Gmar Chatima Tova
Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.
This past Shabbat ‘Shuva’ I spoke in the synagogue about the Sisyphean nature of doing teshuva (repentance). Maimonides writes: “until He who knows hidden things testifies about him that he will never return to this sin ever again” (granted, this is the definition of *complete* teshuva, not of every form of teshuva), but usually people revert after a day or two to the same state. So what is the point of all this? This is reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus, who had to roll a stone up the mountain and, once finished, go back down and roll it again (see also our essay on the Third Root in the book *Yishlach Shoreshav*. See also here).
I explained that the Sisyphean quality is frustrating if one thinks that rolling the stone up the hill (as with Sisyphus) aims to get the stone to the top. But if we understand that the goal is the act of rolling itself, then there is no problem with it tumbling back down and our having to repeat the whole thing. On the contrary, this enables us to amass ever more virtues and growth.
So it is with teshuva. Its aim is the *process* of doing teshuva, not the attainment of a more complete spiritual state (the outcome of teshuva). Therefore, even if one falls and returns, that is precisely the goal. A ba’al teshuva is preferable to a perfectly righteous person, for the value of teshuva lies in the process and not only in the result. In this, too, the purpose of our creation is realized (and this is the secret of “*avodah tzorekh gavoah*”), as I elaborated in column 170. It’s worth looking there.
Shanah Tovah and Gmar Chatima Tova. I hope it will be a better year for all of us.
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Happy New Year! May we always roll uphill!
Good luck. I loved it.
Lovely, lovely, lovely!
Rabbi, I see that you are unique in that you do not end with an apology from the readers, etc. Why?
Is it someone who hurt a friend or spoke ill of him and laughed at him, injuries that are often committed between two normal people but not something on an abnormal level.
And he talks to him on a daily basis as usual so that it seems esoteric? Is there any point in asking him for forgiveness?
There is definitely interest. So on this occasion I will ask for forgiveness from those whom I have wrongfully offended. Thank you and a good end.
Thank you very much! They are lucky to have a serious speaker for the synagogue. Our rabbi only said that if we search very carefully, deeply within, that is where we will find God, and that is the answer 🙄
You probably didn't search deep enough 😂
We returned to you … ח ד ש ימיםו ק ד מ !
May you be blessed with what you bless yourself with (in light of the question with what do we bless?).
I have a question for you (perhaps a little late), in light of your words about physics and human hearing (a fallen tree), which has been bothering me for a long time. Gershom Auerbuch and others rule that one should not fulfill the obligation of hearing by means of a microphone, etc., because one does not hear a human voice. And the question is whether the normal voice that we hear, from a person or a shofar or from a trumpet or from a radio, is indeed the voice of a person or a shofar. Doesn't the voice also normally go through a mechanical process until it is recorded in the human brain, and what is it? For this reason, it is also seemingly unclear what the sound of the syllable in the Gemara is. It is possible that the intention is to exclude a sound that is only an echo, because of a second instrument that does not produce sound [as Rabbi Uziel's permission [jokingly?] states regarding the voice of a woman on the radio]. Still, why would the sound of a syllable be different from the sound itself, which also undergoes mechanical processing.
I also wonder about the ruling on batteries in hearing aids and the like, which the experts advise that when they are taken out of the ear on Shabbat, not to open the battery or move them away from each other. Or the question of whether the battery runs out on Shabbat, is it permissible to replace it with another battery. Finally, by all accounts, there is no fire here, only the concern remains that it is the imagination of an instrument installer, and as his wonderful definition of the action of electricity states, that it is something that raises from death to life! In other words, all that brings the dead to life in physics is the creator of an instrument. And perhaps he is not a “creator” but, to be precise, only a “raiser” from death to life.
What do you think of all this?
And again, may you be blessed with all the blessings you desire,
May God
Hello.
Many have already claimed that the halakha is not based on microscopic physical analysis but on a ‘albatit’ perception of reality. In the ‘albatit’albatit’albatit perception, when you hear a person's voice, it is their own voice. But with a microphone, it is a processed voice. In other words: when the only processing is what is done in your cognitive system, it is considered hearing the voice of the other. When there is another external processing in addition to the processing that you have – it is not. Hearing the voice of the other is when the pressure wave in the air that hits my ear is the wave created by the mouth (or horn) of the other. What happens between the eardrum and the vocal perception (audio) is not of interest to the halakha. Regarding hearing aids, I tend to believe that they are considered a real ear and treat the body, both in terms of wearing them on Shabbat and in terms of the sound they produce. This is not considered external processing, but rather the eardrum of the person using them.
