Teshuva – Elul 5783 – Lesson 1
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 structure of the series and technical notes
- The commandment of repentance: Nachmanides, Maimonides, and Minchat Chinukh
- The contradiction in Maimonides and a proposed resolution between Sefer HaMitzvot and the Mishneh Torah
- Meshekh Chokhmah, reasoning, and obligation without a command
- The meaning of the absence of a command: repentance from below and Rabbi Kook’s comments
- The definition of a “penitent” in the Sages versus the modern usage
- Righteous, wicked, and intermediate: Maimonides and the explanation of Siftei Chaim versus Emek Berakhah
- Two tracks of repentance: small technical repentance and great essential repentance
- Proofs for the mechanism of essential repentance: Kiddushin and Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya
- The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy and the Maharal: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “and He cleanses”
- A continuum between small repentance and great repentance, and the role of regret
- Repentance, the attribute of justice, and the attribute of mercy
Summary
General overview
This series deals with repentance over four sessions, and opens with the question of the commandment of repentance, the definition of the concept of repentance, and the distinction between repentance as a process and repentance as a result. A perplexity is presented among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) as to whether there is a commandment to repent, and a resolution is proposed in Maimonides between Sefer HaMitzvot and the Mishneh Torah by distinguishing between an explicit command and an obligation derived by reasoning. After that, repentance is defined in the Sages as returning to something a person always knew but failed in, and not as a change in worldview by someone who was secular and became religious. Later, two different tracks of repentance are presented: procedural-technical repentance versus essential repentance as a reversal of spiritual direction, and it is explained how they fit with sources such as Maimonides, Kiddushin, and the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya.
The structure of the series and technical notes
The series is supposed to deal with repentance over four meetings and touch on the commandment of repentance, the definition of repentance, and repentance as process versus result, while raising philosophical issues. The lecture also includes updates about receiving materials on WhatsApp, uploading the recording, and posting reading material if there is anything to read.
The commandment of repentance: Nachmanides, Maimonides, and Minchat Chinukh
There is some perplexity among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) over whether there is a commandment to repent. Nachmanides implies that there is, and he learns it from the verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God.” In Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot, the commandment is a positive commandment of confession, meaning that when the sinner repents he must confess, and from this Minchat Chinukh argues that apparently there is no commandment to repent, only an obligation to confess once he has already repented. Minchat Chinukh himself notes that this reading is unreasonable, because it creates a situation in which someone who repents without confessing is worse off than someone who never repented at all. Therefore, an understanding is presented that confession defines the form of complete repentance, and without it repentance is incomplete, though it still has value.
The contradiction in Maimonides and a proposed resolution between Sefer HaMitzvot and the Mishneh Torah
At the beginning of the laws of repentance in Maimonides it says, “There is one positive commandment, and it is that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess,” and from this Minchat Chinukh infers that there is a commandment to repent that includes two details: to return and to confess. This creates a contradiction with Sefer HaMitzvot. In chapter 7, law 5, Maimonides explains “And you shall return to the Lord your God” as a promise that Israel will repent at the end of its exile, not as a command; and according to his approach, something without a command is not included in the enumeration of the commandments. A resolution is proposed according to which Sefer HaMitzvot includes only commandments with an explicit command according to the rules of enumeration, whereas the Mishneh Torah includes everything a Jew must do, even if its source is rabbinic, a law given to Moses at Sinai, custom, or reasoning. Therefore the obligation of repentance appears there even though it is not an enumerated commandment.
Meshekh Chokhmah, reasoning, and obligation without a command
Meshekh Chokhmah asks why there is any need for a commandment of repentance if the Torah has already forbidden transgressions and commanded commandments, and it is explained that repentance is not just going back to keeping the Sabbath or kosher laws, but includes stages like abandoning the sin, regret, confession, and resolving for the future. A further claim is then proposed: the Torah needs to reveal that a mechanism of repentance exists, but once it is known that there is a path to atonement, the obligation to repair the wrongdoing is learned by reasoning, and so there is no need for an additional command. According to this, Maimonides holds that there is no commandment to repent in the sense of the 613 commandments, but there is an obligation to repent by force of reasoning, and this distinction explains how it appears in the Mishneh Torah as a practical obligation.
The meaning of the absence of a command: repentance from below and Rabbi Kook’s comments
A possibility is proposed that the absence of a command is not accidental but deliberate, so that repentance will be done on the person’s own initiative and not as a technical response to a command, because repentance done just to “check a box” is not serious. A parallel is brought from Rabbi Kook, who cites a difficulty in the name of Rabbi Chaim Vital in Sha’arei Kedushah: the Torah does not command the refinement of character traits, and it is suggested that such a command would have destroyed authentic work on one’s character. A yeshiva joke is brought to illustrate how working on one’s traits out of a formal command-clause can miss the point, and the claim is that the same principle applies to repentance.
The definition of a “penitent” in the Sages versus the modern usage
It is argued that what is today called a “penitent,” meaning a secular person who became religious, is not the concept of repentance in the Sages. A penitent in the Sages is someone who always knew what was right and what was forbidden, sinned despite that knowledge, and now returns to what he understood from the start and decides to live it out. Someone who changes what he understands is not “returning” but “going” somewhere new, and so sayings about “returning to an inner point” are rejected by the speaker as unnecessary formulations.
Righteous, wicked, and intermediate: Maimonides and the explanation of Siftei Chaim versus Emek Berakhah
Maimonides, chapter 3, law 3, is brought regarding the weighing of merits and sins on Rosh Hashanah, the intermediate person whose judgment is suspended until Yom Kippur, and the claim that only repentance tips the scale toward life. The question is raised why only repentance helps and not adding more commandments, and a mathematical question is raised: how can someone be exactly half-and-half? Emek Berakhah’s answer is cited, that Rosh Hashanah is an accounting for the year that has passed, so commandments done during the Ten Days of Repentance belong to the coming year, whereas repentance helps because it retroactively repairs sins already committed. But there is some discomfort with describing divine conduct in such a “clerical” way. Then the answer of Siftei Chaim in the name of the author of the Tanya is presented in a sharper direction: righteous, wicked, and intermediate are determined by a person’s fundamental spiritual direction, not by a quantitative count, and therefore repentance helps because it changes direction and is not merely adding items to a balance sheet.
Two tracks of repentance: small technical repentance and great essential repentance
It is argued that the two explanations are not alternatives but two different mechanisms of repentance that exist in parallel. Small repentance is a procedure of regret, confession, acceptance for the future, and abandoning the sin, which erases transgressions beyond the strict letter of the law and operates according to rules and timeframes. Great repentance is a spiritual revolution and a change of identity and direction; it is not technical and is not subject to the same rules, and once a person has truly changed he is already righteous, and there is no room to punish him for a “previous phase” that no longer exists.
Proofs for the mechanism of essential repentance: Kiddushin and Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya
A Talmudic passage in Kiddushin is brought: if a man betroths a woman “on condition that I am perfectly righteous,” we are concerned that the betrothal may be valid lest he had thoughts of repentance in his heart. It is said that this makes no sense if repentance is a long procedure for every individual sin, and therefore it must refer to an essential transformation. The story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is also brought, who “acquired his world in one hour,” and a heavenly voice declared, “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come.” It is explained that this is not a process of going transgression by transgression through a procedure, but an inner reversal capable of turning a wicked person into a righteous one in a short time. From this it is argued that the laws of repentance mainly deal with the technical mechanism for someone who does not reach essential repentance.
The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy and the Maharal: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “and He cleanses”
A Talmudic teaching is brought on “The Lord, the Lord” as “I am the Lord before a person sins, and I am the Lord after he sins and repents,” and on “and He cleanses,” that He cleanses those who repent. The Maharal asks why there are two attributes for repentance, and answers that “The Lord, the Lord” refers to one who repents for all his sins, while “and He cleanses” refers to one who repents for only some of them. A further interpretation is proposed that the distinction is not quantitative but essential. Great repentance is by definition repentance for all sins, because it is a change of identity and direction, and it cannot be performed on only one sin, whereas technical repentance works sin by sin and therefore fits “He cleanses.”
A continuum between small repentance and great repentance, and the role of regret
It is argued that the division is not dichotomous but a continuum, and the proposed parameter for measuring one’s place on that axis is the depth of regret. Local regret over a specific event belongs to small repentance, whereas regret over the very possibility of sinning and over the direction that enabled it leads to great repentance. It is said that technical repentance can be a beginning that gradually deepens into an essential reversal, and that in this way a person starts from a particular sin and arrives at an understanding of the root of his fall.
