Lecture 2 Answer
This transcript 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 commandment of repentance, obligation and choice in Maimonides
- The status of the righteous, wicked, and intermediate on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in Maimonides
- Difficulties: why only repentance helps, and how there can be intermediate people at all
- First approach: Emek Berakhah and Rabbi Aharon Kotler on the judgment of the previous year
- Second approach: Siftei Chaim—the intermediate person as a life-direction and spiritual decision
- Why repentance rather than accumulating commandments: changing direction, not the count
- Two mechanisms of repentance: a technique for erasing sins versus an inner reversal
- Proofs for substantive repentance that does not depend on procedure
- The unusual character of the Laws of Repentance in Maimonides: Jewish law and thought as two tracks
- The Maharal and the Thirteen Attributes: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “yet He does not completely clear”
- Local regret versus root-level regret, and a continuum between the poles
- The grace of repentance: Mesillat Yesharim, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, and repentance from love / from fear
- The logical paradox of repentance and the need for divine partnership
- “Our Father, our King” and “The Lord, the Lord”: the grace of the very possibility of returning
Summary
General Overview
The text presents repentance as a concept that, according to Maimonides, is not counted as a commandment in the list of commandments, even though there is an obligation to repent, and explains that this is connected to the paradox of commanding choice. That is why Maimonides devoted chapters in the Laws of Repentance to discussing free choice. It raises a difficulty in Maimonides’ words about the judgment of intermediate people between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and why specifically repentance helps there, and offers two directions: repentance as a technique for erasing sins versus repentance as a spiritual reversal and a decision about the direction of one’s life. From there it sketches two mechanisms of repentance, brings proofs from the Talmud in Kiddushin and from the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, and explains—through the Maharal and the attributes “The Lord, the Lord” and “yet He does not completely clear”—the distinction between an essential track and a formal track. In the end it presents great repentance as a logical paradox that requires divine partnership, and connects this to the prayer “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” and to the idea of “The Lord, the Lord”—”I am He before a person sins, and I am He after a person sins and repents.”
The commandment of repentance, obligation and choice in Maimonides
The text states that according to Maimonides there is no commandment to repent, even though there is an obligation to repent, and therefore this does not appear in the Book of Commandments but does appear in the Mishneh Torah. It explains that there cannot be a commandment “to choose,” because if a person is not choosing then there is no meaning in commanding him to choose, and if he is choosing then there is no point in commanding him. It says that Maimonides devotes chapters 5–6 of the Laws of Repentance to free choice, unlike other commandments where free choice is taken for granted, and presents the current discussion as an examination of the “mechanism of repentance.”
The status of the righteous, wicked, and intermediate on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in Maimonides
The text cites Maimonides’ language that every person, every state, and the whole world are judged according to merits and sins, and that one whose merits outweigh his sins is righteous, one whose sins outweigh his merits is wicked, and one who is exactly half-and-half is intermediate. It emphasizes that the calculation is not by number but by magnitude, and that weighing is done only according to the knowledge of the “God of knowledge,” who knows how to compare merits against sins. It quotes that on Rosh Hashanah every year the sins of all who enter the world are weighed together with their merits, that the righteous are sealed for life and the wicked for death, and the intermediate are held in suspense until Yom Kippur—if they repented, they are sealed for life, and if not, they are sealed for death.
Difficulties: why only repentance helps, and how there can be intermediate people at all
The text asks why, according to Maimonides, the intermediate person is judged until Yom Kippur and only if he repented is he sealed for life; why does doing more commandments not help to “tip the scale”? It argues that prayer, repentance, charity, fasting, voice, and money are presented as means that help repentance rather than as an accumulation of merits that changes the balance. It raises a second difficulty: the chance that merits and sins are exactly balanced is close to zero, and even if the weighing is done with different unknown weights, the chance of a precisely balanced result is still negligible, so the description seems unclear as something relevant in practice.
First approach: Emek Berakhah and Rabbi Aharon Kotler on the judgment of the previous year
The text cites Emek Berakhah by Rabbi Aryeh Pomeranchik, and also Rabbi Aharon Kotler, saying that on Rosh Hashanah one is judged for the state of the year that has passed—from one Rosh Hashanah to the next. It explains that commandments performed during the Ten Days of Repentance already belong to the coming year, so they cannot tip the scale regarding the previous year, whereas repentance can “erase” sins already lying on the scale and affect the previous year retroactively. It notes that this approach leaves the question of intermediate people unresolved and creates discomfort because it portrays the Holy One, blessed be He, as a kind of “petty bookkeeper”—with a too-technical sense of “office hours are over.”
Second approach: Siftei Chaim—the intermediate person as a life-direction and spiritual decision
The text cites Rabbi Chaim Friedlander in Siftei Chaim, who argues that righteous, wicked, and intermediate are not the result of counting commandments against transgressions, but of one’s fundamental direction in life. It states that a person striving for good is righteous even if he has more sins because of a strong inclination and many trials, and one striving for evil is wicked even if he happens to have more merits, while an intermediate person is someone “sitting on the fence,” with both forces active within him and no decision yet made. It explains that Maimonides’ phrase about the “knowledge of the God of knowledge” can fit this by saying that the weights are determined according to spiritual direction, so that commandments “get an upgrade” and sins “are diminished” when they are failures within an overall direction toward good. From this follows a broad reality of intermediate people, because as long as the two forces are both present without a clear decision, the person is intermediate.
Why repentance rather than accumulating commandments: changing direction, not the count
The text concludes that in light of the understanding that being intermediate depends on spiritual decision rather than on the number of commandments, doing more commandments does not change the judgment as long as there is no decision about the direction of one’s life. It says that repentance is the act that changes the state of the intermediate person because it is the decision to go in the direction of good, and that the expectation is not to arrive on Yom Kippur as a “completely righteous person,” but to move forward and shift one’s spiritual condition. It compares this to “Rabbi Dessler’s ladder,” where everything is relative and one shifts the point of choice.
Two mechanisms of repentance: a technique for erasing sins versus an inner reversal
The text presents the two approaches not as a dispute but as two existing mechanisms of repentance. It describes the mechanism of Emek Berakhah as a technical-formal repentance for erasing sins, and brings as background the description of Saadia Gaon: abandoning the sin, regret, resolution for the future, and verbal confession—as a procedure that goes through sins one by one, with rules and questions of order and whether each step is indispensable. It presents Rabbi Chaim Friedlander’s mechanism as substantive repentance of spiritual change and reversal, in which the sins are erased as a result, and emphasizes that this is “inner work, spiritual work,” not “halakhic technocracy.”
Proofs for substantive repentance that does not depend on procedure
The text brings proof from the Talmud in Kiddushin: if a man betroths a woman “on condition that he is completely righteous,” we are concerned that the betrothal may be valid “lest he had thoughts of repentance,” and it argues that this cannot reasonably mean a four-step procedure for every sin under the wedding canopy, but rather an inner reversal. It brings another proof from the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya in Avodah Zarah: he was immersed in sin, was awakened by the words of a prostitute, sought mercy from the mountains and hills, heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars and constellations, and then said, “The matter depends on no one but me,” cried “until his soul left him,” and it was said of him, “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the World to Come,” and “there are those who acquire their world in one moment.” It explains that “Rabbi” means that he taught there is a kind of repentance through which “in one moment you acquire your world,” without going through a detailed list of sins and particulars of confession, and emphasizes that even death does not atone without repentance, so the story points to substantive repentance.
The unusual character of the Laws of Repentance in Maimonides: Jewish law and thought as two tracks
The text points out that the Laws of Repentance in Maimonides are not “laws” in the usual sense, because they contain poetic passages, the promises of the Torah and the prophets, and discussions of serving for its own sake, Torah for its own sake, and the World to Come. It argues that usually Jewish law and thought are two sides of the same coin, but in repentance they are two separate tracks: Jewish law deals with the small, technical repentance, while the conceptual dimension establishes another track of repentance—the great repentance. It explains that Maimonides describes the two tracks together, and therefore incorporates the philosophical dimensions into the Laws of Repentance as part of the practice itself, not as an external explanation in the style of the Guide for the Perplexed.
The Maharal and the Thirteen Attributes: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “yet He does not completely clear”
The text cites the Talmud in Rosh Hashanah on the Thirteen Attributes: “The Lord, the Lord” means “I am He before a person sins, and I am He after a person sins and repents,” and emphasizes that the divine name “The Lord, the Lord” is the essential name, not a description like compassionate or gracious, and therefore belongs only to the Holy One, blessed be He, hinting that repentance is “outside the rules.” It cites the Talmud in Shevuot on the contradiction between “clearing” and “He does not completely clear,” and the resolution: “He clears those who repent, and does not clear those who do not repent,” and asks with the Maharal why two attributes are needed for repentance. It quotes the Maharal in Netiv HaTeshuvah that “clearing” is repentance for some sins, while “The Lord, the Lord” is repentance for all sins, and explains that the intention is not quantitative but substantive: small repentance clears only what one processed specifically, while great repentance touches the root of going against God’s will and therefore clears everything at once even without specific repentance over each sin.
