With Heaven’s help

From the Wilderness to Mattanah – 5762

It is commonly said that God grants us a special kindness: following repentance, He, as it were, erases sinful acts that have already been committed from history, contrary to nature and even contrary to the accepted rules of Jewish law. For example, this is the language of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal) in Mesilat Yesharim (chapter 4, on acquiring watchfulness):

For in truth, how can a person rectify what he has distorted, once the sin has already been done? If a person has murdered his fellow, if he has committed adultery, how can he possibly repair such a thing? Can he remove the deed that has been done from reality?… And this is what Scripture says (Isaiah 6): "Your iniquity has departed and your sin shall be atoned for," meaning that the iniquity truly departs from reality and is uprooted by the fact that he now suffers and regrets what was, retroactively. And this is certainly a kindness beyond strict justice… (That is: how can a person repair what he has distorted once the sin has already been done? If he has murdered another person or committed adultery, can he remove the accomplished act from reality? Scripture says, your iniquity departs and your sin is atoned for—your iniquity departs and your sin is atoned for—meaning that the sin itself is uprooted from reality through the remorse and regret he now feels, retroactively. This is certainly a kindness beyond strict justice.)

Many others wrote similarly, and their arguments are firmly rooted in the words of the Sages themselves, though this is not the place to elaborate.

On the other hand, the Talmud states (Yoma 86b):

Resh Lakish said: Great is repentance, for deliberate sins become like inadvertent transgressions, as it is stated: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity"—return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Iniquity is deliberate, yet Scripture calls it a stumbling. But is that so? Did Resh Lakish not also say: Great is repentance, for deliberate sins become like merits, as it is stated: "When a wicked person turns from his wickedness and does justice and righteousness, by them he shall live"—when a wicked person turns from his wickedness and does justice and righteousness, by them he shall live. This is not difficult: here it refers to repentance out of love, there to repentance out of fear. (Resh Lakish said: Great is repentance, for deliberate sins become like inadvertent transgressions, as it is stated: Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity—Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Iniquity is deliberate, yet Scripture calls it a stumbling. But did Resh Lakish not also say: Great is repentance, for deliberate sins become like merits, as it is stated: When a wicked person turns from his wickedness and does justice and righteousness, by them he shall live—When a wicked person turns from his wickedness and does justice and righteousness, by them he shall live. This is not difficult: here it refers to repentance out of love, there to repentance out of fear.)

It emerges from the Talmud that if one repents out of love, deliberate sins are transformed into merits, and if one repents out of fear, they are transformed into inadvertent transgressions. What is common to all these cases is that deliberate sins never disappear from the world. The deeds are not erased from history; they receive a different value instead: rather than deliberate sins, they are regarded as merits or as inadvertent transgressions. One can generalize further and say more than this: the full measure of strict justice is never compromised. A person’s deeds can never literally be removed from history, and they are certainly not regarded as though they were never done. What can change is only their spiritual-moral valuation, and consequently also their ramifications (spiritually in the world, and on the plane of reward and punishment).

As noted, the principle that an act cannot be removed from reality is both a natural principle and a principle of Jewish law. One of its expressions in Jewish law is: "’Speech does not come and nullify an act’" (‘speech cannot nullify an act’). A person who has performed an act cannot erase it from reality, nor its consequences (legal and spiritual).[1] On the other hand, it is an accepted rule that "’Speech comes and nullifies speech’" (‘speech can nullify speech’), meaning that words can indeed be revoked.

One should further note that actions can nullify earlier actions. The limitation applies only to speech that nullifies an act. That is, it would seem that acts that have been done can indeed be nullified, but this requires an act; speech does not suffice. More generally, an effect on reality (the creation of a new legal reality) is produced only by action and not by speech (as in acts of acquisition, and the like).