Repentance, the attribute of justice, and the attribute of mercy
It is argued that the talk about repentance as a novelty beyond the strict letter of the law and as an expression of mercy mainly refers to small repentance, which erases without a full change of identity. In great repentance, since the person has really changed, the logic of not punishing someone who is no longer the same person belongs to the attribute of justice, not to concession. A human example is brought of forgiving someone once it becomes clear that he has truly turned around, and it is said that the question of why a penitent might be greater than a perfectly righteous person will remain for a separate topic later on.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s begin. This series is supposed to deal with repentance, and I want to touch on a few aspects, as much as we manage. We basically have four sessions altogether. I want to touch on several aspects. I’ll start with the commandment of repentance, a short discussion about the commandment of repentance. After that I’ll try to define the concept of repentance a bit. Then we’ll talk a little about the process of repentance, meaning what exactly the process means as opposed to the result, and along the way various philosophical issues will come up, I’d say. We’ll see how much we manage to get through. I’ll start with the commandment of repentance. I said that anyone who wants to receive materials, anyone who just joined now, if you want to receive materials send me a WhatsApp message and mention that it’s for repentance, for the repentance lecture. There’s also the institute’s website, or send it there. The recording will go up afterward, and I’ll upload it to WhatsApp, don’t worry, you’ll see. If there’s anything to read, I’ll put it here. I’m starting with the commandment of repentance. There’s a bit of perplexity among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) on the question of whether there is a commandment to repent. In Nachmanides it sounds like there is, because “this commandment is not far from you,” and so on. Nachmanides there speaks about there being a commandment to repent. But in Maimonides there is apparently a contradiction, because in positive commandment 73 Maimonides speaks there about this being a positive commandment of confession: that when the sinner has sinned and returns, he should confess. Meaning, as part of bringing the offering, you have to confess. So there Minchat Chinukh argues that it actually seems there is no commandment to repent. If you want to return, then you have to confess, but whether to return or not return is not itself a commandment. This is somewhat connected to what we talked about in the previous lecture, for those who were here, the question of how to define this commandment. Is it an obligatory commandment, an existential one, a conditional one—how exactly do you define it? On the face of it, it seems to be a conditional existential commandment. Meaning, if you want to repent, then confess. But Minchat Chinukh himself already notes that this isn’t reasonable, because according to that it would come out that someone who repented and didn’t confess is worse than someone who didn’t repent at all. Because if he didn’t confess, then in addition he has also neglected this positive commandment, whereas someone who didn’t repent at all—well, he didn’t repent, but everything is fine. So that’s unreasonable. Therefore it’s pretty clear that what we have here is actually something more like what is simpler. In the previous lecture I spoke about types—I’m not going to go back over all that now, but I meant in the previous lecture from another series, that was two hours ago. The claim is that this is probably some sort of definitional commandment. If you want to repent, this is how you do it correctly—you need to do it with confession. Without confession, the repentance is incomplete. And by the way, it probably has value even without confession, but it’s not full repentance. It’s not full value, and practical differences can matter for various things—for example, restoring someone’s fitness for testimony after repentance. You know that this also has halakhic implications, whether you are a penitent or not a penitent. But for our purposes, it’s a kind of definition. Meaning, if you want to repent, this is how it’s done. If you don’t want to, then don’t, but then you simply won’t be a penitent. Can you say that it’s conditional on sin? Yes, but that’s fine—it’s like a prohibition linked to a positive commandment; if you didn’t rob, then there’s nothing to return. Yes, of course.
[Speaker B] And still, repentance was created before the world was created. Fine—what is the midrash trying to say? That built into the definition of the world is that you already sin.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay.
[Speaker B] There’s a pessimistic approach to life here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, fine, that’s already in the realm of homiletics, but for our purposes the claim is that there’s some sort of definition here, but no commandment to repent. Okay, that’s Maimonides in Sefer HaMitzvot. At the beginning of the laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides writes: “There is one positive commandment, and it is that the sinner should return from his sin and confess.” So there Minchat Chinukh says it seems there is a commandment to repent. It’s a commandment that contains two details within it: to return and to confess. But fine, there are commandments that include several details—the four species. That’s one commandment that requires taking four species. The fact that there are several details here doesn’t matter, but all the details are obligatory. And that whole package is counted as one positive commandment. But it’s clear that there is a commandment to repent. Okay? What?
[Speaker B] He doesn’t count the commandment? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t count the commandment of repentance? That’s the difficulty. Minchat Chinukh asks the question: in Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot it seems there is no commandment to repent, and at the beginning of the laws of repentance it seems there is a commandment to repent. So that’s a contradiction in Maimonides. Okay? That’s his claim. There’s Meshekh Chokhmah—he wants to argue, he actually asks a question: why is there any need for the commandment of repentance? Why do you need the commandment of repentance? The Torah already says this is forbidden and this must be done, so why does it need to come back and say that what we did wasn’t okay if we did something wrong, or that we need to go back and be okay again? That’s already included in the positive and negative commandments themselves. I don’t find that much of a difficulty, because it’s clear that the commandment of repentance is not to go back to keeping the Sabbath or eating kosher or honoring parents, but yes—there are processes. After all there are four stages: abandoning the sin, regret, confession, and resolution for the future. So all those stages—if there were no commandment of repentance, I wouldn’t know them from the mere fact that it is forbidden to eat pork or that you need to keep the Sabbath. I would know that from now on I have to stop eating pork and I need to keep the Sabbath, but I wouldn’t know that for what I already did I need to go through these four stages. So I think that’s not really a difficulty, but we’ll come back to that. In any event, for our purposes, this is a contradiction in Maimonides on the question of whether or not there is a commandment to repent. And in fact Maimonides also writes in chapter 7 of the laws of repentance—we’ll share that in a moment—chapter 7, law 5. I’ll open it. So Maimonides writes in chapter 7, law 5: “All the prophets all commanded repentance.” In a moment it’ll appear, I hope, yes. “All the prophets all commanded repentance, and Israel will be redeemed only through repentance. And the Torah has already promised that in the end Israel will repent at the end of its exile, and immediately they will be redeemed, as it is said: ‘And it shall be when all these things come upon you,’ etc., ‘and you shall return to the Lord your God,’ and ‘the Lord your God will return your captivity and have mercy on you,’ etc.” Now here, “and you shall return to the Lord your God”—that’s the verse from which Nachmanides derives that there is a commandment to repent. And Maimonides interprets that verse as a promise, right? Not as a command. Therefore according to Maimonides it is quite clear that there is no commandment to repent, especially since according to Maimonides something that has no command cannot be included in the count of the commandments. It’s not a commandment. For something to be a commandment, there has to be a command about it. Once there’s no command, it’s not a commandment. Yes, Nachmanides read it that way.
[Speaker B] But there’s also, as it is written in the Torah, basically the same wording, “and you shall return,” and Maimonides understood that as language of promise, and Nachmanides—sorry, Maimonides—understood it that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I need to think about that. The expression “and you shall return” is not necessarily special; you could choose any other verb. I’m sure there are examples—I need to think—there are stronger cases, like the sciatic nerve: “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve to this day.” That is a prohibition. It describes some custom that the children of Israel had, that they didn’t eat the sciatic nerve.
[Speaker B] “Therefore they do not eat”? Yes. Or is that a positive commandment or a command?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, absolutely not a command, it’s a description. “Therefore they do not eat” is descriptive. “Therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve to this day”—that’s a description, not a command. And the Rosh, in his novellae on the aggadot in Berakhot, already comments on that and says: yes, so apparently we nevertheless have a tradition, because in principle the Sages say that a verse needs to contain “beware,” “lest,” “do not,” and things like that. What’s written here—“the children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve”—that’s not a command. It doesn’t negate; it isn’t commanding. Maimonides in the eighth root speaks about the difference between negation of obligation and a command. For example, “She shall not go out as the slaves go out”—there too it says “not.” And Maimonides says: no, that’s negation of obligation, not a command. It means that for a Hebrew maidservant you don’t do what is done with a different kind of bondwoman. That’s all. But there’s no command there; it’s not a prohibition-command. Okay.
[Speaker B] How does Nachmanides there, if it’s a command, how does he deal with that tradition of the Sages that you need “beware,” “lest,” “do not”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there “beware” and “lest” are negative commandments, and “and you shall return to the Lord your God” is a positive commandment.
[Speaker B] Oh, and “you shall return” is positive? A positive commandment is more broadly defined?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, a positive commandment—you know, a command in whatever language it may be. There’s no negative particle appearing here. Anyway, for our purposes, in Maimonides it seems that “and you shall return to the Lord your God” is a promise, not a command. So that fits his view that there is no commandment in Sefer HaMitzvot. But in the Mishneh Torah it does appear. And the question is how to reconcile it. Here, I’ll show you, at the beginning of the laws: “There is one positive commandment, and it is that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess.” So according to Maimonides there is a commandment of repentance, right? Look at law 1: “All the commandments in the Torah, whether positive or negative—if a person transgressed one of them, whether intentionally or unintentionally—when he repents and returns from his sin, he is obligated to confess before the blessed God, as it is said, ‘A man or a woman, when they do…’ etc., ‘and they shall confess their sin that they committed’—this is verbal confession, and confession is a positive commandment.” Right? Here it looks like Sefer HaMitzvot. Right? Here it looks like Sefer HaMitzvot. So Minchat Chinukh really does ask about a contradiction. I don’t know a good resolution to this contradiction, except for what I’m going to tell you now.
[Speaker B] Kol Dodi says… what? In Sefer HaMitzvot there’s no commandment? Repentance itself, repentance with confession, acceptance for the future—that’s not considered… not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not considered? It’s a process of the soul. Is love of God an action? Fear of God, faith—is that an action? Love your fellow, “love your neighbor as yourself”?
[Speaker B] That’s not an action, it’s something more abstract.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but if—
[Speaker B] Maimonides wants to see it as…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Once it was possible—we didn’t exactly have a lecture about that. Okay. But it’s not true that it’s only internal, because—
[Speaker B] A step-by-step inner process that ends in action, that ends in something defined. So what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are commandments about inner matters. There are commandments about things of the soul.
[Speaker B] Especially when one decides to observe… and here it’s very, very defined. Confession is an action; things of the heart are not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not what’s written here. It’s not that there’s no action here. The action of the commandment and the fulfillment of the commandment—he doesn’t mean that there’s no action here. It’s a different distinction. A different distinction.
[Speaker B] Why isn’t this like love of God and fear of God?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that has nothing to do with whether there’s an action involved. There are commandments that have no action.
[Speaker B] Confession is an action, confession is something defined.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but this too is something defined. Fear of God, love of one’s fellow—is that defined? In what way is that more defined than repentance?
[Speaker B] Because you said in the end that all the commandments… in the end it relates to action.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, he doesn’t mean that there’s no… There’s the question of when you fulfill, and there are stages in which you do the act of the commandment but the fulfillment happens afterward. But that’s not because it’s not a commandment about action. That’s the distinction between fulfilling the commandment and the act of the commandment. Like with being fruitful and multiplying, for example, people make such a distinction: the act of the commandment is the sexual act, and the fact that you have a son and a daughter is the fulfillment, but the fulfillment is not in your hands. Right. Okay, but I don’t see how that resolves the contradiction, because Maimonides says there is a commandment here. So why here is he talking about the fulfillment—
[Speaker B] And there he’s talking about the act? He wants to say that in the headings it’s always the fulfillment, and not so much the act. Okay, so that’s Maimonides’ method, that’s Maimonides’ method.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a moment I’ll explain. Maybe that’s the explanation there too, I don’t know it. Anyway, what I want to argue is this. As I said before, Maimonides’ position is that if there is no command for something, it cannot count as a positive commandment—not an enumerated positive commandment.