Local regret versus root-level regret, and a continuum between the poles
The text illustrates that in regretting an act of selecting on the Sabbath, in small repentance the focus is on the local transgression and its formal erasure, whereas in great repentance the regret is over the very willingness to go against God’s will, which is the root of all sins. It explains “He clears those who repent, and does not clear those who do not repent” as a description of the erasure mechanism: in small repentance, one is cleared only for what one repented of, while in great repentance there is a root-level repair that clears even what was not repented of specifically. It corrects the overly dichotomous presentation and says this is really a continuum: the more one deepens regret and inner clarification, the closer one moves from small repentance to great repentance. In life there is no absolute purity of either pole, only movement between them. Therefore the Yom Kippur order of “For the sin…” begins with small repentance, and from within that we try to move toward a deeper reversal.
The grace of repentance: Mesillat Yesharim, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, and repentance from love / from fear
The text says that Mesillat Yesharim at the end of chapter 4 sees repentance as a special grace “outside the laws of nature,” because it is impossible to “rewrite history.” It brings Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s question from Kovetz Ma’amarim: if erasing the past is beyond the strict line of justice, how can a righteous person who “regrets his earlier deeds” lose his merits? Beyond the strict line of justice belongs to grace, not to worsening things. It presents an answer someone told him through the parable of a bank: waiving a positive balance is within strict justice, waiving a debt is beyond the strict line of justice. It then continues with Rabbi Elchanan’s explanation that repentance from fear is accepted as beyond the strict line of justice, while repentance from love is the strict line of justice and therefore works in both directions. It parallels this to small repentance as gracious erasure of sins, and great repentance as a change of direction that is strict justice—to the point of saying that if a person truly undergoes an inner reversal and the Holy One, blessed be He, would not accept him, he could “summon Him to a Torah court,” with the caveat that in an earthly court repentance does not exempt from punishment because no one knows what is in his heart.
The logical paradox of repentance and the need for divine partnership
The text argues that great repentance is a logical paradox: a person acts according to a value system that leads to sin, and from within that same system he cannot intentionally generate a fundamental shift to different values, because persuasion and change always rely on the assumptions one already has. It illustrates this with a thought experiment about serving not for its own sake and the difficulty of persuading someone to serve for its own sake without using the language of reward and punishment, and parallels this also to “leaving religion” as a change of values. It returns to Maimonides, who describes a penitent as someone who can say, “I am not the same person I was then,” and explains that this reversal cannot be grasped logically in the question “who does this?” If the person is already “there,” there is no need; if he is still “here,” he cannot do it; and if the Holy One, blessed be He, does it for him, then the act has no value. It uses the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya to describe despair from everything external and the move to “The matter depends on no one but me,” without explaining how that is possible, and hints that the sharp dichotomy between man and the Holy One, blessed be He, is not precise, and that there is “some kind of combination” or partnership that makes the movement possible.
“Our Father, our King” and “The Lord, the Lord”: the grace of the very possibility of returning
The text concludes that “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” expresses the recognition that repentance also requires divine help, unlike other obligations where we do not ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to do them “in our place.” It states that the grace of small repentance is that the procedure is accepted and sins are erased, while the grace of great repentance is that it is possible at all, because if it is truly done, it is accepted as a matter of strict justice. It explains “The Lord, the Lord” as “I am the Lord before one sins and I am the Lord after one sins and returns,” in the sense that God is present “before and after” so that there can be a “before and after” at all, and it concludes with a wish that we all be written and sealed for good.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re dealing with repentance.
[Speaker B] Last time—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Last time I spoke about the commandment of repentance. We saw that, in fact, according to Maimonides there is no commandment to repent, but there is an obligation to repent. That’s why it doesn’t appear in the Book of Commandments, but it does appear in the Mishneh Torah. I tried to explain why there can’t be such a commandment, because there can’t be a commandment to choose. A commandment to be a chooser—yes, “choose life”—but none of those who count the commandments include that in their list of commandments, because if you’re not choosing, then there’s no point in commanding you to be a chooser, and if you are choosing, then again there’s no point in commanding you. There’s no meaning to commanding someone to be a chooser. And that’s why Maimonides also devotes two chapters in the Laws of Repentance, chapters 5 and 6, to discussing the issue of free choice—something he doesn’t do with other commandments, where he takes choice for granted. What I want to do today is talk a bit about the mechanism of repentance itself, and maybe at the end, if I have time—we only have today to finish this—if I have time, then to go back to what I spoke about last time and shed more light on it from another angle. The point of departure is Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance. Maimonides writes—he first defines it this way: every single human being has merits and sins. One whose merits exceed his sins is righteous, and one whose sins exceed his merits is wicked; if it’s fifty-fifty, he is intermediate. And the same applies to a state and to the whole world. Then, a person whose sins are more numerous than his merits immediately dies in his wickedness, as it says, “because of the multitude of your iniquity,” and likewise a state whose sins are numerous is immediately destroyed, as it says, “the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,” and likewise the whole world. Then he says: this weighing is not according to the number of merits and sins, but according to their magnitude. There is a merit that outweighs several sins, as it says, “because some good thing was found in him,” and there is a sin that outweighs several merits, as it says, “one sinner destroys much good.” And they are weighed only according to the knowledge of the God of knowledge, and He knows how merits are set against sins. In other words, there are righteous people, intermediate people, and wicked people. This is determined by comparing a person’s merits and sins. The calculation is complicated; we cannot know how much each transgression or each commandment is worth—only the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that. And at the end of halakhah 3 he concludes: And just as a person’s merits and sins are weighed at the time of his death, so too every year, on the festival of Rosh Hashanah, the sins of each and every one of those who come into the world are weighed together with his merits. Whoever is found righteous is sealed for life, and whoever is found wicked is sealed for death, and the intermediate person is held in suspense until Yom Kippur. If he repented, he is sealed for life, and if not, he is sealed for death. I want to begin with that point. Maimonides—there are several difficulties in this law, and I want to focus on one, and another one from the previous law. Maimonides says that intermediate people are left hanging. On Rosh Hashanah we are judged; whoever comes out intermediate is suspended until Yom Kippur. If he repented, good, and if not, then he is sealed for death. And the question is: why can only repentance help? Only repentance can save the intermediate person from being sealed for death on Yom Kippur? And the question is why. Why doesn’t it help to do more commandments? To tip the scale some other way—not to repent, but to do more, to accumulate more merits. Maimonides seems to imply that only repentance works. What he says—prayer, repentance, charity, yes, fasting, voice, and money—those are means to help us repent; that’s not accumulating merits. So the question is why, really, that is so. Wait, let’s go one step further: would it be enough just to repent without tipping the balance? It would be enough. You’re balanced on Rosh Hashanah; if you repented, then fine, and if not, then not. So that’s one question. The second question is a famous one: how are there intermediate people in the world at all? What are the odds? Really, what are the odds that our merits and sins are exactly balanced? Close to zero. The odds are negligible. So in fact, the whole picture Maimonides describes here—it’s not clear how relevant it even is. Who exactly is this intermediate person we’re talking about? There are two directions that I think arise among the commentators on Maimonides to explain the first difficulty, and one of them also answers the second. The first direction is a somewhat sharp, pilpul-type direction. It appears in Emek Berakhah of Rabbi Aryeh Pomeranchik, a student of the Brisker Rav, and I once saw it also cited in the name of Rabbi Aharon Kotler. And the claim is that on Rosh Hashanah we are judged for our state in the year that passed. A year is from Rosh Hashanah to Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah we are judged for the state of the year that passed. Any commandment we perform during the Ten Days of Repentance will be added to the next Rosh Hashanah, because it already belongs to the coming year. So it cannot tip my scale regarding the previous year. What can do that? If I repent, then I am in effect erasing sins that were already lying on the scale from last year. That means I am changing my previous year’s condition retroactively. And since that is so, repentance really can help. Commandments and transgressions—that accounting is already for next year. That’s one direction. Of course, that leaves open the question of how there can be intermediate people at all. I’ll sharpen that more later, but what is a little troubling in this direction—it’s nice, it’s clever—but what is troubling is that the Holy One, blessed be He, comes out looking like some kind of petty accountant. I mean, if I had been in the same situation a few days earlier, I would have been sealed for life, right? Now I’m still here, my judgment is sealed on Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur I’m already in a situation such that if I had been here a few days earlier, I would be considered righteous by Maimonides’ criteria. Yes—but office hours are over. Meaning, on Rosh Hashanah the doors closed. Sorry—next year, if you’re still alive at all, because after all you were immediately sealed for death, so who knows what next year will be. But the whole thing seems a bit too technical. I mean—no, I expect more from the Holy One, blessed be He, sorry for the way I’m saying it. What is this bookkeeping? That’s what bothers me in this direction. There’s another direction, which appears in Rabbi Chaim Friedlander’s Siftei Chaim, in his books on the festivals. And there he wants to argue—he begins with the previous question, the question of how there can be an intermediate person. And he says that, in fact, intermediate, righteous, and wicked is not a weighing of commandments and sins, not a relative balance of commandments and sins. Rather, the question is: what is your basic direction in life? In other words, if fundamentally you strive toward good, then you are righteous—that’s the language of—
