Lecture dated 12 Elul 5766

But how does awareness of sin come about? Am I really now thinking about how the process of repentance is structured? Right now I’ve decided that what I did was wrong, and therefore I myself am not properly built, and I’m deciding to become better built. But if I decide that I’m not properly built, then I’m already properly built, because after all, if I’ve decided that such a thing is wrong, that means my views are already good. I’m already corrected, so what’s the problem? And then suddenly—meaning, if he’s corrupt, then there’s nothing to talk about; this is a process he can’t do, certainly not in some intentional way. I mean, the process of repentance is supposed to be something intentional. It’s even bounded, you know, by the Ten Days of Repentance and all that. Meaning, I’m supposed to sit down and decide to carry out a process. What does it mean to decide? If I really believe that it’s right, then I’m already a penitent, I’m done. So what? Again, after all, we know we’re not done. Again, the example the rabbi gave of maybe short-term and long-term—the difference, say, between healthy food and tasty food, assuming healthy food and tasty food conflict, and we know that dilemma. But that’s still just consequences; the question is what is currently flawed in me because of which the long term gets pushed aside by the short term. Something in my inner system is apparently not right. The question is: what do I do with that? Our values don’t… The assumption is that a person always acts only according to his values. But a person isn’t that perfect. Rather, in the sense that it’s not because of his values, but because of what? Momentary comfort. What? You could say that he has… momentary comfort is his value, it makes no difference. So the value of momentary comfort overrides the moral value. He has conflicting values, and then part of your struggle is to deal with the conflict between two values. But what does it mean to deal with it? But that really is located above in his value scale—it too is part of the structure of the basic value system. Who is more important than whom? So if I failed, that means the basic comfort overcomes the value of morality, the long-term value. There’s something basic here. Again, the whole issue is that time isn’t really the point here. Say, take the example of healthy food. A person has a value that he eats only healthy food, he doesn’t eat cake, okay? And in fact he doesn’t eat cake, and every now and then he sins, doesn’t withstand his impulse, and eats cake. And the next day, in the same situation, once again he doesn’t eat, and once again he doesn’t eat, and once again at some stage… So what is his real value? Which value wins? The value of pleasure wins. No, no—the value of pleasure itself has different levels; it depends what pleasure. For a pleasure at this level, I throw everything in the trash; for a pleasure at that level, I don’t. Now it depends how much pleasure I have at that moment from eating this cake. Today I’m very hungry, I really feel like eating a tasty cake, so that’s a great pleasure. Great pleasure, in my value system, wins in that situation indeed. Exactly. These are different levels of pleasure, and the truth is that at the root, the value of pleasure wins. It’s just that it takes a lot of pleasure for it to be worth pushing aside the long term. And a lot of pleasure is not always there. Sometimes I really want that cake, and sometimes less. So when it’s less, I overcome it. But that’s part of your training here—it says something about the level at which I activate the value. I know I want to overcome this impulse. No—what does it mean to overcome? If you had only one value in your world, then your world would be monochromatic, yes. Usually that doesn’t happen. A value system isn’t like that, so you always have… But no, I think it doesn’t matter. Even a system of ten values, with some ranking among them, that ranking is part of the value scale. Values always have to be arranged on some scale somehow, otherwise we’re in impossible conflicts. Fine, so there’s a situation of conflict, okay. So sometimes I don’t know—maybe I haven’t decided, or maybe they really are on the same level, and then I’m in a dilemma that I don’t know how to solve. But there is some scale that I believe in; sometimes a scale where they’re equal—it doesn’t matter right now. There is some hierarchy among the values, and from my perspective it is part of the basic value system. And how in the world do you see moral context? Yes. But a person isn’t like that. Okay, so what isn’t he? That’s the question—we’re talking about that. Like animals? Also instincts? But instincts… So repentance is instinct? No, it’s the pinnacle of human work. No, instinct is… I’m talking about it—that’s the impulse. There is instinct—for example, that pleasure. But why don’t you overcome the instinct before you repented? Because my value isn’t strong enough; you haven’t raised the value to a strong enough level for it to defeat the instinct. You’re born with it. Let me formulate it differently. Suppose someone is born with an impulse, just so it’s clear. Instinct is not a value; instinct is an automatic mechanism. No, it’s like pleasure. When instinct awakens, it’s automatic, but responding to pleasure is a value. No—giving in. The instinct pushes on its own, the instinct pushes on