[Speaker B] That’s a technical issue within Sefer HaMitzvot, it’s not that… yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now on the other hand, therefore the 613 commandments in Sefer HaMitzvot are only things for which there are commands in the Torah. In the Mishneh Torah there are included—the laws of Hanukkah and Purim, and that whole collection of laws on Hanukkah and Purim is entirely rabbinic; there isn’t a single positive commandment there from the 613. Rabbinic commandments, yes, but not commandments from the 613. What about things that we do by reasoning? Things that emerge from all kinds of such considerations? Everything that has to be done—Torah law, rabbinic law, reasoning, a law given to Moses at Sinai, whatever you want—will appear in the Mishneh Torah, because the Mishneh Torah contains everything a Jew has to do. That’s what appears in the Mishneh Torah; it’s supposed to contain everything. In Sefer HaMitzvot there appears only that core for which there is a command and defined content in the Torah, according to the rules of the roots. One second, one second. So now what I want to claim is this: in Sefer HaMitzvot only what has a command appears, and what has a command—well, repentance is not included there because there is no command for it. Because “and you shall return to the Lord your God” is a promise, not a command. So according to Maimonides it cannot appear in Sefer HaMitzvot. Is one required to repent? Of course one is required. Why? By reasoning. Simple reasoning: if you have an option to gain atonement for sins you committed, then obviously you need to do that, right? And now if you go back to Meshekh Chokhmah, what he says already sounds a bit more reasonable. Because if reason tells me that it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath, then reason also tells me that if I desecrated the Sabbath and there is a way to fix it—not reason, the Torah says it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath—then reason also says that if I desecrated the Sabbath and I have a way to fix it, then I’m obligated to fix it. So why do I need a commandment to repent? Fine. Meshekh Chokhmah—what I said before will now no longer answer what Meshekh Chokhmah says. If the Torah had not said there is a commandment to repent, but had revealed to me that there is such a thing as repentance, that would have been enough. If it hadn’t revealed it to me, then I wouldn’t know that through regret, confession, and acceptance for the future I can cancel the transgression that I committed. But if the Torah reveals to me that such a mechanism exists, it doesn’t need to command me to use it, because that I would know by reasoning. I wouldn’t know that such a mechanism exists—that, the Torah has to tell me. But if I know such a mechanism exists, then the Torah doesn’t need to command me, and in that sense, as a commandment, it’s redundant, because it really is included in the various commandments the Torah gives. If the Torah doesn’t want me to desecrate the Sabbath, it’s obvious that it also wants me to repair it if I did desecrate it. So it doesn’t need to command me beyond the prohibition against desecrating the Sabbath. In that sense the question is already a better question. And therefore the claim is basically—right—so it says “and you shall return to the Lord your God”; from here we understand that the concept of repentance exists, even though it is only a promise. Maimonides says: if the concept of repentance exists, that’s enough. There’s no need now to command me also to do it, because it’s simple reasoning. By the way, I once—Is there a commandment to repair a prohibition that I committed? To repair a prohibition that I committed. Say, for example, a woman got divorced on a condition—I just remembered this discussion—a woman got divorced on the condition, let’s say, that she not drink wine for ten years. Okay? And she married someone else—or you know what, that she should drink wine during the next ten years. She hasn’t yet drunk it, and she married someone else. It was conditional, because if she drinks wine, then the divorce takes effect retroactively from the time the bill of divorce was given. Is there a commandment for her to drink wine? No, otherwise she’s committing adultery right now. After all, if she doesn’t drink wine, then she isn’t divorced, so with the second husband it’s basically illicit relations; she’s committing adultery. Okay? Is there a commandment on her to drink wine? It seems to me not. Of course if she wants to save herself she should do it, but as a commandment—what commandment is there to drink wine? A condition does not create commandments. A condition is a condition. If you drink, the divorce takes effect; if you don’t drink, the divorce doesn’t take effect. The condition doesn’t create a command for the person; it just splits the future into two options. If you want, drink; if you don’t want, don’t drink. Right? True, there are consequences—there are consequences. The children would be mamzerim even if she doesn’t drink that wine, right? They’re mamzerim. Is there a commandment upon her to drink the wine in order to validate her children so they won’t be mamzerim? No, it seems to me not. Maybe a commandment between one person and another. If she drinks wine, then obviously their lot will be improved—they’ll be able to marry, etc.—maybe that falls under interpersonal obligations. But from the standpoint of marital law and from the standpoint of prohibition—can we derive from the prohibition of mamzer status an obligation to drink wine in such a case? Based on what I said before, maybe you could derive it. By reasoning, by reasoning. It wouldn’t be a commandment, but by reasoning, once there’s a prohibition against forbidden relations, reason says: do what you can so that the relations won’t be forbidden. That’s not the obligation of forbidden relations; it’s not the fulfillment of the commandment not to have forbidden relations. In that sense there is no halakhic obligation here. But there is that sort of reasoning: if the Torah doesn’t want this, then obviously if I can avoid it and repair it, reason says to avoid it. Okay, I have proof from a Talmudic passage in Nedarim 14, whoever wants can look there. There there is a vow such that what I do tomorrow affects today; the question is whether one needs to do it. Maybe that’s a dispute among Amoraim there. Fine, but for our purposes, that’s just a parenthetical note. So I return to our issue. So this basically means that according to Maimonides there is no commandment to repent, because there is no verse in the Torah commanding it. But there is reasoning that if such a mechanism exists and the Torah reveals to us that such a mechanism exists, then if such a mechanism exists, reason says that one must repent. Therefore if you ask whether there is such a commandment, the answer is no. If you ask whether one must do it, the answer is yes. Now, in the Mishneh Torah there appears everything one must do, not just Torah commandments. Also rabbinic law, also things derived by reasoning, also a law given to Moses at Sinai, everything. Custom too, I don’t know, everything appears in the Mishneh Torah. Everything a person has to do and not do. Therefore in the Mishneh Torah this will appear as an obligation to repent, but in Sefer HaMitzvot such a commandment will not appear, because there’s no command about it, so it isn’t a commandment. Now my claim is that in the headings that precede the sections of law in the Mishneh Torah, this is not a summary of Sefer HaMitzvot, but a summary of the Mishneh Torah. And Maimonides here says—and the proof is—“One positive commandment,” no, “that he should return from his sin and confess,” right.
[Speaker B] A positive commandment from the Torah? No—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A positive commandment to confess, which also includes returning. But the returning is not by force of a command, but by force of reasoning. Once the reasoning is there, you can certainly say that there is a commandment to return and confess.
[Speaker B] He says “when he returns,” no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, if he had said “when he returns,” that would have been wrong. Certainly. If he had said “when he returns,” then you wouldn’t—because there he is talking about commands. If in the Mishneh Torah he had said “when he returns, he should confess,” then I would think there’s no obligation to repent. And Maimonides wants to tell you that there is an obligation to repent, though not by virtue of a commandment, not by virtue of a command.
[Speaker B] But “the positive commandment of repentance is that he return from his sin and confess,” right, and that’s the halakhic definition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again. The halakhic definition—you’re talking—
[Speaker B] About the heading or about… the heading—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The heading is here, no—
[Speaker B] Because in the heading it says, “one positive commandment, that the sinner should return from his sin,” so that’s a positive commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No less than that. No. This positive commandment is not a positive commandment in the sense of the enumerated 613 commandments.
[Speaker B] Rather—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rather, it’s a commandment discussed in this section of laws. The commandment of repentance, which includes returning and confessing. Returning—is that the commandment?
[Speaker B] Right, meaning from this standpoint, “positive commandment” here means something different than in Sefer HaMitzvot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. It’s a positive commandment—no—“positive commandment” in this context means something I have to do. A halakhic obligation to do. Because here he’s talking about what you have to do; he’s not dealing here with the count of the commandments. In Sefer HaMitzvot he is dealing with the count of the commandments, and the count of the commandments is a technical issue. There are many things that you are obligated in that won’t appear in the count of the commandments. A half-measure won’t appear in the count of the commandments. And that’s a full obligation; that’s a Torah prohibition according to Rabbi Yochanan.
[Speaker B] A half-measure is forbidden by the Torah, but he won’t write—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He won’t write that as a positive commandment—no—
[Speaker B] He won’t write it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As a positive commandment in Sefer HaMitzvot. Because it’s a prohibition. It’s a Torah prohibition.
[Speaker B] He doesn’t write a heading.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because where would he write it?
[Speaker B] So he’s talking about—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It comes up in many places. It can’t appear at every point. In the count of the commandments there are technical rules for what enters the 613 commandments. And according to those technical rules, repentance doesn’t qualify. Here, when he talks about a positive commandment, he means: here I’m talking to you about this commandment. After all, in the laws of Hanukkah and Purim he talks about rabbinic commandments. Those certainly don’t appear in the count of the commandments. Two commandments from the words of the Sages.
[Speaker B] They are from the words of the Sages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Very good. Okay.
[Speaker B] Even though he doesn’t write just “positive commandment,” because that would mean Torah law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not from the words of the Sages. He can’t claim it’s from the words of the Sages. It’s reasoning that tells me that what I am obligated to do is repentance and confession. Obligated to do repentance and confession.
[Speaker B] And in the body of the law—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the body of the law—
[Speaker B] At the beginning of every—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Every section of laws in Maimonides begins by detailing according to the halakhic rules of Sefer HaMitzvot. And that’s true, by the way, in many places. After that he goes on, continues further. And after that he already talks about repentance, also about the obligation to repent, but he always begins with the definition. The summary of the section of laws, the summary of the section of laws is that this section deals with the commandment to repent and confess. This commandment is made up of two things: with regard to confession there is a command, and repentance follows from reasoning, but both still must be done. And this commandment is discussed in the laws of repentance.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, if we’re coming from reasoning, why not say a simpler piece of reasoning—that it’s impossible to confess without having repented? Meaning, if there’s no regret, no abandoning the sin, then what is the confession?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, and therefore what?
[Speaker B] And therefore it’s even… Maimonides is coming from a somewhat different angle, a bit more from the side.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that doesn’t turn it into an obligation.
[Speaker B] No, because let’s say confession is a Torah obligation. Fine, confession—and also without—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also can’t sit in a sukkah without building a sukkah, so is the commandment to build a sukkah itself a commandment? No. There is no commandment to build a sukkah; there is a commandment to sit in a sukkah. Fine—do what’s necessary in order to fulfill the commandment.