[Speaker C] Maimonides, more precisely.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —even though it may be that you have more sins than merits. You might have more sins than merits—why? Because you have a strong inclination, because you had many tests and didn’t withstand all of them. But fundamentally you strive toward good, so you are righteous. If fundamentally you strive toward evil, even if by chance you have more merits than sins, then you are wicked. If you’re sitting on the fence—two forces, yes, “two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall separate from your insides”—in other words, if you’re still like that, either toward idolatry or toward synagogues, meaning you haven’t decided, then you’re intermediate. Both forces are there; there hasn’t yet been a decision in you. That is called intermediate. How does that fit into Maimonides before I continue, if at all? In the plain wording of Maimonides, it’s really hard to fit it in. Maimonides speaks about a weighing of merits against sins. But Maimonides also continues and says that this weighing is done according to the knowledge of the God of knowledge; none of us knows what it is. Now let’s try to calculate for a moment. Earlier I said that the chance of my being intermediate is negligible, because the total of sins equals exactly the total of commandments. What are the odds that it’s exactly balanced? Negligible. What happens if the total is weighted? Meaning each commandment and each transgression has different weights—strange weights—that we don’t know; only the Holy One, blessed be He, knows them. The odds are still zero, of course, right? It really doesn’t matter whether the total is weighted or unweighted—the chance that it will land on exactly a given number is still negligible; the odds are negligible. So the feeling is that what Maimonides adds here—”this weighing is only according to the knowledge of the God of knowledge”—sounds as though it comes to explain how there can be an intermediate person, but it doesn’t explain it. It doesn’t really explain the matter. Because the fact that the total is weighted doesn’t really change the situation; there is still no chance of being intermediate. Therefore, it may be—and this is what I’m saying in light of Rabbi Chaim Friedlander’s words—it may be that what Maimonides meant was something different. What Maimonides meant was that the weighting is according to your spiritual direction. In other words, if your spiritual direction is that you chose good, you are going, you are striving toward good, then your commandments receive an upgrade and your sins are downgraded. And because of that, in the end you come out righteous. Meaning, what he means by “according to the knowledge of the God of knowledge” is actually those same things Rabbi Chaim Friedlander is saying. In other words, what determines the relative weights between merits and sins is really your spiritual direction—whether this is a stumble or whether this is your direction. And then it does fit with Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, and it also explains why there are intermediate people.
[Speaker E] And there are individuals who may be truly completely righteous, yes, or completely wicked, and still there’s a mixture in every person and in every situation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’ll get there, I’ll get there in a moment. I presented it as though there were three sharp possibilities. Clearly there’s a continuum.
[Speaker E] Just as there really is—so then again, where are you?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where there is no decision, you are still intermediate. Doesn’t matter. It could be that decision means you’re moving in the direction of good in an extreme way. The Tanya, when he speaks about a righteous person—the righteous person does not sin at all. The Tanya. Fine, and an intermediate person also doesn’t really sin according to the Tanya; he only has an inclination to sin. That is, of course, an extreme formulation, but I’m not going that far.
[Speaker E] Just as there’s a person whose actions are—I said it’s almost fifty-fifty to be really intermediate—also in his intention.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I understand. But there my claim is that this isn’t measured in a binary way. In other words, as long as there are two forces inside you, you are intermediate. It doesn’t matter right now what the strength of each force is—you have not yet been decided. And therefore, in fact, we are all intermediate. That’s exactly the point. And therefore the assumption is that all of us are intermediate. Everyone assumes, after all, that each person should regard himself as intermediate and not righteous. And I think that’s a good explanation. In other words, as long as you still have these two directions in you, these two forces, with no clear decision, you are still intermediate. There’s someone who is a little intermediate—that’s a little odd, yes? There’s someone who is a little intermediate; there’s someone who is very intermediate, because being intermediate is already a concept that tolerates various degrees. But I think that definitely makes sense. In light of that, we can also explain the second difficulty, because the question was why only repentance helps during the Ten Days of Repentance—why wouldn’t doing other commandments help? Now it’s very clear. Because if you do more commandments, what difference does that make? As long as you haven’t decided your spiritual direction, you are intermediate. We said this doesn’t really depend on the number of commandments or the number of sins. So what can change the judgment? If you decide. And if you repent and you decide now to go in the positive direction, in the direction of good, that decision is the only thing that can really change your state. Now again, I assume—and again, all this is just speculation, I don’t have proof—but my intuition says that clearly we are not expected to reach Yom Kippur, in the terms I used here, in the sense that that’s it, finished—there’s no negative side left at all, meaning we’ve made a final decision. What is probably expected of us is to become less intermediate than before, all right? In other words, clearly there is some movement between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur you are expected to do some work of repentance, and work of repentance means changing your spiritual state, not doing commandments and transgressions. That doesn’t mean reaching the state of being completely righteous. On Yom Kippur, for the decision, it’s enough that you’ve advanced a bit. But I think that the fact that this is measured on the plane of spiritual direction and not on the plane of the number of commandments and transgressions seems more convincing to me.
[Speaker F] That’s also what the rabbi—it’s also Rabbi Dessler’s ladder. It’s like everything is relative, and you simply—it’s all relative, and you move the point of choice. Yes, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So these two descriptions seem to me clearly like two answers to a difficulty, but I’m not saying them here just to answer a difficulty. I’m saying them here because I think they reflect two different mechanisms of repentance, and both of those mechanisms exist. This is not a dispute. There are two mechanisms of repentance. Emek Berakhah assumes repentance in a very technical sense. It assumes that repentance is a technique for erasing sins. And therefore it says: between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, during the Ten Days of Repentance, if you repented, you erased sins and your state regarding the previous year changed. If you didn’t repent, then what can you do—your commandments are already for next year. Meaning, from his point of view, repentance is a technical means for erasing sins. Okay? According to Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, repentance is not a technical matter. According to Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, repentance means some sort of spiritual reversal, a change in your spiritual direction in life. It is not a technical matter of erasing sins. It may be that the sins are erased afterward as a result. But what you are doing is inner work, spiritual work; you are not doing halakhic technocracy. Okay? Why am I saying this? I’m about to show in a moment that both mechanisms of repentance exist. This simply describes two mechanisms, both of which exist. And Emek Berakhah’s mechanism, which is basically the mechanism of a technique for erasing sins—what does that mean? Saadia Gaon already described it first, and after that everyone repeats it: abandoning the sin, regret, resolution for the future, and verbal confession. There is a procedure of repentance. In other words, you have to go through each sin, one by one. For every sin you had, you abandon it, regret it, resolve for the future, and confess verbally. Fine? Then it gets erased. You move on to the next sin and do the same procedure, and it too is erased. This is a procedure for erasing sins, and this procedure has rules. How does it work? There are four parts, there are stages. Is the order indispensable, not indispensable? There are discussions about that too. But there is a halakhic procedure for how this whole thing works. And why? Because the whole thing is a halakhic procedure. It is a halakhic procedure for erasing sins. And therefore it’s also not so surprising that here the Holy One, blessed be He, deals with us like an accountant. Because basically, if you did this between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—then office hours are over. Why? Because if you’re going by the technical track, the formal track, then work according to the rules. If you want to go in a substantive direction, in the other direction—that is, truly to change, to adopt a different spiritual direction—then there are no office hours, there are no laws of repentance. All the laws of repentance are irrelevant here. Someone who does that is atoned immediately, with no connection to abandoning, regret, resolution for the future, confession. You don’t need confession, you don’t need anything. Everything is atoned for. I’ll bring you two proofs. One proof is from the Talmud in Kiddushin, which says that if a man betroths a woman—even if he is wicked—on condition that he is completely righteous, we are concerned about the validity of the betrothal, lest he had thoughts of repentance. Right? Now if indeed the procedure of repentance contains four steps that have to be applied to each and every sin I committed, tell me—there under the wedding canopy, while he is saying to her, “Behold, you are betrothed to me,” can he be having thoughts of repentance? He doesn’t even have time to think it through; you have to speak, you need verbal confession. But beyond that—did he go through all his sins? We’re talking about a thoroughly wicked man. He went through all his sins with all four steps, with the entire procedure in full, and managed to get to a state where he erased most of the sins? Meaning he was left with mostly merits? Obviously that’s not what this is talking about. So how can it be that a person who merely thinks of repentance can become righteous? There is concern that he is righteous—interesting point, that there is concern he is righteous. So how can it be that he becomes possibly righteous? Because it may be that he truly had thoughts of repentance. He didn’t perform the procedure of repentance; he really changed. If he truly changes, he doesn’t need all these procedures. A second proof—from the Talmud in tractate Avodah Zarah.
