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Table of Contents
- Two models of repentance: technical versus essential
- Proofs from the Talmud for repentance that is not a procedure
- The Maharal and the divine attributes: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “and cleanses,” and repentance for all sins
- A continuous spectrum between technical repentance and deep transformation
- Repentance as grace: Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, the Chafetz Chaim, and repentance from love versus from fear
- Ramchal: two dimensions in a commandment and a transgression, and subjective versus objective erasure
- Great repentance as justice and small repentance as grace, and the implications for the “rules” of atonement
- Maimonides: “What is complete repentance?” as the key to great repentance
- A philosophical difficulty: deliberate self-change and the dichotomy of “either me or the Holy One, blessed be He”
- “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” and the Talmudic passage of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya
- The “baal teshuvah” of today versus the “baal teshuvah” of the Sages
- The story of “the king’s son and the turkey”: dual consciousness and behavioral change
- “He is coerced until he says, ‘I want to’” and the implication for coercing a bill of divorce
- Weakness of will: Donald Davidson and the return of the difficulty of repentance
Summary
General Overview
The text distinguishes between technical-halakhic repentance and great-essential repentance, and argues that the laws of repentance deal only with the former, while the latter is an inner reversal of direction that does not depend on procedures. It brings evidence for a channel of rapid essential change from the Talmud in Kiddushin and from the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya in Avodah Zarah, and connects this to the Maharal and to the division between different names and attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He. It then contrasts the conception of repentance as grace “beyond the letter of the law” with Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s question from Kiddushin, presents different answers in the name of the Chafetz Chaim and in Ramchal, and suggests a correspondence between great repentance and repentance from love, and between small repentance and repentance from fear. Finally, it presents a philosophical-logical difficulty regarding the very demand to “change myself” and the problem of “weakness of will,” and suggests that the solution is connected to breaking the dichotomy between human action and divine help, and to the literary portrayal of helplessness in the Talmud.
Two models of repentance: technical versus essential
The text defines “technical repentance” as a halakhic mechanism of four stages for every sin: abandoning the sin, regret, resolution for the future, and confession; performing them erases that particular sin. It defines “great repentance” as a psychological reversal in which a person changes his basic direction from bad or mixed to positive, beyond an accounting sphere of commandments versus transgressions in the style of Maimonides’ classification. It argues that great repentance is not subject to precise timing, order, and details, and therefore “there is no such thing as laws of repentance with respect to great repentance,” while everything called laws of repentance belongs to small repentance. It emphasizes that essential repentance cannot be partial, because a change of direction is a change of the whole person, and therefore it is repentance for all sins, not a quantitative result of technically handling a list of sins.
Proofs from the Talmud for repentance that is not a procedure
The text cites the Talmud in Kiddushin: “You are betrothed to me on condition that I am completely righteous,” where they are concerned about the validity of the betrothal, and concludes that it is not reasonable that in such a short time he completed a technical mechanism for all his sins; therefore, there must be a way to become “completely righteous” without the procedure. It also cites the Talmud in Avodah Zarah about Elazar ben Dordaya, who cried until his soul departed and a heavenly voice declared, “Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come,” and Rabbi said, “There are those who acquire their world in one hour.” It emphasizes that there too the speed does not allow for formal treatment of every sin of a “serial offender.” It concludes that both examples illustrate an essential channel of repentance that is not the technical one.
The Maharal and the divine attributes: “The Lord, the Lord” versus “and cleanses,” and repentance for all sins
The text brings from the Maharal that perhaps the two channels of repentance correspond to two different names from the list of divine attributes, where “The Lord, the Lord” means “I am the Lord before he sins and after he sins and repents,” and this is great repentance. It identifies “and cleanses” at the end as connected to small repentance: “He cleanses those who repent, and He does not cleanse those who do not repent.” It quotes the Maharal as saying that small repentance is for some sins, while great repentance is for all sins, and explains that great repentance is not an accumulation of many small repentances but something different in essence.
A continuous spectrum between technical repentance and deep transformation
The text presents, in parentheses, a picture that is not completely dichotomous but rather a continuous spectrum in which the depth of regret and of resolution for the future determines the “breadth of repentance,” meaning how many sins a person repents for. It argues that technical repentance can be a starting point from which one digs into a specific sin, understands “why and how did I get into this situation,” and gradually expands until reaching the possibility of a real reversal that makes going sin by sin unnecessary. It includes a short discussion of the commandment of repentance according to Maimonides, in which confession is the commandment, together with talk of a halakhic obligation to repent.
Repentance as grace: Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, the Chafetz Chaim, and repentance from love versus from fear
The text cites Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman in Kovetz Ma’amarim, in the name of Mesillat Yesharim, that repentance is a “special grace” and “beyond the letter of the law,” against the background of midrashim in which the attribute of justice asks, “What is the punishment of a sinner?” and the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “Let him repent and he will be atoned for.” It challenges this from the Talmud in Kiddushin about one who was completely righteous and rebelled at the end, and from the verse in Ezekiel, “When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits wrongdoing, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered,” and asks: if repentance as erasing the past is a grace only for the good, why does regret over good deeds also erase merits? It relates that Rabbi Elchanan asked the Chafetz Chaim, and the Chafetz Chaim answered with the distinction: “This is repentance from love; that is repentance from fear,” pointing out that a righteous person who rebels is the anti-parallel of repentance from love, because he abandons it out of desire, not out of fear. It proposes the author’s own formulation, according to which great repentance parallels repentance from love and is therefore “strictly according to justice,” whereas small repentance parallels repentance from fear and therefore depends on the grace of acceptance “beyond the letter of the law.”
Ramchal: two dimensions in a commandment and a transgression, and subjective versus objective erasure
The text presents another direction in the name of Ramchal, including from Derekh Hashem, that every commandment or transgression has two aspects: obedience or rebellion against the command, and the good or bad in the act itself. It argues that regret does not erase the objective repair or damage that was done, but it can erase the subjective dimension of one’s relation to the act; thus “the dimension of rebellion” is erased according to justice, while repair of the metaphysical damage is beyond the letter of the law. It includes discussion of the Talmudic case of “one who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb” versus the inadvertent sinner, “one who wanted to eat lamb and ate pork,” and cites the rabbi of Brisk in stencil notes on Nazir, who argues that there is literally a transgression here even without lashes, with the comment that this is “far-reaching” but “very logically plausible,” by analogy to attempted murder. It concludes that according to this distinction, the righteous person who regrets his earlier good deeds lost the subjective dimension of his merits, whereas in repentance the grace lies in the fact that even the results of the sins in reality itself are erased.
Great repentance as justice and small repentance as grace, and the implications for the “rules” of atonement
The text argues that in great repentance there is no grace in its acceptance, but rather “I deserve this according to justice,” to the point of formulating it as: “If the Holy One, blessed be He, does not forgive me, I’ll sue Him in a Torah court,” because the person has changed and is no longer the same person. It argues that with repentance from fear or small repentance one can still “settle accounts” with the person, because he has not truly changed, and therefore he must meet technical rules. In response to an explicit question, it says that “no rules apply there” with regard to essential repentance, in contrast to rules such as “repentance and good deeds suspend” and so forth. It notes that sources speaking of repentance as beyond the letter of the law do not always distinguish between types of repentance, and cites Sha’arei Teshuvah at the beginning of the book with the parable of prisoners who dug a tunnel and escaped, and the claim against the one who did not escape being that he failed to use the grace that had been opened up.
Maimonides: “What is complete repentance?” as the key to great repentance
The text reads Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 2:1, “What is complete repentance?” as dealing with great repentance, because it is “not out of fear and not because of failing strength” but true change, and it cites the example of one who encounters the same sin again and refrains. It interprets the continuation of the law, “And if he repented only in his old age… although it is not superior repentance, it is effective for him,” as small repentance. It quotes from 2:2 the requirement that “the Knower of hidden things testify concerning him that he will never return to this sin again,” and argues that this is not a definition of technical regret, which no one could meet, but a definition of great repentance in which the person has changed. It brings from 2:4, “He changes his name, as if to say: I am another person and not the same man who did those deeds,” as evidence that Maimonides is speaking about an overall process of changing the person, not a procedure for a single sin.
A philosophical difficulty: deliberate self-change and the dichotomy of “either me or the Holy One, blessed be He”
The text argues that there is a “philosophical-logical problem” in the demand to change one’s basic direction, and illustrates it with a person who serves God only out of fear, who cannot be persuaded to “serve for its own sake” without changing his value system, a change that cannot be carried out from within that same system. It includes examples about arguments “according to my view” versus “according to your view,” including the paradox of the stone that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot lift, and the claim that this is not a well-defined question under the concept of “omnipotence,” as well as criticism of arguments that beg the question. It formulates the problem in repentance as a deliberate transition from values or beliefs X to Y, in which “who is the one changing and who is the one being changed,” and argues that new information leading to change is not an example of deliberate repentance but of a change that happened. It suggests that the difficulty rests on a sharp dichotomy: if a person does it alone, it is “impossible,” and if the Holy One, blessed be He, does it for him, it is “valueless”; therefore, one must break the dichotomy and understand that divine involvement can be part of human ability to choose and repent.
“Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” and the Talmudic passage of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya
The text interprets “bring us back in complete repentance before You” in two senses: in small repentance it is a request that God accept the repentance, while in great repentance it is a literal request that the Holy One, blessed be He, assist in the very making of repentance, because the person cannot generate self-change on his own. It reads the Talmud’s description of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya turning to the mountains and hills, heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars and constellations, as a literary description of searching for “an external factor” that will perform the reversal, until the conclusion, “The matter depends on no one but me,” followed by the crying and the change. It concludes that the Talmud describes helplessness in the face of great repentance and the need for divine involvement that does not replace the person but enables what is not “defined” within ordinary nature.
The “baal teshuvah” of today versus the “baal teshuvah” of the Sages
The text distinguishes between “returning in repentance” in the modern sense, which is a change of worldview from secular to religious, and the “baal teshuvah” of the Sages, who is a person who has not changed his worldview but has synchronized what he thinks with what he does. It argues that the term “to return” fits the latter, because he returns to a place to which he belonged, whereas the former “isn’t returning anywhere” but going to a different outlook. It notes that some erase the distinction on the assumption that deep down every Jew believes, and it rejects that assumption, saying that someone who does not believe “really does not believe.”
The story of “the king’s son and the turkey”: dual consciousness and behavioral change
The text recounts the story of the king’s son who declared himself a turkey and went under the table, and the wise man who took off his clothes and went down to him, then gradually led him to put on pants, a shirt, sit on a chair, and eat with knife and fork. It asks, on the one hand, whether there was real healing here, since the king’s son seemingly still sees himself as a turkey; and on the other hand, how he can identify that the wise man is a “human being” while not identifying that about himself. It resolves this through a dual consciousness in which there is an inner point that understands the truth, but layers of repression and fictitious consciousness are built in order to justify desires; the wise man works through “behaviorism,” changing behavior until the fictitious theory no longer serves the action and dissolves. It suggests that this is an interpretation of “the hearts are drawn after the deeds,” when “the hearts were already there beforehand” and the deeds dismantle the fictitious justifications.
“He is coerced until he says, ‘I want to’” and the implication for coercing a bill of divorce
The text uses the mechanism of “he is coerced until he says, ‘I want to’” to explain how changing behavior can expose a true inner will, despite the rule that a coerced bill of divorce is invalid. It explains that this is talking about a God-fearing Jew who, because of anger, builds a fictitious worldview against the religious court and justifies chaining his wife to the marriage; when coercion breaks the possibility of achieving that goal, the theory dissolves and he returns to the inner point of wanting to fulfill Jewish law. It notes a practical implication, in his view, that with someone who is not God-fearing, coercion will not work, and argues that today coercing a bill of divorce in a rabbinical court is not possible when the man is not observant, whereas with a person who generally keeps Jewish law there is a presumption that this is only a justificatory shell that has been built up.
Weakness of will: Donald Davidson and the return of the difficulty of repentance
The text presents the problem of “weakness of will” through the example of a diet and a whipped-cream cake, and cites a formulation by Donald Davidson according to which there is no situation in which a person “thinks that X is right and wants it” and nevertheless does Y, because what one does is what one wants “after all the considerations.” It argues that the only way to say “I didn’t want it” is coercion, and then “you don’t need to repent”; therefore, “there is no such thing as weak will” in a sense that justifies assigning responsibility. It concludes that if so, the baal teshuvah of the Sages does not merely synchronize deeds with beliefs, but must change desires and priorities, and thus the difficulty of deliberate self-change returns. It ends by saying that the problem of weakness of will is “a very hard problem,” and that from there one can move toward an answer “next time,” as opposed to the previous formulation.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s begin. Last time I spoke about two models of repentance. One I called technical repentance, small repentance, I don’t know exactly what to call it, and the second is great, essential repentance. Technical repentance is a kind of technical mechanism that Jewish law introduced: if a person committed a sin, he can go through four stages for each of the sins he committed, and it will be forgiven. Okay? So he needs abandonment of the sin, regret, acceptance for the future, confession, and if he does that for each of the sins he committed, it erases that particular sin. Great repentance—I described it as some kind of inner reversal. It all starts from the question of how I classify people. Do I classify them as righteous, intermediate, and wicked, in Maimonides’ way, based on how many sins versus how many commandments they have? Then basically we’re just counting, it’s like bookkeeping. In that case, the whole story operates in a very technical, formal way. Or do I ask what a person’s basic direction really is: a positive direction, a negative direction, or maybe he’s still sitting on the fence? Then the repentance that can change that condition is really changing direction—from a mixed direction or a bad direction to a positive one. And that’s what I called great repentance. My claim was that great repentance does not require all the technical conditions that small repentance requires. There is no such thing as laws of repentance with respect to great repentance. All the laws of repentance—rules, details, what yes, what no—everything deals with small repentance. Great repentance: if you did it, you did it. If you’re a different person, then you’re a different person. So there’s nothing to debate in pilpul terms—when exactly you did it, whether you did it in the right order, at the right time, not the right time. Therefore everything called laws of repentance relates only to small repentance. I brought two illustrations, proofs for this. One was from the Talmud in Kiddushin, which says: “You are betrothed to me on condition that I am completely righteous,” and we are concerned about the validity of the betrothal, even though apparently it’s a very short amount of time. It’s not reasonable that he carried out the whole technical mechanism for all his sins, and therefore apparently there’s a way to become completely righteous even without that. The uncertainty in the betrothal that we discussed is only because I simply don’t know whether he did it. But on the possibility that he did do it, then he really is completely righteous, and that’s what the Talmud says there. The other example is the Talmud in Avodah Zarah, where it talks about Elazar ben Dordaya, who sat and cried until his soul departed, and a heavenly voice came out and said, “Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come,” and Rabbi said, “There are those who acquire their world in one hour.” Meaning, there too the point is the speed—speed meaning in some short span of time, but not something that really lets you go through the whole formal procedure for each of the sins you committed, certainly not for a serial offender like Elazar ben Dordaya. So I think those two examples illustrate, or show, that we have another channel of repentance—not the technical channel, but the essential one. We saw in the Maharal that apparently two different names from the list of the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, are responsible for this: “The Lord, the Lord”—“I am the Lord before he sins and after he sins and repents”—that is great repentance. And “and cleanses,” which appears at the end, is small repentance: “He cleanses those who repent, and He does not cleanse those who do not repent.” And we saw there in the Maharal that he says small repentance is for some of the sins, while great repentance is for all the sins. And I talked about the fact that essential repentance, in principle, cannot be done for only some sins. The moment you really change direction, then your direction is different. It isn’t dealing with one specific sin or another specific sin; it’s dealing with you. And once you’ve changed, you’ve changed with respect to all the sins you committed. You’re simply someone else, someone different—“different” is already Maimonides’ language, which maybe takes it a little too far. You’re someone different. Therefore, in that state, this is essentially repentance for all the sins. It isn’t the same as doing small repentance for each sin until in the end I’ve gone through all of them. That still isn’t great repentance. The difference isn’t quantitative. Right? That’s really the claim. Therefore “and cleanses” means He cleanses those who repent, and those who do not repent He does not cleanse. For sins for which you did the procedure—you were atoned for. For sins for which you didn’t—you weren’t. I said in parentheses that I’m presenting here a dichotomous picture between two techniques of repentance, whereas really you could place them at the two ends of a continuous spectrum: the stronger the regret or the future commitment is—the deeper the change—the broader the repentance, meaning the broader the range of sins for which you’re repenting. If you do it in a completely technical way, where the regret is basically technical, then you don’t really undergo any change. Do you really regret it, or do you not really regret it? You understand that what you did was wrong, you regret it, and you move on. You do that for each sin—that’s the technical pole. The more you really start digging and seeing just how wrong you were, how much you need to change, and decide to change, and so on—the deeper it becomes, the more you move along that spectrum toward great repentance. And therefore it may even be that this is the way to arrive at great repentance. You begin with small repentance. Take one particular sin you committed, try to get into what happened there—why, how did I get to that point, what am I supposed to change so that I won’t be in that situation again. And gradually, the more you dig into that particular sin, you broaden the picture, and maybe you can arrive at some genuine reversal, a genuine spiritual reversal. And then you no longer need to continue to the rest of the sins. Meaning, if you managed to get there, then you are different, and the story is over.
[Speaker C] Is that because those repentances are included
[Speaker B] in a positive commandment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Maimonides there is no positive commandment.