However, there are exceptional cases in Jewish law as well. In the discussion in Shevuot 21a (and parallel passages), which we have just studied, the medieval authorities determine that speech that is followed by an act is treated like an act. On the one hand, it cannot be erased by speech, just like an actual act (see Shitah Mekubetzet on Nazir 11a, and Kovetz Shiurim on Ketubot, sec. 168). On the other hand, it can itself generate practical consequences, even though this ordinarily requires actual acts (these are precisely the matters acquired by mere speech. A declaration to the Most High is like delivery to an ordinary person—these are precisely the matters acquired by mere speech; a declaration to the Temple treasury is like delivery to an ordinary person; likewise vows, which take effect on the object, and so forth).

Apparently, even the alteration of an act by speech—and even by other acts, as Jewish law describes it—is not a literal erasure of part of history. It means only a change in the consequences of the acts, not a change in history itself.

Repentance, too, is speech. Sometimes it can be speech that is followed by an act (complete repentance: until the Knower of secrets testifies concerning him…—until the Knower of secrets testifies concerning him…). As we have seen, even if one achieves this kind of repentance, the acts one has done will never be erased. They can become merits or inadvertent transgressions, but they cannot be entirely erased from history.

The question, then, is whether it is really necessary to erase an act from history at all. The fact that a particular act is part of history is not necessarily problematic. What is problematic is that it has consequences in the present world. Those consequences are what we must try to erase. As we have seen, the presence of the act in history cannot be changed, but its consequences for the present—whether it has a positive spiritual effect (merits) or a negative one (deliberate sins), and if negative, to what degree (inadvertent transgressions)—depend on us alone. Here speech that is followed by action is required, so that it can at least change the spiritual consequences of those acts.

It is an accepted rule that a penitent is preferable to a wholly righteous person. One who sinned and whose deliberate sins were transformed into merits (presumably this refers to repentance out of love) is preferable to a wholly righteous person, one who has no deliberate sins at all. Deliberate sins that become merits carry a uniquely positive spiritual weight. Repentance can raise the world to levels it could not have reached without it. A world of wholly righteous people is comparable to a world without choice. The reality of choice makes deliberate sins possible, on the one hand; but on the other hand, it also makes it possible to elevate them to a height that simple righteousness cannot reach. The very liability comes with its discharge attached.

It seems that this is the deeper initial assumption behind the one who says I will sin and repent (‘I will sin and repent’). His intention is to reach higher peaks through sin and repentance. As stated, these peaks cannot be attained through simple righteousness, and therefore that person wants to sin deliberately from the outset and then repent, in order to reach them by this route.

It may be that many sins contain within them the initial assumption of I will sin and repent. A person generally does not sin as an act of open rebellion. In a concealed way, a person always persuades himself to sin in one form or another: either by claiming that it is not a sin at all, or by invoking I will sin and repent.

The Torah decrees that we must not adopt this path deliberately from the outset; that is, one may not say I will sin and repent, for otherwise one will not be enabled to repent. Presumably, when someone does this deliberately from the outset, his repentance will not have the weight and influence he expects it to have. Part of the leverage for ascent is the feeling of failure that follows the sin, a feeling that cannot exist in someone who acts this way deliberately under the logic of I will sin and repent. Sin is not merely a specific act, but performing that act within a context of struggle and failure. Only repentance for such a sin has the power to become leverage for ascent.

If so, we must "rely" on our free choice to lead us into sin, even without doing so ideologically (usually, "we have someone to rely on"—perhaps unfortunately!). Afterward, those moments should be used as leverage for higher ascent.

As stated, this can be done only through complete repentance, repentance that is in the category of speech that is followed by an act: "until the Knower of secrets testifies concerning him that he will never return to this sin" (‘until the Knower of secrets testifies concerning him that he will never return to this sin’).

"Our Father, our King, bring us back before You in complete repentance" (‘Our Father, our King, bring us back before You in complete repentance’).

[1] This is probably also the meaning of the Talmudic passage in Nedarim 29, where the Amoraic sages dispute this point, and the ruling is: intrinsic sanctity does not lapse on its own (intrinsic sanctity does not lapse on its own, that is, through speech without an act). The medieval authorities expand this, for example regarding a monetary proprietary right in the object itself (ownership of the object itself), and more.