[Speaker H] Wait, so—
[Speaker E] who needs the—
[Speaker H] procedure?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone who does the technical repentance. I’ll make it clearer in a moment.
[Speaker E] Could it be that it’s only a matter of something he thinks in his heart? Meaning, the issue is that he betroths her on condition that he is completely righteous, and they know that he’s not—that he didn’t truly fully resolve in his heart that… It’s not a matter of acquisition; he doesn’t really think he’s effecting the acquisition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, he knows about himself that he’s not righteous. So the problem, the problem… You’re saying that the moment he decided to be righteous, that’s enough for there to be full intent regarding the betrothal? Right. But the question is whether the woman has full intent regarding the betrothal.
[Speaker F] She agreed only on condition that he was righteous.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How does she—fine. The Talmud in Avodah Zarah is the second proof. The second proof of what? What are you trying to prove? I want to show that in what we’ll now call the great repentance, the substantive repentance, you don’t need the details of the laws of repentance. The laws of repentance were not said about that. Okay?
[Speaker F] Maybe it’s not wrong and it’s also true. What? That both are possible, so to speak? Yes, and two completely independent paths of repentance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a moment—meanwhile, we’ll see. “They said about Elazar ben Dordaya that he left not a single prostitute in the world he had not slept with. Once he heard of one prostitute in the cities overseas who took a purse of dinars as her fee. He took a purse of dinars and went, crossing seven rivers for her.” He chased after every transgression in the world. There’s no concern for righteousness there. “In the middle of the act, she passed wind.” There was a passing of wind there. “She said: just as this passing of wind will not return to its place, so Elazar ben Dordaya will not be accepted in repentance.” In the middle of the act. “He went and sat between two mountains and hills.” Suddenly he woke up; it shook him awake. He said, look what spiritual state I’m in. So he went and sat between two mountains and hills. He said: Mountains and hills, seek mercy for me. They said to him: before we seek mercy for you, let us seek mercy for ourselves, as it says, ‘For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed.’ He said: Heaven and earth, seek mercy for me. They said: before we seek mercy for you, let us seek mercy for ourselves, as it says, ‘For the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall wear out like a garment.’ He said: Sun and moon, seek mercy for me”—really an idol worshipper—”They said to him: before we seek mercy for you, let us seek mercy for ourselves, as it says, ‘Then the moon shall be ashamed and the sun embarrassed.’ He said: Stars and constellations, seek mercy for me. They said to him: before we seek mercy for you, let us seek mercy for ourselves, as it says, ‘And all the host of heaven shall rot away.’ He said: The matter depends on no one but me. He put his head between his knees and cried bitterly until his soul left him. A heavenly voice came forth and said: Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the World to Come.” “But here he was involved in sin and died?” Fine, that’s another issue; it doesn’t matter—that’s the context of the sugya there. “Rabbi cried and said: There are those who acquire their world over many years, and there are those who acquire their world in one moment. And Rabbi said: Not only are penitents accepted, they are even called Rabbi.” After all, it says: “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the World to Come.” What does “Rabbi” mean? Did he also become a Torah scholar in the middle of all this? So what does this story say? We’re talking about a man with quite a respectable heap of creeping things behind him, all right? In one moment he suddenly woke up, and then he cried. Here, as I heard in the name of Rabbi Soloveitchik: he saw a shofar blower who started crying during the shofar blasts. He said to him: tell me, when you wave the lulav, do you cry? Now you’re blowing the shofar—just intend to fulfill the obligation and that’s it. So in short, the man sat there and cried and cried—mountains, hills, heaven, sun, moon. He said: the matter depends on no one but me. He cried and died. Now, at that stage, did he go through his respectable list of sins? It seems to me he would have needed a wagon to carry that list. And on each and every item he went through the four details of the repentance process in order to become righteous and be accepted to the life of the World to Come? Exactly as before—obviously not. The moment he truly underwent an inner reversal, he underwent an inner reversal. Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya taught us that there is another kind of repentance. There is another kind of repentance that does not need all this procedure.
[Speaker H] And therefore he acquired his world in one moment. You don’t need to go through the whole technical process; rather, in one moment you acquire your world. That’s what he taught us, and that’s why he is called Rabbi.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A rabbi is someone who taught us something. What did he teach us? He taught us that there is another process of repentance. Not only technical repentance, a technique for erasing sins, but also an inner reversal. Once there is an inner reversal, you are accepted in repentance in a single moment. You don’t need—there are no laws of repentance for this matter. Right. The second proof, it seems to me, is a bit less strong, for two reasons. The first is that it says he cried until his soul left him. That took a long time. Second, “acquires his world in one moment”—Rabbi didn’t say that for nothing. The point is a short time. But he cried and cried and cried. Second, he died. Meaning, it’s as if he maybe summoned upon himself a death sentence for his sin. But where is the procedure? Where is the verbal confession for all the sins? “His death atoned for him”? But no—without confession, “his death atoned for him” doesn’t help. You need repentance. Nothing is atoned for without repentance. And the four categories of atonement in Yoma, where death is one of them, that is only with repentance. So where is his repentance? You could say maybe it was self-evident. What? You could say it was self-evident—he did it. And that’s all. But he didn’t do it in one moment; he did it over however long God knows. There too, “in one moment.” One moment means a short time. And the point is, he didn’t do it—that’s pretty clear. He also cried, but it doesn’t say that now: for that sin I return, regret it, accept for the future; the second sin, the third sin, the fourth sin, sin number 119, sin number 2,574. He didn’t do that. He didn’t do that because you don’t need to do that. And that is exactly what he taught us: that there is one who acquires his world in a single moment. That is the meaning of “there is one who acquires his world in one moment.” It means: if you have turned yourself around, you have acquired your world. And it also sounds from the other side that yes, there is this world, and then death, and afterward there is judgment before the heavenly religious court and things like that. It could be that they took that into account… I’m saying, maybe. I’m saying the simple meaning is not like that. So the standard answers are that there is a difference between becoming righteous and actually erasing the sin and completing a process of repentance before the heavenly religious court or whatever else it may be. Those are the usual answers given to explain this. I don’t think we need to get there. No, I’m saying maybe in principle I agree, but there are other things that… Yes, because he didn’t do the technique, then in the heavenly religious court… Fine, so as I said, those are the standard answers—that in essence he becomes righteous in the sense that for betrothal that is enough, but in the heavenly religious court they still took him to account. They still took him to account. Yes, I don’t think… About Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya it says this is for the life of the world to come, so there it is even clearer from that angle. So to my mind these distinctions do not sound plausible. I also think there is no need to reach them. I think the simple meaning is what I am saying here. It seems to me this is not… I said I’ll look at it more. These stories are… Do we need to look at them as something that actually happened? No, absolutely not. So they brought them in order to teach us? Exactly—to teach this. Right. It is not at all certain that this was a historical event. But on the contrary: if it was not a historical event, then even better. Why did the Sages tell this story if it didn’t happen? If it happened, fine. If it didn’t happen, why tell it? To teach us. The sun and moon didn’t talk to him, huh? Yes, right. In a moment we’ll get to the sun and moon too—that is an important point in this story. In any case, there are really two processes of repentance here. I just want to note in parentheses something that is also connected to what I discussed last time. The Laws of Repentance in Maimonides have a very unique character. They are… very, very not legal rules. There are poems in praise of repentance, promises of the Torah and the prophets that we will repent. In the end he gets to serving for its own sake, Torah study for its own sake, the world to come, all kinds of things. What is this? What does all this have to do with the Laws of Repentance? You don’t find such a thing in the laws of firstborn animals, the laws of the Sabbath. Just tell me the technical details of the laws of repentance and that’s it. Usually—yes, so I said this connects to what I spoke about last week. Usually the relation between Jewish law and thought is the relation of two sides of the same coin. That is, there is the halakhic structure, and behind it there is an ideational structure that explains why the halakhic structure is like this. These are two forms or two angles from which to look at the same thing. My feeling is that in the sphere of repentance, in the topic of repentance, that is not the relation between Jewish law and thought. Jewish law and thought are two separate tracks, not two angles of the same coin. There is the law, which is technical details, and it deals with the small repentance of Emek Berakhah. There is the thought of repentance, the idea, the conceptual dimension—it deals simply with a different repentance, not the small repentance but the great repentance. Therefore this is not the thought behind the laws of repentance, but rather a legal, philosophical, conceptual aspect that establishes a different path of repentance. And when Maimonides writes the Laws of Repentance, he wants to describe both tracks to us. So that’s why he inserts there