A Look at the Value and Meaning of Repentance (Column 32)

With God's help

On Sunday, one of the readers of the site (Dov) wrote me the following request:

It seems to me that many of the site's readers would be glad if, in advance of Yom Kippur, the Rabbi would publish an article on repentance suited to this season: what is demanded of us? Can we demand of everyone [I mean those who observe the commandments] that they repent during these days? And especially, there is the great question: after all, we usually return to the same place we were in beforehand, so what is the meaning of repentance during these days? It seems like some kind of game. Thank you.

I wrote him in reply that I would try to write something about this matter, and to clarify why this is not a game but a highly valuable process. So here are my remarks on the subject.[1]

The Commandment of Repentance

There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether there is a commandment to repent. Nachmanides writes that the verse "and you shall return to the Lord your God" is a commandment, but Maimonides, in chapter 7 of the Laws of Repentance, writes that it is a promise. In several places it is explained that Maimonides holds that a commandment is counted only if there is an explicit verse (not a logical inference and not a homiletic derivation) that commands it. It is therefore no surprise that on his view there is no commandment to repent (in positive commandment 73 he counts only the commandment of confession).[2]

Still, it requires explanation why he chooses his reading of the verse "and you shall return" rather than that of Nachmanides. He chooses to assume that there is no commandment to repent, and the question is why. The author of Meshekh Chokhmah (Deuteronomy 31:17) explains that the commandment of repentance would be superfluous, since abandoning sin follows from the very fact that we are commanded not to commit it. Therefore no special commandment is needed for this. He explains on this basis why Maimonides counts the commandment of confession, since this is the additional element found in repentance beyond the basic obligation not to sin.

The question raised by his remarks is why Maimonides devotes an entire set of laws to the Laws of Repentance. Seemingly, there would be room to speak only about the Laws of Confession, and not about the Laws of Repentance. From here it emerges that repentance has unique content of its own, beyond the simple obligation not to sin. And indeed, since Saadia Gaon it has been customary to say that the process of repentance includes four components: abandoning sin, remorse, resolution for the future, and confession. Abandoning sin does indeed follow from the very definition of the act as a sin, and for that there truly is no need for a special commandment to repent. But all the other components do not follow from the commandment itself, only within the framework of repentance.

We are thus left with the question why Maimonides assumes that there is no commandment to repent. This commandment has unique content, and there would seem to be room to see the verse "and you shall return" as a commandment to repent (as Nachmanides understood it).

A Fundamental Question Regarding the Meaning of Repentance

One can broaden the discussion and ask what the purpose of repentance is. Usually repentance is connected to transgressions a person has committed. Rabbi Kook and others greatly expanded the concept of repentance, but originally it deals with atonement and purification for transgressions that were committed. If so, Meshekh Chokhmah's question can still be raised. If the goal of the whole matter is that we not sin, this is still a commandment with no content of its own. We are obligated not to sin even without it. From here it clearly emerges that repentance is not only intended to bring a person to a state in which he no longer sins; rather, repentance is a process that has value in its own right.

One may even say that its value lies not only in the fact that as a result we will no longer sin, or that we will reach a more complete state, but that the process itself has value. And indeed, one can see this in the Talmud (Berakhot 34b and Sanhedrin 99a), which cites a dispute whether a penitent or a perfectly righteous person is preferable. At first glance there is no room to say that a penitent is preferable, for even if he repents fully and purifies himself of all his sins, at most he reaches the level of a perfectly righteous person. How can it be that he is preferable to a perfectly righteous person?

This question assumes that the value of repentance lies in the fact that through it we have been purified of our sins. On this view, a penitent is at most on the level of a perfectly righteous person. And indeed, there are those who try to resolve this difficulty without giving up that conception. For example, some wanted to say that a penitent struggled and exerted himself, and therefore his level is higher than that of the righteous person. But this explanation is problematic, because plainly the perfectly righteous person struggled no less, except that unlike the penitent he did not fail. Why, then, does the penitent have an advantage over him? The author of Chovot HaLevavot, Gate of Repentance, chapter 8, also offers several explanations for this, and he too does not abandon the conception I have described. But it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that the value of repentance does not lie only in the perfected state to which it brings us. Its value lies in the process itself. A penitent is preferable to the righteous person because he repented (that is, underwent change) and the righteous person did not. The value of the change lies in its very occurrence, and not because it changes our state from a bad one to a better one. The good state is a result of the process of change, but the value of change lies not only in the fact that we reached a more complete state, but in the very fact that we changed.