[Speaker B] But repentance is more internal to it, it’s more included within… okay, if that’s the case—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s included, then there’s no need to say it. Then there is a commandment of confession.
[Speaker B] So there is a commandment to confess.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again. So there is a commandment to confess; whatever is included in that is included in it, so explain later what is included in it. But the commandment is not to repent and confess; the commandment is to confess, and repentance is simply part of the commandment of confession. And here he says no—it’s a commandment to return and confess. Two things. On the contrary, repentance is the fundamental thing; confession is one of the details. You’re presenting it as though confession is the commandment and repentance is some sort of condition or enabling factor or something like that.
[Speaker B] Because he writes that from confession one is obligated to repent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s the commandment of confession, so then this isn’t repentance, it’s the commandment of confession. There’s no commandment to return; there is a commandment to confess. You’re just saying that you can’t confess without first returning. Fine, that’s part of the preparation for the commandment, not another detail within the commandment.
[Speaker B] For someone who returned without repentance, because there is no commandment of confession? Probably not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Probably not. He didn’t do what was required. Right. But still—
[Speaker B] If you… that’s what he suggested—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He suggested it, yes. But still this would remain only the commandment of confession; there’d be no basis for saying here that there is a commandment to return and confess. It would simply be that there is no confession without repentance, otherwise it’s lip service. When you say there is a commandment to return and confess, that means repentance is not only a means to make the confession serious, but that there is a commandment to return. Okay?
[Speaker B] And here he mixes those two things together, which is exactly what’s striking, Maimonides, when he says: “And this is the essence of confession, and similarly those liable for sin-offerings and guilt-offerings who bring sacrifices,” etc., etc., “they do not receive atonement until they repent and confess verbal confession,” right? Always. He doesn’t say, “when they repent they need to confess verbal confession.” In the very same clause, in the very same law, he uses both concepts: they should repent and confess, all together like that. And that doesn’t fit the systematic and precise Maimonides.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the contrary, on the contrary, on the contrary—the opposite—
[Speaker B] No, that’s exactly the point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So it’s all muddled together?
[Speaker B] No, he’s not muddling it together.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary. The beginning of a section of laws—every beginning of a section of laws starts with the commandments. That’s always how it is.
[Speaker B] But in the same law, to move over immediately—what’s the problem?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He begins with the definition of the commandment, and afterward, in the details, he explains what happens in practice, not at the level of abstract theoretical halakhic definitions. Fine. In any event, for our purposes, the claim—
[Speaker B] The concept of the laws of repentance is really Maimonides’ invention from the outset.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The laws of almost everything.
[Speaker B] Maimonides—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Created these sections of laws.
[Speaker B] The laws of kings are inventions too, in the sense that he grouped them in a way that didn’t exist before. They were scattered, all the laws, all—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All of Maimonides’ laws were scattered and didn’t exist before. In the whole history of Jewish law there is only one code, only Maimonides.
[Speaker B] Yes, but with Maimonides this isn’t… in repentance it’s really an expression. Instead of the laws of Yom Kippur, he brings here that one had to do this and this and this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He gathered scattered matters and created the laws of Yom Kippur; here too he gathers scattered matters and creates the laws of repentance. What’s the problem? There’s another question—you’re saying that the laws of repentance aren’t really laws at all. We’ll talk about that. There’s almost nothing halakhic in most of the chapters of the laws of repentance. Yes, look: the laws of repentance have ten chapters—how much of that is actually law? There’s maybe three percent law there. The laws of character traits are the same thing; that too is an invention.
[Speaker B] So if Maimonides places the laws of repentance as a commandment—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, the claim is that according to Maimonides, if I’m right, it turns out that according to Maimonides there is no commandment to repent, but there is an obligation to repent. That obligation comes from reason. Okay? That’s basically the claim. It may even be possible to say more than that: it’s not just that the Torah doesn’t command repentance; it deliberately does not command repentance. Because it wants us to do it on our own initiative. It wants us to do it ourselves and not as a response to its command, because then the repentance is more complete. If you do it just to check a box — the Torah said to repent, okay, I repented, checked the box, everything’s fine — then that’s not serious repentance. Serious repentance is when you understand that you were not okay, you understand by reason that what’s wrong needs to be fixed, and you decide to repent. That’s full repentance. Therefore the Torah does not command repentance, because the command itself would spoil it. You find something like this in Rabbi Kook, who brings the question of Rabbi Chaim Vital in Shaarei Kedushah. Rabbi Chaim Vital asks why the Torah does not command character refinement. So he says, I always wondered about that question, because the Torah does command it: “And you shall walk in His ways.” No — people don’t count that, almost nobody counts it. But there is “to cleave to His attributes”: just as He is merciful, so you too should be merciful — that is an enumerated commandment in Maimonides. “Just as He is merciful” — “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God.” “And you shall walk in His ways.” Right. And “to cleave to Him,” “and you shall walk in His ways” — it’s there. You can’t literally cleave to Him, you cleave to His ways; the Talmud interprets it that way. So on the face of it, what does Rabbi Chaim Vital want? There is an obligation to refine one’s character traits. What? So I thought there really isn’t an obligation to refine one’s character traits, because the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He, are not character traits. The ways of the Holy One, blessed be He, are what He does. And I don’t know the soul of the Holy One, blessed be He — whether His character traits are refined or not — it’s not relevant to speak about Him in that language. What you know is what He does, how He behaves, how He conducts Himself in the world. He says: I need to behave the way the Holy One, blessed be He, behaves — to have compassion on people, to help them, to behave properly, yes, to behave morally. So that is the obligation to cleave to the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He. But character traits, character refinement, that’s something else. Character refinement means that my soul should be refined. It may be that the result will be that I behave properly, but character refinement addresses the question of how I build the soul, not how I behave. And on that there is no obligation.
[Speaker B] No, but through your behavior you also refine the soul.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes, maybe no, but that’s not the obligation. It’s a side effect. Fine, maybe my soul will come out refined. How would we know about the soul? How would we know that really? I don’t know, examine yourself. Never mind, what difference does it make. There’s an obligation to refine character traits; it’s not an obligation merely to behave. There’s an obligation to refine the character traits — that, there isn’t. It really isn’t enumerated. And that’s what Rabbi Chaim Vital asks: why? Because he assumes it’s obvious that one ought to do it.
[Speaker B] But the sum total of behaviors is character refinement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — he claims, if I’m right, then no. No. That’s exactly the point. A person, for example, can behave perfectly simply because he wants to look good in everyone’s eyes. In terms of behavior he looks perfect. Is that okay? In terms of cleaving to Him, yes. Why not? He is cleaving to the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He. He behaves the way the Holy One, blessed be He, behaves; he behaves that way too. But it comes from the wrong place, not from a complete place. Now the question is whether there is also value in the place it comes from, or whether all that is required of me is only the behaviors themselves. And if Rabbi Chaim Vital assumes that there is also an obligation to refine the character traits, not just as a means to behave properly, then that is a good question: why doesn’t the Torah count it? Because that, it doesn’t count.
[Speaker B] Maybe you could say that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not say one thing with His mouth and another in His heart.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t have a heart. You can’t speak in that language.
[Speaker B] He really is that way, He really is that way. The way we behave, we’re not supposed to be…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know whether He has the option to behave differently from what He really is. That’s a very subtle philosophical question. Right. So I’m saying: if you say that, then it means the Torah does count the commandment to refine one’s character traits, and Rabbi Chaim Vital asks why the Torah does not count it. I offered an explanation of Rabbi Chaim Vital; you’re offering a resolution to his difficulty. I’m saying I’m not even sure about the resolution, but right now I’m explaining the question.
[Speaker B] Okay? And according to that, why does the Torah command love of God? After all, it would be better if that came from the person himself. Love is an emotion — and on that the Torah had to command? Maybe.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, no practical difference. It may really be a question why the Torah does not see value in its coming from within rather than by force of command. One could also say that the command speaks about the actions, and love itself is not really included in the command. That remains with us. And in Maimonides, if you look, you’ll see — there’s a chapter in Maimonides… and it is definitely possible that this distinction is the distinction between the commandment of love and love of God, which is something far beyond the specific commandment to love God. What is included in it is not necessarily the full matter.
[Speaker B] Maimonides explains that love comes from knowledge, no? If it’s knowledge then it’s much more defined than just an emotion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think it’s an emotion at all — but why, did I say it was an emotion? Okay, I don’t think it’s an emotion. I don’t think love of God is an emotion; that doesn’t seem right to me. In Maimonides too, I don’t think so. Look at Maimonides in chapter ten, look at Maimonides. Maimonides in chapter ten says: “A person should not say: I will fulfill the commandments of the Torah and engage in its wisdom in order to receive all the blessings written in it, etc., and I will separate from transgressions in order to be saved from the curses. It is not fitting to serve God in this way, for one who serves in this way serves out of fear, and this is not the level of the prophets nor the level of the sages. And God is served in this way only by the ignorant, women, and children, whom one trains” — good thing there are no women here — “one trains them to serve out of fear until their knowledge increases and they serve out of love.” “Serve out of love.” “One who serves out of love engages in Torah and commandments and walks in the paths of wisdom not because of anything in the world, not because of fear of evil, and not in order to inherit good, but does the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good comes because of it.” What is that? One who serves out of love does the truth because it is truth. That is called serving out of love. It’s already getting to you. One who serves out of love is one who does the truth because it is truth. The least emotional thing I could possibly describe. Now look at the next halakhah, now look at the next part, halakhah 3: “And what is the proper love? It is that one should love God with a very great, exceedingly intense love, until his soul is bound up in the love of God and he is constantly preoccupied with it, as though he were lovesick, whose mind is never free from love of that woman and who is constantly preoccupied with her, whether sitting or rising, even while eating and drinking. More than this should the love of God be in the hearts of those who love Him, constantly preoccupied with it, as He commanded us: ‘with all your heart and with all your soul.’ And this is what King Solomon said metaphorically: ‘For I am sick with love.’ And the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this matter.” So how does that fit with halakhah 2?