these philosophical dimensions, trying to persuade us to repent—I spoke about this last time—because here it really is part of the Laws of Repentance. It is not the philosophical dimension that should go into the Guide for the Perplexed, explaining the ideas behind the Laws of Repentance. On the contrary, it explains why there is a channel in the Laws of Repentance that is not halakhic at all, that does not need laws of repentance. Therefore—and this enters into the Laws of Repentance because you need to know it, meaning this is practical. Okay? So I think this also explains the special character of the Laws of Repentance. Now I want to bring you something from the Maharal. The Maharal in Netiv HaTeshuvah… Do you want to argue that on the great track you are exempt from the small track? Yes. The Maharal in Netiv HaTeshuvah brings two Talmudic passages. The Talmud in tractate Rosh Hashanah 17. The Talmud discusses there the thirteen attributes of mercy. And it explains each one of the attributes. “The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and gracious.” It explains each of the attributes—what its role is in the world, how it appears in the world. “The Lord, the Lord,” says the Talmud, “I am He before a person sins, and I am He after a person sins and repents.” This attribute of “The Lord, the Lord” is the attribute responsible for the process of repentance. Now that is the first attribute on the list: “The Lord, the Lord.” Beyond that, as the Ketav Sofer explains—and this appears in various forms in many commentators—“The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and gracious”: all the words there are words that have meaning also not in relation to the Holy One, blessed be He. Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger—all these things also exist among human beings. These are descriptive words; that’s what they said… Right. Those words have meaning beyond descriptions of the Holy One, blessed be He. “The Lord, the Lord” does not. You cannot cleave to His attribute by being “The Lord, the Lord.” What is “The Lord, the Lord”? What does that mean? That’s why it is called the proper name, Y-H-V-H. Meaning, it is a name, not a description. It is a name as distinct from an appellation—maybe one day we’ll talk about appellations and names. But it is a name and not an appellation, meaning it has no meaning at all, it is not a description of the Holy One, blessed be He; it is His name. And therefore it exists only with Him. There is something in repentance, “The Lord, the Lord”—which is really the attribute responsible for repentance—that is outside the ordinary laws of the ordinary world. It is something that belongs only to the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, it is not like compassionate, gracious, slow to anger. All those appear in our world too, in various degrees, among human beings too, everywhere too, and they should appear—we should cleave to His attributes. But “The Lord, the Lord” is something outside the laws. Repentance is some kind of thing that is somehow outside the laws. So in a moment we’ll get to that too. So that is “The Lord, the Lord.” But the Talmud in Shevuot brings an exposition, 39. The Talmud says: “As it was taught, Rabbi Elazar says: It is impossible to say ‘and He clears,’ for it has already been said ‘He does not clear’; it is impossible to say ‘He does not clear,’ for it has already been said ‘and He clears.’ How so? He clears those who repent, and He does not clear those who do not repent.” So first of all, fine—but what was the initial assumption? Obviously He does not clear someone who has not repented. He clears someone who has repented. That is one thing. Second, the Maharal asks in Netiv HaTeshuvah: why do we need another attribute responsible for repentance—“and He clears / He does not clear”? That too is an attribute responsible for repentance, besides “The Lord, the Lord.” Both the start of the list and what closes the list are really attributes responsible for repentance. Why do we need two? So the Maharal—well, in a moment—but the Maharal says there something very strange. He says that “and He clears” is repentance for some of the sins, and “The Lord, the Lord” is repentance for all the sins. On the face of it, this is very odd. So I’ll do the repentance of “and He clears” ten times and cover all the sins. Why—why would we need another attribute? This can’t be just a quantitative difference. What does he mean? It seems to me that what he means is exactly these two processes of repentance I spoke about earlier. To understand this, let us try for a moment to think what happens in the small repentance. Let’s start with the small repentance. In the small repentance there is abandoning the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, and confession. In a moment let’s focus for a second on regret. When I regret, what exactly am I regretting? Say I selected on the Sabbath. Okay? What am I regretting? Am I regretting that I selected on the Sabbath? What is the problem with selecting on the Sabbath? The only problem is that the Holy One, blessed be He, forbade it. I am supposed to regret that I violated God’s will. In this case I happened to select on the Sabbath, but really the true regret is not regret over selecting on the Sabbath, but regret that selecting on the Sabbath reflects something in my soul: that I am willing to go against God’s will, not to fulfill God’s will. Right? Now if I really… Some would say it’s more than that, yes. What? Some would say it damages your soul, period. Rabbi Kook’s answer in Orot HaTeshuvah—I’m not getting into those matters at all, I’m still staying lower down. Okay? Let’s leave that for now. So the small repentance is really a technical process, and because it is a technical process, what are you regretting? You regret that you selected on the Sabbath. That is not real repentance. Because if you really want to return, then why did you select on the Sabbath? Because you didn’t obey the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Which means: go further back, look at why you are really in a place where you can go against God’s will. Repent for that, regret that. But that applies to all the commandments already. What? Exactly. So make it general for all the transgressions you committed. Exactly—that is precisely where I’m heading now. So now, if you regret that you selected on the Sabbath, okay, that is a process of repentance, that is regret. And you can do the procedure, and the transgression of selecting on the Sabbath will be erased for you. Fine? And about that the Talmud says: this is “and He clears.” “And He clears” is a repentance that clears sins, a repentance that erases sins. Right, that is “and He clears.” And about that the Talmud says: “and He clears / He does not clear.” “He clears those who repent and does not clear those who do not repent.” We asked: what was the initial assumption—why would He clear those who have not repented? Obviously He clears only those who repented. He clears only the transgression on which you specifically did the procedure. If there are other transgressions, and you did the procedure on this transgression, those other transgressions will not be cleared. He clears one who repented, and does not clear one who did not repent. In relation to what is this said? In relation to the repentance of “The Lord, the Lord.” Because the repentance of “The Lord, the Lord” is the great repentance. And in great repentance you start from selecting on the Sabbath, but when you regret, you do not regret that you selected on the Sabbath. You regret that you went against God’s will; after all, that is the root. Now if you regretted that, why go through the whole list? You have already repented for all the sins at once. So automatically all your sins are erased, even those you did not specifically repent for. There they clear even for one who did not repent. One who did not repent specifically for those sins, because in essence he did spiritual repentance, foundational repentance. Therefore they clear everything, and that is the initial assumption. That is why the Torah needs to tell me that in the small repentance of “and He clears / He does not clear” it does not work that way. There, what you repented for is cleared for you, and what you did not repent for is not. Because it is a procedure for erasing sins. But the great repentance is essential repentance. The moment you turned yourself around, everything is clean, both what you repented for and what you did not repent for. Therefore the difference between repentance for some sins and repentance for all sins is not a quantitative difference. You cannot do the repentance of “and He clears” ten times and arrive at the repentance of “The Lord, the Lord.” You can erase all the sins if you do the repentance of “and He clears” ten times. You will not become a penitent in the sense of “The Lord, the Lord.” You do not really become someone new, someone else. Okay? What do you mean when you say that a person can regret that he selected on the Sabbath without connection to the divine will? His regret is not focused on God’s will. So what is he saying? I regret doing an act that was wrong; the evil inclination overcame me; something local. Clearly behind the scenes, if you analyze it philosophically, he also understands that what is wrong with it is that the Holy One, blessed be He, forbids it. But that is not the focus of his regret. Maybe I’ll sharpen this a little more. There are many things between one person and another that a person can regret, for example, without connection to God’s will. Okay, but what does that have to do with repentance? And how does that fit into “and He clears”? It is partial repentance. He also has to regret the sin in the heart. That is what I’m saying. And what in that case would be “and He clears”? That is not even “and He clears.” Because there is the dimension of the transgression in it—obviously, even if he appeased his fellow human being, that does not help by itself; but also, without repenting before the Holy One, blessed be He, that doesn’t help. He needs both things. When I regret that I selected, then what am I guilty of if I don’t regret before the Holy One, blessed be He? You are guilty of having selected on the Sabbath. It is not good to select on the Sabbath, it is forbidden to select on the Sabbath, so you regret that—that is the local regret. In another second I’ll explain—you are right that this is only hypothetical. There is no real repentance in pure form of this kind, and not of the other kind either. Meaning, this brings me back to what I spoke about last night. Yes. So all the prayer on Yom Kippur of “for the sin…” and so on—that is only about the small repentance? There is nothing there about the great repentance? Correct. Absolutely. But I’ll explain more. Look: essentially what is happening here is that I presented this as two alternatives, two poles. But now you can see that these are really two ends of a continuum. Since if you take the small repentance and deepen more and more the dimension of regret, say—then