Repentance Topics – Lesson 2
This transcription was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The structure of the three Elul meetings and the starting point about the commandment of repentance
- Rabbi Kook, “service for a higher need,” and the perfection of the Holy One, blessed be He, through us
- Zeno’s arrow paradox, velocity as potential, and the analogy to repentance
- The potential for perfection in the Holy One, blessed be He, its realization in us, and its dependence on choice
- The Book of Jonah, the a fortiori argument about the kikayon plant, and forgiveness as dependent on “service for a higher need”
- A passage on the image of God and the power of speech
- The shift in the meaning of “ba’al teshuvah” across generations and the distinction between return and drawing close
- Defining sin as weakness of will and the paradoxical claim that no such sin exists
- The move from correcting behavior to correcting conceptions, and the claim that deliberate ideological change is impossible
Summary
General Overview
The speaker continues the series of Elul lectures on the commandment of repentance and places its value primarily in the process of progress, not only in the result of erasing sins or reaching a corrected spiritual state. Based on Rabbi Kook’s Orot HaKodesh, he presents a view in which perfection-through-growth is itself a form of perfection, and therefore there is, as it were, “service for a higher need,” in which human beings enable the realization of a potential for perfection that cannot be realized in the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. He then illustrates the distinction between potential and realization through Zeno’s arrow paradox and the concept of velocity, and applies that to the “spiritual velocity” of repentance. After a break he turns to different definitions of “ba’al teshuvah” and to the philosophical problem of weakness of will, developing the claim that sin requires correcting conceptions and not only behavior, but then a paradox arises regarding deliberate ideological change.
The structure of the three Elul meetings and the starting point about the commandment of repentance
The speaker states that there are three meetings, with the second taking place now and the third on next Thursday after Rosh Hashanah. He says that in the first meeting he began with the commandment of repentance and asked whether repentance can even be defined as a commandment in its own right. He attributes to the Meshekh Chokhmah the assumption that repentance is meant to bring a person to a better spiritual state and rid him of sins, and therefore seemingly no separate commandment is needed beyond the commandments and prohibitions themselves. Against that, he sets an opposite view in which the value of repentance lies in the very process of progress and not only in the result, so that movement toward a higher spiritual state has value in itself.
Rabbi Kook, “service for a higher need,” and the perfection of the Holy One, blessed be He, through us
The speaker says that in passages in Orot HaKodesh, Rabbi Kook lays a philosophical foundation for the idea that perfection-through-growth is one of the forms of perfection, and therefore it should also exist in the Holy One, blessed be He, who is “the being who possesses all perfections.” He presents the paradox: if the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect, He has nowhere to progress and therefore cannot perfect Himself. Rabbi Kook explains that this is why the world and human beings were created lacking, obligated to repair and complete. He cites the phrase “service for a higher need” and the Ari z”l’s comment on the verse “Give strength to God” as meaning that there are things the Holy One, blessed be He, “cannot do without us,” and Rabbi Kook interprets that as referring uniquely to self-improvement, because He “cannot improve” and “we were created in order to complete Him.” He emphasizes that there is dependency here: without us the Holy One, blessed be He, is not complete, and if we choose evil then He also will not be complete. He connects this to the fact that this is a jarring statement in light of accepted views such as Maimonides’ words at the beginning of the Yad HaChazakah, that “all exist only from the truth of His existence, and He does not need them,” and therefore the medieval authorities (Rishonim) call this “the secret of service for a higher need.”
Zeno’s arrow paradox, velocity as potential, and the analogy to repentance
The speaker uses the paradox of the arrow in flight to distinguish between the state of “velocity” and actual change of place. He argues that velocity is a “potential for change of place” that exists even at a discrete point in time, while actual change of place requires a stretch of time. He claims that the usual identification of velocity with “place divided by time” is an operational definition for calculation, not an essential definition, and he brings the mathematical distinction between a derivative as a value at a point and the way it is calculated. He explains Zeno as a confusion between “the arrow stands in a place” and “the arrow is in a place,” because “to stand” includes zero velocity, while the arrow is in a place with nonzero velocity. He gives the example of a body thrown at a wall: at the instant of impact it has velocity, but its place does not change in the next moment because of the wall, and the potential can be actualized in other ways such as heating up, showing that velocity is not synonymous with change of place. He then transfers this model to repentance and argues that there is a “spiritual velocity” in which the value of repentance is the very potential and progress along the spiritual axis, not only arrival at the result of a corrected state.
The potential for perfection in the Holy One, blessed be He, its realization in us, and its dependence on choice
The speaker rejects solutions based on “metaphysical identification” between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, that might lead to pantheism, and proposes instead a model in which the Holy One, blessed be He, has the potential to perfect Himself “like velocity,” but that potential cannot move from potential to actuality in Him because of His perfection. He says that the potential is realized only in us, and adds an assumption similar to Anselm’s in the ontological proof, that a potential “has full value only if it is realized in reality.” He adds that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave choice, including the option “not to improve,” and expects us to choose the good. Thus when we choose the good, there is an actualization of the potential for improvement that exists in Him, and in that sense “it completes Him.” He also cites Ramchal’s statement that “the nature of the good is to do good,” and argues that the will to do good is not enough; that will must be realized in actuality in order to reach perfection.
The Book of Jonah, the a fortiori argument about the kikayon plant, and forgiveness as dependent on “service for a higher need”
The speaker presents a common interpretation according to which the entire Book of Jonah revolves around the dispute over whether it is proper to forgive after repentance, with Jonah arguing that sinners should “take the hit” from strict justice and therefore fleeing his mission. He presents the a fortiori argument at the end of the book about the kikayon plant and the difficulty that the argument seems implausible, because Jonah supposedly pitied himself and not the plant. He brings an “optimistic” answer according to which Jonah really did pity the plant even though he had an interest involved, and emphasizes that “correlation is not causation” and that the existence of an interest does not by itself prove action motivated by that interest. He also suggests a “pessimistic” answer in which the Holy One, blessed be He, is saying in parallel, “I need Nineveh for Myself,” so that forgiveness is connected to the need for the people to live, repent, improve, and thereby “complete” Him within the framework of “service for a higher need.” He concludes that according to this, the aim of repentance is not to be “in the perfect state” but rather “to improve toward the perfect state,” and he presents the idea that the Holy One, blessed be He, “needs imperfect people” so that there will be “people who are improving.” He ties this to the “Hasidic initial thought” of “I will sin and then repent” as something conceptually meaningful, although the Sages say, “they will not give him sufficient opportunity to repent,” and he cites “There is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin” to say that a person will in any case find dimensions of improvement even without planning to sin.
A passage on the image of God and the power of speech
The passage states in the name of “the holy books” that the human being was created in the image of God, and the primary aspect of that image is the power of speech, as Onkelos translated, “a speaking spirit.” It states that speech is a tremendous spiritual tool and not merely the transfer of information, and cites “in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” It says that when a person utters a word, he “creates an angel,” and that words of Torah, prayer, and kindness create a holy angel that protects him and all the Jewish people, whereas evil speech, gossip, and idle talk create “destructive angels.” It cites King Solomon: “He who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles,” and states that holiness depends on the mouth and that growth in Torah and fear of Heaven requires, first of all, guarding one’s speech, concluding with “May it be His will that we merit to sanctify our mouths and our speech always.”
The shift in the meaning of “ba’al teshuvah” across generations and the distinction between return and drawing close
The speaker argues that the term “ba’al teshuvah” has changed greatly. In the literature of the Sages and the medieval authorities (Rishonim), it means a sinner who repents of his sins, whereas in modern jargon it means someone who was secular and became religious. He says that in the older model, the person always knew what was right and what obligated him, and simply did not do it, whereas in the modern model the person did not think that his actions were “wrong,” and he changes his outlook and adopts a new commitment. He rejects the attempt to bring the models together by claiming that “inside every Jew” there is hidden faith, because in his view someone who grew up completely detached does not “know what is right” and therefore is not a sinner in the usual sense but rather coerced, “more than a child taken captive.” He says that the fitting term for the modern case is “kiruv” and “drawing close,” not “return,” because he is not returning to a place he had been before.
Defining sin as weakness of will and the paradoxical claim that no such sin exists
The speaker defines sin as a situation in which a person does something that he himself knows is wrong, and describes repentance as taking “the reins” back so that behavior matches what the person thinks is right. He presents “the problem of weakness of the will” and argues that philosophers see such a state as a logical impossibility if one accepts two assumptions: that a person wants to do what he thinks is right, and that if he wants to and nothing prevents him, he will do it. He concludes that if a person did evil, then either he did not really think it was evil or he was coerced, and therefore “there is no such thing as a sinner” in the sense of weak will. He illustrates this with the example of dieting and cream cake, and with the example of eating pork, and argues that if a person did it without coercion then in the sum total of his desires he wanted it, and if he did not want it then the internal compulsion counts as coercion, adding that “even internal coercion is considered coercion in Jewish law.”