[Speaker B] Confession is the commandment. An obligation. An obligation. But there is still an obligation. Even a halakhic obligation to repent. And again, yes. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And within that obligation. I want for a moment to keep going and get a bit deeper into these two mechanisms, because behind them there are several very fundamental points. Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, in Kovetz Ma’amarim, has an essay on repentance. And there he opens with a statement from Mesillat Yesharim, which also appears elsewhere, that repentance is some kind of special grace that the Holy One, blessed be He, did for us. Basically, yes, the well-known midrashim in which the attribute of justice says, “What is the punishment of a sinner?” right? And then the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “Let him repent and he will be atoned for.” Meaning, somehow, according to justice, this shouldn’t have worked. You sinned—that’s what there is. You can’t rewrite history. So according to justice there is no room for repentance. That’s why there are midrashim that say repentance preceded the world. Indeed, it isn’t subject to the regular rules that operate in our world. That statement—that repentance is something beyond the letter of the law, some special grace. About this, Rabbi Elchanan asks there in his essay, from a Talmudic passage in Kiddushin. Another Talmudic passage in Kiddushin says that if there is a completely righteous person who rebels at the end, then he loses his merits. The Talmud asks: why shouldn’t he be regarded as half and half? Meaning, why did he lose his merits? What he does from here on he should be punished for, but the merits he earned should still get him the credit he deserves. Why does he lose the…
[Speaker B] There’s a verse in Ezekiel, a verse in Ezekiel chapter 18: “When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and does wrong, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. So he lost his merits—that’s what it says here. And the question is why. So the Talmud says: because he regrets the earlier ones. Meaning, if he simply stops being righteous and from here on continues in another path, then indeed it would be half and half. What does half and half mean? It means his merits remain merits, his liabilities remain liabilities, and each thing is judged on its own. If he regrets the earlier ones—regrets the good things he did—then he loses even those. So then he has no good things left, so he’s wicked, completely wicked, yes. So Rabbi Elchanan says this: if erasure—meaning, regret over actions already done—cannot according to justice erase them, and it is only beyond the letter of the law that the Holy One, blessed be He, accepts our repentance, then that should work only in the direction of returning in repentance, not in the direction of going back out of religion. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not go beyond the letter of the law in order to make things worse, right? “He inclines toward grace,” as it says. The inclination is only toward grace; judgment, for the bad, follows the strict line of the law. To benefit, the Holy One, blessed be He, acts beyond the letter of the law. So if when I regret an action I did, the act is not erased according to justice, and it is only beyond the letter of the law that the Holy One, blessed be He, accepts my repentance, then in the opposite direction, when I regret a good deed—sorry, a good deed that I did—that should leave that deed in place and not erase it, because there is no beyond-the-letter-of-the-law in order to do harm. That’s basically his question. He says there that he asked this to the Chafetz Chaim—or a student of the Chafetz Chaim asked it to the Chafetz Chaim—and the Chafetz Chaim said to him: this is repentance from love; that is repentance from fear. Right? Think about it: what corresponds to a righteous person who rebelled at the end—to repentance from love or repentance from fear? Anti-corresponds, right? Meaning, what does he anti-correspond to? Someone who rebelled—what is that parallel to? Someone who returned in repentance from love or from fear? He rebelled because he no longer wants to do it. From love? Right, not from fear. A person doesn’t abandon commandments he kept out of fear. If he abandons them, he simply doesn’t want them anymore. He truly doesn’t want them. He decides on a different direction in life. He doesn’t want it. It’s not that he says, “Oh no, what a horror, why did I do all those good deeds”—that’s not plausible, that usually doesn’t happen. Okay? Therefore, the righteous person who rebelled at the end is parallel—the anti-parallel—to repentance from love. Therefore he says: repentance from love, according to justice, erases previous deeds. Repentance from fear is beyond the letter of the law. Therefore the Talmud in Kiddushin is not difficult, because it is talking about repentance from love. Okay? Meaning, real regret, and there from the standpoint of strict law you lose your previous deeds. Ramchal goes in a somewhat different direction. He talks there about—he wants to claim, and he also brings this from Derekh Hashem—that in every commandment or transgression there are two aspects. There is the aspect of obedience or rebellion against the command, and there is the bad or good in the act itself, because of which we were commanded. Okay? So if I fulfilled a commandment of the Holy One, blessed be He, then, as it were, first, there is some positive repair here—that’s why it’s a commandment—and second, I also obeyed the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Two things. If I violate a command of the Holy One, blessed be He, then first, the act itself is problematic, it has some sort of spiritual damage, I don’t know exactly what, and second, I also rebelled against the command. Now he says: if a person regrets an act he did, then the act that was done was done. The repair or the damage in that act exists. Your regret should not do anything there. But the subjective dimension—my relation to the act—is erased if I change that relation. And the fact that I wanted to, or I rebelled against the Holy One, blessed be He, and now I repent—then the dimension of rebellion in it, that really is erased according to justice. Cleansing the metaphysical, spiritual damage that took place there—that according to justice is not erased; that is beyond the letter of the law. So he wants to claim that what is not erased is always—the sinner did something; it was done. There’s no changing that. The act itself and its results—there’s nothing to do. But he says there’s another dimension in every transgression or commandment. The additional dimension is the subjective question, the criminal intent on the negative side or the positive intent on the positive side—basically, how I related to the matter. Did I rebel against the Holy One, blessed be He, or did I obey the Holy One, blessed be He? That is already the dimension of what my attitude was to what happened there. Now here, if I change my attitude, then, he says, that also erases my previous attitude, because I now simply do not belong to what happened there at all. Meaning, I am now something else. That is according to justice. The repair of the act is beyond the letter of the law. That basically should not happen just because I regret it. That’s his proposal—not like the Chafetz Chaim, this is his proposal. And then he wants to claim that the righteous person—the wicked person, not the righteous one—who rebelled and regrets the earlier good deeds, really lost the subjective dimension, but the commandments he has are commandments; what was done was done. And in repentance, the grace that is beyond the letter of the law is that not only is my criminality erased, but my transgressions themselves are erased—even in reality itself. He brings there—there is a very interesting discussion there—about someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb. Right? A person—there are a few examples in the Talmud in Nazir—someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb. So basically he had criminal intent when he ate, so he rebelled against a command of the Holy One, blessed be He. But in practice he is not only wicked; he’s also a fool, meaning he doesn’t even know how to be a sinner. So he wants to eat pork, and he ate lamb. So in practice nothing happened, but the subjective dimension exists. In contrast, what’s the opposite case? The inadvertent sinner. In the inadvertent case, yes—someone who wanted to eat lamb and ate pork. Okay? So with inadvertence the subjective dimension is absent; there is no rebellion against God’s will. But there is the objective dimension, and the Talmud there discusses how exactly to weigh those two things. On the simple reading of the Talmud there, it seems that the practical result is the transgression, and the subjective dimension is some sort of condition. But if the subjective dimension is present and the transgression did not actually happen at all, then from the halakhic point of view nothing happened. Spiritually not good, maybe, I don’t know—but from the halakhic point of view nothing happened. The rabbi of Brisk, in the stencil notes on Nazir, wants to argue that there is literally a transgression here. He violated it. Someone who intended to eat pork and ended up eating lamb violated the prohibition of pork. He just doesn’t get lashes. Because for lashes, it also has to happen in practice. And he claims that he violated the prohibition of pork. That seems to me very far-reaching, not plausible, not plausible in the sources. Very plausible logically.
[Speaker B] Because understand what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] what is the difference between attempted murder and murder? Is someone who attempted murder less wicked than a murderer? He’s just more of an idiot. Less lucky or less successful. But there’s no difference at all in wickedness between them; they’re both murderers. In his case the firing pin just happened to be defective. That’s all. So why punish this one less than that one? Meaning, from the standpoint of logic, he is completely right. Meaning, criminality in its essence is only the dimension of intent. It’s not the act as such. If it happened without intent, that’s not what matters. If it happened with intent, then the intent is what makes it a transgression. Obviously. No, that’s something else, because there the context is different. No, I’m not talking about that. The context is different. I’m talking about—the context is part of the act. I’m talking about intent in the subjective dimension. So yes. Right. Because that is according to justice. But he did not lose his merits; his merits—what was done was done. But in repentance, according to justice, the subjective dimension of criminality really is erased. And there too there is grace beyond the letter of the law, because what is erased is also the results. Okay? By the way, once I talked about this and some Jew asked me—he didn’t understand Rabbi Elchanan’s question at all. What kind of question is that? Think about it—I grabbed my head when he asked that. How crooked the analytical minds are. He says to me: you go to the bank manager, you have a positive balance of a thousand shekels in your account. You say to him, listen, you have a wonderful bank, yes, country bank. So take the thousand shekels, buy something for the benefit of the bank employees, and convey to them my appreciation. Very nice, shake hands, part as friends. The next day someone else comes in, he has a negative balance of a thousand in the bank. He says, listen, I really like this bank, so I bequeath my negative thousand shekels to the bank employees. Or you know what? No, the bank employees are terrible. I’m giving them my negative thousand shekels, and convey to them my deep lack of appreciation. Is that analogous? Obviously you can waive a positive balance that you have, but how can you waive a negative balance that you have? Can someone waive his debt? You can waive a credit, you can’t waive a debt. So what’s the question? If I have merits and I give them up, I go out of religion—I lost them, I had a positive balance. But if I have sins, I’m wicked, and now I repent—I give up the sins in favor of the Holy One, blessed be He? Oh, nice—so just as one can waive merits, one can also waive sins. That’s Rabbi Elchanan’s difficulty, right? What’s the connection? Of course you can waive merits; you can’t waive debt. So what kind of difficulty is that? There is—okay, you can explain it, there is a strained way to raise the question, so to speak. You can explain why there is still a question here, but it’s just interesting. You’re probably all too analytical yourselves, because you didn’t jump when I asked this question. But it should jump out at you; there’s something here that needs explanation. The question is a strange one. Okay, back to the point. What?
