not a commandment. An obligation that is not a commandment. And therefore the Laws of Repentance are devoted to it as a section of law, because one is obligated to do it, and one has to explain how to do it and how not. But in Sefer HaMitzvot it will not enter. There is no formal commandment to repent; only confession.

Now what does that imply about all the elaborations we find here in the Laws of Repentance? Some of them are not about repentance at all. He speaks about the world to come, serving God for its own sake, fear, love, Torah study, even the world to come enters, paradise, all sorts of things. What does that have to do with the Laws of Repentance? And even in the first four chapters, which really are about repentance, what is their status? Their status is not “commandments,” but a description of how repentance is carried out, how it ought to be carried out. But it is not that if you failed to do something there, you have neglected a positive commandment. There is no commandment to repent, so there is no neglect of a positive commandment.

More than that: even with confession, I think it is quite clear that the commandment of confession — if you repented but did not confess, as Sefer HaChinukh asks — your condition is not worse than that of someone who did not repent at all. You repented in an incomplete way. So maybe your atonement is not complete — we already discussed this; it isn’t binary, yes atonement or no atonement. Maybe the atonement is not complete. But clearly you do not have neglect of a positive commandment. Because not repenting at all is not neglect of a positive commandment, so repenting without confession certainly cannot be neglect of a positive commandment. That can’t be.

Maybe one can compare it to something else. You know — maybe I’ll discuss this Tuesday in the parallel lecture — there are several kinds of positive commandments in Jewish law. I already mentioned obligatory commandments and non-obligatory fulfillments. An obligatory positive commandment is one such that if you do it, you fulfill a positive commandment, and if you do not, you have neglected a positive commandment. A non-obligatory positive commandment is one such that if you do it, you fulfill a positive commandment, and if you do not, nothing happened. Then there is a conditional obligatory positive commandment, which resembles a non-obligatory one, like tzitzit: if the circumstances exist, then it is obligatory; if you fulfill it, you have a commandment, and if not, you have neglected a positive commandment. But if the circumstances do not exist, then nothing happened, because you were never obligated.

But besides these, there are two other types of commandments. Let’s do the combinatorics simply. We have fulfillment and neglect, right? An obligatory commandment has both fulfillment and neglect. A non-obligatory positive commandment has fulfillment but no neglect — you can fulfill it, but you cannot neglect it. What remains? Commandments that can be neglected but not fulfilled, and commandments that can neither be fulfilled nor neglected. Right? Those are the two remaining types. Are there such kinds of positive commandments? The answer is yes.

A positive commandment that can be neglected but not fulfilled — what do we call such a positive commandment? A prohibition derived from a positive command. “והיו לכם פירות הארץ לאוכלה” — “the produce of the land shall be for you to eat,” meaning to eat, and not for commerce, regarding Sabbatical-year produce. Leave aside Nachmanides’ position, though I think many people misunderstand him too; I don’t think even according to him there is really a commandment to eat it. But setting that aside, everyone agrees that if one eats Sabbatical produce, one has not fulfilled a commandment. But if one trades in Sabbatical produce, one has committed a transgression. What transgression? It is not a prohibition in the classic sense; it is the neglect of a positive commandment. Because he did not use the produce for eating, but for commerce. Yet if he had eaten it, he would not have fulfilled a positive commandment. So if he does not treat it as food, he neglects it. This is a positive commandment that only tells you what not to do. It uses positive language in order to exclude all the other possibilities, not in order to tell you that the positive act itself is a commandment. There is a whole series of such commandments; this is what’s called a prohibition derived from a positive command. And the Gemara concludes that a prohibition derived from a positive command is treated as a positive commandment. Meaning: it is a positive commandment that one can violate, or neglect, but not fulfill. That is the third type.