The move from correcting behavior to correcting conceptions, and the claim that deliberate ideological change is impossible
The speaker accepts, by force of the problem of weakness of will, that the “ba’al teshuvah of the Sages” cannot suffice with correcting behavior alone, because the very sin testifies to a defect at the level of values or conceptions, and therefore contains “something of the modern ba’al teshuvah.” He argues that every repentance also requires ideological correction, and then presents a sharp claim that changing ideology is “logically impossible.” He gives a toy model of a person guided only by “maximum reward, minimum punishment” and explains that it is difficult to persuade him to serve for its own sake, because any persuasion within the framework of his assumptions will still remain not for its own sake. He expands this by saying that the problem is even more severe when the person is supposed to change himself by himself: if he initiates a change toward conception Y, then Y is already in him, and if Y is already in him, then there is nothing to change. Therefore deliberate change of conceptions is impossible, and accordingly repentance as an intentional act also becomes problematic. He stops the discussion at this point and says he will continue next lecture, while disagreeing with a student who defends the idea that “from acting not for its own sake, one comes to act for its own sake,” and the speaker replies that this is “an English-English dictionary” and still does not offer a solution to the problem, only presents the paradox.
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Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s begin. Last time was actually the first meeting in Elul. Altogether we have three. Meaning, this is the second, and next Thursday after Rosh Hashanah is the third. So in the first one I started with the commandment of repentance, and I asked to what extent such a commandment can even be defined as a commandment in its own right. The Meshekh Chokhmah asked this, and I said that the Meshekh Chokhmah, in his question, assumes that repentance is about bringing me to a better spiritual state. Maximize commandments, get rid of the transgressions I committed, and therefore there’s really no need for a separate commandment beyond the actual commands and prohibitions that already exist as such. And I said that you can see an opposite conception, according to which the value of repentance lies in the process and not in the result. Meaning, the very fact that you are progressing toward a higher spiritual state—that progress itself has value, not only as a means to reach the better state. In other words, the purpose of repentance is not to erase sins or to reach a better spiritual state. I move toward a better spiritual state, where the benefit of that movement is, first, its result—that I’ll reach a better spiritual state—and second, the movement itself has value. And I suggested, or we saw in a few passages in Rabbi Kook’s Orot HaKodesh, that he actually grounds this in some philosophical basis. He wants to argue that since—and he assumes what I just said—that perfection-through-growth, yes, improvement, is itself one of the perfections, then by rights it should also exist in the Holy One, blessed be He, because He is the perfect being, the being possessed of all perfections. On the other hand, if He is so perfect, then He has nowhere to progress to, so in fact He cannot perfect Himself. And on that Rabbi Kook says that this is basically why we were created. We were created lacking—or the world in general and human beings were created lacking—they are called upon to repair this lacking state, to complete it, and therefore they are beings of progress, they can progress. And the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfected through them. Yes, that perfection of being one who perfects oneself is actually done through us; through us He becomes perfect. Rabbi Kook himself uses here the expression “service for a higher need.” Yes, the Ari z”l writes on the verse “Give strength to God.” Yes, what does “Give strength to God” mean? It means that we give power to the Holy One, blessed be He; in other words, there are things He cannot do without us, and we do them for Him. And Rabbi Kook explains that this is actually the only point in which we can do something for Him, after all He is all-powerful. The only thing we can do for Him is improvement, because by definition that is not an option available to Him—He cannot improve. And therefore we were created in order to complete Him. To demonstrate this point I used Zeno’s paradox about the arrow in flight, and through it I showed that a body’s velocity is a potential for a change of place. We usually—physicists, say—usually identify a body’s velocity with its changing place. To say that a body has velocity means the body changes place. And I argued that this is not correct; that’s not what it means, that’s its implication. In other words, the fact that it has velocity is itself a fact, some state the body is in. The implication of the fact that it has velocity is that if we wait a bit, we’ll see that its place changes. But the potential for a change of place—that is, the fact that it has velocity—exists even at a discrete point in time. It does not require a stretch of time. Change of place cannot happen at a discrete point in time. At a particular moment it is in a particular place. Not standing in a particular place, but being in a particular place. To see that it changes its place, that it is or comes to be at another point, you have to wait for a bit of time to pass, so that it will be at another moment. But the fact that it has velocity is true even at a single point in time. At that point it has the potential for a change of place, and the change of place itself is the actualization of that potential, but that requires some span of time. Short, long, but some span—not a discrete point in time. And you can go off into matters of physics here and the uncertainty principle; I mentioned the uncertainty principle in this context. But I won’t go into that any further here. And through that I wanted to illustrate this point: to say that you have velocity does not mean that in the next moment you’ll be in a different place. The fact that in the next moment you’ll be in a different place is an implication of the fact that you have velocity; it’s not the meaning of the statement that you have velocity. And therefore in principle there can be a situation in which a body has velocity but does not change place in the next moment. For example, think of a body that I throw at a wall. At the instant it hits the wall, that specific instant, an instant like a spoken blink, that point in time, it has velocity. But now if we wait until the next instant, we’ll see that it doesn’t change its place because the wall doesn’t allow the place to change, it doesn’t let it keep going. So what happens here is that this potential is not actualized in the form of a change of place. What does happen? For example, heating up. In other words, the potential of having velocity—or energy, if you like—can be actualized not only in the form of a change of place, but also in other forms. And that is an indication that saying you have velocity is not synonymous with saying you are changing place. Having velocity is the reason you change place; it is not the definition of velocity that you change place. And therefore at the conceptual level there can be a state in which you have velocity and do not change place, but rather it is actualized in some other way. Rabbi Kook’s claim, basically, is that the fact that we improve actually completes the Holy One, blessed be He. But then that means—in what sense is He complete? We assumed that this is a perfection. Why does this complete Him? In what sense does it mean that He Himself is perfected by us? You can make some kind of metaphysical identification between Him and us and say that we are Him, and then you get into pantheism and so on. I don’t like those solutions, although I may touch on that later, if I get there. I think it works differently. When I say that the Holy One, blessed be He, has the perfection of self-perfecting, I am really saying that He has the velocity. He has the potential to perfect Himself, which is itself the perfection. Yes, having the potential to perfect oneself—that exists in the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself as well. The problem is that in His case it cannot go from potential to actuality. The improvement itself will not happen in Him. The potential to improve exists in Him, and so when you ask whether He has the perfection of being one who perfects Himself, the answer is yes, He does. He has it in potential, because He has velocity. He has velocity, but the fact that He is perfect does not allow that velocity to express itself in the form of improvement. The derivative exists, but if you integrate it you won’t get a result, okay? So the potential already exists in Him, this perfection of self-perfecting exists in Him. What is lacking? What is lacking is that it does not go from potential to actuality, because the potential to perfect oneself exists, but the self-perfecting that is the implication of that potential cannot appear in the Holy One, blessed be He. So He creates us, and the potential to perfect is actualized only in us. And there’s some assumption here, by the way, like the one Anselm makes in his ontological proof, that a potential has full value only if it is realized in reality, if it goes from potential to actuality. The mere fact that you have a potential does not yet complete the matter. Only if that potential is also realized in some way does it reach its fullness. If one accepts that assumption, then you can very well understand why the Holy One, blessed be He, has velocity, while the change of place happens only in us, but through that we make the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself complete, because the potential that exists in Him goes from potential to actuality in us. So the potential exists in Him, but its realization is through His creating us and our improving. Now, He created us in such a way that it is indeed true that He is also responsible for the fact that this potential goes from potential to actuality in us. True, we also have choice and we can choose not to improve, because if we didn’t have choice—having choice means also the choice not to improve. Otherwise it’s not choice. A choice in which we have only one option is not choice. So He gave us choice and expects us to choose the good, and every time we choose the good we improve, and that is an actualization of the potential for improvement that exists in Him. And therefore it completes—it completes Him. There is—I’ll maybe bring—about Zeno’s arrow we spoke, right? Last time. I think, that’s how I remember it.
[Speaker B] Actually, I don’t remember us talking about it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No? For some reason it’s sitting in my head that we did. The velocity and change of place—we didn’t talk about that?
[Speaker B] To the best of my memory, no. It could be that I just don’t remember.
[Speaker C] We talked about Rabbi Kook, but we didn’t connect it to Zeno’s arrow.