its own, like an animal, the instinct pushes on its own. The instinct is from outside. But I’m asking why I behaved the way I did. It doesn’t matter where it’s located, but it’s not me. Values are in struggle with laziness. Sorry—I decided not to fight that instinct. That decision is my decision, not the instinct’s. Why did I decide that? Because there’s a value problem in me. Oh, I just didn’t manage! What do you mean you didn’t manage? If you didn’t manage, then you were coerced. Coercion is not a sin. Why? There’s no such thing as can’t, only won’t. Ah—so it’s not that you didn’t manage, it’s that you didn’t want to. Exactly, that’s the point. You didn’t want to, so there’s a flaw in you; it’s not just the instinct. So there’s a flaw in the values. Your choice is always the result of your own deliberation. The instinct is only one of the factors you take into account. The degree of pleasure is one of the factors—that’s all. These are all data that are not under my control, or at least not under my direct control. But the question is: what do I do with a very strong urge to eat something I shouldn’t eat? Do I decide to fight, or do I decide to give in? That decision is not the result of the instinct. That decision is the result of a value system. So something is defective in the value system—that’s what we repent for. Yes, but that decision is a result of the value system, so again the question returns: how do I change this value system of yielding to instinct? You train it each time. No—I mean logically! Not how I do it. It doesn’t matter—it’s not something essential, it’s a matter of work, not something ontological. But it has value; it’s a value like any other. Just as I believe in Zionism or loyalty or… No, but that’s not how the person experiences it. What? It’s a learned value, it doesn’t come naturally to the person. What? Everything may be learned; I’m not… No, no—the instinct, the instinct… I’m not talking about the instinct, I’m talking about yielding to the instinct. That’s something completely different. Try thinking instead of cake about pork. Yielding to instinct requires no energy; it only requires relaxation. Relaxation—but that is a decision not to fight. Why did you decide not to fight? The instinct is strong enough. Yes—why? Because it causes suffering. Fine—but why did you decide that you don’t want that suffering? I couldn’t. If you couldn’t, that’s coercion. No, not couldn’t—didn’t want to. Didn’t want to. So something in your value system is defective. You won’t escape that. In other words, instinct is always only a factor. In the end, it is your decision what to do with the instinct. But there is another dimension, additional dimensions. Take, for example, a person’s mental state. The same person, to the same extent—say, with the cake—yesterday he was in a lower mental state, and on another day he was in a better mental state. Here he fails; there he doesn’t fail. So can we say these are two different people? Here person A, there person B. How do we relate to it? No, it doesn’t have to be two different people; it’s two different states, which basically parallels what I said earlier as the level of pleasure. When he is in a low mental state, then the level of pleasure from the cake is de facto higher. Meaning, therefore he is less able to deal with it. Let’s call it a higher level of pleasure for purposes of the calculation. Not just level of pleasure—a mental state. No, level of pleasure. His mental state is low, which means he is more likely to eat the cake and not fight. So de facto, from my point of view, that means the level of pleasure from the cake is higher, and therefore he cannot cope. After all, that’s completely equivalent. So still, in the end, even in a low mental state, why don’t you fight? Repentance is not about avoiding a low mental state. Repentance is to be in that same low mental state and not fail. Why? So what did change? Not the mental state—your values changed. In the end it’s always something in your values, always. All the surrounding data are factors that you have to take into account. In the end you have to decide what you do with all those data. You can take the same person in a low mental state—he sees the cake and wants it, and in that low mental state he won’t be able to resist; on the other hand, if the cake is dairy, then that may give him much more power not to eat it than, say, the fact that it’s fattening—I don’t know. Possibly. What you’re saying is that there are additional dimensions. Yes, but all these dimensions are in the end only data. What I do with all those circumstances is what determines the act. And if it doesn’t determine it—if it’s not in my hands—then I am coerced. One way or the other, if it is really forced on me, if the circumstances are beyond the range in which I have control, then I am coerced; it’s not a sin; I don’t need to repent for that. Repentance is always about those situations that I can cope with. But if I can cope, why didn’t I cope? That there are instincts is obvious; those are the data. I’m not talking about that. Assuming there is instinct, why didn’t I cope? Something in my values is not good. So that means I need to change something very fundamental at the deepest level of my foundation. The question is: how do you do such a thing? How can such a thing even be defined? What does it mean—just asking myself—that