[Speaker B] It’s like a result, the state he will be in; it’s not the way he is supposed to serve. In halakhah 2 he has to do the truth because it is the way of truth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And what is the proper love?” Is he telling me what will happen afterward? If I do the truth…
[Speaker B] “Because it is truth” — that’s the endpoint, that’s the sign that you’ve reached such a state.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And what is the proper love?” He didn’t say: and besides the intellectual element there is also the emotional element. He seems to be explaining it. And this is one halakhah after another; it’s not a contradiction from there to here.
[Speaker B] No, that’s what I’m saying. He brings it in — it’s the result that will come to him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t say it’s the result. “And what is the proper love?” That’s an instruction, not a result.
[Speaker B] It’s the mode of existence that, if you do everything written before, you’ll arrive at an existential state.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ll arrive, fine, I said I’d arrive. He says, “And what is the proper love?” — not what will come out later, but this is how you are supposed to do it. That’s instruction. I think one has to be careful here of a common mistake when dealing with metaphors. When you deal with metaphors, the metaphor comes to define a certain thing, to show, to illustrate one particular point. There are always other details in the metaphor that are not similar to what is being represented, and then in all these arguments you know how it goes: you bring some metaphor, and someone says, wait a second, but here it’s like this. Fine — I didn’t mean that the metaphor is exactly identical. Pay attention to the central point I want to illustrate, which exists both in the metaphor and in what it stands for. What I want to say is that Maimonides is saying that love of God, although it is cold and intellectual and “doing the truth because it is truth,” still has to accompany us all the time, and we should be constantly preoccupied with it like emotional love between a man and a woman. In other words, the metaphor is meant to convey the level of intensity with which we should occupy ourselves with this, not that he means it should be emotional in the same sense as between spouses. Fine, if so then we agree. But it’s not result — it’s not action and result.
[Speaker B] “His soul is bound up,” “constantly preoccupied with it.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right — “constantly preoccupied with it” means thinking about it all the time, yes.
[Speaker B] Not result — it’s the state in which…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this matter.” A metaphor — it’s a metaphor. What is written there as love means “doing the truth because it is truth” — that was in the previous halakhah, he defined it. The beloved and the maiden — what would you say? That she does the truth because it is truth when she loves him? That he loves her? Of course not. The metaphor of Song of Songs is not a metaphor for why there is love, but for the intensity of the love. That is, to show that your whole head is constantly occupied with this, and all the time you are engaged in it, and “in all your ways know Him” and all that — but it’s all “know Him,” it’s all in the intellect, not in emotion. Fine, so we went to places that I hadn’t planned on yet. Fine.
[Speaker B] So incidentally, is there no place for emotion at all?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think not. Emotion — none of us is perfect, we all have emotions, but one should try to overcome them.
[Speaker B] Okay, so that’s a different discussion, about that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll speak straight — that’s ad hominem, ad…
[Speaker B] …populum, okay, close enough.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Leibowitz — what, who’s doing that here? Yes. Fine. In any case, I’ll talk about it — I wrote about it; if you want I’ll send you to my website, I wrote enough about it, many sanctifications. I argue that in Jewish law emotions have no significance at all. Well, maybe in life too they don’t. Fine — meaning, they have influence, but unfortunately nobody is perfect, what can you do.
[Speaker B] If it’s…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …emotion, then—
[Speaker B] Absolutely not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, “there is no joy except with meat and wine.” I’ll talk about that.
[Speaker B] The claim is that — can you send it to us?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll send it, yes, but remind me if I forget. No — of course you can rejoice emotionally, but that’s not the fulfillment of the commandment. No problem: emotion. If you are in a state of joy, it will also express itself emotionally, but not there. Say someone’s emotional capacity is blocked — you’re dragging me there — if someone’s emotional capacity is blocked, can he not fulfill that commandment? Of course he can. It just won’t express itself in the emotional dimension, because for him that dimension is blocked, doesn’t exist. That doesn’t matter with respect to fulfilling the commandment. Emotion is a spontaneous matter; emotion is something that comes out. When the Torah commands, it commands me to work, to create some state, to do something, something that is in my hands. So it may be that arousing an emotion is a commandment, but the commandment is to arouse the emotion, not in the emotion’s coming into being. Its coming into being — if it happens, it happens, and that’s good. But really, let’s leave that.
[Speaker B] There’s no commandment at all that there should be — in your view, no, no…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not in emotion, not in the result. There are commandments about results.
[Speaker B] In my opinion, in the world of our commandment observance, emotion certainly ought to be less dominant than the intellect, but according to Maimonides it’s not that the whole Torah is only commandments; the commandments are supposed to bring us to some equilibrium, each sphere to some state.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How is all that connected to emotion? I didn’t understand.
[Speaker B] A high and pure intellectual awareness certainly activates emotion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It activates emotions — fine, so it activates.
[Speaker B] If you have no emotions at all—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it won’t activate emotions.
[Speaker B] Maybe that’s because you don’t have the intellectual awareness. Surely there is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have intellectual awareness, intellectual awareness, and it doesn’t express itself in emotions — so what? What’s the problem? For every normal person it expresses itself. Allow me one example, because I see this bothers you, and then we’ll stop here because I don’t want to waste the whole lesson. Look: once I went to speak in Sde Boker, at the environmental high school there. The principal there was a friend of mine; I lived in Yeruham, and he asked me to come speak with them during the Ten Days of Repentance. About what? About themes of the season, but not in religious terms — it’s a secular school. I said fine, I took the challenge. I spoke about atonement and forgiveness and repentance in human terms. I said to them: look, suppose I hurt someone and I don’t feel one ounce of remorse, not in the slightest, it doesn’t move my little finger, as Dan Halutz once said — a scratch on the wing, a light blow to the wing. But now I understand intellectually that I was wrong. So I go to him, I ask forgiveness because I was wrong, I come to appease him — and I feel nothing, I’m completely indifferent to his suffering, I don’t care in the least. Okay? Fine. And the question is: suppose Elijah came and told you what was in my heart, okay? You know what’s in my heart. Would you accept such an apology? And there there was full consensus — not a single dissenting opinion. And I argue the opposite: that is the highest apology there can be.
[Speaker B] Because it depends on nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Because I come to ask forgiveness because I truly understand that I was wrong. If I come to ask forgiveness because I feel guilty, then that apology is there to support me; it’s not for you, it’s there to calm my guilty conscience. But if I do it because I understand that I was wrong, that is the highest apology there can be.
[Speaker B] To save your greatest enemy — that’s the best thing there is. Kant said that, if I’m not mistaken?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sounds like him, anyway. So that’s just an example. Very often emotion is overrated in this generation; because of despair over reason, emotion has become overrated. But fine, never mind, let’s get back. In short, to our matter: the claim is that the obligation to repent is fundamentally rooted in reason. There is no command to repent; there is reason. Why doesn’t the Torah command it? Why does it leave it to reason and not command it? So my claim was: because if it had commanded it, that would have ruined it. And that’s why I started bringing in Rabbi Chaim Vital, and from there we got carried away. Rabbi Chaim Vital basically asks why the Torah does not command character refinement. Rabbi Kook writes in two places in his letters that the Torah does not command it because if it had, that would have ruined it. Someone who works on his character because there is a commandment to work on his character — that is not real character work. You have to work on your character because you understand that corrupted traits are something wrong that needs to be fixed. But if you do it just to check a box in the ledger because there is a commandment to refine your character, that ruins the whole point. So here the command would have been destructive — not merely unnecessary or unhelpful; it would have ruined it.
[Speaker B] Rabbi Kook explains it that way?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. And the claim is that there are several things that the Torah does not command because if it had commanded them, that would have ruined them. And the commandment of repentance is also like that. A classic example that always comes to mind in this context is the famous yeshiva joke about the young man who reached marriageable age, met all kinds of girls, rejected them all — none of them, none of them was suitable, not suitable, I’m not interested in a relationship. In short, the spiritual supervisor comes to him and says: listen, you need to work on your character; you’re arrogant. The supervisor told him. So he sits there and works on his character with tremendous fervor for a whole year. After a year he goes back again — yes, back to the marriage market, back to the field. He meets girls and once again rejects them. The supervisor comes to him and says: tell me, you worked on your character for a whole year — what exactly did you do there? So he says: I don’t understand, Rabbi. A year ago, when I was arrogant, none of them suited me. Now that I’m also humble, then all the more so and by an a fortiori argument none of them suits me. That’s what someone looks like who works on his character because there is a clause saying he has to work on his character. Okay? And that’s what the Torah wanted to prevent by not commanding character work. And the claim I want to make is that the same is true regarding repentance. Here too, the Torah did not command it because if there had been a command, that would have ruined it. You would repent because there is an obligation to repent, and that is not genuine repentance. Genuine repentance is returning to your commitment to serving God, a commitment that comes because you understand that one ought to serve God, not because there is a commandment to do so. Later we’ll see a deeper layer of this point. In any case. What?
[Speaker B] It’s a little hard again. What? It’s a little hard.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again — because he feels it. Yes, no, but there is an obligation to do it, only it is an obligation that does not come in the form of a command. Fine. Now I want to talk a bit about the… this is the commandment of repentance. Now I want to talk a bit about the definition of repentance. What is repentance at all? So maybe I’ll begin by saying: what people today call a baal teshuvah is not really the concept of repentance of the Sages. That’s obvious. What people today call a baal teshuvah is, say, someone who was secular and became religious, okay? That’s not “returning in repentance”; that’s someone who changed his worldview. A baal teshuvah is someone who always understood what is forbidden and what is permitted and what one should do, but did not do it, and now has to return to the thing he understood from the outset. That is a true baal teshuvah; this is not just wordplay, this is the concept of baal teshuvah among the Sages. For the Sages, someone who did not believe and then started believing is not a baal teshuvah; that’s someone who, I don’t know, came to recognize the truth, changed his outlook — call it whatever you want, I don’t know what to call it. It is not the concept of baal teshuvah. A baal teshuvah is someone who, even while committing the sin, understands that he is not okay, only he falls — his impulse, whatever, for various reasons; we’ll talk about that too later. And he repents, returns to the firm ground — yes, to the firm ground of the Torah — so he returns to what he always understood, and now he has also decided to actualize it and not just understand it. But someone who changes what he understands is not a baal teshuvah; to what is he returning? He’s going, not returning anywhere. Therefore we don’t need all these little sermons about how all people return to the innermost point within their souls and all that nonsense. It’s simply utter nonsense. A baal teshuvah is someone who really knew — that’s what all of us know. We know what is permitted and what is forbidden, and we fall.