[Speaker B] Why do you say that? There?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That it’s a transgression that didn’t—not take effect?
[Speaker B] You can’t waive your debt! Exactly! No, so what’s the question?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He asks: why are you telling me that repentance is a novelty? After all, a righteous person who rebels at the end also loses his merits. What’s the difficulty? Because on a positive balance you can waive, forgive, but on a negative balance you can’t waive. So what’s the question?
[Speaker B] Isn’t that a question?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s a question on Rabbi Elchanan! Rabbi Elchanan raised a difficulty: how can you tell me that a penitent is beyond the letter of the law? It has to be according to strict law. Why? Because apparently it works on the positive side too—waiving the positive side. What kind of proof is that? On the positive side, that can’t… You can’t waive a negative balance. Waiving a positive balance—obviously you can. Therefore the Talmud in Kiddushin isn’t difficult. But do you want to say that because of that, waiving my liabilities is also according to justice? That I don’t need beyond-the-letter-of-the-law to explain repentance? What kind of proof is that? In any case, what I want to formulate, in my own language, is closer to what the Chafetz Chaim said. But I want to make this distinction. I think it’s the same thing, just a different language. In essence, repentance from love is great repentance. Great repentance is a reversal—I basically decide to become someone else. That’s more or less what is called repentance from love. Therefore, indeed, with repentance from love, this is according to strict justice. If you changed, then you changed. Why should I settle accounts with you over what used to be? That’s already dead, it no longer exists in the world. But if you didn’t change, and you’re doing technical repentance, repentance from fear, then you didn’t truly change. Your direction is the same direction; you’re afraid. So you do technical repentance. You didn’t really change. Do you understand that this is basically quite parallel to the distinction between repentance from love and repentance from fear? So repentance from fear really cannot, according to justice, erase what was, and there you need grace, beyond the letter of the law. Okay, that seems to me to be the meaning of what the Chafetz Chaim says. But according to this, it really follows that in great repentance there is no grace at all—this is something I deserve according to justice. If the Holy One, blessed be He, does not forgive me, I’ll sue Him in a Torah court. If I changed, then how can You settle accounts with me over something that no longer exists in the world? In repentance from fear, or in small repentance, you can say: I am settling accounts with you, because you didn’t truly change. You are still carrying on your back all the baggage you accumulated. Okay, so let’s see whether you did it according to the rules properly, and if not, then not. You chose a technical path, so work in a technical way. But in great repentance, there it’s not grace. There it is something that belongs to me by right. Let’s say if I killed
[Speaker B] someone, then when I changed, that’s not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? I didn’t kill him—someone else did. That person no longer exists in the world, the one who killed him. “I am not the same man,” as Maimonides writes. What do you want from me? Let’s say, don’t look at it on the legal level like a religious court, because on the legal level you can say that since he murdered, we want to deter others; we have some social considerations. Let’s talk about a specific person that I judge individually, that’s all, without social implications. Okay? Now I’m saying: if some individual had done me some kind of wrong, and I knew that inwardly he was truly entirely different, that he had changed, that he completely regretted it, that he simply was not there at all anymore—obviously I would forgive him. You don’t need to be some special master of grace for that. On the contrary, if you don’t forgive him, then there’s something problematic in you. Right? That’s what I would expect of anyone. We don’t always know whether repentance is genuine; we have no way of knowing what is in a person’s heart. But assuming we knew—and the Holy One, blessed be He, does know. Assuming we knew, then yes—what do you mean? What do you want from him? It’s gone. What happened there is no longer in the world.
[Speaker B] Wait, and also with essential repentance, do the things we usually talk about not apply—what Maimonides says, repentance and good deeds suspend, and then death, and all that—just all of it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—
[Speaker B] none of—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in my opinion, no rules apply there. No rules apply there.
[Speaker B] Nothing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As if he’s atoned for on the spot? Yes, yes, on the spot, assuming he really went through that change. Now, usually in all these places where you see that repentance is beyond the letter of the law, like that midrash I mentioned—”The sinner—wisdom was asked, what is his punishment,” and so on—it doesn’t look like they make distinctions there between different kinds of repentance. Repentance is just some kind of thing, an act that took place in the world—after all, an act took place in the world—so what, how can you erase it from the world? It seems that the statement here is one that doesn’t distinguish between different kinds of repentance. There’s also in Shaarei Teshuva, at the beginning of the book, he brings a parable there—you know what, the prison minister and the tunnel—that the prisoners in the prison dug there, excavated a tunnel and escaped, and one stayed there. The prison minister comes in and says to him: look, there’s a dug tunnel right in front of you and you didn’t leave? He says: they gave you a process of repentance beyond the letter of the law; the Holy One, blessed be He, opened a way for you to repent, and you don’t use it? Meaning, as if some kind of claim is being made against you. Meaning, there you see that really there is some kind of special kindness from the Holy One, blessed be He, in the very fact that He dug this tunnel for us in the first place. The fact that we even have the option to repent. And now I want to make the following claim. Let’s take a look for a moment. Maimonides in chapter 2, halakha 1, of the laws of repentance—yes, this is the Maimonides I mentioned before, “I am not the same person,” wait. Chapter 2, chapter 2, halakha 1: What is complete repentance? It is when the matter in which he sinned comes again to his hand, and he is able to do it, and he separates and does not do it because of repentance—not out of fear, and not because his strength has failed. Notice, he asks: what is complete repentance? I claim that he is talking about the great repentance, complete repentance. And what is that? That he does it not out of fear—repentance from love—and not because his strength has failed, but genuinely because he has changed. How so? Suppose he had intercourse with a woman in a transgression, and after some time he is secluded with her, and he still loves her, and his bodily strength is intact, and he is in the same place where he sinned—yes, everything is in place—and yet he separates and does not sin: this is a complete penitent. This is what Solomon said: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” And if he repented only in his old age, at a time when he is unable to do what he once did, even though this is not an excellent repentance, it is effective for him, and he is a penitent. That is the small repentance. Okay? And even if he sinned all his days, and repented on the day of his death, and died in repentance, all his sins are forgiven, as it says, “Before the sun grows dark,” and so on. Halakha 2: And what is repentance? That the sinner abandon his sin, remove it from his thoughts, and resolve in his heart never to do it again, as it says, “Let the wicked forsake his way,” and he should regret what has passed, as it says, “After I returned, I regretted,” and the Knower of secrets shall testify concerning him that he will never return to this sin again. I want to claim that this is not a condition in the regret of technical repentance. None of us is there. It would be impossible to repent if that were really the definition of what regret means, because regret is one of the four stages of technical repentance. This is the definition of the great repentance. This whole chapter is speaking about great repentance. He says: when the Knower of secrets testifies concerning him that he will never return to this sin again—the meaning is that he has changed. How did Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya reach that point?
[Speaker B] He was standing at the entrance to the prostitute’s house, right? Yes, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ask him, why are you asking me?
[Speaker B] Right, and he cried and all that, right, and he changed, and he changed, that’s it. No, but didn’t you say—you can’t say about him that if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —he had stood and gotten to that situation… Why can’t I say that about him?
[Speaker B] Of course I can say it about him, and I do say it, not only that I can say it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What’s the problem? I don’t understand, what kind of objection is that? That if you have to prove it—
[Speaker B] I don’t have to prove anything! The Holy One, blessed be He, saw Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya and said that he was a complete penitent. So that’s what the Holy One, blessed be He, claimed, that’s all. It is revealed before Heaven, and so on. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly—he was able to do it. Correct. No, what do you mean, Dordaya could have done it? I don’t understand, I don’t understand—Dordaya, what are you really talking about? It’s possible… I don’t have to prove anything, I’m not judging Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya. If I had to assess him, the indication would be a thought experiment. If he were standing in that same situation, and so on, in his current state—would he commit the sin? That’s the question. The Holy One, blessed be He, saw that he would not, that’s all. So he is a complete penitent. What, does the Holy One, blessed be He, now have to take him to all the places he used to go and check whether he sins? I don’t know what is in his heart, so they tell me: what’s the indication?