[Speaker B] Yes, so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The claim—so I’ll say it briefly, because I don’t want to spend too much time going and digging into it. There’s Zeno’s paradox. Zeno was an Eleatic philosopher, yes, Greek, who attacked the concept of motion, the concept of dynamics. He claimed that the concept of motion is a fiction of our way of looking at the world; the world is static. We see dynamics, and that’s a fiction. So in order to show this, he showed that the concept of motion involves all sorts of paradoxes. One of the paradoxes is the paradox of the arrow in flight. The arrow in flight means—he basically asked the following. You can formulate it in several ways. He asked it like this: at every moment you look, an arrow is flying—at every moment we look at it, it stands in a different place, right? Look at this moment: it stands here. The next moment it stands here. The next moment it stands here. So at every moment it stands in a different place. When does it move? When does it change its place from this place to that place? At every moment it stands in a different place, so at some point it has to make the change from this place to the other place—when does that happen? That’s Zeno’s paradox. Some connected it—so—the whole uncertainty principle and everything around it, apparently we really didn’t talk about it. So some solved it by way of the uncertainty principle in physics. Because the uncertainty principle in physics basically says that a body does not have position and velocity simultaneously. Not only that we cannot know them—the accepted approach is that it does not have them. And therefore to ask what the velocity of the arrow is at a given instant is not a well-defined question. If you know its position at that instant, you won’t be able to know anything about its velocity, and so on. In other words, velocity is not a quantity that exists at a defined point in time, at least when there is also position. But that explanation through the uncertainty principle is an English-English dictionary. You know, when I was in high school, they wouldn’t let us use an English-Hebrew dictionary when we studied English. Now, that was supposed to be some great wisdom. Meaning, you have a word you don’t understand, you open an English-English dictionary, and then they explain it to you using ten words you don’t understand either. So the number of words you don’t understand rises exponentially the more you use the dictionary. So it was a very inefficient way to learn English. I think that’s changed; I think today it’s no longer like that. I’m not sure, but that’s my impression. In any case, just to teach you that even the Ministry of Education sometimes reaches conclusions like that—it happens from time to time. Anyway, explaining the arrow paradox by means of the uncertainty principle is an English-English dictionary. The uncertainty principle is itself a paradoxical principle, so how does it help me explain the arrow paradox with it? What I wanted—I wrote an article about this—I wanted to explain the opposite way: to explain the uncertainty principle by means of the explanation I proposed for the arrow paradox. And I argued, as I said briefly before—I simply thought I had already said this—what I argued is that Zeno mixes up two concepts. When Zeno asked this question, he said that at every given instant the arrow stands in a different place. Not true. At every given instant the arrow is in a different place, not stands in a different place. What’s the difference? To be in a place means that you have some coordinate; you are at x equals three. To stand at x equals three means you are at x equals three and your velocity is zero—you are standing. A body that moves is also, at every moment, in a different place, but it is not standing in a different place; it is in a different place. What’s the difference between these two concepts? That to be in a place—you can be in a place and at the same time have a nonzero velocity. To stand in a place is to be there with zero velocity, like when you’re standing. Now, it is not true to say that at every moment the arrow stands in a different place. At every moment the arrow is in a different place, but it is not standing. What does that mean? It has velocity. At every moment it has velocity. The only thing is that velocity is merely a potential for a change of place; it is not the change of place. The change of place does not occur at a point in time, but a body does have velocity even at a point in time. And for anyone who knows a little—in basic mechanics, we have the position function, x of t, x as a function of t, and we want to find the velocity, so we differentiate the position function with respect to time. The result is a velocity function as a function of time. What does that mean? That at every point in time there is velocity. And velocity is defined at a point in time, not over an interval. Therefore a body has velocity at every point in time that it is in a different place; it also has velocity. So Zeno’s question is a question that mixes things up, and that’s why a paradox is created there—it mixes up the concept of being in a place with standing in a place. The moment I say that at every moment the body is in a different place, the question doesn’t arise. If you say that at every moment it stands in a different place, then you ask, okay, so when does it move? Meaning, if I say at every moment it is in a different place, and someone asks when does it move—at that very moment it is also moving. You’ll see it if you wait another moment, then you’ll see that it also changed place. But it is moving at this moment; it has velocity at this instant, this blink-like instant. You don’t see it until you wait a moment of time. What confuses people to this day? What confuses people is that when I ask people—even in physics—what is the definition of the concept of velocity, they tell me: place divided by time. How much place you covered, how much distance you covered in a certain period of time. The quotient of how much place you covered divided by how much time it took—that’s velocity. One hundred kilometers per hour means that you cover one hundred kilometers in an hour. It’s a quotient of distance divided by time, or a difference in place divided by a difference in time. And even if we are talking about a velocity that changes at every moment—yes, the velocity is not constant—the usual claim in physics, which mathematicians don’t like but physicists think this way, is that basically we define velocity over a very small interval around the point in time in question. It’s not velocity at a point in time; it’s velocity on an interval as an infinitesimal, as a differential of time around that point in time. And we call that the velocity at the point in time. What lies behind that statement? That velocity is always defined as change of place divided by a period of time. But change of place cannot be at a point in time; change of place happens only over a stretch of time. Therefore velocity seems to them to be defined only over a stretch of time, not at a point. Maybe a tiny stretch, but still a stretch of time. But as I said before, I think this is neither necessary nor correct. Velocity is defined at a point in time. The calculation—how do you calculate the body’s velocity? You look at how much distance it covers over a certain period of time and form the quotient: place divided by time. That will give me the velocity. That is what’s called an operational definition: a definition of how to calculate the quantity, not a definition of the essence of the quantity. Velocity is not change of place divided by a period of time. That is merely the way to calculate the velocity that the body has. Wait a bit, see how much place it covered, how long it took, divide one by the other, and then you’ll know the velocity of the body at that point in time. That is the way to calculate velocity. But that does not mean there is no velocity at a point in time. There is velocity at a point. Okay, that is basically the point. By the way, this is connected a bit to a dispute—for those who know a little, just a parenthetical note—if you know something about calculus, there are two basic approaches: Newton’s approach and Leibniz’s approach. What’s interesting is that Newton’s approach, though he was a physicist, is actually the approach accepted among mathematicians. And Leibniz’s approach is the approach accepted among physicists. Leibniz has a more intuitive approach. He looks at calculus in terms of quotients of differentials. That’s how they write it, yes, dy over dx. Again, just a note for those who know—it’s not important, you really don’t need this—but dy over dx is differential divided by differential. And that is basically the derivative of the function. Newton writes it as y-tag. Not dy over dx, but y-tag. Okay? y-tag means exactly that the derivative is at a point in time. dy over dx is only the way to calculate it. And that is not the definition of the derivative. That is exactly why I said mathematicians don’t like the physicists’ approach, because they view the derivative as a value at a point. Physicists take the operational definition and treat it as though it were essential, but no—it is only the form of calculation, not the essential definition. So here I admit that I’m a physicist. So my claim is that indeed the definition of velocity is such that the essence of velocity is the potential for a change of place. The change of place is an implication of the fact that you have velocity, not its definition. Fine, that really is very brief. In any case, you can explain many other things with this; I’m not getting into that now. There’s an article I wrote; anyone who wants can find it on the site, about Zeno’s arrow. Search the site, anyone who wants can find it there. In any case, let’s return to our subject. So when we talk about repentance as well, which is basically improving one’s spiritual state—I have spiritual velocity, because I am changing not my physical place but my place on the spiritual axis, how spiritually improved I am. When I say that I have velocity there, what that means is that the value is not only that I rise to a higher spiritual state, but that the derivative, yes, the velocity, the potential itself, the very fact that I am in a state of progress, that I have velocity—that itself is the essence of the concept of repentance. The result is also that I reach a more complete spiritual state, but the value of repentance is not only its consequential value, but also the value that I have the potential itself for a change of place, I have velocity. And therefore I now return to the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, has this potential to improve. Without Him, in fact, as I’ll say later, we couldn’t do this. Therefore the actualization of this potential is what happens in us. And a potential gets its full value only when it is actually realized. When the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to do good, as Ramchal says, the nature of the good is to do good, and therefore what? He has to do good in actuality for the will to do good to reach its fullness. Why is the will to do good not enough? If I have no one to do good to, so what? I’m still a complete being. So isn’t it enough that I have the will to do good? No. The will to do good has to be realized in actuality for it really to be considered a complete state. As a potential, apparently, something is still lacking there or something like that. That is basically the claim.
[Speaker D] Can I comment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes.
[Speaker D] It seems to me that you can attack this claim with a dilemma argument. If this lack involved in moving from potential to actuality is some kind of lack, then that means He really is lacking without us. You haven’t escaped that. And if it’s not some kind of lack, then He didn’t need to complete it through us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. I claim that it is a lack. I claim that He is lacking.
[Speaker D] So what did you gain from the whole story by saying all this about potential?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is how we complete Him together with ourselves. So the claim is that when we improve, He becomes complete. I was only asking why our improvement constitutes His completion. So I claim that our improvement actualizes a potential that already existed in Him.
[Speaker D] Ah, okay. Fine. Here too I have the same kind of dilemma. If it’s us and not Him—if it depends on it being specifically us and not Him, our repentance—then it’s not from His power. He only created the conditions and gave us—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The ability to choose.
[Speaker D] Yes, but that wasn’t enough for it to be realized. Something additional is needed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that additional thing wasn’t Him. Correct. He needs us in order to be perfect. Absolutely. That’s the claim. Without us He is not perfect. And if we choose evil, He also will not be perfect.
[Speaker D] So that means, okay, fine, I understand. So that means He is not perfect without us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. That’s the claim. That’s why this is the secret of service for a higher need. That’s why Rabbi Kook—
[Speaker D] No, but that means that if He is perfect with us, then according to this it means we are part of Him, at least in the sense that He—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Can’t be perfect without us? I don’t think so. Because we actualize a potential that exists in Him. I don’t think you have to arrive here at some metaphysical pantheistic identification, yes, between us and Him.
[Speaker D] But there’s total dependence here. He can’t exist without us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, He can’t be complete without us. He can’t—
[Speaker D] So that means He can’t exist.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, He—
[Speaker D] Can exist in an incomplete form.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not Him, that’s part of Him. The fact that He created us, He was like that.
[Speaker D] No, part of the essence of God is to be perfect.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, there, you see that it isn’t. No. Part of His essence is to strive to be perfect. Not to be perfect. He can’t be perfect. It’s a logical contradiction for Him to be perfect, because He cannot have self-perfecting.