Regarding the revival of death to life, I wrote a column about it. My weak opinion is completely the same as the predicted opinion, as Yehuda and more to read. See my words in column 397:
https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=f18e4f052adde49eb&q=https://mikyab.10web.site/posts/72275&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiv2Kfok8OBAxXkQ0EAHdUJDx8QFnoECAAQAg&usg=AOvVaw0YJjAMhZl96e0f27fu3NfS
A good end to the signature also to Mr.
If we say that the law is based on physical analysis, it is possible that electricity on Shabbat would be prohibited because of a switch (negative electrons from positive).
It does not choose anything, because there is no way that after the ’choice’ there are two groups of objects that stand apart for your use. Nor are they separated in the material itself. They are completely mixed but move in opposite directions. In fact, there are no positive free particles at all, only negative ones. There are ‘holes’ against them, but that is a fiction. So rest assured.
How many people do you know who are able to roll a stone their entire lives so that it falls back down? It is an unparalleled sorrow, simply suffering for up to 120 years. Thank you very much for the columns, books, and in general all the hard work of the Rabbi for the public. May your springs be restored. Cross and finish. A good signature.
There you go, now you know at least one of them. 🙂
Albert Camus also came to this conclusion in The Myth of Sisyphus, you found another one Doron 😉
Who did Maimonides mean when he wrote that he would testify about him knowing mysteries, etc., only for special individuals?
What is the minimum required in making a Teshuvah? What is included in the obligation to make a Teshuvah for the methods that require it?
I have written before that the Maimonides’ description refers to a hypothetical process of repentance, which is what the Maimonides calls a “complete repentance.” This is the great repentance in my terminology, as opposed to the technical repentance. The laws of repentance do not deal with the great repentance but with the technical repentance.
See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%98%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%95%D7%AA
Is future acceptance necessary for making the answer to the common man who knows that his acceptance is not real and that it is a matter of time before he returns to his previous state?
Maybe a small acceptance that he is able to hold onto?
Kabbalah for the future describes his present situation. This is what he wants now for the future. Will it last? Probably not. No Torah was given to the ministering angels.
Consider the acceptance of the mitzvot of a convert. He accepts the mitzvot and becomes a Jew. But all converts occasionally break some of the mitzvot (like all of us), and some do not keep all of the mitzvot on an ongoing basis. And yet all the poskim agree that their future state does not retroactively indicate their intention at the time of conversion and therefore they are fully Jewish even in such a state. The same is true of future acceptance.
I think your explanation of the Sisyphean task is not satisfactory. It empties the very idea of moral or spiritual progress for the benefit of the "movement" itself. In my opinion, this is not enough. Think about your proposal itself (as a kind of "second-order value"): Does anything in it help us or advance us somewhere? At most, it provides psychological relief to those who believe in it to continue the Sisyphean race that supposedly suddenly has "meaning". In practice, this proposal will also have to undergo revision over and over again, because according to its internal logic, it itself will not bring us to a safe haven. There is no such haven in your opinion, since everything is based on the "movement". Happy New Year to you and your family.
I didn't understand why it was emptied. On the contrary, it is what fills the answer with content. It also doesn't need to continue on to the loop. Absolutely not.
By the way, my argument is that there is value in the movement itself, but reaching a higher spiritual level is certainly also valuable.
Happy New Year to you and your family.
Why isn't this considered a sin and a return?
Because it wasn't done primarily to sin and return
The loop is necessary because the mechanism you propose is also subject to the same legality that it imposes on the “act of reply”. It is also necessarily part of that act (only this time it is a second-order act).
This is ultimately a return to the famous turtle tower where, also according to you (to the best of my memory), the move is emptied of content.
Doron,
A. I don't think Rabbi Michi meant that one must regress, but that it is a common thing (at least in the subject of the answer).
B. You ignore the fact that the claim is not that the only value is only in progress itself. Rather, there is value also in progress itself, and then your question, as far as I understand it, is resolved.
C. Your question is not understood to begin with because value does not derive from another reason. In this case, the value itself is the progress in the work of God. Or in other words, the work of God.
Yishai…
A. “Regressing”…? Do you mean the regression I pointed out? If so, I have already explained why it is necessary. Refer to that.
B. Read Michi's post again and see for yourself. But if he really did not mean what I understood and is willing to admit that there is a principle prior to the process, then I am definitely with him.
C. I did not understand what this has to do with it. In my opinion, Michi's move is self-defeating. The way to save it is to assume that the process is a derivative and not the main thing. Do you accept that?