[Speaker B] That the same sin comes to him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In short, fine, okay, think—if you… no actual experiment is needed. There’s a very novel Sefat Emet, and even this novelty is disputed. What you’re saying is definitely not correct. The Sefat Emet wants to claim that one may return to such places only in order to check that one is truly a genuine penitent, because usually you are forbidden to enter a place where you will cause yourself to stumble. Okay? Nobody says you are obligated to do that—that’s absurd. It’s an indication, a thought experiment. How do I know that I am a complete penitent? If in that state I would stand in the same situation—that is the sign. So no, and I would not sin—that is the meaning of a true penitent. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, checks whether I am a true penitent or not, He doesn’t need to run experiments on me; He checks and sees whether I am a true penitent or not. And He checked Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, not me. So after that, halakha 3—not important—halakha 4: Among the ways of repentance is that one should now cry out constantly before God with weeping and supplications, and give charity according to his ability, and distance himself greatly from the thing in which he sinned, and change his name, meaning: I am someone else, and not the same person who did those deeds; and change all his actions for the good and to the straight path; and go into exile from his place, for exile… You understand that this is not the technical repentance for one sin—regret, acceptance for the future, confession, and so on. Clearly not. He is speaking here about a person who has done complete repentance, and that person declares about himself: I am not the same person I was there. Now here this is an important point. I want to go a bit more deeply into this situation of great repentance. Look. Suppose a person is in the negative direction, or a mixed direction, and now he wants to make a change. There is a logical-philosophical problem in making such a change. Why? Try for a moment—physicists, you know, who want to discuss and analyze a donkey, to understand how a donkey works, begin with a point-donkey. They begin with a point-donkey and then add all kinds of things to it. So now I’ll take a point-penitent, or a point-person. What does that mean? A person who has a value system that includes only one value. A toy model, that is, a toy model, okay? Just to illustrate the point. Suppose I’m a person who serves God out of fear: maximum reward, minimum punishment. That is my one and only motto in life. Okay? That’s me. I’m careful with every minor and major thing; there isn’t a single paragraph in the Mishnah Berurah that I missed. Everything. Because I want maximum reward, minimum punishment. Okay? That’s me. Can anyone persuade me to start serving for its own sake? For its own sake? Yes. If—
[Speaker B] Unless the value system changes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right now—that’s the given—I am that person. And now you want to try to persuade me to serve for its own sake. How would you do it? There’s no way, right? There’s no way to do it. Because when you try to persuade me, you have to speak to me on my terms, right? At most you can tell me that if I serve for its own sake I’ll get more reward, because that’s the only thing that motivates me: I want maximum reward, minimum punishment. That reminds me of Adam HaKohen, you know, who wanted to repent on his deathbed in order to refute the rabbinic statement that even at the entrance to Gehenna the wicked do not repent. Meaning, there are things you simply can’t do. Meaning, on your own terms you’re trapped within your own terms. You can’t do it, right? So if you want to change my basic value, there is no way to do it. You can’t persuade me to do that. Now obviously this is not true only in the case of the point-donkey, yes? Only in the case of a person who has a single value. Even a person who has ten values in his world, or a thousand values in his world—it makes no difference in principle. Those thousand values are what he has. Now you want him to change his conduct. How do you even begin talking to such a person? You know, it’s like with the stone that God cannot lift. You know that sophistic trick? The flaw in that paradox, or apparent paradox, is that you’re speaking to me both on my terms and not on my terms. If I believe in God as an omnipotent being, okay? Now you come and try to attack that claim. You want to show me that He can’t be omnipotent. Really you’re attacking the concept of omnipotence; it has nothing specifically to do with God. But you want to prove to me that He is not omnipotent. So what do you say to me? Can He create a stone that He cannot lift?
[Speaker B] If He can’t lift it—if He can create a stone and He can’t lift it, then He’s not omnipotent, there’s a stone He can’t lift. If He can’t create it, again He’s not omnipotent. So either way, He’s not omnipotent. Which is what had to be proven. Where’s the mistake?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A logical contradiction. The answer is: no, He cannot lift a stone that He cannot lift, and He is still omnipotent, because it’s a logical contradiction. You can’t say that two plus two equals five. Wait. You probably mean something we’ll get to in a moment. Fine, come on, let’s pause for a second—this is only an example.
[Speaker B] It simply doesn’t connect.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. The point is this: when you speak to me, you have to speak to me on my terms, not on yours. Now, if on my terms the Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent, then “a stone that the omnipotent being cannot lift” is a meaningless string of words. It’s like asking me whether the Holy One, blessed be He, can make a square triangle. Can He? No. It’s not that He can’t; it’s just irrelevant, the question is not defined. Explain to me the concepts involved in that question, and I’ll be happy to try to answer it. But I don’t understand what you’re asking—what is a square triangle? The answer is neither yes nor no; the answer is that what you said is nonsense. Now, if the Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent, then to ask me whether He can create a stone that He cannot lift is nonsense on my terms. You assume that He is not omnipotent, so it’s well-defined on your terms. But when you ask me, you have to ask me on my terms, and on my terms, if He is omnipotent, what does it mean to say “a stone that the omnipotent being cannot lift”? It’s like a square triangle; it’s just a meaningless string of words. So I bring this as an example of the fact that when you attack someone, you have to attack him on his own terms, not on yours. But on his own terms you can’t attack him unless he has an internal contradiction. You can expose to him the fact that he has some internal contradiction in his doctrine, but you can’t come with arguments to a person on the basis of your assumptions. If you want to persuade him, you have to come on the basis of his assumptions. And where do we know that every Jew has to wear a hat? You know this one? It says, “And Abraham went”—there, there—and a Jew like him certainly didn’t walk without a hat. So if Abraham walked with a hat, then we, who walk in his ways, also have to walk with a hat. Which is what had to be proven. What’s wrong with that argument? Nothing. A valid argument, everything is fine, an excellent argument.
[Speaker B] Except what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It begs the question. What does that mean? The conclusion that you want to prove is actually serving as one of the premises of the argument. “A Jew like him didn’t walk without a hat”—what is the subtext, really? That every Jew has to walk with a hat, right? Meaning, the very conclusion you want to prove you inserted into the premises. Okay, but begging the question is not a fallacy. Every valid argument begs the question.
[Speaker C] There’s some Hasidic story, or something more popular, that once someone entered the study hall of Abaye and Rava, and suddenly he goes in and sees no one there, and says: who was that, Abraham our forefather?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. My uncle says that Abaye and Rava studied in Yiddish. Abaye and Rava studied in Yiddish—after all, they came to learn. Fine, that’s a Hasidic anachronism. What? I can’t hear. What? That’s how it is—they don’t really believe it, it’s some kind of ethos. Anyway, the claim is: what is the problem with an argument that begs the question? The problem with an argument that begs the question is that it’s not useful, not that there’s something… it’s not a fallacy, it’s just not useful. Why? Because if I want to persuade someone to wear a hat, then the premise, the point of departure, is that he thinks a Jew does not have to wear a hat, and I think he does. Now when I build an argument that is supposed to persuade him that he is mistaken, and persuade him that a Jew has to wear a hat, if one of the premises on which that argument is based is the premise that every Jew has to wear a hat—which is precisely the premise under dispute between us—then by definition you will not succeed in persuading him. So why bring the argument? You’re bringing an argument based on your assumptions, not on his. If you wanted to persuade him, you would have to base yourself on his assumptions, not yours. That is the problem with an argument that begs the question. The argument itself is a valid argument, it is perfectly fine. The whole problem is that it begs the question: it starts from my assumptions and not from his assumptions, and therefore it is simply an ineffective argument. Not that there’s some logical problem with it. Every valid argument begs the question; that’s why it is valid. A logically valid argument always begs the question. So in short, what I want to say is that when you address a person and try to persuade him, you have to start from his point of departure. Persuade him on his own terms. On your own terms, I need to show you that the conclusion follows, and so forth—not on my own terms. It doesn’t help to build an argument on my own terms. This is part of the problem, by the way, with analytic Talmudic learning, but it’s an inherent problem. When you explain Maimonides on his terms and the Rashba on his terms—now, an objection that Maimonides would raise against the Rashba, or vice versa, doesn’t matter—you’ll resolve the Rashba by saying that he has some assumption different from Maimonides. But if so, then Maimonides is attacking him on the basis of an assumption that is not his assumption but Maimonides’ assumption. So in short, this style of learning turns all of… all analytic learning into a dialogue of the deaf. Each one speaks on his own terms, and he spoke on his own terms, and everyone is right, everyone fits all the sources, and everything is wonderful—but the exchange between them is pointless. They shouldn’t speak to each other at all. Let each one write himself a book and enjoy himself, each man in his own way. Fine. So for our purposes, in short, when you want to persuade someone you have to address him from his own point of departure. Except that from his point of departure, he also starts. You want him to change; you want him to change in conclusion without changing his point of departure? But that conclusion is exactly what follows from his present point of departure. So what does it mean to demand of a person that he change, that he repent? Or you know what—not even demand it. A person demands it of himself. I’m not talking now about standing opposite him; he decides now: I want to repent. What does it mean, “I want to repent”? It means what? That I should change my point of departure? What does it mean, “I will change my point of departure”? Who is the changer and who is the one being changed? I am the collection of points of departure I currently have. And now I come and change my own points of departure. Suppose I serve not for its own sake, as I said before. Now I decide to repent and start serving for its own sake. Now, if I’ve changed, that can happen. A person does sometimes change his opinions, as Moshe Dayan said, only donkeys don’t change their minds. But if that happens to you—that you changed your mind—you changed your mind, no problem. But in repentance you are required to change your mind. You are supposed to come proactively and change your mind. But that’s absurd. If that is your view, then how can you proactively come and change? If it’s already proactive, then it means your view has already changed, because after all you decided to change your view—that means you already believe that the new view is the correct one. So it has already changed. A proactive process of repentance, in which a person is required to repent, is a process that is apparently absurd. Not defined.