[Speaker D] So you gave up on the idea that He is perfect. Fine, I have no problem with that. Then the whole paradox never arises in the first place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He is not perfect. Perfect as much as a being can be perfect. To be perfect includes the ability to perfect oneself—that’s a logical contradiction, it just doesn’t exist, just as He cannot be a round triangle.
[Speaker D] If He is perfect as much as a being can be perfect, that includes that He actualizes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] His self-perfecting.
[Speaker D] And what you said before—then He really wasn’t He.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. According to that accounting, He was not complete, or was not fully existent.
[Speaker D] Let’s call it “He”; I don’t know whether to call it “He.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not God? It simply didn’t exist. He simply wasn’t, as it were, what He is all the way through. If He is perfect as much as a being can be perfect, that includes actualizing His self-perfecting. And therefore He created. So what you said about before—then He really wasn’t He. Correct, according to that accounting, no problem. So that means there is dependence in order for Him to be what He is. To call that “He”? I don’t know whether to call it “He.” He wasn’t fully complete without us. Whether that is “He” or “not He” is a semantic question, I don’t know. It’s not a semantic question, it’s a question—if you decide—if this is part of His essence, you can talk about essence… No, what does “part of His essence” mean? Before He created us, He wasn’t complete.
[Speaker D] So if it is part of His essence to be complete, then He wasn’t He.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but that’s part of the semantic question. Define it however you want. What I know how to say is that He wasn’t complete.
[Speaker D] Now you’re adding that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That He wasn’t He—fine, or not.
[Speaker D] Any question about essence, you can say it’s a semantic question, but this—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True, true, indeed. Fine.
[Speaker D] Not fine—I’m saying, say whatever you want—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want, I’m not arguing.
[Speaker D] Fine, okay, no problem. But if you accept the definition that perfection is part of the definition of God, then that means there is dependence between being God and our existing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that can’t be, because before that we didn’t exist.
[Speaker D] There is no “before,” so for me the question still stands. I have another answer, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So there’s your proof that your definition is wrong. Just defining it that way and then remaining with the difficulty.
[Speaker D] No, but first of all that is the accepted definition, that it is of the essence of God to be perfect.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t agree.
[Speaker D] Then just give it up entirely. If it’s not of His essence, then who told you that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not giving it up. It’s a characteristic of His, so not His essence. He strives to be perfect, He wants to be perfect, He does everything in order to be perfect, but there are things He can’t do.
[Speaker D] Like that fly—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That reaches the wall; it has velocity, it strives to move forward, but the wall doesn’t let it move forward.
[Speaker D] But that He can do. That’s not true. You’re talking about a time before He brought it from potential to actuality, so then He could and nevertheless didn’t do it. So it’s not true to say He can’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, that’s not how it is. Fine, but for that we’d have to get into other matters. Because it could be that His perfection is defined over the whole time axis, not at each point.
[Speaker D] That’s what I think—that’s the answer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, no problem, perfectly fine.
[Speaker D] No, but if that’s so, then even then He was complete, because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there’s no such thing. To say “then He was complete” is an oxymoron. Because perfection is defined over the whole time axis together, so what does “then” mean?
[Speaker D] Right, no, right, right, so the question doesn’t—no, but that solves the whole issue.
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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that doesn’t solve the whole issue; you still need my move. Why? Like this. Because you need him to reach perfection along the axis of time at the end. Only after he gets there does that retroactively reveal that he was complete along the entire axis of time. But you still need that move. Fine, but this really is already hairsplitting in onto-metaphysics. Okay, but the issue of dependence still remains.
[Speaker D] Okay, but dependence still remains. He can’t exist…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course there is dependence! I’m putting that on the table—completely obvious.
[Speaker D] Yes, fine, that’s already very close to the identification argument, because it’s dependence from both sides.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’ll get to the identification argument later too. I think this still isn’t identification. There’s something a bit tricky here. Later on I’ll get to it from a different angle. Wait. Okay. So that’s basically the claim, and that’s really why the medieval authorities (Rishonim), when they talk about service for a higher need, I don’t know who the source is for this, they usually call it “the secret of service for a higher need.” Because this statement sounds jarring to anyone educated on the accepted principles, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect and needs nobody, and like Maimonides at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, right? That all beings exist only from the truth of His existence, and He does not need them. So these accepted conceptions apparently aren’t entirely correct—at least if one accepts this thesis. And that’s why they really call it “the secret of service for a higher need,” as if it’s something you aren’t supposed to say except to the discreet. Well, and you’re apparently discreet. In any case, the claim—I want to sharpen it a bit more with another example. At the end of the book of Jonah—we do read it on Yom Kippur—there’s the a fortiori argument about the gourd. Right? The Holy One, blessed be He, sends him a gourd, then the gourd dries up, an east wind comes, and Jonah asks to die. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: “Are you so deeply grieved over the gourd?” He says to Him: “Yes, I am deeply grieved, even to death.” He says to him: “You cared about the gourd, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; and should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, with many people and beasts?” Meaning, it’s a kind of a fortiori argument. As if: you cared about the gourd, and you expect Me not to care about Nineveh? The background here is apparently a common interpretation—I think I’ve seen it in a number of places—that this whole book revolves around the dispute whether it is proper to forgive people after they repent. When Jonah flees from the Holy One, blessed be He, and doesn’t want to go fulfill his mission to Nineveh, what’s really at the root of it? He’s arguing with Him on the principled level. He says: “They sinned, so let them take the hit. Why do I need to go to them, bring them to repentance, and then You’ll forgive them? There’s the attribute of justice, right?” They asked wisdom, “What is the punishment of the sinner?” So that’s basically what Jonah is saying. Why send me to bring them to repentance and then forgive them? For what they sinned, they deserve to be punished. And that’s why he flees from the Holy One, blessed be He. And the whole book is really meant to reach that crescendo at the end, yes, that little event with the gourd, where Jonah is supposed to understand that the Holy One, blessed be He, has pity on Nineveh just as he had pity on the gourd. And yes, it is proper to have pity and try to bring them back in repentance and accept their repentance, rather than dealing with them through strict justice. The problem is that this a fortiori argument seems, on its face, like a completely absurd a fortiori argument. Like the old comedy line: if a fisherman loves fish, then why does he eat them? And if he loves the fish, then why does he eat them? The fisherman loves himself, not the fish. With Jonah—or, yes, they also say this in connection with our forefather Jacob. I think Sforno writes this. On the verse, “And they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her”—he worked another seven years for Rachel—“and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” So the well-known difficulty is the opposite: if you desperately want someone and you have to work seven years for her, every day should feel like eternity. How can seven years seem to you like a few days? It works in the opposite direction. Time stretches out, not contracts. It’s hard for you to wait for the end. So the claim of—I think it’s Sforno who answers there, if I remember correctly—is that Jacob loved Rachel, not himself. A person who wants to obtain something for himself can’t wait for the moment he gets that thing, and therefore every moment feels like eternity. But if you’re doing the work for the other person—not that you want to get the other person for yourself. That’s not desire, that’s love. So if I’m doing it for her, and it takes seven years, I’m willing to work even ten years. “And they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.” He loved her, not himself. In any case, let’s go back to Jonah. So the claim there is that this isn’t a sound a fortiori argument, because Jonah didn’t love the gourd, didn’t care about the gourd—he cared about himself. He needed the shade he got from the gourd; he didn’t care about the gourd. So what kind of a fortiori argument is this: “You cared about the gourd, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow, and I should not care about Nineveh”? Of course the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t exactly labor to grow Nineveh either—He says it in a breath. He created Nineveh, or the whole world. He didn’t labor over Nineveh. Never mind, let’s leave that aside for the moment. In any case, that’s the difficulty with the a fortiori argument. And this question can be answered in two ways. One is the optimistic way, and the other is the pessimistic way. Both carry a very important lesson for life. The optimistic way means: why do you think—or whoever asks this question, why does he think—that Jonah really cared about himself and not about the gourd? Who told you that? Maybe he really did care about the gourd. Meaning, our assumption is that Jonah obviously had an interest in the gourd—the gourd shaded him, that’s clear. But the fact that you have an interest doesn’t mean you act only out of self-interest. Right? Correlation is not causation. In other words, you know, all the political commentators—as soon as they point out that a politician has an interest, that means he’s acting impurely. It means he’s acting for the sake of the interest. But that’s not true. He may have an interest and still act cleanly; he may also think that this really is the proper way to act, besides the fact that he also has an interest. That’s allowed. Okay? So you can suspect perhaps that maybe he’s acting because of the interest, but you can’t determine that he acted because of the interest. Yes, like the Avnei Nezer writes in the introduction—that it is certainly fitting and very good to enjoy Torah study, but it is not right to study for the sake of the enjoyment. That would be study not for its own sake. And the fact that you have an interest in the study still doesn’t mean that you’re doing the study for the sake of the interest. That’s a logical jump that is not necessary. Therefore, the optimistic reading I’m proposing—the first one—is that Jonah really did need the gourd, he had an interest in the gourd continuing to exist, but that doesn’t mean that Jonah’s anger or grief was because he cared about himself. Maybe he had an interest, but still he really did care about the gourd. And the Holy One, blessed be He, who examines the kidneys and the heart—meaning, He knows what is in Jonah’s heart—so He knows that Jonah really cared about the gourd, and therefore He makes this a fortiori argument to him. Everything is fine. That’s the optimistic reading.