What we asked about is the fourth type: a positive commandment that can neither be fulfilled nor neglected. That too exists. Maimonides, in positive commandments 95 and 96 and the one after them, writes this explicitly. Commandment 95 is annulment of vows, that a husband can annul his wife’s vows during the day. Maimonides says: do not imagine that there is some obligation to annul vows, or that one who did not annul them violated something. There is no prohibition, no obligation, nothing at all. It is only a definition. If you annulled them according to the rules, then the vow is annulled; and if not, the vow is not annulled. That’s all. It imposes no obligation and no prohibition. In today’s language, we would call it a defining commandment. It is a commandment that defines how vows are annulled. If you did it, then the vow is annulled. If you did not do it, then the vow is not annulled. You did not commit a prohibition, and you did not fulfill a commandment — none of that. It is neither a commandment nor a prohibition. And yet in Maimonides’ count of commandments it is positive commandment 95. This is a commandment that can neither be fulfilled nor neglected. It is a defining commandment.

Some people want to say this about divorce, although I think that is wrong. They say the commandment of divorce is a defining commandment: if you do it this way, she is divorced; and if not, then nothing happened — she is not divorced. But Sefer HaChinukh writes that if you did not do it properly, then you neglected the positive commandment of divorce. So there is neglect there, according to him. Yes? So everyone should be careful to fulfill that important commandment in order not to neglect the positive commandment of divorce by divorcing his wife… In any event, there are commandments like that which are defining commandments. Some want to say this about slaughter as well, but that is not right, because there we make a blessing, so apparently it really is an obligatory positive commandment. And likewise with gifts. But there are defining commandments. Commandment 96 too, regarding impurity. The definition of impurity from a creeping thing, or corpse impurity, is a defining commandment. There is no prohibition against becoming impure from a corpse, and no commandment to become impure from a corpse. Nothing. But the definition of when you are impure through a corpse is a positive commandment according to Maimonides. Positive commandment… I don’t remember which one… 96 is creeping things, I think, and afterward all the commandments of impurity. So in the commandment regarding creeping things, Maimonides again explains this, just as he did in commandment 95: do not think that what I am telling you here is a command or prohibition. No — it is a definition. All the halakhic consequences that follow from that definition — for example, if you are impure, you may not eat terumah, or you may not enter the Temple — all of those are separate commandments that are counted on their own. The content of this commandment is only the definition of when you are impure and when you are not.

[Speaker C] And it puts you into a certain state.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Now what to do with that state — there are commandments that already deal with that. That is not this commandment. This commandment only defines when you are impure through a creeping thing. That’s all. These are commandments that neither command nor prohibit. Okay?

[Speaker C] So what’s the point of that, basically?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that’s a separate discussion. I think that for Maimonides, what is Sefer HaMitzvot? It is basically the halakhic law book, all the laws that were legislated, right? Now, in an Israeli law book, or any law book, there are also definitional clauses. “A minor for the purposes of this law is only someone who has reached the age of sixteen,” and who knows what, “and under such-and-such conditions, of sound mind,” something like that. That clause in the law is also law, even though it tells you nothing to do or not do — no prohibition, no obligation. But it is part of the law book; you need explanatory clauses as well. For Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot is the law book, and it also contains definitional clauses, explanatory clauses. And those too are commandments, as long as the material is substantial enough and necessary enough that a whole commandment is devoted to it.

[Speaker C] And he counts that among the 613.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, also purity and impurity.

[Speaker C] Even though it’s not really a commandment. No.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He writes that there. Those are positive commandments 95 and 96, and so on, all the commandments of impurity.

Now, for our purposes — let me return to the Minchat Chinukh’s question. First of all, we have resolved the contradiction he raises between Maimonides’ wording in Sefer HaMitzvot and his wording in the Mishneh Torah. In Sefer HaMitzvot, the commandment of repentance does not appear because the Torah does not command it. In the Mishneh Torah it does appear because there is an obligation to repent and one must spell out what that entails. So what is the status of those details — of confession as well, by the way, and of everything else? Here I come to the Minchat Chinukh’s second difficulty: how can it be that this is a conditional commandment such that if you did not fulfill it, you are worse off than someone who did not repent at all? The answer is: no, you are not worse off. This is a defining commandment. If you repented without confessing, then you did not complete repentance. That is not a prohibition, because there is no commandment to repent, but you did not repent — or at least not fully. Right? It was not full repentance. One could still discuss how partial it is and what exactly that means — these are more amorphous questions. But at the level of principle, it is certainly possible that this is simply a defining commandment, and that’s all. Then we do not need what the Minchat Chinukh says, that if you repented but did not confess, then you neglected a positive commandment and are in a worse condition than someone who did not repent. No — you simply do not have repentance. That’s all. Because this commandment defines the process of repentance. Just as if you annulled vows not according to the rules, the vow is not annulled, and if you divorced a woman not according to the rules of divorce, then she is not divorced. There is simply a halakhic definition here of how the mechanism works. If you did not follow the definition, you did not commit any prohibition, but the mechanism did not work; what you tried to do did not succeed. Okay? That is the claim.