the more you deepen the dimension of regret, go deeper and deeper, you get closer and closer to the great repentance. These are not two things; it is a continuum of things, such that the deeper the regret, the closer you are to the side of the great repentance rather than the side of the small repentance. Because if your regret is deeper, it covers more sins; deeper still—when you have corrected everything, you are a person of great repentance. Now, that is exactly the point: these two sides do not really appear in reality. There is no perfectly pure penitent in the sense of “The Lord, the Lord,” and there is no penitent who only clears. Because understand: as you rightly asked, when you regret selecting on the Sabbath, okay, you understand that selecting on the Sabbath is a problem because it is a transgression. You can’t ignore that completely. So I am saying: I presented here two theoretical concepts; they do not really appear in life. In life, every human being is somewhere in the middle. The question is how deep his regret is. But I think it is important to know that there are two poles between which we move, and to try to come as close as we can from the pole on the left toward the one on the right. What is the way to do that? I think you have to start with the small repentance, and therefore the whole order of Yom Kippur and all the “for the sin…” and all those things—we start with the small repentance. You can’t suddenly begin turning yourself upside down; how do you do such a thing? That’s not—soon I’ll explain a little more. You have to start with the small repentance. Then you go deeper into what happened there and how it happened—how did this happen to you, how did you get there? You penetrate more deeply, you look at what was actually inside me, how could it be, how did I fall there? And deeper and deeper and deeper, and at some stage you try to reach a reversal. But it always—one second—the advice is to take these two sides, start here, and finish as close as possible to there. Therefore I now retract a bit from the dichotomous presentation I gave earlier. In truth we are dealing here with a kind of continuum, and you are supposed to go from one and try to come as close as you can to the other. Yes. I would say exactly the opposite: you start with great repentance—that is the basis. But how do you—it is very easy for a person to say, I will be different. To say it, no—but to turn around, even to think “I will be different,” that is a thought. You need to turn around. But how do you actualize it? If you don’t have what you call small repentance, there is no way to actualize it. You have to think: slander—now how do I really, really concretely make sure I won’t speak slander? Okay, but you can accept upon yourself: I want to be a completely different person, and I really think— But you’re thinking about how to actualize it. But notice that you are talking about two different levels. I completely accept what you are saying, but it does not contradict me. Because you are talking about the question of when I decided to do it. I am asking how I became that way, not when I decided to be that way. I decided to do great repentance—does that mean I am a person of great repentance? No. I need to fix something in the soul. To do that, I start on the left and try to get to the right. So yes, it starts on the left and goes to the right. True, the right side is somehow already there in the plan from the start—I accept that. But that contradicts the two examples you brought. It could be that it depends on a person’s nature. One person has to start small and try small things and get there, and another sees the bigger picture. Fair enough, fair enough. I have no problem with that. I think, by the way, the second example—I said I’m not at all sure it was historical. It only comes to teach us the idea, so it’s not a question. Regarding the righteous man for whom the sun and moon pleaded—what? In a moment, we still haven’t gotten there, God willing. Now, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on Rosh Hashanah we want to go with the great repentance—as if we start from the practical expression of the great repentance on Rosh Hashanah and then afterward arrive… Right, and that is also according to the verse. Great repentance is really the kingship of the Holy One, blessed be He. To crown the Holy One, blessed be He, is really to say: I do not move from what the Holy One, blessed be He, commands. Right? That is exactly the great repentance. Good. Okay? Good. Yes. Can we now in Hebrew? Can we now in Hebrew? I actually read this in a sermon from these very days, a long one, by Rabbi Lichtenstein, that this ranking is actually found in Maimonides’ chapters. The first chapters are more or less the technical things, and later suddenly there is “the path.” And this is a concept he returns to several times—this statement, “path”—that it is not about details but a path, and then he becomes a new creature. Right, although in Maimonides I also agree—I didn’t hear Rabbi Lichtenstein, but I understood his laws that way too. There are some irregularities within the laws and… To really get into the laws themselves, I won’t have time to do it here. We would need to go in more deeply, because there are flashes of the great repentance at the beginning too. That is, the question of how to explain the details of the laws is an interesting topic. But I want to complete the picture for a moment. So look, in several places it says—there in Mesillat Yesharim at the end of chapter 4—he writes that there is a special kindness of the Holy One, blessed be He, in that He gave us repentance. A kindness that is outside the laws of nature. How can a person erase what he has already done? After all, it is already done. How can it be possible to rewrite history? Stalin would have loved to get such a tool. There is something here that goes against the laws of nature. So Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman asks about this in his essay on repentance in Kovetz Ma’amarim. He asks: if this really is beyond the laws of nature, or beyond the strict line of the law—for law means rules, so beyond the strict line of the law means beyond the rules, not fitting the rules, an exception to the rules—if so, then how do you explain the Talmud in Kiddushin, where the Talmud says that even a completely righteous person who rebelled lost his merits? The Talmud asks: “Then let him be half and half.” Let him keep the merits that he accumulated, and from now on he has his liabilities. Why should his merits have to be erased and lost? It answers: “He regretted the former deeds.” What does that mean, “he regretted the former deeds”? That if you regret the merits you had done, you lose them. Now if this is something beyond the strict line of the law, that regret over the past can erase it, then it makes sense with regard to a penitent. He erases his sins, and the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond the strict line of the law accepts him. But a righteous person who rebelled—what, beyond the strict line of the law he turns into a wicked person? The Holy One, blessed be He, inclines toward kindness, not toward harming. Meaning, He does not act beyond the strict line of the law in order to harm someone. Here the strict line of law should operate. So if you can rewrite history, no problem—but then that is the strict line of law, and it works in both directions. If you cannot rewrite history, then why does it work for the righteous person? Rather, only beyond the strict line of the law—then why does it work for the righteous person? Truthfully, once I said this in a lecture and some Jew said to me—yeshiva boys can’t stand things like this—some Jew said to me that there is actually a very simple answer. Think of someone who comes to his bank manager and says: look, your bank is very nice, gave me good service, very pleasant. I have a balance of, let’s say, ten thousand shekels in the bank. I donate it to the bank and its employees, for their welfare. Enjoy, take my balance. They shake hands, put his name on a plaque on the wall, all is good. Immediately after him another person comes in and says: listen, I like your bank very much, you’re wonderful people. I have a balance of minus ten thousand in the bank. I donate that minus ten thousand to you for the welfare of the employees and the welfare of the bank. And of course they will all shake hands and enjoy it and everything will be fine. Clearly, by law you can waive merits. To waive debts is beyond the strict line of the law. A penitent is someone who has an outstanding debt. So when he wants to erase his debt, that is beyond the strict line of the law. If the bank manager agrees, he agrees; if not, not—that is beyond the strict line of the law. But the righteous person who regrets his former deeds comes with a positive balance. If he wants to waive a positive balance, what is the problem? By law he can waive it. He has a positive balance and can waive it. What is the problem? Therefore this is not a question at all. Well, actually it is very interesting. I won’t get into it now because I don’t have time—why nevertheless the yeshiva boys think this is a question. That is interesting. But let’s continue to be yeshiva boys for the moment. It seems that what is written there is that this “beyond the strict line of the law” he links to repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, Rabbi Elchanan. Rabbi Elchanan says that repentance out of fear being accepted is beyond the strict line of the law. Repentance out of love is the strict line of the law. Now let’s think for a moment: the righteous person who regrets his former deeds—is that parallel to repentance out of love or out of fear? Out of love. Only out of love. Because repentance out of fear—you can return to the Holy One, blessed be He, because you are afraid He will punish you for the sins you committed. But one who leaves the path of the Holy One, blessed be He, and becomes wicked does not do that out of fear. He does it because he truly chose another path. Right? But that is repentance out of love, in the parallel here. Therefore with the righteous person it works, because the mechanism of repentance out of love works according to the strict line of the law. It is not beyond the strict line of the law; so there it works in both directions. But with the wicked person—where this is beyond the strict line of the law—for him it will work even in repentance out of fear, and that really is beyond the strict line of the law; intentional sins become unwitting sins, or intentional sins become merits. So that is how he explains it. I think this is not even very different from what I want to say. All I want to say is that this is the difference between small repentance and great repentance. But it is almost the same thing. Repentance out of fear is repentance for erasing sins. Repentance out of love means I am changing direction. I have decided that I want to do this and not what I did until now. So what comes out is that the small repentance is a special kindness, beyond the