a person wants to improve his character traits, to work on his traits? That too involves a paradox. What does it mean to improve? Who is it that wants to improve his traits? I. I want to change myself. So who is this I? Is the I before the change, after the change? Is the I something that remains through the whole process? How do we define such a thing? I want to improve my traits—yes, exactly. It already gets complicated. All these things involve a problem that is not only… There is something here that is completely elusive. And notice: all this is in great repentance, not in small repentance. Great repentance is an inner upheaval, some kind of change in the value system. Small repentance is a procedure—it’s easy. It’s easy, and therefore there is a special grace in what? In the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, is willing to accept it. But in great repentance, the grace is that it is even possible to do such a thing. How can such a thing be done? How is such a thing even defined? How can it be, with all the layers that we all feel—everything you said is true. But when you try to fit it into some understandable model, you just can’t attach any model to it. And that is exactly the problem. There is something here that does not work with our rules, and therefore we won’t succeed in building a model. I don’t know anyone who has succeeded in building a model for the process of free choice. Free choice is free precisely because there is no model that describes it. There are no circumstances that tell you what will happen as a result of free choice; otherwise we are determinists. Right? Meaning, choice in its essence is something that escapes every law we know from our world. And therefore in great repentance, the grace—as Rabbenu Yonah says—is the very fact that “they dug a tunnel for me.” Not that they accept me when I come out of it. The very fact that repentance is possible at all—that is the grace of great repentance. In small repentance, the grace is that they accept me. In great repentance, the grace is that it is possible at all, that such a thing is even definable. And this really is the thing that was created before the creation of the world, because it truly is something beyond understanding. The second thing is something that maybe I wouldn’t do, but the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond the strict letter of the law, does do it. There’s nothing there that one can’t understand. Fine, maybe it’s a special grace; the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows kindness on me beyond the strict letter of the law, but it’s not something unintelligible. You can understand it: okay, I carried out a procedure and the Holy One, blessed be He, is willing to forgive me. But great repentance is something that cannot be understood at all. It’s something that cannot be defined. It’s something that has paradox bound up with it. How do we live in paradox? I don’t know, but we do. The fact is that we live in this paradox. I think I’ll try maybe just a little to soften the sting of this and maybe clarify the matter a bit. In psychology, basically there are two methods: the behaviorist one—that is, a system where if you do the same thing outwardly, you don’t commit transgressions, you train yourself not to commit transgressions; you have an abnormal obsessive urge and you train yourself how not to be obsessive. As opposed to the Freudian method, I think, where they change your personality until you understand that this is good. The behaviorists say that this can’t be; there’s no such thing; they can only change your behavior. Behaviorism, simply put, is only a different way of describing the same thing. It doesn’t necessarily say there is no psychoanalysis; it only says I’m not dealing with psychoanalysis. I deal with syntax and not with semantics. That is, I deal with the external form and not with what drives it, not with what operates behind it. No—here I’m talking about two different things. There, it’s describing the same thing on two levels. I can describe the thing on the technical level of external correlations: if you do such-and-such to him, he responds this way. Then Freud comes and does some psychoanalysis and says no, he responds this way because he has repressions and Totem and Taboo and all kinds of things—his basic world is different. But that’s describing the same thing on two levels. One describes it only on the behavioral level—behaviorism, from behave, yes, it’s behavioral—the relationship between the cause and the effect. And the other tries to find deeper explanations. But that is describing the same thing. I’m talking about two processes that are different in themselves. It’s not two ways of describing the same thing; it is two different processes in essence. The process of great repentance is a paradoxical process—not a paradoxical description of the same process, but a process that is itself paradoxical. I don’t know how to describe it without paradox. On the philosophical level, I don’t know. I think I’ll still try a bit to soften the sting of the matter and maybe make it a little clearer. The rabbi keeps describing a value system, and the rabbi keeps saying that there are no values that contradict each other, but in a person there are values that contradict each other. If values contradict each other, then no—contradiction between values is