[Speaker B] Granted, that may not be a necessary reading, but at the very least it’s suspicious—especially if I compare it to politicians.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Agreed, completely agreed. That’s why I’m saying: suspicion, of course, is always possible. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, says of Jonah that Jonah cared about the gourd, then there is no question on Him. The Holy One, blessed be He, sees that in his heart he really did care about the gourd. The Holy One, blessed be He, really does see what is in a person’s heart. I don’t know what is in a politician’s heart, so I can suspect and I can refrain from suspecting. But the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what is in Jonah’s heart, and if He tells me that Jonah cared about the gourd, then He probably knows. What exactly am I objecting from? On what basis am I objecting? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Jonah really did care about the gourd. This criminalizing outlook that says that if you have an interest then you are certainly acting because of the interest—that’s a very unnecessary way of looking at things. Not even a necessary interpretation here. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, tells you otherwise, then there’s no objection. Okay? So that’s the optimistic reading. When we see that a person has an interest, that doesn’t mean he acts only because of the interest. There is also the pessimistic reading. And that’s the opposite answer that explains the a fortiori argument. Right, Jonah needed the gourd for himself. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: but I need Nineveh for Myself. I too need Nineveh for Myself. I’m not concerned for them for their sake. I’m concerned for them for My sake. Service for a higher need, yes? When they repent, then not only am I concerned for them because I need them to continue on, so that I won’t have to destroy them—they’ll stay alive and be able to do the work—no. The very fact that they repent completes Me. Service for a higher need—that is the completion in which I am completed through them. Therefore, you think that if people sinned they should just be punished. The opposite. The whole point of people sinning is so that they will repent, improve, and through that, says the Holy One, blessed be He, I reach My perfection. This is a principled dispute. You’re missing the whole point. The purpose of people is not to be perfect. Therefore, if they sin, then let them be punished and die and disappear from here because they aren’t perfect—I need perfect people. The opposite. I need imperfect people. I absolutely need them to be imperfect. Because if they were perfect, how would they help Me? I want improving people. But in order to have improving people, I need imperfect people who improve. So the whole idea is that I’m sending you to Nineveh to cause them to repent, to improve, and then I’ll forgive them. Why? Because that is man’s purpose in his world—not because I forgive him after the fact. His purpose is to sin and return. To sin and improve, because he needs to be lacking in order to realize the potential for improvement that exists with Me. So I need them, just as you needed the gourd—in the pessimistic reading. You really are acting because of self-interest. You need the gourd. So we asked: what’s the a fortiori argument? The a fortiori argument is very simple. I too have an interest in the continued existence of Nineveh. I need Nineveh just as you need the gourd. And this is a need of the Holy One, blessed be He, not the need of an individual human being. That’s the a fortiori argument. So there’s an aspect… both of these perspectives can teach an important lesson. I don’t know which one is correct, but the second one—the pessimistic one, specifically—fits very well with what I said before: service for a higher need, that the Holy One, blessed be He, needs people for His own sake. But it’s more than that—it also fits with what I said about why He needs people for His own sake. He needs them in order that they improve, because that He cannot do. And that’s exactly the point of Nineveh. Nineveh—everything that happened there was because the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted them to improve. They were lacking, and He wanted them to improve. That’s why He sent Jonah. And that is what Jonah didn’t understand. That’s why he fled from the Holy One, blessed be He. He didn’t understand that the point of repentance is not to arrive at the perfect state. The point of repentance is to improve in the direction of the perfect state. That’s all I need there. That was his argument with the Holy One, blessed be He. According to this, the whole book of Jonah is meant to teach exactly that. The book of Jonah teaches that the value of repentance is actually in the doing of it, not in the fact that it erases my sins and now I’m clean. If I had been clean from the start, we wouldn’t have accomplished anything. There’d be no point in my being created… a complete righteous person—there’s no point in creating one. Apparently, yes, in this picture. A complete righteous person also does work—we talked about this at the beginning of the previous lecture. But in principle, say a complete righteous person with no work involved—he’s perfect, has no choice, no sins, nothing, he’s just a perfect creature. What’s the point of creating such a being? The Holy One, blessed be He, already has that in Himself. He needs us as sinners. And that’s why I said that this Hasidic initial intuition of “I will sin and then repent” is a very significant initial intuition. Because someone who says “I will sin and then repent” isn’t just someone who wants to have fun, according to this conception… I’m not saying that’s the plain meaning of that statement. But I’m saying that in light of what I’m saying now, there really is a serious initial intuition of “I will sin and then repent.” “I will sin and then repent” means: I do not want to be a complete righteous person; if I were a complete righteous person I’d be unnecessary. I want to achieve the perfection of being in the process of becoming perfected, which is more than being a complete righteous person. And I can achieve that only if I sin and then repent. That is basically the lesson of the book of Jonah. The Sages tell us: don’t say “I will sin and then repent”; they will not give him the opportunity to repent. It’s not advisable to proceed on fantasies like that. Don’t worry—you’ll sin even without planning it in advance. “There is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin.” Okay? So don’t worry. Meaning, there will be dimensions in which you’ll need to improve even if you don’t do it intentionally. But on the principled level, this desire to be in a state of “I will sin and then repent” is very understandable in light of what I’ve described here. If I return, then basically the claim is that the purpose—the purpose of repentance and the commandment of repentance—we talked about that, whether there is a commandment of repentance. And according to Maimonides, who says there is no commandment of repentance but there is still something important about repenting—yes, I discussed this in the previous lecture—what is that? It’s not the matter of being in the perfect state. On the contrary: the point is to become perfected, to turn from sinner to righteous, not to be righteous. The turning from sinner to righteous is the point. And being righteous in the end, but with an added derivative: also with movement, not only to be at the perfect location, not only to be at the correct X where I want to be, but to arrive at the correct X through my own initiative, to reach the correct X through my own action. That is really the point of repenting, or the purpose of repenting—depending on whether it’s called a “matter” or a commandment, yes, according to the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) that we saw last time. Okay, let’s stop for a few minutes, yes, and in another five minutes we’ll come back and continue. Behold, it is well known what is written in the holy books, that man was created in the image of God, and the essence of that image is the power of speech, as Onkelos translated the verse “and man became a living soul” as “a speaking spirit.” That is, what distinguishes man from all other creatures is the ability to speak. Speech is not merely a tool for transmitting information, but a tremendous spiritual instrument. It is written: “in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” When a person brings forth a word from his mouth, he creates an angel. If the word is a word of Torah, a word of prayer, a word of kindness, he creates a holy angel that protects him and all the Jewish people. But if, God forbid, a person uses his mouth to speak slander, gossip, or idle words, he creates destructive angels. Therefore King Solomon says: “He who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles.” Not only from physical troubles, but from troubles of the soul. A person’s holiness depends on his mouth. Anyone who wants to rise in the levels of Torah and reverence must first of all guard his mouth. This is the foundation of all spiritual work. May it be God’s will that we merit always to sanctify our mouths and our speech. We return. Okay, let’s continue. I now want to go a bit more deeply into this process we’re talking about, and through that understand a bit better the Holy One’s responsibility for our improvement, for our repentance. It’s easy not to notice that the concept of ba’al teshuvah has changed its meaning a bit—not a bit, a lot—over the years or over the generations. A ba’al teshuvah in the literature of the Sages or of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—in the Torah literature throughout the generations—is a sinner who repents of his sins. A ba’al teshuvah in what we call today in our jargon is someone who used to be secular and became religious, “returned in repentance,” I don’t know what to call it, a ba’al teshuvah, someone who returned in repentance. These are two different situations, and in a certain sense opposite ones. Because the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages, and again the halakhic ba’al teshuvah, so to speak, of the Torah literature, is a person who was a believer. He knew what was right and what was wrong and still did it—his inclination overcame him, whatever—but he did it, and at some stage he caught himself, like Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, caught himself at some stage and decided to return and do what he had always known he was supposed to do. In contrast, the ba’al teshuvah of today, the one we speak about today, is someone who, when he sinned—in quotation marks—didn’t think at all that he was doing anything wrong. He didn’t believe; he wasn’t committed to any system; he didn’t think this thing obligated him at all. He changed his outlook. The ba’al teshuvah of the Sages, or of Jewish law, is someone who does not change outlooks. His outlooks were always there; he knew what was right and what obligated him, he just didn’t do it. He changes behavior, or returns to behave according to what he always understood was the proper way to behave. In contrast, the ba’al teshuvah of today changes outlooks. He is not returning to behave according to outlooks he once had—he didn’t have them. He adopts new outlooks.