So that is basically the significance of the framework I’ve laid out. I said that just as repentance is really an obligation that is not a commandment, so too in the Laws of Repentance, everything included there consists of obligations that are not commandments, things we are not formally commanded in. Choice first and foremost, in chapters 5 and 6. Those chapters are about choice. There is no commandment to be a chooser, but obviously one must be a chooser. And all the rest from chapter 7, 8, 9 — chapter 7 is poetic praise, right? How great repentance is, how beforehand you were one kind of person and afterwards another, and Maimonides waxes poetic there about the greatness of repentance. Why doesn’t he wax poetic in the Laws of Grace after Meals about how great grace after meals is — that you bless the Holy One and cleave to Him, and so on? Why doesn’t he elaborate there? Or in the laws of honoring parents? Or the law of a burnt offering? Why doesn’t he wax poetic? Because in the Laws of Repentance he has to persuade you to do it, because there is no commandment. He needs to explain to you why reason says you should repent, because there is no formal command. So he says: look, look how exalted it is, how it atones for your sins. Then you understand that reason says you should repent. People who don’t understand that won’t repent, because there’s no commandment — so what’s the problem? Everything’s fine.

Okay, now I’ll bring you — I just thought of this now — maybe I still have a little time so I’ll do it. There is a Gemara in Menachot, which I think also explains these distinctions very nicely. Menachot 99. Let’s go with… looks like not, the fellow got tired. Fine. A marvelous reading of the Gemara. If on the way to the Haggadah you skip…

[Speaker A] דווקא here I do want you to see it… okay, here,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good. Let’s do this briefly, but I think the whole Torah is here. It’s about Torah study, not repentance, but you’ll see all the distinctions we discussed.

Rabbi Ami said — I’m starting here. It’s a well-known Gemara, but now watch how I explain it line by line. Rabbi Ami said: from the words of Rabbi Yosei we learn that even if a person learned only one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, he has fulfilled “לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך” (“This book of Torah shall not depart from your mouth”). One chapter in the morning, one chapter in the evening. Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: even if a person only recited the Shema morning and evening, he has fulfilled “לא ימוש”. There’s a competition here: how can one completely empty the commandment of Torah study of all content? The first contestant is Rabbi Ami. He says: look, one chapter in the morning and one in the evening, and the rest of the day go to the beach, everything’s fine. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says to him: what are you talking about? One chapter in the morning and one in the evening? That’s a terrible waste of time. You recite Shema in the morning and evening, right? That itself is enough, that already does the work for Torah study too. Everything is fine; you don’t need to do anything. A bit strange, no? Especially in the mouth of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