[Speaker B] But is there such a point?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course there’s such a point, but that’s not — no, there’s no such inner point. There is someone who reached the conclusion that this is the truth, and that’s it. What?
[Speaker B] Rabbi Nachman, as is well known, all the way to Rabbi Kook’s notebooks. Fair enough, at least on these things. Right, right, and for him it sits—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —in that way.
[Speaker B] Fine. Repentance is someone who takes upon himself from now on not to do—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the sin, and everything he did is erased. Right, exactly. That is exactly the expression of the matter. Because when he did it — because when he was there, he was in that same state and still committed the transgression. And now he is in that same state itself, with the same outlook, not with a different outlook. Otherwise what does it mean? That is, if beforehand you thought adultery was permitted, then you committed adultery. Now you reached the conclusion that adultery is forbidden, so you need to return to that same place? In any case you are not in the same state.
[Speaker B] And that is greater.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Greater, smaller — everyone can judge for himself. But it is something different. That “all the more so” argument — I think it’s absurd, but never mind; I’m not going into judging what is more and what is less right now. These are two different concepts. I’m talking about the first concept of repentance, not the second. Not what people today call “becoming religious,” which is not “returning in repentance” of course — it’s “going in repentance.” What people call “returning in repentance,” the baal teshuvah of the Sages, is someone who always believed. He sinned, and for that sin he repents. Right? That’s the concept. Simple — that’s the concept. So that’s what I’m talking about. We’ll see later that it’s not quite that sharp. Maimonides in chapter 3 of the Laws of Repentance, halakhah 3 — let’s open it from here already — Maimonides writes in chapter 3 of the Laws of Repentance: “Just as a person’s merits and sins are weighed at the time of his death, so too every year the sins of every single person in the world are weighed against his merits on the festival of Rosh Hashanah. 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” — not physically. “If he repents, he is sealed for life; if not, he is sealed for death.” Okay? So here you have the righteous, the intermediate, and the wicked — with more merits, fewer merits, or exactly balanced. The question that arises here is twofold. First, why only repentance? If someone does more commandments, he will have more merits and that will tip the scale. Why does only repentance restore him to being righteous on Yom Kippur? That’s the first question. The second question is: how can there be an intermediate person at all? As is well known, exact precision is impossible. So either his merits are greater or his merits are fewer — but exactly half and half, then he’s intermediate. How many intermediate people are there? The chance of being intermediate is zero, right? So basically after Rosh Hashanah either we’ve been sealed for life or sealed for death, and we can go to the beach. In short, we closed the file on the previous year. The chance that we are intermediate, that we still have something to do in the Ten Days of Repentance, is negligible. But somehow the accepted assumption is, “A person should always see himself as if half meritorious and half liable,” the accepted assumption is that all of us are more or less intermediate. The assumption is that we have work to do during the Ten Days of Repentance. The question is: what justifies that assumption? Mathematically there is no justification for it.
[Speaker B] Mathematically it doesn’t make sense—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —in this case.
[Speaker B] —that only if you have one more merit than obligations.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but what you’re suggesting — Maimonides says if you have more, you’re righteous; if you have less, you’re wicked; exactly half and half is intermediate.
[Speaker B] In the sense that the average person is intermediate—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He does commandments and you believe in God but you have an evil inclination.
[Speaker B] So what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —does “his merits are greater,” “his merits are fewer” mean? Translate that for me.
[Speaker B] The weight of merits is not equal.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, so some want to argue that weight — Maimonides writes that no person can know the weight of sins and merits. There is a small sin whose punishment — that doesn’t help at all. Because that means the sum is a weighted sum. Okay, a weighted sum — what are the chances it comes out exactly balanced? Zero. The same zero exactly. So how can there be an intermediate person? That is the second question. There are two possible answers to this. One possibility is Emek Berakhah, who gives a sharp answer. He wants to argue that on Rosh Hashanah they basically do the accounting for the year that passed. Okay? If you are in a state of exactly half and half, then if you do commandments during the Ten Days of Repentance, that will be credited to the balance sheet of next Rosh Hashanah, because the Ten Days of Repentance already belong to the next year. Meaning, Yom Kippur is only the end of the deliberation over the previous year. Fine? So therefore in the Ten Days of Repentance there is no point in adding more merits; fine, do it, but it’s only for the accounting of next year, it won’t change the balance of the previous year that ended on Rosh Hashanah. Why is repentance effective? Because repentance repairs sins that have already been committed. It removes sins from the metaphorical scale that existed on Rosh Hashanah, and therefore it can indeed change the balance that existed from the previous year. Fine? What?
[Speaker B] If it’s a transgression… if it’s a commandment…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even better. It turns into — yes, from repentance out of love.
[Speaker B] It can affect what was in the previous year.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, the repentance you do now can retroactively change your status from last year, and therefore it is the only thing that can change it. That’s a sharp answer, nice on its face, but it’s a little problematic. Why? Somehow it feels uncomfortable, it seems to me, when you say—
[Speaker B] —that it raises the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the question of how, how could it be. It doesn’t answer that at all. But even regarding the question of why only repentance helps — there too, let’s say I feel some discomfort with this answer. Why? Because it basically comes out that the Holy One, blessed be He, operates here like some accountant. Office hours are over; Rosh Hashanah is finished; therefore He will seal me for death on Yom Kippur even though in my present state I am righteous. Really, truly, I have already accumulated merits and in my current state I am overall righteous — but what can you do, office hours are over; on Rosh Hashanah you were wicked, so I’ll kill you on Yom Kippur. Yes, he dies immediately in that year — I remind you of Maimonides. Okay? It sounds a little strange. I don’t know. I would have expected the Holy One, blessed be He, not to behave in such a scribal, petty way. So that’s one direction. A second direction — you can find it in Siftei Chaim by Rabbi Chaim Friedlander, and it’s taken somewhat from the author of the Tanya, though the author of the Tanya takes it a bit too extremely. And the claim is basically this — and it’s somewhat similar to what I think you wanted to say — that the difference between the intermediate, the righteous, and the wicked is the question of what your basic spiritual direction in life is. If fundamentally you aspire to the good, only you have impulses — we’re all human beings — and you fall, then you are righteous. Now it doesn’t matter if you had many more transgressions than commandments. Fine, maybe your impulse was very strong and you couldn’t hold out, or maybe you had many trials, or whatever, you fell a lot. Fine — but fundamentally you aspire to the good. If you aspire to the good, you are righteous. If you aspire to evil, you are wicked, even if you had more commandments than transgressions. Because fundamentally you aspire to evil, and it just happened that things didn’t work out, you didn’t have the opportunity to sin. Yes, like a salaried employee regarding income tax. He’s more righteous than the self-employed person; he can’t evade income tax — what can he do, it’s deducted on the pay slip. Fine? So it’s the same thing. Therefore righteous and wicked are determined by the question of what your basic direction is. If the direction is positive, you are righteous; if the direction is negative, you are wicked. And it’s not about counting commandments or counting transgressions.
[Speaker B] Regardless of the balance?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Regardless of the balance. The balance, again — the balance is an expression, but basically what matters is your direction. Okay? The intermediate person is someone sitting on the fence, yes, one foot here and one foot there. Like the story about Rebecca, the joke about Rebecca with the two — that she felt, Rashi brings the midrash of the Sages, that when she passed houses of idolatry she felt the baby wanted to come out, and when she passed study halls it also wanted to come out. “And she went to inquire of the Lord.” And what do Shem and Ever tell her? “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall separate from your insides; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” Yes, you have two. Now she calmed down. What do you mean? At houses of idolatry it wanted to come out, and at study halls the other one wanted to come out. Right? So in Bnei Brak they ask: so why does that calm her down? Before, it wanted to come out here and wanted to come out there. Yes, so they say: it’s better to have one wicked child and one righteous one than one Religious-Zionist. Fine? That’s the… Meaning, someone who knows what he wants, even if it’s in the direction of wickedness, is better than someone sitting on the fence. That’s the intermediate person. The intermediate is someone who hasn’t decided the direction of his life. Like the old comedy troupe used to say, “I went with Ham, neither with father nor with mother, I went with Ham.” So he goes wherever the wind pulls him. By the way, I think that Elijah on Mount Carmel — what he says there, which people often take as some rhetorical maneuver into a corner — I think he meant it seriously. He says: “How long will you keep hopping between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; and if Baal, follow him.” Not both. Yes, really follow Baal, not just as a rhetorical trick. You’re nobodies. You go after the crowd. If the crowd goes after Baal, you go after Baal; if the crowd goes after God, you go after God. That is the worst. Be wicked, be righteous, just don’t be a Religious-Zionist. Religious-Zionist is not the color of the kippah; Religious-Zionist is your spiritual mode of conduct. Okay? So the… remind me of the…
[Speaker B] This was said before the term Hardali existed. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Another joke about that: a Muslim came to work during Ramadan in Bnei Brak, cleaning a house. They asked him, aren’t you religious? So why are you coming to work during Ramadan? He said, I’m Religious-Zionist. Fine. In any case, the claim is that the intermediate, the righteous, and the wicked are determined by your fundamental spiritual directions, not by the count — not even a weighted count — of commandments or transgressions. Now if that’s so, then it is completely clear why only repentance can help. Right? Only repentance can help, because what good does it do to perform a few more commandments? It doesn’t matter how many. It may even be that before too you had more commandments than transgressions. But if you repent, that means you change the direction of your life from a negative direction to a positive one. That can change things. And why and how can there be an intermediate person? We are talking about someone who is neither fully righteous nor fully wicked, but is struggling, okay? Challenged, as they say. So I think those two questions are resolved very well by this approach of Rabbi Chaim Friedlander. Now I want to argue, though, that these two directions that I presented here are not two mutually exclusive alternatives. They are two different mechanisms of repentance, both of which exist. The first direction is that repentance erases transgressions that were committed; therefore only repentance helps, and commandments are credited to the account of next year. Let’s call the answer of Emek Berakhah the small answer, the petty, scribal answer. And the answer of Siftei Chaim is the big, substantive repentance. Okay? And I argue that there are two tracks of repentance. This is not a dispute, not a disagreement. There are two tracks of repentance. You can decide whether you are on this track or on that track. Now what happens? On the track of the small repentance, this basically means the following: the Torah introduced an innovation. What innovation? If you committed a sin and then went through the required procedure — regret, acceptance for the future, confession, and abandoning the sin — regret, acceptance for the future, and verbal confession — then the sin is forgiven. An innovation, beyond the letter of the law — it is forgiven, everything is fine.