something that, in my opinion, does not exist at all. Not just in my opinion; philosophers wrote this before me. Because what is contradiction between values? I want to be healthy, and I also want to eat chocolate because it tastes good. Is that a contradiction? It’s not a contradiction. I truly want both—what’s the problem? There is no contradiction. The whole question is only who stands above whom, and that is what will determine the scale of values, not which values appear on the scale. There is no logical impediment to “contradictory” values. A person who accepts Torah as a value system—then he must not commit transgressions. What do you mean? I also accept the Torah, and I also accept, supposedly, hedonism. That doesn’t contradict anything. The whole question is which one stands above the other. When there is a conflict between them, what do you do? Change the scale. Exactly. Very good. But the scale is also part of the values, so it changes nothing. If my scale is such-and-such, then now I ask you: how do you change the hierarchy? If you’re persuaded to change the scale. So it’s the same thing. The scale is not unambiguous. For one person, the level of tiredness for which he gives up communal prayer in the morning—for him, that level of tiredness is here; for another, it’s there. It doesn’t matter—this is how it is for him. Okay, so it’s not really a scale, it’s some kind of thing—why? Again, in the analogy of health he says it’s risk. I’ll eat the chocolate today, tomorrow I’ll go jogging. So in the end there is some kind of scale—maybe complicated, maybe not binary but ternary, meaning there are three values with some weighted balance among the three and not just between two—but in the end there is some scale here that determines what you do. Yes. We all try to have our cake and eat it too—both sleep in the morning and make it to the prayer quorum—and that is exactly the point. But we try—we try to do both because we really want both of those values. But when there is an impossible conflict, we will have to decide which one is above the other. As Leibowitz said, we want both to eat cholent with kishke in this world and to be with the Wild Ox in the next world. Fine, true. Maybe we’ll even succeed. And nevertheless there is repentance. Hm? And nevertheless—yes, and nevertheless there is repentance. So I only really want, very briefly, to try just a little to soften the sting. Actually solving it—I don’t know if I can. Just soften the sting a bit. So what is the problem really? Let’s go back to that person who serves not for its own sake, and they are trying to persuade him to serve for its own sake. We have the same logical problem here. That’s the simple example that illustrates the problematic nature here. What is the problem exactly? Let’s present it as an either-or, yes? There are two possibilities, and neither works. One possibility is that he is changed from the outside. But then it’s valueless; the one changing him is not him repenting. Then it’s like a hammer and screwdriver managing to fix him—it’s not really a process of repentance, right? That the Holy One, blessed be He, should do it for me. That is not a process of repentance. I am supposed to do the repentance. So on the one hand, that doesn’t work. On the other hand—what? So who will do it? I myself. But for me myself to do it is also impossible, because of all the paradoxes I described earlier. Because I change myself—this is some kind of thing: who is the one changing, who is the one being changed, what is after and what is before. So how does this business work? It seems to me that the problematic part—if I present the problem this way—then maybe one can understand the root of why there is a problem, maybe not solve it, but at least understand it. The sharp distinction between me and the Holy One, blessed be He, is the root of the problem. The moment I define clearly: I am here and the Holy One, blessed be He, is there—either Him or me—then a problem is created. Because if it’s Him, then it’s valueless. It’s not my repentance, right? If it’s me, it’s impossible. So that dichotomy between me and Him is what creates this problem. Right? If I now say, wait a second—who says that this distinction is really so sharp? People speak of a divine spark in every Jew, a divine soul from above, and so on—various things of that kind. In Kabbalah there are somewhat more detailed descriptions of these same things, basically saying that there is some sort of continuous metamorphosis between me and the Holy One, blessed be He, such that there is no sharp boundary where from there onward I begin and from there and this way the Holy One, blessed be He, begins. It’s not some sharp distinction. Something within me is apparently a divine element. There is something within me that is both inside—me from within—and also outside, someone outside me, and also something of me. I know it sounds vague; it sounds vague to me too. But it seems to me that here maybe one can understand where the basic assumption sits that causes all this confusion, all this problematic quality. And as is known, when there is a paradox, one tries to isolate some basic assumption such that if I give it up, the paradox disappears. It seems to me that if I give up this sharp distinction between the human being and the Holy One, blessed be He, then at least the either-or formulation