[Speaker C] The question is whether a person changes his view. A person who was in some reality and committed a sin—he doesn’t change his view about whether the sin is good or not; he simply decides not to do it anymore.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He didn’t change his mind. Okay, I’m getting to that in a moment. Fine, one second. But before I get to that—
[Speaker B] But it’s obvious that there is a change of mind. Right, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, no. There is a change of mind; there is no proactive change of mind. A person can change his mind if he reaches the conclusion that he was wrong, no problem. But you demand of a person during the Ten Days of Repentance—do… what does it mean, “repent”? If I already think the new way, then I have already repented, and if I don’t think it, then what—make myself think what I don’t think? Who is supposed to cause that? The one who is supposed to cause it is someone who does not think it is true—so who is the changer and who is the changed here? There is some logical problem here. The problem is in proactive change, not in the fact that changes can happen. But how can a person be called upon to perform proactive change? Okay. Now, before I get to your question, which in philosophy is called weakness of will, I want to make one more remark here. What is really the focal point of the problem here in this matter? Or maybe before that. I spoke about two types of repentance. In technical repentance, it’s clear to us what the special kindness in it is: that it is accepted. Because you didn’t really change; you performed some procedure and the Holy One, blessed be He, is willing to forgive you. So that’s clear—beyond the letter of the law—that the repentance is accepted. My claim is that in the great repentance, what is beyond the letter of the law is that it can even be done at all, not that it is accepted. If it is accepted, that is justice, by law; it is not beyond the letter of the law. But on the face of it, according to the simple view, it is simply something undefined—you can’t do it. And therefore there is some kind of special kindness here in the very fact that we are even allowed to do such a thing. In a moment I’ll try to elaborate a bit more. Meaning, the kindness is that they dug this tunnel for us in the first place, not that if we went out then they receive us. That’s in the small repentance, where there is no principled problem in doing it. If I did it, I don’t deserve to be accepted—but beyond the letter of the law, I am accepted. But in the great repentance, if I did it, then accepting me is the letter of the law. But the very fact that it can even be done—here there is something against the rules, something illogical. Now, what is the root of the matter? What is the root of the problem here? The problem is that I am required to change myself, which is a sentence we are very used to, but… it is a very problematic sentence. What does it mean, “I will change myself”? If I already think—from system X, a conceptual system X, to conceptual system Y—if I already think Y is correct, then I have already changed. But if I think X is correct, then why would I now come proactively and replace what I think is correct, and now think that Y is correct? Why on earth? I, the changer, also think X is correct—not only the one being changed, but also the one doing the changing. So why would I, who think X is correct, perform some act that replaces what I think with my thinking Y? After all, I really think X. So there is some problem here, which perhaps once I thought about phrasing—and you asked last time about “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You”—up to the point I get to, and here now I’m getting to it. One of the assumptions we make when I present the difficulty here is that basically I stand by myself, and the question is how—yes—how a person frees himself from prison. How do I pull myself up, like Baron Munchausen, by the hair on my head and pull myself out of the pit? But perhaps one could say that someone from outside really does it for me—the Holy One, blessed be He. But even that doesn’t work. Why?
[Speaker D] Because if He did it, I received new information and moved from X to Y. So He changed him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about a proactive transition. I’m not talking about the mere fact that he changed. That can change, for example, as a result of information, no problem. But then he changed. I’m talking about a proactive act of moving from beliefs X, from values X, to values Y.
[Speaker B] No—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you have new information, then you’ve already moved. What do you need—
[Speaker B] You moved to system Y, now you think Y.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And on the basis of the new information he moved to Y—so what does it mean that you are required to repent? You’re not required to repent; you simply did. New information came to you, and now you think Y instead of previously thinking X; now you think Y. That is not an act of repentance. An act of repentance is: I am currently in a given state, I think X, and now I am required to perform an act of moving to Y. Not that it happens to me because I got new information or for any other reason. I said: a change in positions or values can happen. The problem is in a proactive change of values or positions. That, I don’t see how it happens. Now I’m saying: apparently there is here an argument of either way. Why? Because if I do it to myself, it’s impossible, as I said before. If the Holy One, blessed be He, does it to me, then yes, it’s possible—just as He created me, He can also change me. But then it is worthless. After all, I am required to repent; if He performs repentance on me, then He repented, not me. So that also cannot be the explanation of the demand to repent. So you see that this difficulty sits on a kind of dichotomous view that says: either I do it to myself, and then it isn’t possible, or the Holy One, blessed be He, does it to me, and then it is worthless. But the question is whether one can really look at those two options so sharply as distinct options. Maybe my action is not completely disconnected from the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He. He too is involved in certain things that I do. It is an action that is neither entirely internal nor entirely external, but rather He helps me do something to myself. Or something like that. Now I don’t have a positive explanation; all of this is just negative phrasing. I only want to claim that this difficulty—I’ll later propose something a little different—this difficulty stems from that dichotomous view, that either I do it or the Holy One, blessed be He, does it. If I give up the dichotomy, then perhaps this difficulty can disappear. And of course I’m saying this by way of negation—I’m not explaining how it disappears, because I don’t know how to explain it. I only say that the difficulty as I formulated it rests on a very sharp distinction between when I do the action and when the Holy One, blessed be He, does the action. And if I understand that somehow my ability to choose—or to choose to repent, to make decisions, to regret, all the things we talked about before—rests on some involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, within this whole matter, because according to ordinary nature such things cannot happen, then perhaps there really is here a breaking of that dichotomy. Because it is not either He or I, but rather some power of mine that is drawn from Him. Now exactly how the division works I do not know how to say, because when you try to go in and define definitions, I think you won’t manage to emerge with a definition that solves the problem, because we are always drawn either to “I did it” or to “He did it.” I don’t know, except to say both together, but that’s just a general statement. But I do think that the difficulty definitely rests, among other things, on this assumption—that it’s either me or Him—and if that assumption is not precise, then maybe there is something a bit different here. What does “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You” mean? So “bring us back in complete repentance before You” can be interpreted as: accept our repentance, bring us back to You after we have repented—that is, accept the repentance that we performed. That is true of the small repentance. The small repentance is a special kindness: we did it, and we ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to accept the repentance, and the kindness is that He accepts the repentance. And in the great repentance, I think it should be read literally. “Bring us back in complete repentance before You” means: I can’t manage to change; I don’t understand what it means to change myself; You have to help me make this move. You have to take part in the very act of repentance itself. Look at the—
[Speaker C] Give me new information?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not information. Rather, I don’t know, You have to give me that energy required for self-change. I don’t know exactly how to formulate it. I said, I don’t know how to formulate it positively; I’m only trying to diagnose where the problem comes from. The problem comes from the dichotomy. What is the solution? I don’t know how to formulate it. Look, I’ll show you meanwhile—in a moment there’ll be a slightly different formulation. Look at the Talmudic passage of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya; I think it’s really illuminating. One second, one second, we’re getting there, I’m getting there now. You anticipated me. So here—now look at what he did. So the Talmud there regarding Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya says that he committed every sin in the world. She said, “Just as this breath does not return to its place, so Elazar ben Dordaya is not accepted in repentance.” He went and sat between two mountains and hills. He said: mountains and hills, ask mercy for me. They said to him: before we ask for you,
[Speaker B] we should ask for ourselves.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He said: heaven and earth, ask mercy for me. They said: before we ask for you, we should ask for ourselves.