[Speaker C] You can always bring the two closer together. You hear? You can bring them closer to one another in both directions. Okay. You can say about the ba’al teshuvah of our time that really he always believed, only he had some blockage or desires or whatever. And on the other hand, you can say that the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages—when he tells himself that he really believed, if he really believed then he wouldn’t have sinned, so he didn’t really believe. In short, you can go in both directions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “A person sins only if a spirit of folly enters him.” So let me maybe respond in a few words to what you said. There is indeed an outlook that says that inside every Jew there sits some kind of faith and understanding of religious obligation, and he denies it, or I don’t know what covers it up, ignores it, I don’t know exactly, puts various wrappings over it—but deep down it’s there in everyone. First, I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know where they got the idea that it’s true. But even if it is true, I still think that’s not what I’m talking about. Because a sinner is someone who knows he is doing wrong. And that is certainly not true here. Meaning, a person who has always been secular—I mean someone who has no initial assumption at all, not someone formerly religious and now secular, leave all those other cases aside. I’m talking about someone who grew up in a completely disconnected environment, with no connection whatsoever. He sees us as Indians, okay? Such a person—even if deep inside, in some hidden depths of the soul, there is faith in him and an understanding of religious obligation and all that—you still can’t say that he knows what is right, his inclination overcomes him, and he sins. He does not know what is right. The fact that somewhere deep inside it is implanted there in some hidden way—that’s not interesting. At least in this context it’s not interesting. He is coerced, maybe unwitting, but in my opinion not even unwitting—he’s coerced. He’s even more than a captured infant, worse than a captured infant. So this distinction still seems to me not to bring the two models closer together. As far as I’m concerned, someone who has these axioms inside him but is not conscious of them is the same, for this purpose, as someone who does not have these axioms at all. In the way I judge him, I judge him according to what he knows and what he does with what he knows. What is inside a person? Maybe he also knows quantum theory and relativity. But he can’t do anything with it because it is somehow hidden deep inside him. Until someone teaches it to him, he doesn’t know it. Yes, that reminds me of… yes, when I was in yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Netivot Olam, a yeshiva for ba’alei teshuvah, and in the afternoons I would go to Bar-Ilan to do my doctorate. So they would always tell me: forget it, stay here, everything is in the Torah—what are you looking for over there with the Zionists? So I told them: if everything is in the Torah, then your answer works two ways. First of all, why do you care that I go learn Torah a bit in the afternoon at Bar-Ilan? What difference does the location make? I’m learning Torah there too; after all, those things are also in the Torah. So I’m learning Torah across the road, not in Bnei Brak but in Bar-Ilan—what difference does it make? And second, I told them: if I’m already talking with you and it’s in the Torah, then please, kindly extract for me the solution to the rotating potential well, because that was the problem I was working on at Bar-Ilan, and it would really save me a lot of time; I could stay in the yeshiva and maybe spend more time on Ketzot. To this day I have not received the solution to the rotating potential well, despite the fact that it is of course in the Torah.
[Speaker C] Even if you had asked them about a particular halakhic topic, they might not have known the answer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, true, granted. But nobody knows the answer—that’s the problem. So I’m saying: maybe it’s in the Torah and maybe not. I’m not sure at all, and I don’t know where people got the idea that everything is in the Torah. To me that’s something with no basis whatsoever. But even if it is, it’s some very theoretical kind of presence. It’s inaccessible to anyone; nobody knows it; nobody can extract it from there. So it is there in some sense, if at all—even if yes. Same thing here; that’s just a parable for what I said before. Even if this understanding sits inside a person—faith, commitment to Torah, and so on—in some way of which he is totally unaware, somehow in his DNA, I don’t know where it sits, that’s not interesting. In the sense in which I judge a person, I judge him by the things he is conscious of. I don’t judge him by things hidden even from himself, not just from me. That’s on one side. Regarding the other side that you raised—that even the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages has some problem on the plane of the values themselves, not only of their implementation—I’ll get to that in a moment at length. So for now I’m setting that aside. So basically the claim is this: the sinner—the modern ba’al teshuvah—it’s really not even correct to call him a ba’al teshuvah. He is not returning anywhere. In principle, again, you can call it ba’al teshuvah; I’m not arguing semantics. But people always say he is returning to his inner point, I don’t know, to what he thinks is right—he never thought it was right. He repented; he did not return in repentance, he did not “come back.” He drew close to Torah and commandments; he did not return. Kiruv, what people always call “outreach,” is in that sense a more successful term than repentance. In contrast, the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages really does return, because he always knew that this is the right way to act, he just didn’t do it. Now he returns to act as he always knew. Here there is an element of return; therefore he “returns,” this is repentance. Sometimes one can call it returning to God in some way, but even “returning to God” is not such a good description of today’s ba’al teshuvah. He is not returning to God; he is drawing close to God. It’s not that he was close, then distanced himself, and now draws close again. He was far, and now he draws close—but he is not returning to any place he was once in. Okay, again, that’s semantics; it’s not the main point. What this means is that when I speak about the repentance of a sinner, I’m speaking about a situation where when he sinned he knew he was sinning. He understood that he was sinning. Now, human beings are complicated creatures, of course, so they understand that they are sinning, they know it’s not right, but they have an inclination, an interest, weaknesses, all kinds of things. Somehow they still manage to get themselves to do something even though all along they know, one way or another, that it is not right. And even if they wrapped it in all kinds of wrappings and by now they have managed to completely conceal the fact that it is not right, there is still a claim that it is still their fault, because they created those wrappings. So in the end they are doing something they understand is not right. Or maybe here I’m willing to take into account even what is hidden, because they themselves hid it. So here I do relate also to the hidden dimension.
[Speaker B] In any case, what you’d call freely chosen behavior at its source—like someone who drinks alcohol and then gets on the road and runs someone over. Even though at the moment of the collision he has no awareness because he’s drunk, he caused himself to be in a state of lack of awareness, and therefore he is guilty.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. He brought himself into a state of lack of awareness, and therefore he is guilty. Yes, right. So the claim is that when we speak about sin, we are speaking about someone who does things that he himself knows are not right. That is sin. And from that sin he needs to repent. So what does repentance mean? Repentance does not mean changing what you think on the plane of values—what is right and what is not right. Rather, repentance means returning to act according to what you think. Or in other words, to take hold of the reins again. Not to let the horses go in the direction you don’t want to go. The horses are the body, the inclinations, whatever you want; and to return to what the driver wants. The driver is the head, my conceptions. To return to being a person guided by his conceptions rather than a person who does things even though his conceptions tell him they are wrong. That is the concept of returning in repentance. The problem that arises here is what philosophers call the problem of weakness of will—weakness of the will, a weak will. What does that mean? They claim—many philosophers, there are shelves of books about this in philosophy libraries—that a state of sin as I’ve described it here is an impossible state. Logically impossible. Why? Because let’s assume two assumptions. First assumption: let’s say a person has a set of values to which he thinks he is committed; he knows that this is what is right. First datum. The first assumption says that if this is your set of values, then presumably this is also what you want to do. There is no reason not to want to do what you yourself think is right. The second assumption is that if you want to do something and there is nothing else preventing you or stopping you from carrying it out, then you will do it. If I combine these two assumptions, it follows that sin cannot exist in the world. Or what in philosophical language is called an act of weak will; in our language we call it sin. What is sin? I said before—how did I define sin? That you do something you yourself understand is not right. But if you yourself understand that it is not right, then that is not what you want to do. And if nothing forced you to do it, then you also would not have done it. So if you did do it, then one of two things is true: either you do not think that what you did is wrong, or there was something that did not let you carry out what you thought—and then of course you are coerced, because something overpowered you despite the fact that you wanted otherwise, so you are coerced; that is not sin. So either way, if the problem is on the first level—that you didn’t really want to do the good, or didn’t really think it was good—then you’re the kind of ba’al teshuvah we speak of today, not the kind of ba’al teshuvah of the Sages. The ba’al teshuvah of the Sages knows what is right even though he doesn’t do it. So if you don’t know it, then you are not the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages. If you do know it and didn’t do it, that means there was probably something that caused you, or prevented you from doing, what you yourself think and want to do—so you are coerced. Again. So either way you cannot be a sinner. At most you can change conceptions, but you cannot be a sinner. There is no such thing as a sinner. The concept of a sinner is a logical paradox. That is the claim.
[Speaker B] That’s only if you say that in order to be a sinner I have to know that I’m doing something wrong.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, I defined the concept of sin earlier.
[Speaker B] Yes, no, but that’s not—I don’t think that’s…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he doesn’t know that it’s wrong, then he isn’t called a sinner. He is coerced. So then he wouldn’t need to repent? He’s coerced. Unwitting. No—coerced.