[Speaker B] During the whole year one can do that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I haven’t yet entered the question of what the difference is between the whole year and the Ten Days of Repentance, but in general, the concept of repentance. So that erases the sin. It is a special innovation beyond the letter of the law; that is the small repentance. But here there is some kind of concession by the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond the letter of the law, because you haven’t really changed — you perform a procedure and fix the sin you committed. If you choose the small, petty track, let’s call it, then the conduct is according to the rules. If office hours are over, then next year we’ll discuss this year; but if not, then not — it won’t help. And if you want to go with the rules, no problem, but then go with the rules. There are rules for how to do it, okay? In the big repentance, the substantive repentance, changing from a negative direction to a positive one — that is not technical repentance, it is substantive repentance. You have to understand that these two answers reflect two different concepts of repentance — that’s clear, regardless of the question whether both exist or only one. But clearly they are talking about a completely different mechanism. The mechanism of Emek Berakhah is a procedure — yes, Rav Saadia Gaon introduced the four components of sin: abandoning the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, verbal confession. You did that, you checked the box next to that transgression, another check next to the next transgression, and those transgressions are forgiven. Okay? So that is an innovation, but fine, that innovation was introduced. So that is technical repentance; let’s call it small. The repentance being discussed in Siftei Chaim is a change of spiritual direction. It is not a technical passing over this sin or that sin. You were in a negative spiritual direction; you did some inner work and became someone directed toward the positive. You made a spiritual revolution within yourself. That is big repentance, a completely different repentance. Okay? Now I claim that besides the fact that you should notice these are two different mechanisms of repentance, I claim there is no disagreement here — both exist. You can choose this mechanism and you can choose that mechanism. If you choose this mechanism, there are rules. The rules are: until Rosh Hashanah you can; from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur — that is repentance; everything else goes to next year. Simply put, you choose to proceed according to strict justice, yes, according to the rules. Those are the rules. But if you go… if you choose the substantive track, you truly change, then there are no rules. If you really change, then now, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you repented. After you repented, you are already righteous; nobody is going to kill you on Yom Kippur when you are righteous. According to Siftei Chaim, you did repentance in the technical sense, you removed a few transgressions — sorry. But if you did a few commandments and didn’t repent, I asked: but then he is righteous, how can you kill him on Yom Kippur? He is not righteous; he is intermediate and did a few more commandments. Everything is still on the substantive level. No, but why — explain to me—
[Speaker B] the calculation already from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur — I can do repentance that is not substantive? They give you a chance to repent—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They give you a chance to repent, what’s the problem?
[Speaker B] No, but according to the bookkeeping rules, you should have repented before the year ended.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those are the rules. The rules are that you have an additional extension of ten days; if you repent, it repairs the sin. Those rules themselves are a concession — beyond the letter of the law. Fine, but that’s what was introduced in the concept of repentance: that you can do such repentance and it will repair sins. I understand that — but then follow the rules. The moment you choose the track of rules, then they deal with you according to the rules. If you work on the substantive track, there are no rules. I’ll bring you two proofs of this, two proofs. One proof is in the Talmud in Kiddushin. The Talmud in Kiddushin says that someone who betroths a woman on condition that “I am completely righteous,” even if it is known that he is wicked, we are concerned about the betrothal—
[Speaker B] —lest he had thoughts of repentance in his heart.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now I ask: what does it mean, lest he had thoughts of repentance in his heart? Meaning, he is an accomplished wicked person, okay? He has, I don’t know, a thousand transgressions. A thousand transgressions is still small-time wicked, but let’s say, okay? For those thousand transgressions, did he run through in his mind for each one of them abandoning the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, and verbal confession, while at the same time saying to her, “Behold, you are betrothed to me on condition that I am completely righteous”? In what sense can we be concerned that he repented? There is no possibility of such repentance.
[Speaker B] That’s the substantive repentance — he suddenly transformed himself, understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if you say we are concerned that he repented and therefore the betrothal is doubtful, that basically means there is a possibility of turning from wicked to righteous not through the standard halakhic procedure of repentance. Because otherwise, if it were through the standard procedure, you couldn’t do it. Right? That’s one proof. A second proof — the Talmud.
[Speaker B] No, but you still have to explain a bit more here, that even the substantive repentance is not some trick; it’s supposed to constitute some kind of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, it could be that he repented, suddenly understood the depth of his sins, and repented—he turned himself around. The next proof will illustrate this even more. The next proof is Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya. The story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, where the Talmud says that Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya did not leave a single prostitute in the whole world with whom he had not slept, until he found one woman who charged four hundred zuz for her services. Right—he got there, she passed gas or the fringes fluttered, there are parallel versions of the story, it doesn’t matter—something happened, and suddenly he understood where he stood. He sat and cried and cried and cried until his soul departed. He said, “Mountains, ask for mercy on my behalf; heavens, ask for mercy on my behalf,” and then—“the matter depends on no one but me.” His soul departed, and then a heavenly voice came out and said: “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for life in the World to Come.” And over this Rabbi cried and said: “There are those who acquire their world in a single hour.” Now, a consummate wicked person like Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya—when he sat there, do you really think he went through his organized list of sins, if he even had such a list, and for each one carried out the repentance procedure of Saadia Gaon? Leaving the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, verbal confession? He erased all the sins, all the thousands of sins he had, the millions of sins he had, and acquired his world in a single hour. He didn’t do that. So how did he acquire his world? And there they say, “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for life in the World to Come”—he became a rabbi. The greatest sinner in the world, within an hour—an hour meaning a few moments—became a rabbi. Right? So what—how can that be? Clearly there is a mechanism, a mechanism that can transform you in moments. No—it does not depend on carrying out a halakhic repentance procedure step by step for each and every sin you committed. As we saw, in the case of one who betroths a woman on condition that I am completely righteous, the concern—concern, meaning the concern regarding the betrothal, or the hope in this case that he repented—is that he did the repentance of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya. And the fact that Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is called Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya—“rabbi” is someone who taught us something—he taught us that the laws of repentance are for the weak. The laws of repentance are for someone who does not really repent. For someone who does not really repent, there are laws of repentance: you need regret, confession, acceptance, check off each sin one by one, you did it, done, move on, and for each one it is forgiven. That’s for the weak. People who truly repent—for them all the laws of repentance are irrelevant. Why should I care about the laws of repentance? If he repented, he is righteous now. Would the Holy One, blessed be He, punish a person who is truly righteous? Just because he was once wicked? What does it matter what he once was? Now you’re punishing someone completely righteous—you’ll bring suffering on him or death or whatever exactly he deserves? Why on earth? Clearly not. And therefore the claim is that these two mechanisms of repentance, which are different, both exist—but you choose which of the two to follow. Maybe I’ll give an example… What?
[Speaker B] In my opinion, it’s not such a full repentance mechanism as much as doing that gives you a push, it gives you some kind of thought of repentance. What do I mean? What does it mean that he really repented? I don’t think that… what does it mean, really?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is the possibility that he repented. Elazar ben Dordaya is described there—that’s exactly the story. The story says he acquired his world in a single hour. Right, he reflected for a moment, or a few moments, and he turned himself around. That’s it.
[Speaker B] And that’s the novelty, if this isn’t the first proof for our law. You can say that he began the process, but the very fact that he had thoughts of repentance, that he felt he wasn’t all right and that he had to change—that’s the beginning and that’s the main thing—but he still has a lot of work to do, and all that work includes…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if doing that work is a condition—without it he is not righteous—then the betrothal is void. The betrothal is retroactively void if he doesn’t complete the process.
[Speaker B] No, it strips from him the label of wicked person, for the purpose at hand. What is “completely righteous”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He has… he’s not… “completely righteous” doesn’t mean it strips away the label of wicked person. He is completely righteous. It’s not someone…
[Speaker B] …from whom…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …the label of wicked person was removed. He had a thought of repentance. So?
[Speaker B] A thought of repentance turns him into someone completely righteous, not into someone from whom the label of wicked person was removed. Because he says, “on condition that I am righteous,”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At that moment—not on condition that I am not wicked.
[Speaker B] It removes the label of wicked person—that’s what it does.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But then why is she betrothed? The betrothal is not based on “on condition that I am not wicked”; it is based on “on condition that I am righteous.”
[Speaker B] So what? What is “righteous”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Righteous means righteous.
[Speaker B] He still has to continue further, to the end of the process, so surely Heaven won’t look…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know what Heaven will do. She is betrothed.
[Speaker B] Because at that moment—what does “at that moment” mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It means that at that moment he is righteous.
[Speaker B] Afterward he was…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So at that moment he is righteous. That’s it. That’s what I’m claiming.
[Speaker B] The Rabbi wanted to say that what the laws of repentance in Maimonides are—it’s only for the weak.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not Maimonides—Maimonides, no. The laws of repentance.
[Speaker B] The laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah are only for the weak—it’s not mentioned, it’s not…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not the laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah—the laws of repentance. The laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah are not just the laws of repentance; most of them are devoted to the second kind of repentance, not to halakhic repentance at all. We’ll talk about that in a minute. So the point—I want to show you this in the Maharal. The Maharal discusses this—there is a Talmudic passage in Tractate Rosh Hashanah 17. The Talmud there explains the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy: “The Lord, the Lord, God, compassionate and gracious.” What?