And it is forbidden to say this before the unlearned. Why? Because then they’ll actually do it. Excellent — but why not let them do it? Isn’t it really true that they’re not obligated? Aha. Meaning: “it is forbidden to say this before the unlearned” — what does that mean? It means everyone understands that one needs to study Torah, right? But unlearned people think that if there is no formal command, then I’m exempt. Don’t tell them this, because they don’t understand that there are things one has to do even without a command. Torah study is something one must do even without a command. And the whole competition between Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is not meant to diminish the value of Torah study, but to increase it. We are supposed to do it not because of the command. Why are we not commanded in it beyond morning and evening Shema? Because if we were commanded in it, we would do it only because of the command — exactly like character refinement in Rabbi Kook. But greater is the one who is not commanded and does when it comes to Torah study. You are supposed to study Torah because you understand what it is, not because there is commandment no. 116 to study Torah; it is not just one more among the 613 commandments. Counting it as such would diminish it. Fine, if all you want is to discharge the formal commandment, then nothing — you need do nothing. Recite Shema morning and evening, and you’re exempt; everything is fine. But that is not because Torah study lacks value. On the contrary: it is so foundational a value that we do not want to put it into the 613 commandments. As far as the formal commandment is concerned, morning and evening Shema is enough. So what about neglect of Torah study? Aren’t we always told that we need to study Torah as much as possible? Of course. But that is not the commandment; that is the obligation. On the contrary, we minimize the formal commandment as much as possible in order to make clear that one should do it because of its importance, not because it is a commandment and one wants to check off the requirement. And that is why it is forbidden to say this before the unlearned. The unlearned person thinks that what must be done is only what one is commanded to do. He does not understand that there are things we are not formally commanded in. In order to get him to stop being unlearned and start studying, tell him: look, it isn’t even a formal commandment. It’s so important, so fundamental, that the Torah does not want to command it. So of course you need to do it. But for those unlearned people who do only what they are commanded, you can go along with them — that’s the first opinion — and so don’t reveal it to them. The second opinion says: why not? Cause them to stop being unlearned. Tell them this. Explain to them the greatness of Torah study, that the Torah leaves it outside formal obligation because of its importance, not because it lacks importance.

Now look at the continuation. Ben Dama, the nephew of Rabbi Ishmael, asked Rabbi Ishmael: such as I, who have learned the whole Torah — may I study Greek wisdom? Someone once asked me this in Yerocham in the yeshiva at the Shavuot night session. I came there to the hall and someone asked: tell me, if he learned the whole Torah, how is it that he doesn’t know? I told him: he knows everything the Torah formally commands. What he asks here is not a halakhic question. Of course. He is asking about the value of Torah study, not the formal commandment of Torah study. The formal commandment of Torah study is Shema morning and evening. So if you learned the whole Torah, what’s the problem? Learn nothing, everything’s fine — what is there to ask? But I’m telling you no: all the minimizing of the commandment of Torah study was in order to enlarge the obligation of Torah study. So now he asks from the perspective of that obligation: “such as I, who have learned the whole Torah, may I study Greek wisdom?” He knows all the Torah, all the commandments, all the law. He knows everything. But this is not a halakhic question; it is a meta-halakhic one, external to formal law. So he asks: well, can I or can’t I?

And what does Rabbi Ishmael answer him? He recited over him this verse: “לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך והגית בו יומם ולילה” (“This book of Torah shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night”): go and find an hour that is neither day nor night, and study Greek wisdom then. One hundred and eighty degrees opposite from what we saw above, right? Before, Shema morning and evening and then off to the beach. Now suddenly he says no — an hour that is neither day nor night. You have to be intense about this; there is not a second in which you are allowed to stop. I don’t understand. A moment ago you told me that Shema morning and evening is enough to fulfill the obligation. Maybe you’ll say Rabbi Ishmael disagrees with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, right? But look at the continuation of the Gemara. It says: and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani. You know whom the Gemara finds as the one who disagrees with Rabbi Ishmael? Not all the earlier sages who sound opposite to him. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani. Wait — what about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rabbi Yohanan, Rabbi Yosei, Rabbi Ami, all the Jews you just brought in the previous line — Rava, all those people? Why suddenly insert Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani now? Because Rabbi Ishmael does not disagree with them. There is no disagreement. He disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani, not with them, because they too agree that one should study day and night. They are only discussing the legal category of the formal commandment of Torah study, not the substantive obligation of Torah study. That is the issue. The commandment is truly minimal, but the obligation is obviously what we are discussing, and on that they all agree. So what does Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani say? Let’s see — line by line it all fits.

And this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani, for Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: this verse is neither an obligation nor a commandment, but a blessing. I don’t understand — what is the difference between an obligation and a commandment? Where do we find such a category, “it is neither an obligation nor a commandment”? If it’s not a commandment, fine, I understand; then there is no obligation. What is this category of “obligation and commandment”? Just what we were talking about, right? This is the subject of the discussion. The commandment is Shema morning and evening; the obligation is every moment. Now Rabbi Ishmael does not disagree with the earlier authorities, because they agree that the obligation is every moment — they merely minimize the commandment. Rabbi Ishmael says the obligation is every moment — that’s obvious. He is only completing what they said, not disagreeing with them. Whom does he disagree with? Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani. Why? Because Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani says there is here neither obligation nor commandment. That, of course, is against Rabbi Ishmael.