[Speaker C] He should have known. Coerced, coerced.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there is—I’m not talking about someone who doesn’t know at all. I’m talking about a ba’al teshuvah like today. He knows nothing. Not someone who doesn’t know that sorting is forbidden on the Sabbath—he understands there is a Sabbath, that work is forbidden, he just doesn’t know that sorting is one of the primary categories of labor. There you can say maybe it’s unwitting, because all in all you should have learned; you’re guilty of that. But someone who was never supposed to learn in the first place—he’s a captured infant; it never even occurred to him that there was anything to learn here at all. So he is coerced. There is of course a dispute among the amoraim, as is known, whether a captured infant is coerced or unwitting, but plainly—plainly—he is coerced. Never mind, I can show that even in the Talmud, where they say he is unwitting, it isn’t really unwitting, it is coerced. By the way, the Talmud itself sometimes calls unwitting coercion. The Talmud in tractate Shevuot, for example, talks about Rav Ami and Rav Assi who studied under Rav, and each of them swore that Rav had said something different. One swore that Rav said X, and the other swore that Rav said not-X. Now they went to Rav to clarify who was right. So Rav told them that one of them was right. The Talmud, by the way, doesn’t say who, because that would be slander. So one of them was right, and the other asks Rav: so what, I swore a false oath? And Rav says to him: no, because it says, “a person in an oath”—excluding one who is coerced. And what does “coerced” mean here? He is unwitting, not coerced. Unwitting—he didn’t remember that Rav had said that. He even knew, he just didn’t remember. That’s not a case of unwitting because he didn’t know; here he is at most unwitting. Why is this called “excluding one who is coerced”? The Talmud apparently understands that unwitting is basically a kind of coercion. When is unwitting really coercion? In a case where it never occurred to him that there was anything to investigate. An unwitting case where he knew he at least should have known there was something to investigate, and he didn’t investigate—that is unwitting in a way that requires some sort of atonement. And an unwitting case where it never occurred to him at all that there was something to investigate—that is not unwitting, it is coerced. There is no claim against him at all. Fine, the question is what happened there. He probably remembered in a completely clear way what Rav had answered, and the fact that his counterpart said the opposite simply did not make him think he really needed to check. It can’t be—I remember it like it was today. In such a case he really is coerced and not unwitting. Anyway, for our purposes, look: this definition raises a few questions before I go on to what we do with it. Let’s think not about religious sin; let’s think about sin in another context, say dieting. Okay? A person wants to diet; he decided to go on a diet, but he sees a cream cake in front of him and decides—decides—to eat it. So this is an act—we don’t call it sin in the religious sense—but it is a sin against his own wish to diet. So for the sake of generality, without loss of generality, we’ll call it an act of weak will. An act of weak will means that I do something that I myself do not want to do, or think is not right. Okay? That is basically the claim. One second, just one second. So let’s take—so he ate that cream cake. Okay? Now I ask him, try an imaginary dialogue. I ask him: tell me, did you want to eat it? He says: of course not, I really want to diet, I really regret having eaten it, what a mistake that was. Yes, a situation that happens every day, right? So you say to him: wait, but if you didn’t want to, then why did you eat it? What’s the problem? What made you eat it? My inclination got the better of me—what can I do? What do you mean your inclination got the better of you? That means you wanted the pleasure more than the health or the aesthetics, whatever. Everyone has his own reason for dieting. But you wanted the pleasure more than the diet. So don’t tell me you didn’t want it. You do, of course, want to diet—it’s not that you don’t want to—but you also want to enjoy yourself, and apparently the desire for enjoyment is stronger in you than the desire for dieting. Because if it weren’t so, then explain to me why you ate it. What will you say? That the inclination forced it on you, that you didn’t want it at all and it forced you? But then you are coerced, and this isn’t a sin. One does not repent for that. And now I return to the religious analogy, of course. That’s not sin. When I speak of sin in the religious sense, of an act of weak will, then I say: if that’s what you wanted, then don’t tell me you didn’t want it. If you didn’t want it, then the reason you did it is probably that you were coerced. Something external—even your inclination is something external—forced it on you. That isn’t sin. For that one need not repent. So either way, a state of weak will cannot exist. Because a state of weak will means: I wanted X, and without coercion I did Y. There is no such thing. Either there was coercion; and if there wasn’t, then don’t tell me you wanted X—you wanted Y. It may be that you also wanted X, but you wanted Y more than X. A person has, after all, a broad and varied scale of values—or desires, or values, whatever—varied. So of course even if a person sins, he very much wants to enjoy himself. He eats pork because he really likes pork. He knows it is forbidden to eat pork, he is committed to Jewish law, but the evil inclination carried him off to eat pork. Does that mean he is not committed to Jewish law, or that he doesn’t know Jewish law forbids it? Of course he knows. But the desire to enjoy eating pork is stronger for him than the desire to keep Jewish law. So I’m not saying you don’t want to keep Jewish law—you do. But at the bottom line, if you wanted to eat the pork, the answer is yes. Because the bottom line is the weighted result of all your desires, and in the weighting of all your desires, you wanted to eat the pork. Otherwise you wouldn’t have eaten it. Or alternatively, if the weighting still says that you don’t want to eat pork, then the fact that you ate it was probably because something pushed you there against your will. But then it is not sin. You were coerced. Even the evil inclination—internal coercion too counts as coercion in Jewish law. Yes, like the evil inclination. It doesn’t matter that no one stood over me with a gun from the outside. Even an irresistible impulse, or some powerful urge that I cannot withstand, is also called coercion. For me that too is an external factor that exempts me from responsibility. That is really the question of weakness of will. And what, basically, is the meaning of this? The meaning is, as Ariel said before—and now I come to your first comment. Earlier I addressed the second. Your first comment was that the sinner of the Sages contains something of the modern ba’al teshuvah. Because if he sinned, then apparently even in his conceptions he wasn’t entirely clean. Apparently he had other desires besides the desire to keep Jewish law. It is not true that he wanted to keep Jewish law and yet somehow this happened to him, because that cannot be, as we’ve just seen. And since that is so, clearly he had other desires. I’m not saying he didn’t want to keep Jewish law—he did. But he also wanted enjoyment, and he wanted enjoyment more than he wanted to keep Jewish law. So if that’s the case, then this is really also a correction of conceptions, not only of behavior. Because something in the conceptions stood in the background of your sin. It isn’t just a deviation of behavior away from what the conceptions say. No—there is no deviation from what the conceptions say. If there was a deviation, that means that within the conceptions themselves there is already some kind of deviation. Therefore the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages too is not exempt from changing his conceptions. And not only that—it is not only what I described before, that it is a correction of behavior or restoring it to a track fitting his conceptions. Rather, there is something of the modern ba’al teshuvah here. And in that sense I agree with your first comment, that the sinner of the Sages, or the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages, contains something of the modern ba’al teshuvah. It cannot be only a correction on the plane of behavior without ever examining the conceptions, the values, the principled commitments—but only psychology and not ideology, or philosophy, or ethics. Okay? Not just on the plane of behavior. The claim is basically that sin is never located only on the psychological plane. Because if it is located only on the psychological plane, then you are coerced. Then your inclinations, your impulses, took you to sin. Because you didn’t want to do it. Therefore clearly, if you did it, that means there was a decision in you to do it. If there was no decision, then you are not responsible. There was a decision to do it. True, you also wanted to keep the commandments, but you wanted no less—and maybe more—to enjoy yourself, so you wanted it and therefore you did it. This means that the ba’al teshuvah of the Sages already contains at its base, at its root, something of the modern ba’al teshuvah. These are not two dichotomously separate models. Now I move to the next step. If that is indeed so, then the whole act of repenting requires correction of conceptions too, not only returning behavior to its course, not only straightening out the practical paths according to my principled and ideological yardstick, but also correcting the ideology itself. Now I want to make the following claim: correction of ideology is logically impossible. These days we have a lot of logical impossibilities. Why? Let’s do a brief thought experiment to illustrate the point. Physicists always—there’s a joke among physicists that when we want to solve the equation of a donkey, we start with a point donkey. We take some very simple model, see what happens with it, and then try to deal with more practical, more realistic models. So I want to take what is called a toy model, some very simple model on which the principle can be demonstrated, and you’ll immediately see that it is equally true for all the complicated cases too; there is no reason to get entangled. Suppose there is a person in the world who is guided by only one ideological principle: maximum reward, minimum punishment. To maximize his condition in the World to Come. Okay? That is the only principle that interests him. Now how does he behave in practice? A supreme righteous man. A supreme righteous man—he is concerned for every opinion of the medieval and later authorities, he is careful with every light and severe matter alike, he has memorized all of Jewish law, everything. But why? To maximize reward and minimize punishment. Okay? That is his principle. Now suppose I want to go to this fellow and persuade him to start serving for its own sake. Not for reward and punishment, but for its own sake, as Maimonides says at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance. So let’s say I am this person, okay? This is the principle guiding me. And one of you wants to try to persuade me to serve for its own sake. How do you do that?
[Speaker C] It won’t necessarily be by persuasion. It could be that he sits and learns the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I want now to persuade you with arguments. The question is whether that’s possible, and if so, how.
[Speaker C] It’s not possible with arguments.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because…
[Speaker C] You need certain basic assumptions. And?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, take basic assumptions—what’s the problem?
[Speaker C] That all—
[Speaker B] His basic assumptions have already led him to a certain point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. What happens is that if you find an internal contradiction in my assumptions, then maybe you’ll succeed in undermining them, or some of them. But if there’s no internal contradiction, then what can you do? At most, you can prove to me that it’s worthwhile to serve for its own sake on the basis of other foundational assumptions. But that won’t convince me. In order to convince me, you have to start with my assumptions and take me from them to the conclusion you want to lead me to. That, of course, is impossible, unless my position contains a logical contradiction. But if it doesn’t, then the only way—think about that toy model I presented earlier—after all, what can you say to someone like me? You can say, look, serve for its own sake because that way you’ll get more reward, right? That’s the only argument I can think of that might convince me to serve for its own sake, but of course that can’t work. Because then I’d still be serving not for its own sake, since I’d be doing it in order to get more reward. It’s like the story about the Enlightenment thinker Adam HaKohen, who wanted to repent on his deathbed in order to disprove the saying of the Sages that even the wicked, at the very entrance to Gehinnom, do not repent. Okay? You can’t do that. Because obviously, if he’s doing it in order to disprove the saying of the Sages, then he isn’t a penitent, and if he isn’t a penitent, then he hasn’t proved anything. There are things that simply can’t be done. Okay? So therefore, what can you say to me?