[Speaker B] It says there, “The Lord, the Lord…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so the Talmud there explains the attributes of mercy. And the Talmud says there: “I am the Lord before one sins, and I am the Lord after one sins and repents”—that is “The Lord, the Lord.” Okay? Then at the end there is “and cleanses.” The Talmud in Tractate Shevuot also says that “and cleanses” means He cleanses one who returns, and does not cleanse one who does not return. The Maharal asks: if it turns out that two of the attributes are actually responsible for repentance—both “The Lord, the Lord” and “and cleanses”—why do we need two different attributes that are responsible for repentance? He has a very strange answer. Not that he speaks about very strange repentance, but it’s a very strange answer, because we’re dealing with repentance here. So he has a very strange answer. He says: “The Lord, the Lord” is for someone who repents for all his transgressions, and “and cleanses” is for someone who repents for only some of his transgressions. So let him do “and cleanses” repentance a hundred times. Why is this two different names, or two different attributes—two different processes of repentance? I want to claim the following. When you think for a moment about someone who does the great repentance that I called earlier the inner reversal, he becomes someone whose basic direction is now positive. Can such a thing be done for one sin, or for five of my sins? Obviously not, right? It doesn’t deal with this sin or that sin; it deals with the question of who I am. Therefore, by definition, this is repentance for all sins. All sins automatically. This is a repentance in which I turn myself around. The moment I turn myself around, all my sins have been dealt with. It’s not that I can do this repentance for Sabbath desecration in Parashat Korach of 5779, and afterward do this repentance for, I don’t know, honoring parents in 5781. It doesn’t work like that. If I turned myself around and my direction is a positive spiritual direction, then that dealt with all my sins together. I am someone else, as Maimonides says: I am not the same person who committed the sins. Now I am righteous. What do you want from that person who committed the transgression? I’m someone else. Okay? It may sound metaphorical—we’ll see in a moment. So the claim is that the great repentance is by definition, by its very nature, repentance for all sins. By definition, it cannot be done sin by sin; that’s not how it is defined. That is why it happens in one moment; that is why Elazar ben Dordaya, or one who betroths a woman on condition that I am completely righteous—it happens in one moment, because either it happened or it didn’t happen. If it happened, it happened for everything. By contrast, the scribal, small, technical repentance definitely proceeds sin by sin. For every sin you need leaving the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, verbal confession; then you move on to the next sin, and so on. You have to go sin by sin. Therefore I claim that the repentance of “The Lord, the Lord” is the great repentance. The repentance of “and cleanses” is the small repentance. The fact that one is for all sins and one is for only some sins is not a quantitative matter. Rather, clearly, substantive repentance cannot be done for only some sins; by its essence it is for all sins. And “The Lord, the Lord” is responsible for the great repentance. That is why two names of the Holy One, blessed be He, are needed here, because these are two different attributes, two different mechanisms. Now let’s take a closer look—we’ll get into the guts of these two mechanisms. I want to continue with them because this leads to many important foundations. The claim, basically, is that in the great repentance there is no such thing as laws of repentance in relation to the great repentance. There are no laws. If you turned yourself around, then you turned yourself around—that’s it. Then obviously no one is going to punish you for an earlier phase of yourself that you no longer inhabit at all. If you did technical repentance, then there are laws of repentance—how to do it, when to do it, what is atoned for, what is not atoned for, and the like. But notice: the distinction is not quite so dichotomous. After all, within technical repentance there is leaving the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, and verbal confession. Let’s try for a moment to think about regret. Okay? What is regret? Suppose I sorted on the Sabbath, in Parashat Korach 5779, okay? It’s written down in my notebook: when the Messiah comes, I’ll bring a fat sin-offering. So now I want to repent for that. What am I regretting? Am I regretting that I sorted? No. I regret that I transgressed the will of God. There is no such thing as regret over one particular sin. That’s not genuine regret. When you really regret, you are not regretting that you sorted; you regret that you did something forbidden, that the Holy One, blessed be He, said not to do. So therefore the concept of regret, if you do it genuinely, is by definition about all sins. What does that actually mean? It means that these two poles I sketched earlier—the great substantive repentance and the small technical repentance—are not two poles. They are two ends of an axis on which there is a continuum between one and the other. And the continuum is determined by the depth of regret. That is to say: if you think about a certain event that happened and say, “Ugh, I fell there,” and so on—regret over one particular event—that is small, local regret; it’s not that you really regretted the fact that you sinned. So that is the small repentance. The great repentance is regret over the very fact that you were even capable of sinning in the first place—how could it be that my direction allowed me to sin at all? Now I want to turn myself around toward the positive direction. That is the great regret. Now you understand that there is really a continuum of levels of regret, where the lowest level is technical repentance, and then there is a continuum of levels—the deeper the regret, the more it naturally touches more and more of the commandments. And full substantive regret, simply a spiritual reversal—that is the great repentance. So in practice there is a continuum of levels here. And now I return to the comments that were made here earlier—I no longer remember who made them—it is absolutely possible to understand that technical, halakhic repentance is a good way to begin moving in the direction of full repentance. I begin by thinking about one specific sin, and I regret it, and I try to understand how I fell there and what happened and how it won’t happen again, and through deepening into that particular sin on which I am now focusing, I gradually understand how it is even possible for me to arrive at sin at all. How is it possible at all that I do something that the Holy One, blessed be He, forbids? And if I really do this seriously and all the way through, then I start with one specific sin, but in the end, I don’t need to move on to the rest of the sins. Because I regretted it—that’s it, I’m already someone else. Okay? Therefore I think that regret is actually the most natural component on which to hang the transition from small repentance to great repentance. Quite simply, the depth of regret determines where I am on the axis between small repentance and great repentance. When the regret is very, very superficial, then fine—I regretted a certain act that I did, I really regretted it, sort of—but not inner work, not an inner reversal and all that, but I regretted it. I checked the box. Not okay. Fine.
[Speaker B] Why not “acceptance for the future” instead of regret?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Acceptance for the future is part of regret. That’s why I said I choose regret, but not exclusively—I’m just using it as the example.
[Speaker B] What about confession? Does confession belong to technical repentance?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, confession—if you take it in a technical way, then confession is speech. What you said was about a certain sin: I sorted there, and I regret it, and I won’t do it again. If you talk about confession as reflecting, as you said earlier, a process of regret, of repentance—then yes, that too joins in. That’s why I said I hang things on regret as the parameter that moves me from small repentance to great repentance. But you can also include confession there, and also acceptance for the future, because ultimately they are all aspects of the same process.
[Speaker B] There is repentance here… he…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He doesn’t really list the four stages; Saadia Gaon lists them more explicitly, fine.
[Speaker B] He doesn’t really…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t remember him writing somewhere: leaving, regret, acceptance for the future, verbal confession. No, that procedure does not appear in Maimonides.
[Speaker B] It appears in Saadia Gaon. Ah, in Michtav MeEliyahu?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s Saadia Gaon. Saadia Gaon.
[Speaker B] But when we get to the laws of repentance, he talks about two elements.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. I’ll get there, I’ll still get to the laws of repentance. So the claim, ultimately, is that the two poles I described—and I will still continue to refer to them as two poles because it is convenient for me analytically—but we have to remember in the background that they are really two ends of a continuous axis. And on that axis you can move—say, choose regret, I don’t care, as the parameter—if regret is zero, you are at this pole; if regret is one, you are at that pole; 0.3, you are somewhere in the middle; 0.7 is also somewhere in the middle. It depends whether you are closer to this pole or the other one. Okay? Basically, p times the small regret plus 1 minus p times the great regret, where p runs from zero to one—that can move you from here to there. A kind of interpolation. So I want to claim, basically, that there is a continuum of levels. None of us is at this side or that side. Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, or that man who betrothed the woman—those are fictional figures, that’s aggadah. What the aggadah comes to teach us, in the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya—yes, what did he teach us? It comes to teach us an idea. It is a typological description that there is such a type of repentance that can work in a single hour. Now of course I don’t know how to do that—we’ll still talk about the psychological paradox of how one does that—but I don’t know how to do it. Still, it is important that this exist in our consciousness, that such a thing exists. That when we begin the process of small repentance, we should try to advance toward that pole. And therefore Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is a story that comes to place that typological model before us. Usually we will begin from the small, technical repentance, and the more we deepen the matter of regret and inner repentance, the closer we move on the axis toward Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya. And that is really the claim. Fine, maybe I’ll add one more comment—we have another two minutes. I’ll add one more comment. Many times when people speak about repentance as being beyond the strict letter of the law—right, the attribute of justice says, “Why should this be?”—that repentance is an innovation of the Holy One, blessed be He, and people say this is the attribute of mercy, repentance is the attribute of mercy, it is against justice—how can it be that someone sins and it is erased for him, and so on. I think those descriptions are all descriptions of the small repentance. They are not descriptions of the great repentance. In the great repentance, it is not against justice, it is not beyond the strict letter of the law—it is justice itself. If I have changed, there is no reason to punish some earlier phase of me that is no longer in the world. Think for one moment—think, for example, of a person, someone who wronged me, okay? Now he comes to me—we talked earlier—he comes to appease me and says, listen, I repented, I was not okay, and so on. And suppose I can see into his heart and I understand that he really, truly turned himself around; he is simply no longer the same person, he is no longer like that. I would forgive him, and clearly I would forgive him. I think that all these things—all the great praises, and we’ll still talk about this—all these matters of going beyond the strict letter of the law and special kindness and all the rest, refer to the small repentance, not the great repentance. In the small repentance, after all, you haven’t really changed. You cannot say, “I am not the same person.” We’ll still get to Maimonides—where he speaks about great repentance and where he speaks about small repentance. But “I am not the same person”—that is the great repentance. When we talk about the small repentance, you don’t really deserve for it to be erased. That is beyond the strict letter of the law. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to the weak—to those who do not manage to do the great repentance—do this procedure, and atonement will be granted to you. Fine? Beyond the strict letter of the law. But that speaks only there. The great repentance is the attribute of justice.
[Speaker B] Therefore, then, is it preferable to be someone who acquires his world in a single hour?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Preferable—if you can, yes, of course it’s preferable.
[Speaker B] And that is preferable to being completely righteous?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not clear that you need to be a complete penitent; it’s not clear that it is preferable to be a complete penitent, but—
[Speaker B] To do everything that he did.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the Or HaChaim—I’m not speaking in comparison to someone completely righteous; I’m speaking in comparison to someone who is a technical penitent. Comparisons to someone completely righteous—what does that have to do with it? Someone completely righteous doesn’t need to repent. Why is a penitent preferable to someone completely righteous? That is a topic we will deal with later. That is another topic. But right now I am talking about the comparison between two penitents, not about a penitent versus someone completely righteous.