[Speaker B] He said: sun and moon, ask—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —mercy for me. They said to him: before we ask for you, we should ask for ourselves.
[Speaker B] He said—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —stars and constellations, ask mercy for me. Before we ask for you, we should ask for ourselves. He said: the matter depends on me alone. He placed his head between his knees and cried bitterly until his soul departed. A heavenly voice went forth and said: Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come. What is this strange description? Mountains, hills, constellations, I don’t know, moon, stars? It is a literary description of the feeling of helplessness of a person who says: what does it mean to change myself? Something from outside has to do that work on me. Mountains, hills, heaven, sun, moon, I don’t know who. Of course he is not actually appealing to the heavens and the sun; rather it is a literary description that says: look, after all, for a person to change himself is undefined. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do, how such a thing can happen at all. I’m searching for some external factor that will perform this change upon me. So I go to this, go to that—it doesn’t work, no one. You arrive at the conclusion: the matter depends on me alone. And then—boom—something suddenly changed. The Holy One, blessed be He, intervened, of course, and somehow enabled him to do what deep down he apparently wanted to do but could not do without outside help. He looked for outside help; he just didn’t find it. And then: Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the world to come. Meaning, I think the Talmud here describes very powerfully what I said before: that this feeling of helplessness, or this difficulty in repenting—the great repentance—is because you feel that someone from outside has to turn you around. I don’t know what it means that I turn myself around. Something from outside has to come. Mountains, hills, moon, stars, the heavens, I don’t know who. Something from outside. But none of them, of course, none of these inert things, can do anything. But the description is a literary description: I’m looking for some Archimedean point, yes? Something from outside that will perform this reversal on me. And then suddenly it somehow happens in some miraculous way. And this is “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You.” The Holy One, blessed be He, somehow has to be involved in this so that I can succeed in changing myself; otherwise it is simply undefined. Now this still—again—I haven’t explained it. The difficulty is a difficulty; I don’t know how to explain it positively. But perhaps giving up the dichotomy between me and the Holy One, blessed be He, between the human being and the Holy One, blessed be He, and understanding that the points at which I choose are points at which the Holy One, blessed be He, is essentially involved—because without that it cannot happen, without that there are the laws of nature and ordinary natural conduct—perhaps that is a key to the solution. It’s not a solution; it is perhaps a key to the solution.
[Speaker B] A more down-to-earth explanation, supposedly: let’s talk about you, about each one of the people in the room. They can’t go through this process of change without the Holy One, blessed be He, helping us? In no way. Why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so in another second I’ll get to the next stage, and I’ll say something simpler.
[Speaker B] We all recognize the fact that we’re not okay, and we recognize our traits that are not okay. The question is that there are things you can—you say, okay, I’m immersed in the computer now and I have no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] strength, I don’t want to do— I’m getting to that now.
[Speaker B] That’s what I’m asking. Yes, I’m getting to that now. The Holy One, blessed be He, helps him, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m getting to that—before you reach conclusions, first listen a bit, I’m getting to that. Fine, what conclusions?
[Speaker B] What conclusions? Do you think that after this lecture I can reach conclusions?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I hope so, but wait a bit.
[Speaker B] Okay, waiting for the end.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Fine, okay, I want to—I want to go attack this from a somewhat different direction. I’m already just stepping out, because I always step out of the… because I don’t want you to cling to what’s written there; I want you to listen. Let’s try to think for a moment: what is a penitent? This thing has two different meanings. When you ask what is a baal teshuva, what nowadays is called, yes, a baal teshuva is someone who changed his worldview. He was secular and became religious, okay? Meaning, he became a baal teshuva—that means he changed his worldview.
[Speaker B] A strange worldview.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The baal teshuva of the Sages is a baal teshuva who changed no worldview at all. He thinks now what he always thought. It’s just that in the past he didn’t do what he thought, okay? And now he wants to begin doing what he thinks—to synchronize what he thinks with what he does. It wasn’t synchronized, and repentance is to synchronize it. The concept of repentance, or returning in repentance—for repentance means to return or come back—obviously expresses the second mechanism. Because the first one didn’t return anywhere. The first one went. He thought X and now he thinks Y; he changed his worldview. That is not called a baal teshuva; he didn’t return anywhere. Okay? A baal teshuva is someone who returns to the same place from which he himself departed. Meaning, he thought this way and he still thinks this way; in the past he did not act as he thought, and now he returned to that, and now he wants indeed to act as he thinks. That is what is called a baal teshuva in the literature of the Sages and the commentators—that is what is called a baal teshuva. Not someone who changes his worldview. Okay? Now, the change of worldview is essentially what I’ve been talking about until now. A change of worldview is apparently some kind of thing that is not defined. Because if my worldview is X, I cannot proactively change my worldview to Y. Okay? I can’t. It’s not well-defined, it’s not… I don’t know if there is—it’s not only inability on the psychological level; it is not logically defined. Because if I want to change my worldview, it is already changed. Because otherwise why do I want to change it? Because already now it has changed. So what does it mean to want proactively to change it? As I said before. Therefore, substantive change is a change that is hard to understand how it happens at all. When we speak about the baal teshuva of the second type—the repentance of the Talmud, of the Sages, of the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—that is a different baal teshuva. It is someone who thought X and still now thinks X. It’s just that in the past he behaved as Y even though he thought X, and now he wants to return and behave as X, as he thinks—to return to the straight path that he himself understood to be the straight path. And about this matter I want to make two remarks that will show you that the difference between these two baalei teshuva is not as sharp as it seems. The first remark is from the story of the turkey prince, apparently from Rabbi Nachman. So the story is a well-known one, briefly: the king’s son went mad, took off his clothes, went under the table, started pecking there, eating crumbs there, stark naked, and declared that he was a turkey and exempt from the commandments—yes, exempt from wearing clothes, sitting on a chair, and all normal human manners. The king was desperate, everyone came trying to help, nobody succeeded, until one wise man came and said he was ready to help. The king says to him, okay, fine. The man himself takes off his clothes, goes under the table, and starts eating crumbs together with the king’s son. The king’s son asks him, what are you doing here? There are turkeys here—this is a place for turkeys. So he says to him: I’m also… I’m also a turkey. What? Fine, nice to meet you, now we have two turkeys, excellent, everything’s fine, and they keep pecking there to their delight. After some time they begin to feel a bit closer, and then the wise man says to the king’s son: look, you can also be a turkey with pants. That doesn’t invalidate it, it’s not indispensable. Okay, he puts on pants. Then he says: you can also wear a shirt, yes? Sit on a chair, eat with knife and fork. He basically brought him back to behaving like a human being. Okay? And that’s it, that’s the end of the story. And ever since, they lived happily—I’ll spare you the “and they lived happily ever after.” But what does it actually mean? After all, the obvious question here is whether there was really a cure here. The king’s son didn’t really recover. All he did was change behavior, conduct. But inwardly in his soul, according to the description of the story, he still perceives himself as a turkey. Meaning, the mental illness is still there. The behavior changed. Okay? Is that called a cure? Behaviorism is an approach in psychology that says you don’t go into psychoanalysis and all kinds of subconscious things and the like; you work on the level of behaviors. But the non-extreme behaviorists, the saner ones—and there are such people too—claim that the heart follows the actions. Meaning, it’s not that there aren’t mental illnesses inside and there is only problematic behavior; rather, behavior is our way both to diagnose and to influence the inner mental state. Okay? So what happened here in this description is that the behavior changed, but there is no indication that the mental illness was healed. Therefore the question is why this story presents it as though the king’s son was healed. That is one question. The second question is the opposite.