[Speaker D] Not a penitent? I’m a little… I care about the honor of that Enlightenment fellow—why isn’t he a penitent? I don’t understand. Why should I care why he did it? If he regretted it…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Repentance is about motivation; it’s no less important than what you do. In repentance, it’s not just returning to correct behavior, but behaving correctly for the right reasons.
[Speaker D] Who said he didn’t do it for the right reasons? I don’t understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying hypothetically—it’s just a story, an urban legend. Assuming… he did it only in order to disprove the saying of the Sages, then that’s not genuine repentance.
[Speaker D] If he repented, that means he regretted it; that’s part of repentance. He did that. True, maybe he was dragged into it by some…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Adam HaKohen—I’m not talking about Adam HaKohen. I mean my metaphorical Adam HaKohen. I know—Elijah came and told me: he did it only to disprove the saying of the Sages.
[Speaker D] He had no other reason. Yes, but that still wouldn’t count as repentance—but in principle, in the story it could be that he really did repent and thereby disproved the saying of the Sages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine—if he did it in order to disprove it, that’s exactly the difference.
[Speaker D] No, it doesn’t matter, because at the point in time when he started the process, that was his goal—but when a person repents, his personality changes; that’s part of the process.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but you can’t do repentance in that way. If you do repentance in order to disprove the saying of the Sages, that’s not repentance.
[Speaker D] No, but that’s what the Sages say about everything: from doing it not for its own sake one comes to doing it for its own sake.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s how the mechanism works—a person gets drawn into it for some reason. No, no—“from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake” is an English-English dictionary. “From not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake”—that’s exactly what I’m attacking right now. Just listen for another moment… Ah, okay, I wasn’t listening. That’s exactly what I’m attacking.
[Speaker D] There’s no such thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can’t be that from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake. Why?
[Speaker D] Because if right now you persuade me to serve for its own sake because that gets more reward, then that itself won’t be serving for its own sake. And what’s the idea behind that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That you can convince me—
[Speaker D] Only on the basis of assumptions I accept.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t convince me on the basis of assumptions that you accept.
[Speaker D] No, no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but no one disputes that our psychological infrastructure has… the model is too simple, that’s the problem. Wait, wait, wait, I’m not finished with it yet. Let’s see afterward whether it’s simple or not simple. No, fine, but in one word what I mean is: clearly our psychological background affects our positions in ideological dilemmas. That doesn’t help at all, it doesn’t help at all. It does help, because now there’s a feedback loop—if you… There’s no feedback loop, it doesn’t help at all. I’ll explain, let me. Okay, fine. The claim is basically this: if you convince me to repent or to return to serving for its own sake in order to get maximum reward, then that in itself obviously will not be serving for its own sake. So what do you need to do? You probably need, in some sense, to change one of my basic assumptions. Maybe that assumption changes in the process you were talking about earlier—we’ll soon see whether that’s possible—but you have to; without that, you can’t really change me. You have to move—it reflects what I said earlier. It’s not enough just to change my actual behavior. You also have to change some assumption of mine that guides the behavior. Without that, it cannot be repentance. Now here’s what happens. Let’s think now about a situation in which I convince myself. It’s not somebody else coming to convince me; I convince myself. After all, I said earlier that what a penitent needs to do is not only fix his practical conduct, but also fix his principles, his ideology. There’s something defective there, because otherwise there wouldn’t have been a problem in the behavior either. But that brings me exactly to the problem I just described with this toy model. Because what does that mean? When I come to change my own worldview, do you understand that this is a logical paradox? Why? Because I am the one changing, and I am also the one who changes it, right? Now if I come to change myself to worldview Y, and up till now I had worldview X—when I come to change myself to worldview Y, that basically means I already have Y. Otherwise, why would I come to change myself to Y? Because I already believe in Y. But if I already believe in Y, then there’s nothing to change—I’ve already changed. But how did that itself happen? Maybe on its own, but not in an intentional way brought about by me. Because an intentional action by me is a state in which I deliberately approach myself and change my own worldview. Such a thing cannot exist. There’s no such thing. Because if I’m changing it intentionally, then it was already different beforehand, even before the initiative. Otherwise I wouldn’t have initiated it. Why would I change to Y if I believe in X? And if I already believe in Y, then I have nothing to change—I already believe in Y, so what is there to change? And then it comes out—just a second—and then it comes out that I didn’t do it intentionally; it just happened to me. But repentance is supposed to be something I do intentionally. If repentance happens to me, then it isn’t repentance; then it just happened to me, suddenly I underwent some upheaval. But I didn’t work for it, I didn’t do it intentionally. That’s not repentance. Repentance is where I understand that I was wrong, I undertake inner work, change myself, and bring myself back to the right path. But if that return always has to touch what I think is right, not only the question of what I do, then it can’t be done. Because I’m supposed to change what I myself think is right—but if I come to change it, then I already think it’s not right, otherwise I wouldn’t do it; and if I already think it’s right, then I have nothing to change, because I’m already there. So therefore this process is impossible. The claim is strong.
[Speaker D] I understood that already earlier; I still think my claim stands. I agree that there’s a component of free choice, and that’s the beginning, yes? And that can’t come from what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I haven’t gotten into free choice yet.
[Speaker D] No, but it’s very important. Because if it comes out of my psychology, then supposedly it’s not really me. That’s clear. The starting point is that it shouldn’t come from some characteristic of mine in that sense. But I think the idea of the Sages—that from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake—is completely legitimate. The idea is that not in every environment can you express that free choice of yours; you need a certain psychology.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just a second—no problem, no problem. But again I’m saying: then either way, what do you have? Either you were coerced, or you didn’t think that.
[Speaker D] No, a person who is coerced in reality remains a sinner and flawed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? He’s coerced!
[Speaker D] Yes, so what? It doesn’t matter—he’s coerced. A cat is also coerced into being a cat.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m talking about a sin that wasn’t committed under coercion. Repentance for a real sin, not a sin committed under coercion.
[Speaker D] Fine, for the sake of the discussion let’s talk about sins.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but—
[Speaker D] I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not just for the sake of discussion; I want to talk about sins because only…
[Speaker D] So I’ll talk about sins. It could be that the sins were caused by the fact that I was on a low level.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are these words, words! Tell me what you thought. Did you think it was right to desecrate the Sabbath or not?
[Speaker D] I thought it was right to desecrate it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So why did you desecrate it? Because I thought it was right! No—that’s what you thought. What do you want?
[Speaker D] Wait, I’ll explain, okay? But the Sages say to a person: aside from the fact that you thought it was permitted to desecrate the Sabbath, do you think a person should make an effort to do what is right, or to clarify what is right? Now if you decided that he should, and here you overcame weakness of will through free choice, that could cause you to change your…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s simply an act of will. I did what I thought. What’s the problem? Now if you want me to investigate and reach different conclusions, no problem. I’ll investigate, and if I reach different conclusions, then I’ll be something else. And today’s penitent is not the sinner.
[Speaker D] If you choose—so the Sages say this: if you choose to investigate, it could be that you begin the path from not for its own sake, say from some wrong decision.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, to choose to investigate—so what does that mean now? That I investigate and discover that I was living in error? Yes. So every penitent is basically someone who lived in error? That can’t be. Why not? No. Because then it always means there is only the penitent of today.
[Speaker D] No, no, no.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A penitent is not someone who lived in error. A penitent is someone who failed—that’s the whole idea of the paradox.
[Speaker D] But then we’re back to the issue of weakness of will. It depends on how you solve the problem of weakness of will.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, exactly—that’s the question.
[Speaker D] So I understood on the basis of which solution we’re discussing this: that every sin is a mistake?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t posit any solution. I didn’t posit any solution.
[Speaker D] Ah, you’re going back to the problem as initially presented.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. The problem of weakness of will, yes, that’s the problem. That’s why I introduced it first. Okay. I’ll try to suggest some sort of solution later on.
[Speaker D] I think there are several solutions to it, and they’re fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For example, let’s take… I think I have one, and even about it I’m not sure.
[Speaker D] Let’s take the solution that it’s a mistake, okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—if it’s a mistake, that solves nothing. If it’s a mistake, then it’s a mistake. You were coerced, you were in error—what does that have to do with it? I’m talking about a sinner who failed, not about a mistake.
[Speaker D] No, but they—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Think that this whole feeling of the sinner—that he failed, that he didn’t live up to what he wanted—all of that feeling, in your view, is a fiction. But that’s the whole basis of the paradox.
[Speaker D] You don’t have to call it a fiction. Fine, and it’s not just in my view; it’s a respectable enough position that I don’t have to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Very good. Okay. But I’ll do that next time, because I see our time is up, so we’ll stop here. Okay. Good. Goodbye. Have a good day.