Who Is a Penitent?

From here we can understand two laws in Maimonides, at the beginning of chapter 2 of the Laws of Repentance. In law 1 he writes:

What is complete repentance? It is when an opportunity to commit the very sin one had committed presents itself again, and it is within his power to commit it, yet he separates himself and does not do it because of repentance—not out of fear, nor from lack of strength. How so? For example, if one had relations with a woman sinfully, and after some time he is alone with her again, while still loving her, still physically capable, and in the same place where he sinned, yet he refrains and does not sin—this is a complete penitent. This is what Solomon said: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” And if one repented only in old age, at a time when he can no longer do what he once did, although this is not the highest repentance, it is effective for him, and he is a penitent. Even if one sinned all his days, and repented on the day of his death and died in repentance, all his sins are forgiven, as it is said: “Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain”—this refers to the day of death. From this it follows that if one remembered his Creator and repented before dying, he is forgiven.

In this law Maimonides rules that if a person repents on his final day, his sins are forgiven. In such a case repentance has no result in the form of abandoning sin, since this is his last day. Repentance here does not bring about a state of fewer sins. And nevertheless he is a penitent, because he did undergo the inner change. The value of the change lies in the very making of it, even if it will have no practical consequences.

In law 2 there, Maimonides writes:

And what is repentance? It is that the sinner abandon his sin, remove it from his thoughts, and resolve in his heart never to do it again, as it is said, “Let the wicked forsake his way,” etc. Likewise, he must regret the past, as it is said, “For after I returned, I regretted.” And the Knower of hidden things must testify concerning him that he will never return to this sin again, as it is said, “Nor will we say any more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands,” etc. And he must confess with his lips and state these matters that he resolved in his heart.

A well-known difficulty was raised by several commentators on Maimonides. How can a person reach a state such that the Knower of hidden things testifies about him that he will never return to this sin? After all, we all know that generally we do return to sin. Is being a penitent a hypothetical state that a person cannot actually attain? Are there no genuine penitents at all? Dov, in his question above, formulated this by saying that repentance seems like a kind of "game."

Some of Maimonides' commentators explain that this is a situation similar to a convert's acceptance of the commandments. The process of conversion depends on accepting the commandments, but that acceptance is valid even if in practice that convert sins afterward (for is it possible that he will not sin?!). What determines the matter is his state at that moment when he accepted the commandments, even though afterward he can fall, and probably will fall. So too regarding repentance. It is measured at the very moment it is done. At that moment one must reach a state such that the Knower of hidden things would testify that in this state he will not sin again. Of course afterward we can fall, and indeed are expected to fall and sin, but that does not tarnish the repentance we performed. It is measured by our state at that moment.

Seeing the Present Through a Hypothetical Future: Another Example

An illustration of this can be taken from the midrash cited by Rashi on the verse "And he turned this way and that way and saw that there was no man, so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (Exodus 2:12). In one of the two interpretations there, Rashi writes:

“And he saw that there was no man” — that no one destined to come from him would convert.

The Siftei Chakhamim there asks:

But if so, Rashi himself explained in the section Emor on the verse “among the children of Israel” that this teaches that he had converted, and this refers to the son of the Egyptian mentioned here, whom he fathered with Shelomit bat Divri. One may answer that when Moses killed the Egyptian, she was already pregnant by him; but Moses saw that no other person would yet come from him who would convert.

The blasphemer was the son of that Egyptian and Shelomit bat Divri; that is, someone did come from him who converted. How can this be reconciled with the fact that Moses saw that no one would come from him who would convert? Did the greatest of the prophets make a mistake here?! He explains that this descendant was already in the world when Moses made his calculation. Moses saw that in the future, after that moment, no additional person would come from that Egyptian who would convert.