disappears. Meaning, I can’t say either me or Him. He can’t be it, and I can’t be it either, so repentance is impossible. There is some sort of shared thing here, some way in which the boundary between us is not sharply defined; it is some action of both of us together in some sense. Beyond that I don’t know how to define it better, but that is… that, it seems to me, maybe can soften the sting a little. And here we will understand something very interesting. In all the “Our Father, our King” prayers that we say—yes, in all of them—the requests seem reasonable. Send us livelihood, healing, help us with this, help us with that. There is one “Our Father, our King” that is very problematic: what does it mean, “bring us back in complete repentance before You”? I’m the one who has to do it. Do the work for me. You know what—keep the Sabbath for me too. Every morning we say, “Please make the words of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths, Lord our God.” Fine—that we want it to be pleasant, okay—but I… What does it mean, “Place it in my heart”? “Place it in my heart”—work on me, give me some good feelings when I do Your will, let the struggle be easier for me. I’m asking the Holy One, blessed be He, to help. But what does “bring us back in complete repentance before You” mean? Please do repentance for me in my place. Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya in the Talmudic text there—there is an amazing description of him. He says: Heaven, ask for mercy for me; mountains, ask for mercy for me. In the responsum there, we said—that’s what he teaches. What is this? What is the meaning of this description? And in the end, after he turns to all the heavenly and earthly bodies and all their hosts, he reaches the conclusion: “The matter depends on me alone.” What is this dilemma? What does this process mean? When you deal with great repentance, that is the dilemma. Who will do it? After all, I can’t do it. It’s something I cannot set in motion by myself. Heaven, mountains—these are metaphors, of course—but someone has to do it for me; I can’t do it. And then he reaches the conclusion: “The matter depends on me alone,” and that’s it. And it ends. It’s some sort of click that flips, and that’s it. I don’t know exactly how such a thing happens, but that is what it expresses. He turns to everything around him, and then says, “The matter depends on me alone.” What does “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” mean? You can’t do complete repentance. Complete repentance—you can’t do complete repentance. It can’t be done. Our Father, our King—I don’t know—do something, I can’t do it. That request is part of the process of repentance itself. It is the part that I contribute to the matter, and together with the Holy One, blessed be He, apparently somehow something here can move. But otherwise—otherwise it really is not understandable. Meaning, there is some conception here that the Holy One, blessed be He, and I somehow work together. In alphabetical order. We work together in order to do this thing. Otherwise it doesn’t work. And this does not contradict free choice. And it does not contradict—it is exactly the opposite. And it is what makes free choice possible. Because without it, the concept of free choice is itself the problem we are dealing with. What is free choice? To choose a value. How are values formed? We asked how one changes the basic value system. But even before that—how was it formed at all? How did we choose it? Is it some kind of creation out of nothing? What is it, just an arbitrary decision? Then it’s nonsense, it’s meaningless. On the other hand, if there are reasons for it, then it’s not a choice; then it has causes. Then something caused it. Exactly the same thing. The whole concept—the problem we have been dealing with now—is the problem of choice, nothing else. It is not for nothing that Maimonides places his discussion of choice in the laws of repentance. Why not in the laws of Grace after Meals? In Grace after Meals too, use free choice to recite Grace after Meals or not to recite Grace after Meals. In every commandment there is an element of choice, right? So why does Maimonides place it specifically in repentance? Because in repentance this is the purest expression of the problematic nature of choice and of the fact that we really do have it. And that together with the Holy One, blessed be He, somehow we manage to set this process in motion. Otherwise it doesn’t… and that is the grace of repentance. And that is a special grace. Now you may ask, so why are the wicked person’s merits erased if this is grace? Grace, we said, is not done for harm, only for good. But what is the grace? The grace is that you can be either wicked or righteous. That is the grace. You decided to be wicked—your merits were erased. That erasure—the special grace—is not that they erase the past; that’s in small repentance. The special grace is that you can be righteous or wicked. If you become righteous, then strictly speaking everything will be erased for you; if you become wicked, then strictly speaking everything will be erased for you too. There is no problem. It doesn’t contradict what we said there, that this is strict justice. Strict justice concerns what is done with your repentance. But how do you do it? How do you decide to be righteous or wicked? That is the hardest labor in the Temple.