By the way, Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani does not necessarily say there is no obligation at all. He only says not from this verse. This verse is neither obligation nor commandment. It could be there is such an obligation and he agrees to it too, but this verse is not the source of it. Therefore the Gemara identifies only Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani as disagreeing with Rabbi Ishmael, not all the earlier sages.

[Speaker C] But maybe he meant that the obligation is only morning and evening Shema, and everything else is just a blessing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he says the whole verse is not. Neither obligation nor commandment. No, not even morning and evening Shema.

[Speaker C] But maybe he wants to emphasize that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then let him say it is a commandment but not an obligation.

[Speaker C] No, the commandment is only morning and evening Shema.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, then say “morning and evening Shema…”

[Speaker C] Morning and evening Shema is the commandment, and all the continuous part is a blessing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that’s not what he says. He could have said morning and evening Shema is a commandment, and the rest is not an obligation, something like that. But no — he says it is neither obligation nor commandment. All of it. It is only a blessing. Just like “והשבת אל השם אלוקיך” — it is only prophecy, not a commandment, right? That doesn’t mean there is no value in it. Of course there is value in it, because otherwise what kind of blessing is it to Joshua that “לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך” — “this book of Torah shall not depart from your mouth”? That is the verse he brings. If there were no value in it, then what kind of blessing would that be? Of course there is value in it. He is only saying that it is not obligation and not commandment, but a blessing. Understood? And therefore only he disagrees with Rabbi Ishmael, not the earlier authorities. Here we see exactly the tension between commandment and obligation. There are obligations that exist even though there is no command, no commandment. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani claims that from this verse, Torah study is neither obligation nor commandment. All the earlier authorities said it is not a commandment, but it is an obligation. Okay? Rabbi Ishmael says it is indeed an obligation. The earlier authorities said it is not a commandment. And Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani says neither obligation nor commandment, and therefore he disagrees with them. This is exactly the same as what I’ve been saying about repentance. With repentance there is an obligation, but no commandment. Okay? That is exactly the category we have here. And with Torah study too, it is for the same reason as with repentance, free choice, character refinement, and all the rest. Because with Torah study, the Torah wants us to do it as one who is not commanded and yet does. It deliberately minimizes the formal commandment we are under. No, no, everything is fine — if all you want is to discharge the requirement, recite Shema morning and evening and move on. But if you really understand what you need to do, then “והגית בו יומם ולילה” — “you shall meditate on it day and night,” even to the point of “find an hour that is neither day nor night.” Okay? That is how he reads the blessing to Joshua that “this book of Torah shall not depart from your mouth.”

Now look: a teaching from the school of Rabbi Ishmael says: the words of Torah should not be to you as a burden, yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. What is that? Earlier he said it is not an

[Speaker C] obligation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] every moment, right? Yes — not an obligation, and yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. Here I think the word “obligation” means “formal commandment.” It is not a formal commandment, and yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. That is what I was calling “obligation” before — the terminology isn’t the point, but that is what he means. There is no formal commandment, yet you are not permitted to exempt yourself from them. That is exactly what I said earlier about Rabbi Ishmael, and here it appears explicitly. This is what I said earlier about why Rabbi Ishmael above does not disagree with the sages before him. He is talking about the fact that you are not permitted to exempt yourself from it. As for whether it is a commandment — no, he too agrees that it is not a commandment. And here is the proof: a few lines later Rabbi Ishmael himself says it.