But this is very puzzling. Seemingly, this is prophecy, that is, seeing the future. Moses already saw now that none of the future descendants of that Egyptian would convert. But of course this is a trivial observation, for Moses kills that Egyptian a moment later, so how could someone who was not yet in the world then come from him afterward and convert? How could anyone at all come from him, righteous or wicked, if Moses kills the Egyptian immediately? In fact, Moses did not foresee the future; he created it with his own hands. One need not be Moses our Teacher for such a prophecy. I too could have made such a prophecy.

It is clear that the midrash means that Moses our Teacher saw the present and not the future. He was not looking at what would happen in the future, for he himself was about to determine that future with his own hands. He looked at a hypothetical future: if he were to leave that Egyptian alive, is there any chance that someone would come from him who would convert (that something good would emerge from him)? His conclusion was that there was not, and therefore he killed him. That is, Moses did not really observe the future but the present. The hypothetical future testified to the present state of that Egyptian. Moreover, that Egyptian could have repented and changed his path. And presumably the paths of repentance were not closed even to his descendants. So how could it be known in advance that no one would come from him who would convert? But according to our approach it is clear that what mattered to Moses was not the future but the present. That Egyptian, as he appeared in the present, was not worth leaving alive. Looking at the hypothetical future is only an indicator that determines his present state.

If so, this was not prophecy about the future but an analysis of a present condition. So too with the testimony of the Knower of hidden things about a penitent. It does not testify about what will actually happen in the future, but about his state in the present. The hypothetical future (which will not in fact occur, for in practice he probably will sin again later) — that if this state were to continue he would not sin again — is an indicator that at this moment he is a genuine penitent. That is what matters for evaluating his state and his repentance. Again we see that the value of repentance does not lie only in the prevention of future sins, nor only in the more complete state reached through it. The value of repentance lies first and foremost in the very act of doing it.

Process Versus Change of State

In my article Analysis 47, Zeno's Arrow and Modern Physics (see it on the site here), I distinguished between two forms of relating to dynamic processes. Take, for example, the speed of a body. One can define a body's speed in one way as a state in which a body changes its place. The speed is calculated by the difference in place divided by the difference in time it takes the body to change place. But speed can also be viewed differently, as something that exists in its own right. According to that conception, change of place is a result of the fact that the body has speed, and not the very definition of speed. In the first perspective, people arrive at the conclusion that a body has no speed at a single instant of time. Speed is a magnitude that exists only over an interval of time (even if very short).[3] But from the second perspective it follows that a body has speed even at a discrete instant of time. The change of place that results from the fact that the body has speed indeed appears only over a span of time and not at a discrete point of time. But the change of place is not the speed. On this view, speed is a potential for change of place and not the change of place itself. According to this conception, defining speed through difference of places divided by difference of times is an operational (computational) definition and not an essential one. It tells us how to calculate speed, but that is not the definition of speed as such.

In that article I brought several implications of this distinction (for the uncertainty principle, the theory of relativity, Zeno's arrow paradox, and more). One of the implications brought there is Rabbi Kook's remark (in Orot HaKodesh, volume 2) about perfection and the process of perfecting. Rabbi Kook argues there that the process of perfecting is itself one of our perfections. From this he asks how that perfection can appear in God, for He is already perfect. In light of the distinction I proposed above, I argued that it indeed can appear in divinity as well. He is indeed in a process of perfecting, but this does not express itself in a transition to a more perfect state (because He is already in the most perfect state). This parallels a situation in which a body has speed but does not manage to actualize it through a change of place. In such a case the potential of the speed will be actualized in another form (through heat or in other ways). Just as speed is a potential for change of place and not the change of place itself, so the process of perfecting is the potential to become better and more complete, but not the transition itself to the perfected state or the being in it.