strict line of the law, okay? And the great repentance is the strict line of the law. Meaning, if I undergo a real inner reversal and the Holy One, blessed be He, does not accept my repentance, I can sue Him in a religious court. The strict line of the law—it is due to me that He accept me. The kindness, the small repentance, is beyond the strict line of the law. But great repentance is the strict line of the law. Just as You do this even for righteous people who rebel and regret their former deeds, so You also have to do it for me. Meaning, this is the strict line of the law, not beyond it. Why is this the strict line of the law? Someone who comes to court and says, I regret it, I repented, and so on—doesn’t he deserve forgiveness? In court—that is a large question—in court neither the small repentance nor the great repentance helps. In court, if you deserve lashes, you get lashes. Now according to most commentators—and we could discuss this separately sometime—according to most commentators it is simply because we cannot know what is in his heart. The Holy One, blessed be He, can know what is in a person’s heart; we cannot know what is in a person’s heart. Which means that the assumption is that if we could know, then indeed he truly would be atoned for. Okay, so for our purposes: there is a small repentance, which is a special kindness, and a great repentance, which is the strict line of the law. I remind you of what I said earlier, that what is responsible for the great repentance is “The Lord, the Lord” in the list of God’s attributes. “The Lord, the Lord” practically screams something beyond the laws of the world, the ordinary laws. Yes, that is what Yitzchak Hutner explains, among others: the name has no meaning in the ordinary terms of the world. It is something beyond how the ordinary world is run, and therefore it reflects some kind of departure of repentance from the ordinary laws of the world. And in many, many places it is written that repentance is a special kindness that the Holy One, blessed be He, did for us. Here is Rabbeinu Yonah, who brings the Midrash of the Sages in Ecclesiastes. He brings: “When the sinner delays repenting from his sin, his punishment becomes very heavy upon him each day.” Then he says: it is like a band of robbers whom the king imprisoned, and they dug a tunnel, broke through, and escaped, except one of them remained. The jailer came—he did not escape—the jailer came to the prison and saw the tunnel cut through and that man still held there, like Rav Yogel when he didn’t flee to the settlements. And the man was still held there, and he struck him with his staff. He said to him: “Hard-hearted man! The tunnel is dug before you, and how did you not hasten to save your life?” Meaning, something special was done for you, a tunnel was dug for you, and you do not use it? What are you doing? So they come to you with a claim. Meaning, there is some assumption here that there is special kindness even in the great repentance. It is not reasonable to force an interpretation that all these Midrashim which speak of the greatness of repentance and its special kindness are speaking specifically about the small repentance and not the great repentance. I think there is that story in the received tradition about that sinner who repented and even his soul flew out. That’s once in a lifetime. Meaning, he did real repentance, but we live in a kind of cycle where every year Yom Kippur comes again and again. So what you are talking about does not happen. I said it does not happen. Because every year it starts over again. I agree for a moment—I said I completely agree. I said it does not happen. That is exactly the point. I am describing two archetypes here. They do not actually happen. Neither of them really happens. Not the entirely small repentance and not the entirely great repentance. And that is what the story comes to say: that Elazar ben Dordaya, as the archetype of one who does the great repentance, dies immediately. It does not really belong to our world. In our world people do not do this. We try to come as close as possible to there, and that is exactly the point. That is why he dies immediately. There is no one exempt from Yom Kippur because last year he transformed himself, and this year— Exactly what I said. Therefore we are all intermediate people, therefore we all can and must do this work, precisely because none of us is Elazar ben Dordaya. Because one who is Elazar ben Dordaya does not belong to this world—he dies immediately. There is no one who truly undergoes a complete inner reversal and that’s it, he becomes someone else. We need to try to get closer. That’s it, yes. It is an extreme case. Reish Lakish is an exceptional case too. Fine, but Reish Lakish stayed alive, and still—yes yes—but he changed suddenly. But apparently not at the level of extremity of Elazar ben Dordaya, okay? Right. There are many penitents. This does not happen in pure form—that this repentance turns him around completely and nothing remains from what he was before. He became Reish Lakish; he did not become Rabbi Akiva. He certainly retained his earlier character even after his repentance. The Sages even describe this. So therefore, yes. It fits very well with the Midrash that says that at Mount Sinai they all died, because apparently they reached a state… possibly. In any case… What I want to say is this: there is kindness also in the great repentance. Where is the kindness? In the small repentance, the kindness is that it is accepted. I do a procedure, a sort of bookkeeping, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is willing to accept it. Because without that there would be no great repentance either. We said: you have to start there in order to begin to move forward. The Holy One, blessed be He, has to give you incentives. So He says to you: fine, I also accept small repentance. Beyond the strict line of the law. What happens in the great repentance? In the great repentance, if I have done it, the Holy One, blessed be He, must accept me according to the strict line of the law. I can summon Him to a religious court. But the kindness is that it is possible to do it at all. Not that if I did it, it is accepted, but that it is possible at all to do the great repentance—that is the kindness. Why? What is the problem here? I’ll try to explain; I don’t have much time, so I’ll explain briefly. Maybe we’ll discuss it sometime when we talk about free choice. The concept of repentance is a completely paradoxical concept. Just a paradox from beginning to end. I am not speaking about a legal paradox and not about a psychological paradox. I am speaking about a logical paradox. A pure logical paradox. There is no such thing as repentance, really. There isn’t. It can’t be. Try to think what happens to a penitent. A penitent acts according to some set of values, right? According to that set of values, apparently not all are good—at least initially, when he sins, before he is a penitent. Some of his values are apparently not very good, or at least the order is not very good, and that leads him to do corrupt acts. Okay? Now he comes to the conclusion that he must repent. How does he come to that conclusion? Is it a calculation he made on the basis of his prior values? It can’t be. Because his prior values are what led him to his previous behavior. So what—new values? But he is not there; he is in the prior values. I’ll give you—let me try a short thought experiment, okay? Once I did this little exercise in Yeruham with my students. Let’s say I serve God not for its own sake. At the highest level. Maximum reward, minimum punishment. I am not interested in anything else—just the bank account, okay? That’s it. Now try to convince me to serve for its own sake. Come, persuade me. Impossible, right? At most, what can you do? You can convince me that I’ll get more reward if I serve for its own sake. Why? Because the only way to persuade me is to use the system of assumptions within which I currently operate. You can’t persuade me on the basis of assumptions that don’t belong to me, right? You have to leverage some point that exists in me and get me to change. But if my assumptions lead me to a certain behavior, you can never take me from within that system of assumptions and reverse my behavior. It is simply nonsense, okay? It can’t happen. Wait—that is the problem. Now the same thing is true also when I myself try to change or persuade myself, not only when someone else does. The simulation is that someone else changes me. There was once a story about Adam HaCohen, one of the well-known maskilim, that someone came looking for him on the Sabbath at home, and his wife says he’s in synagogue. He said to her: what is he doing there? Fine, goes to synagogue, meets the guys hanging out outside. So when he sees guys outside he asks them, where is Adam HaCohen? They said: inside. Fine, he goes inside, probably in the back, looks around in the back, doesn’t see him. He asks someone, where is he? The man says: the one with the prayer shawl swaying near the Holy Ark—that’s Adam HaCohen. He was stunned. He waits for prayers to end, Adam HaCohen comes out, and he asks him: tell me, what were you doing in there? You don’t believe in any of this stuff. He said: true, but being a real heretic—what’s the big deal when you’re hanging out outside? A real heretic has to be with a prayer shawl near the Holy Ark swaying. Meaning, so once there was a story told about this Adam HaCohen that he wanted to repent right before his death in order to refute the statement of the Sages that “the wicked, even at the entrance to Gehenna, do not repent.” That is roughly like the example of the one whom they persuade to serve for its own sake because that way he will get more reward. That is the only way to persuade you, right? You cannot work outside your system of assumptions. You must persuade a person in light of the system of assumptions by which he currently operates. Okay? So what is a process of repentance? There is something here that is simply paradoxical. Either I myself decide to do it—but then once I’ve already decided to do it, I’m already there. Or someone else changes me somehow, I don’t know how—and then he repented, not I. What does that have to do with me? Once I was here, now I am there. The process of repentance is a paradoxical process. It can be not only with repentance; it can be with any change of values. Right, becoming secular is the same thing. Right, right. And therefore… But repentance is special, because in repentance they tell a person: I expect you to repent proactively. Meaning, set out and do a process of… But if I am currently here, then who is it that will make the decision to set out and be there? When I am there, I am someone else. There is no way to begin this process, no way to ignite this process. And with someone who leaves religion, say—the one who regretted the former deeds that we spoke about earlier—it happened to him. Fine, no one says to him now: I expect you proactively to leave religion. It happened to him, he changed. Just as before he was