Doron I don't understand the insistence.
This loop doesn't start, because even if the training itself is a plus, why do you assume that its derivative should also be a plus? It is possible that the speed (the first derivative) is a plus but the acceleration (the second derivative) is not.
And even if so, there are functions that have infinite derivatives (for example, exponential functions). So what's the problem with continuing this to infinity? It sounds like a paradox of Zeno who doesn't know infinity and modern mathematics.
I have a tendency to insist on things that seem right to me. Of all the people in the world – well maybe not “all” but of many – you should have understood this 😉.
The things I said are simple and clear and I am skeptical about the benefit of trying to explain them further. Sorry.
As for Zeno… well, in my opinion you are returning to your mistake in the debate between us from years ago. These paradoxes are philosophical in nature, not mathematical (even if they can be formulated mathematically and then “calculate” and ”solve” them). This is also a very simple claim… and in my opinion it is also worth insisting on…
Doron,
Actually, I didn't address your second message. Just for the sake of argument, it's not a clear message. It's better to write simply what you mean so that people understand. Now to the content of what you wrote.
You actually want to say (correct me if I'm wrong) that if there is a return value in the process itself, then there will also be a return value in the process itself, and then there will also be a return value in the direction of the process itself, and so on and so forth.
A. I don't agree with the separation you make. In the end, everything is part of the process and no new process is added here. That is, everything is included in the same value of progress (i.e., work). If we take this into mathematical language, it's not a new derivative, but a total return a little further back on the axis (I have no categorical objection to using mathematics, we just need to translate them back into concepts that we are used to thinking in).
B. I think that's how he thinks.
C. My opinion is that there is also a final value. But even if the value is in the process itself, it still works.
Think of it this way: Suppose you decide to adopt the new ideal that Mikhi proposes (the process precedes the result, the climb precedes the mountain and its summit). What is the difference between it and the ideal that he claims to replace? Logically, this is an – unconscious… admission that there is something that precedes the process. This new ideal is not a “process” in itself, but rather a priori to it. Mikhi is bringing in through the back door what he claimed to get rid of.
I would love for you to write clearly. Why do you refuse to say that there can be an ideal in the work of the ’ itself, even if we do not reach the final stage.
First of all, it is about ideals (or norms) in general, and not just religious ideals like the work of God. The problem of Sisyphus also lies at the doorstep of the atheist and at the level of the humble and petty challenges of everyday “secular” life.
But let’s take the particular example you just offered.
The “work of God” consists of 3 elements:
1) God
2) The ideal that He Himself set for us (to work on Him, i.e., “to reach the summit”)
3) The realization of the ideal (the movement/process to the summit).
Now there is a logical and metaphysical dependence of the last element (the process) on the second element (reaching the end of the process, i.e., the summit) and of these two together on the first element (God).
Accept or not?
Elements 2 and 3 certainly depend on the first element.
But I think there is some kind of problem with the Haggadah in the first place. After all, if the ideal that he himself set for us is the very work of his, then the realization of the ideal is also in process. In other words, it is impossible to define the work itself as the pinnacle, because everyone does it at one moment, there is no need to reach a specific goal here. Therefore, the movement itself is the realization of the ideal.
Let's take an analogy from a slightly different area.
When someone has difficulty directing in prayer, they are told to pray over prayer, now the need arises to direct in prayer over prayer, and that doesn't work for him either. Let's say he tries praying over prayer over prayer again. If he fails to direct in the third prayer, will it help if he makes a fourth prayer over it, or is it better for him to do the same thing in the fourth prayer as in the third prayer? After all, it requires the same thing from him, so why would he add another step for nothing? In other words, the derivative does not add anything at any stage. Therefore, it is not an infinite regression.
Hello Rabbi,
On the night of Yom Kippur, I hosted Sheva Brachot at my home, and I used the idea of the secret of work, a high need, to complete the symmetry in the parable of the castor bean that appears in column 170, which I also heard in one of the Rabbi's lectures. I linked it to mutual giving as the basis for love between spouses, as well as the exchange of the wife and the uncle in the Song of Songs, etc., and it came out beautifully.
But here I would also like to ask for forgiveness because I did not mention the Rabbi's name. I did not remember for sure if the idea was his. Later I read the column again and realized that it probably was.
So sorry, and thank you very much for the beautiful idea.
Happy Holidays!
Dance dance. 🙂
Hence the big announcement that there is no need to mention my name on the ideas. Happy Holidays.