Rabbi Kook argues there that this potential in God is actualized through our own perfecting. The fact that we become more complete is the actualization of the divine process of perfecting. This is essentially why we were created: so that His process of perfecting could move from potential to actuality through our transition from an incomplete state to a more complete one. This applies only to us and not to Him, and therefore in this way we complete Him.[4]

Character Refinement[5]

Rabbi Hayyim Vital, in his book Sha'arei Kedushah, asks why the Torah does not command character refinement. He offers an interesting answer, according to which the Torah speaks to and commands human beings. One who is not a human being is not someone it makes sense to command. Rabbi Kook, in his letters, expands this further and says that if the Torah had commanded character refinement, it would have ruined character refinement, because unlike most commandments, in character refinement greater is one who acts without being commanded.

The question that bothered me regarding this discussion is the difficulty Rabbi Hayyim Vital himself raised. After all, there is a commandment to refine character. More than that, this commandment is counted by all the enumerators of the commandments. For example, Maimonides in positive commandment 8 writes:

The eighth commandment is that He commanded us to emulate Him, may He be exalted, according to our capacity. This is His statement (Deut. 28): “And you shall walk in His ways.” This command is repeated, when He says (Deut. 10, 11): “to walk in all His ways.” And the explanation of this is: just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called merciful, so you too should be merciful; just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called gracious, so you too should be gracious; just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called righteous, so you too should be righteous; just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called pious, so you too should be pious. This is the language of the Sifrei (end of Ekev). And this command is repeated in another expression, when He says (Re'eh 13): “After the Lord your God shall you walk.” It is also explained (Sotah 14a) that its meaning is to emulate the good actions and the noble qualities with which God, may He be exalted, is described by way of metaphor—exalted above all with great exaltation.

The conclusion is that there is a commandment to refine our character traits as part of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Why, then, do those later authorities assume that there is no commandment to refine character?

The answer can be inferred from Maimonides' wording. God's thirteen attributes do not describe His inner traits of soul, but His modes of conduct and manifestation in the world. Therefore we too, who are commanded to cleave to Him, are commanded in our behavior. We must walk in His ways and conduct ourselves like Him. And as Maimonides writes here: "to emulate the good actions and the noble qualities with which God, may He be exalted, is described by way of metaphor—exalted above all with great exaltation". But character refinement is something else. Character refinement is inner spiritual work and not a specific behavior. Character refinement is not humble behavior or acts of kindness, but acquiring the inner traits of humility and kindness. In the terminology of Chovot HaLevavot, character refinement is not a duty of the limbs but a duty of the heart. About that we were indeed not commanded, and Rabbi Hayyim Vital's question is therefore very well taken.

This is another example of the distinction I pointed to above. The value in character refinement does not lie in the fact that as a result we behave better. The value lies in the process itself. Improved character traits are not a means to corrected behavior, but a value in their own right. In fact, one can distinguish here three tiers, one atop the other: corrected behavior; underlying it, corrected character traits; and underlying those, the process of improvement and refinement that leads to those corrected traits. In the terms I described above, character refinement is itself a perfection, and not merely having corrected character traits, and certainly not merely corrected behavior.

Back to Repentance

In this sense repentance resembles character refinement. Both repentance and character refinement derive their value from the process and not only from the state to which that process leads. Repentance is not the abandonment of sin, and its value is also not only that after it we will not sin. The Laws of Repentance (which deal with Saadia Gaon's four stages) describe this process. To command the perfected state as such would be superfluous, since refraining from transgressions follows from their very definition as transgressions, but repentance is not the result; it is the process.[6]

Above I asked: if repentance truly has unique content beyond the bare duty not to sin, why, according to Maimonides, is there no commandment to do this? Interestingly, in both of these cases there is no commandment: neither regarding character refinement nor regarding repentance (at least according to Maimonides). It may be that, on Rabbi Hayyim Vital's approach, the explanation is that the Torah generally commands states and behaviors, not processes. The obligation to engage in processes is left to our own understanding. It is interesting that the Torah sees this as a matter of reason that we are supposed to arrive at by ourselves. Notice that the reasoning is not that the process brings about a more complete state, but that there is value in the process itself. And this evidently seemed to the Torah to be something simple that required no commandment. According to Rabbi Kook's approach, the explanation seems somewhat different. As we saw regarding character refinement, in these cases the commandment would spoil the act, because in repentance, as in character refinement, greater is one who acts without being commanded.