righteous and now he is wicked—that can be understood. But repentance is not something that is supposed to happen to you. It is something for which the Ten Days of Repentance are designated. It is something that is supposed to be done proactively. Now, done proactively, this is a logical paradox—it cannot be done. I can’t go into all the details of this paradox because I don’t have much time; I just want to close the circle. Maybe we’ll talk about it in another context. Okay, so this paradox really touches the concept of choice in general. A person who chooses, say, to do evil—the question is: why did he do it? This is the problem of weakness of will. A topic in analytic philosophy. When a person sins—or sins against his diet, not necessarily in the religious sense—the question is why did he do it? Because he failed. What does “failed” mean? It’s just a word game, because it’s what he wanted. The taste of pork mattered more to him than obeying God’s will, so he ate pork. Which means that his value system led him to eat pork. Now I ask: how will such a person repent? He will stop wanting to eat pork? But that is really what he wants. How, on the basis of his current assumptions, is he supposed proactively—not that it just happens to him by itself, but proactively—suddenly not to want it? That is what he wanted. What do you want? What will motivate him to this? There has to be something more fundamental that causes him to want to eat pork, and now that more fundamental thing will change and cause him not to want to eat pork? But whichever way you take it, we ask the same question about that more fundamental thing: where is it standing right now? Therefore the concept of repentance is paradoxical, and the paradox in it is really the concept of free choice. And again I return to the fact that Maimonides devoted two chapters in the Laws of Repentance to free choice, and that there is no commandment to repent, because that is the essence of repentance. But which repentance? The great repentance. Because in the great repentance you are meant to turn upside down, as Maimonides says: “I am not the same person who was then.” Yesterday he was hated, distant, abominable, exiled; today he is beloved and cherished, and so on. Maimonides keeps trying to describe to you—again, this is no longer the Laws of Repentance, these are the later chapters—this is no longer the Laws of Repentance but repentance in its essential sense: how you turn around. But this turning around is something that is logically inconceivable. And if you want to put your finger on the paradox, the paradox is in the question: who does this? If I do this, then there is nothing to do—I am already there. If I decided that one should not eat pork, then I’m already there. What remains to do? Clearly if I ate pork, then I’m not there. If I’m not there, then why would I do it? So I cannot do it. What will you say—that someone else does it, the Holy One, blessed be He, does it for me? But then He repented, not I. What value is there in that? So there is some kind of whichever-way-you-take-it dilemma here. Yes, but Elazar ben Dordaya did not repent? Fine, that is the same question. The fact is, it happened. But you know, that’s always what a paradox is. In a paradox, you prove that something is impossible. But proving that something is impossible is not yet a paradox. When does it become a paradox? When you see that it happens. Despite being impossible, the fact that it happens makes it a paradox. To claim that something is impossible is no problem. Is it impossible for me to fly? Is that a paradox? No. I really can’t fly—what’s the question? So a paradox is when something happens and we have no possible explanation for how it happens. So until now I have presented the first horn of the dilemma—why we have no explanation. You are presenting the second horn of the dilemma: but the fact is that it happens, as people also noted earlier. Right—that is the paradox. Now what happens in such a state? Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya—let’s return to his story—really teaches us this process of great repentance. In the first stage he is completely despairing. How do you do it? If it’s me, then it’s me. If it’s not me, then someone else has to do the repentance for me. Someone has to come and take me from here to there. So in literary form, what does he say? Heavens, ask mercy for me; mountains and hills; moon and sun; anyone from outside—because the point is not that he turned to the sun and moon, but that someone from outside must do this act. Because how do I myself begin this process? I cannot ignite it. If I am here, I cannot pull myself up by my own forelock like Baron Munchausen, lift myself up and then throw away the ladder, or climb to the moon and throw away the ladder. But the woman did it—the woman got him started. If the woman got him started, then it doesn’t matter. Whichever way you take it, who did the work? If the woman made the reversal, then there is no need to continue; then we’re done, she finished the work. I understand—again. And that is exactly the point. You are presenting what happens, and I am presenting what ought to happen, or why we have an explanation. Therefore I am saying that the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is exactly the point of the great repentance. He is trying to explain to us that something here is paradoxical. Because when you decide to do it—I think each of us experiences this. I decide to repent, but this is what I am. How can I pull myself up by my own forelock and suddenly become someone else? As you said, every year I find myself in the same state all over again. Because it can’t be done. I cannot take myself somewhere else. It is simply impossible at the logical level; it is not a psychological difficulty. It simply—one second, I just want to finish the move. So that is what Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya teaches us: nevertheless, “the matter depends on none but me.” After saying: heavens, mercy, mountains, hills, sun, moon—apparently it is nevertheless possible. I don’t know how, says Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, but it is possible. “The matter depends on none but me.” He cried and cried and cried, turned himself around, and acquired his world in one moment. And about this the Talmud said: Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come; there is one who acquires his world in one moment. We learned the process of the great repentance without having an explanation for it. Just one sentence to finish. I think that if there can be any explanation for this at all, it is probably that the dichotomy I presented when I laid out the problem is not the right way to present it. I said the problem is basically: who performs the process? Do I do the process, or is it done to me—the Holy One, blessed be He, does it to me? Then whichever way you take it: if He does it, then He repented. What value does that have? If I do the process, that is impossible. It cannot be. I am me; I am not someone else. If I am not me, then who am I at all? So what solution could there be to this? Apparently, this dichotomous view—that either I or the Holy One, blessed be He—something about it is not precise. Meaning, there is some sort of combination here that is not either-or. There is some action that apparently is done—I am saying this in words, I do not know how to explain it explicitly—but it seems to me that if there is a solution to this problem, it is because my formulation of the difficulty assumed a dichotomy, and that assumption is mistaken. Meaning, in the process of repentance, the Holy One, blessed be He, takes me and I repent in some way. Again, that is not an explanation; it is only a hint of where one ought to look for the explanation. Meaning, something in the sharp distinction between me and the Holy One, blessed be He, is not correct—in the sense of the divine spark that there is in each of us, say it in whatever language you want. I don’t understand that language, but there is such a thing. Apparently there is such a thing. Yes, I’m saying, but the very fact that it happens—like the story that they teach him while he is in his mother’s womb—the very fact that it happens means that apparently this dichotomous view is not completely sharp. Something here apparently happens together, and then it does have value. Now you’ve really made us despair completely about repentance—or about choice in general. Yes. Now I want to finish with this. In Avinu Malkeinu there is a whole list of requests we make of the Holy One, blessed be He. One of them is very strange: “Our Father, our King, return us in complete repentance before You.” Return us in repentance? “Our Father, our King, recite Grace after Meals for us.” What does “Our Father, our King, return us in complete repentance before You” mean? It expresses exactly that despair of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya. Listen, I want to—but something here isn’t working. I’m stuck. So do something! In short, I’m not managing—heavens, mountains, ask mercy for me. Meaning, You need to do something; this isn’t working. Therefore only with repentance do we find a request that the Holy One, blessed be He, should actually do something in our place. Everything else—that He heal us, save us, do all kinds of things—that’s fine. But the obligations imposed on us, those we have to do, not Him. But in repentance there is something terribly problematic. We have to recruit Him too in order for this business to happen. Why especially in this area? Therefore there is special kindness in repentance. In the small repentance, the kindness is that it is accepted. You do a procedure and your sins are erased—that is kindness. In the great repentance, the kindness is even greater. If you did it, of course you are accepted—that is the strict line of the law. The kindness is that it is possible to do it at all, the participation of the Holy One, blessed be He, in some way in the process that makes it possible at all, that He created such a mechanism. And that is “The Lord, the Lord.” “I am the Lord before he sins, and I am the Lord after he sins and returns.” What does that mean? Before he sins, I am the Lord. I am there before, and I am there after. Because if I were not before and after, there would be no before and after. Meaning, such a thing could not exist. The great repentance is only because I, the Lord, am there before he sins and after he sins, because one who is there alone remains stuck in the same place forever—or just continues, changes randomly, but that has no value. Whatever happens, happens. Therefore “The Lord, the Lord” is the great repentance. And this is the great kindness of the Holy One, blessed be He, which is far greater than the kindness of the small repentance. The kindness of the small repentance is that it is accepted. The kindness of the great repentance is that it is possible at all, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is willing to cooperate with us and do it together. So may we all be inscribed and sealed for good.