Let me finish with the contradiction people often raise between this sugya and one in Berakhot. In Berakhot there is almost the exact reverse between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Here Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: Shema morning and evening and everything is fine. Rabbi Ishmael says: you are not permitted to exempt yourself — find an hour that is neither day nor night. Okay? In Berakhot it goes the other way. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai comes out of the cave there, and says that he saw people sowing in the time of sowing, plowing in the time of plowing, harvesting in the time of harvest — what then will become of Torah? He stared at them and turned them into a pile of bones. Meaning: one has to study every moment. I don’t understand. Here you said Shema morning and evening and everything is fine. In other places too, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that morning and evening Shema suffices — also in Nedarim 8 and elsewhere. And who disagrees with him there in Berakhot? Rabbi Ishmael. He says: not at all, many did like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and did not succeed; conduct yourself according to the way of the world. Take it easy, everything is fine — you can work, do other things, you don’t need to study constantly in a frenzy. Here he says: go find an hour that is neither day nor night. They seem to swap roles. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is the great lenient one here, and Rabbi Ishmael the strict one. While there in Berakhot Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is hyper-strict — you may not even work for a living, only study — and Rabbi Ishmael is lenient, saying: fine, work, do what you need, study as much as you can.

[Speaker C] But when bar Nachmani says it’s a blessing, that sounds to me like the best option. Like he’s saying: do it and it’ll be good for you. He gives them the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not that it’ll be good for them in some external sense. The blessing to Joshua is that he will merit to study Torah. Not that Torah study will bring him some other blessing. The blessing is that “לא ימוש ספר התורה הזה מפיך” — that the Torah won’t leave his mouth.

[Speaker C] It sounds like if you study Torah, blessing will rest on you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not judging what is “best” here; everyone can judge that for himself. In any case, for our purposes, what I want to say is that the contradiction between the sugyot is very sharp, and many later authorities discuss it. According to what I’m saying, of course, there is no contradiction at all. Here too there is really no dispute in Menachot. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai — the Gemara itself says there is no dispute. When it brings Rabbi Ishmael, it says “and this disagrees with Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani,” not with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who appeared earlier. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai does not disagree with him at all. Why? Because Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is talking about the legal category of the commandment. Rabbi Ishmael is talking about the category of the obligation, not the formal halakhic commandment. Okay? In Berakhot there is a dispute about how far that non-formal obligation goes. Are you allowed to work, or not even that? There Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is much stricter than Rabbi Ishmael. But that has nothing to do with their positions here, because there is no dispute here. There, the argument is a sub-dispute within the realm of obligation, not commandment: how far does “as much as you can” go? Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is very stringent there, and Rabbi Ishmael less so. That’s all. And still everyone agrees that the formal commandment is only morning and evening Shema. Beyond that, of course one should study as much as possible. The only question is what “as much as possible” means. Going to work is fine. That doesn’t count as failing to do what you can. It means: everything beyond your work hours. But you may work. Fine? And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says no. Fine — that’s already a dispute about what “as much as possible” means. But the entire dispute is only within that definition, which is not a formal halakhic definition but rather… you understand?

I think this sugya, in a nutshell, gives us the whole structure I was talking about in relation to repentance. The commandment of repentance is even less formally present than the commandment of Torah study — according to Maimonides it simply does not exist. Okay? And still there is a full obligation to do it. Maimonides goes into all the details, but that obligation is not a halakhic commandment. It is not that if you fail to do it, you have neglected a positive commandment — otherwise the Minchat Chinukh’s question remains. Right? There is no formal halakhic commandment here. And yet of course there will be claims against you, because there is a rational obligation. Anyone who understands that repentance can repair sins he committed, and yet does not repent, clearly has a problematic attitude toward the commandments. So of course he will be criticized — but not with formal claims of neglecting a positive commandment. Rather with meta-halakhic claims: what is your attitude toward the commandments? What, you don’t care that you have accumulated sins? You have a way to repair them, so why aren’t you repairing them? Okay? The claim is a rational one.

And the whole basis of repentance is really the idea of Rabbeinu Yonah’s parable of the prisoner who does not escape. Rabbeinu Yonah comes to this parable too. It is exactly this idea. There is a tunnel — factually. There is no commandment to escape through a tunnel. But what idiot wouldn’t escape if there is a tunnel? That is exactly the reasoning Maimonides is talking about here. The novelty is the factual novelty that the tunnel exists. And if you perform repentance — if you repent — it erases your sin. That is a factual novelty. Nobody told you whether or not to repent. You are supposed to understand on your own that if there is a tunnel, you should escape.

All right. We’ll stop here. Thank you very much.

[Speaker D] Amen.