Free Will

Maimonides devotes two chapters in the Laws of Repentance (5-6) to the topic of free will. Its source is probably the portion of Nitzavim, where the Torah itself, after dealing at length with the topic of repentance, commands us to choose life and the good. Why is the topic of choice connected to repentance? Seemingly, one could also speak regarding Grace after Meals or Sabbath observance about choosing to fulfill those commandments or not to sin this or that sin. Apparently, choice is connected more deeply to repentance than to the other commandments.

One possible explanation is that we have no commandment to repent, and therefore our power of choice comes to expression here more strongly than in commandments in which we are commanded. But beyond that, perhaps one can say that choice too primarily concerns the process and not the result. The primary value is to be one who chooses. The content of the choice — that we chose the good — is an additional value, but not the only one. The value of choice lies not only in the fact that we chose the good, but in the very fact that we chose and were not merely carried along. Of course it is also very important to choose the good, but that is a second tier.

This is another topic and should be addressed separately. Here I will only point to one implication. When a student or child of ours chooses to leave the path and abandon his commitment to Torah and commandments, we all tend to see this as a failure. But in my view it is important to distinguish between two different situations: there is one who left simply because he lacked the strength, or because of his evil inclination. And there is one who left because he decided that he does not believe in it. Who is better/worse? In my view there is no doubt that the second is much better. He at least chose. It is a shame that he did not choose the good and life, but he at least chose. Despite the justified disappointment with the content of his choice, it is important to understand that at least on level one this is an educational success (together with a failure on level two). By contrast, one who remains on the path can also do so for two different motives: from inertia or from choice. If he remains from inertia, he is indeed doing the right things, but not by choice. That is an educational failure (on level one, together with success on level two). I do not know how to say whether he is better or worse than the one who chose autonomously and by his own free decision to leave. This is one of the meanings of the distinction between the value in the very act of choosing and the value of the contents I chose.

Conclusion

To be a penitent means to return to being one who chooses. The process I described is overcoming inertia and returning to a track on which I take back the reins, that is, I take my fate and my decisions back into my own hands. The failures for which I repent are mostly the result of giving up on decision, that is, being dragged after influences and impulses. Repentance is a return to being one who chooses. About one who returns to being a chooser and is determined to do so in the positive direction, the Knower of hidden things will testify that he will never return to sin. This does not mean that in practice he truly will not sin, but he is at least engaged in the struggle over his autonomy and over his control of his path and his decisions, and this process is of great value in itself. The fact that afterward we fall does not mean that our repentance has no value, as Dov assumed in the question cited above. His assumption that because of the future failure expected in advance this is some kind of valueless game is based on an outcome-oriented conception according to which the value of repentance lies in the result we reached (in the fact that we do not sin). But that is not so. As we have seen, there is value in the struggle itself and in the very act of repenting even if the result (on one of the next two levels) is not achieved. Repentance is not a game. On the contrary, without it, everything we do, commandments or transgressions, is a game.

"It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

[1] Because of lack of time, I did not spell out all the sources and arguments. I assume that the reader will be able to locate most of the sources fairly easily.

[2] On the contradiction in his words raised by the author of Minchat Chinukh, see in my article here.

[3] In physics, to be sure, people do speak about the speed of a body at an instant of time, but the common view is that this is a fiction. What is really meant is the speed of the body over a tiny interval around that point.

[4] This is what the medieval authorities called the esoteric doctrine that worship serves a higher divine need. And the Ari applied to this the verse "Ascribe strength to God" (that we give strength to God).

[5] On this, see in my article on reasoning here.

[6] It is true, however, that the corrected state in which a person has atoned and been purified of the sin does not follow from this. Therefore here too, as in character refinement, one can speak of a three-tier structure: the process of correction, arrival at a corrected state, refraining from transgressions and fulfilling the commandments.