[Speaker B] No, I’m asking.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The second question comes up in the middle of the story, when the sage goes down below without clothes and starts picking up grains down there. So he asks him: what are you doing here? He didn’t understand that there could be other turkeys in the world? What’s the difficulty here? He understood that the one who came down there was a human being. Meaning, he understands that someone who looks like this and behaves like this is a human being. Right? So he asks him: tell me, what are human beings doing here? This is a place for turkeys. Now I don’t understand. If you understand that such a thing is a human being, then you don’t understand that you too are a human being? In other words, if he asks such a question, then he’s not really sick. Don’t tell me stories—after all, he knows that such a thing is a human being. Now, the first question was: he wasn’t healed. This question is: he was never sick in the first place. And I think they answer one another. What do I mean? If there is a person—and this is a little connected to what we talked about earlier—if there is a person whose illness has reached every point in the soul, meaning there is nothing healthy left inside him, there is no way to heal him. There is no way to heal him. You might be able to create him anew if you have the ability to do that, I don’t know, but you can’t heal him. Psychological healing usually works together with the patient. You take certain points that still function properly in him and try to use them in order to reach the sick places. Okay? But if there are no healthy points inside, then you can’t heal him. On the other hand, the fact that there are healthy points inside him does not mean he isn’t sick. There are sometimes situations in which a person, deep down, understands what is right and what is not right, but around that there are various shells that push the understanding of the real truth inward, and he lives inside the imaginary world he created for himself—and he is mentally ill. He really is ill, even though deep inside there is some point—I don’t know whether to call it conscious—but something inside him does understand or feel what the truth is. And therefore, when the sage went down under the table, the person asks him: tell me, what are you doing here? Why? Because suddenly that understanding jumped out of him: after all, whoever looks like this is a human being, not a turkey. And then he says to him: what do you want? I’m a turkey. Boom—he pushed him back into the—yes yes, of course, of course, I forgot. Creatures like that are turkeys, I forgot. And then everything is fine; he goes on picking up grains and continues with the repressions. Meaning, he pushed that truth, which broke out for a moment, back inside, and continued living in the imaginary world he had created for himself. Now, why does a person create such an imaginary world for himself? So in the allegorical, Breslov Hasidic explanation, they say it’s because of his urges. He doesn’t feel like behaving like a human being, or in the allegory, yes, keeping the commandments, whatever. He doesn’t feel like behaving like a human being, and he wants to be exempt from all manners and clothes and all the constraints and refinements of human beings, and just do whatever he feels like. Now, a person doesn’t just do whatever he feels like for no reason. A person needs justification for what he does; he doesn’t just act in a way that even to him appears absurd. Right? He needs some justification. So what is it? A sick person is someone who manages to build for himself a worldview of his own making and persuade himself of that worldview until he is actually convinced that he is a turkey, and now there’s no problem—he can be a turkey, he is exempt from the commandments, everything is excellent. Deep down, at some level of awareness, I don’t know, he understands that it’s not true. But that is what is called dual consciousness. Meaning, he can live in two different consciousnesses: one of them is the present, overt one that fills him—that is the fabricated consciousness. Deep down, he still holds, in one way or another, the true consciousness. It is there. But a human being is a complex creature; he manages to persuade himself that this consciousness is perfectly fine. Yes, this reminds me that I was once in Gush, I studied in Gush. I didn’t study—I was in Gush. So I didn’t study anything. So the guys came to me and said: listen, this isn’t fair, you do service for a year and a half or something, even less, and you get that in order to study Torah. You’re not studying Torah. Enlist and serve three years. They were right. Okay, but I had all kinds of theories. I explained theories to them—you have no idea—from here to kingdom come. I explained to them: listen, who is making these claims on me? The Chief of Staff gave me—or the Chief of Staff as a representative of the public gave me—the option to serve a year and a half not because he thinks Torah study is important. There are coalition agreements, political deals. Okay? He doesn’t care whether I study Torah or not. From the yeshiva head? To the yeshiva head I owe nothing. So what’s the problem? Right, so I owe nothing. So what’s the problem? I’m exempt because they exempt me, and whether I study Torah or not is my own business. I don’t owe that to anyone; it’s not a service I’m giving to the Jewish people. So given that, I’m exempt from the commandments—I’m a turkey. Right? Nonsense, of course, but it was a theory I lived with just fine. I just happened to remember that example. I think every one of us knows things like that. I lived off that for a long time; in the end I left it. But yes, eventually the sage came and freed me from the turkey consciousness. And I left; I went to the army. But I’m saying that this example, I think many of us know it. When we do something, we can know that it isn’t right. But we build for ourselves some alternative worldview of our own making. And deep down we understand that it’s not right, but we live it enough and persuade ourselves of it enough that now we live in the new world we created. And in that world, everything is justified, everything is excellent, everything is fine. And then what happens is that our worldview actually serves our urges. Right? The worldview is not built objectively, as much as possible; rather, it serves our urges. How do you treat such a thing? Simple. If you can manage to enter his worldview—turkey. Okay? Now from within his worldview, bring him to a point where he can no longer justify to himself what he wants to justify. He will go back to behaving like a human being. And you show him that even if you are a turkey, it is permitted to wear clothes, to sit on a chair, to eat—it doesn’t justify the fact that you are down below. You can also sit with clothes on a chair; it matters to your father, so what do you care about doing it? Okay? And being a turkey does not justify that. So somehow he finds himself forced to cooperate—yes, he wears clothes, everything is fine, and he is still a turkey. At a certain point he reaches a situation in which the worldview he built no longer does the job. After all, the whole reason it was born was to justify the behavior that his urge wants to lead him to. Now if he doesn’t actually do that in practice, then what does he need this whole fabrication he built for himself for? It dissipates. It dissipates on its own; he goes back to being a human being. That is the meaning of “the hearts are drawn after the actions.” “The hearts are drawn after the actions” works only if the hearts were already there beforehand. The actions are created because of—or justified by—a fictitious heart, a fictitious worldview. In such a case, if I manage to change the actions, then the fictitious worldview will dissipate and I will return, and then I truly recover. And therefore really, at the end—at the end he really was healed, this prince. He really was healed, because after he behaves like a human being, there is no reason to develop a theory that you are a turkey—which he himself knows is not true. It no longer does the job, it won’t help him behave like a turkey, so why would he hold on to this theory? So he understands that it is absurd, and it will dissipate by itself; there is no need to deal with it at all. So in a situation where you understand that the person is already in the right place and the problem is only an external problem, there “the hearts are drawn after the actions.” I once explained this way the law of “we compel him until he says ‘I want to.’” But this is a very strange law, yes? The person refuses to give his wife a bill of divorce. And a coerced bill of divorce is invalid, null. Right? If a person is forced and gives a bill of divorce under coercion, the bill of divorce is invalid, worth nothing. But here, if the person is obligated according to Jewish law to give his wife a bill of divorce, then the religious court compels him—they beat him until he says, “I want to.” Ah, is this a coerced bill of divorce? No, it is not a coerced bill of divorce; it is considered that he wants to. Why? Because he said so. So what if he said so? Obviously he gave the bill of divorce and said that only so they would stop beating him. He doesn’t really want to give the bill of divorce; after all, he proved that beyond all doubt. So why does it help, this “we compel him until he says ‘I want to’”? How does this mechanism solve the problem of a coerced bill of divorce? Maimonides writes that inwardly, yes, he does want to give the bill of divorce. What does that mean? Is he joking? For years he leaves his wife chained, he stood firm through beatings and all that, and in the end he breaks and deep down he really wants it? What is the idea? The idea is what I said before. Think now about a person who is God-fearing, he observes every minor and major point alike, it is important to him to keep Jewish law, everything, he is careful with every minor and major point alike. Why here, even though the religious court tells him that according to Jewish law he is obligated to divorce his wife—that is the Jewish law, he is obligated—only what do we do? We compel him until he says “I want to,” okay? And he doesn’t do it. Why? Where is his fear of Heaven? Why here does he not do it? I’ll tell you why—everyone knows this—because he is angry. He is terribly angry with his wife; she enraged him. It can be mutual too, okay? And because of that, he is so angry, so heated, that he builds for himself a theory that this is not at all what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, and this religious court is a bunch of ignoramuses who understand nothing, and only I know this situation, I know exactly what kind of witch she is and that she deserves everything I’m doing to her. Ask any husband who refuses to give a bill of divorce—that is what he will tell you. That’s in the best case. What I described now is the moderate kind of bill-of-divorce refusers, okay? They build for themselves some worldview in which they are surely right and the whole world is wrong. Now I’m dealing with one such person, by the way—actually a student here. There’s no one to talk to. Now what happens in such a situation? You say to him like this: look, I’m going to beat you if you don’t give the bill of divorce, until you give the bill of divorce. I will simply beat you mercilessly until you give the bill of divorce, okay? So you say to me—you don’t say it, but I say it, this is an implicit dialogue, yes?—but even if I give a bill of divorce it is worth nothing, it is a coerced bill of divorce. After all, I don’t want to give a bill of divorce, and a bill of divorce that one does not want to give is a coerced bill of divorce, null. I say to him: nevertheless, the woman will be free and I will marry her off to whomever she wants. Even though it is a coerced bill of divorce, I will commit the sin—fine, the Holy One, blessed be He, and I will work it out between us. It won’t help you at all. I will beat you until you give her the bill of divorce, and when you give her the bill of divorce I will marry her off. The fellow stands in his rebellion until he breaks, and when he breaks, he gives the bill of divorce. When he gives the bill of divorce, I go and say: the woman is free, everything is fine, now she can marry whomever she wants. Now the man understands that what he wanted he will no longer achieve, right? After all, that whole worldview he created, that he built for himself—that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, really wants, that he should leave her chained and not give a bill of divorce—that this is the true will of the Holy One, blessed be He, not what all the judges tell him, not what the whole world tells him—he knows better than everyone. Deep down, the assumption is that deep down he understands that this is not right, but because of this anger, this powerful urge—and usually there is terrible anger in these situations—he builds for himself an alternative worldview. We are talking about a God-fearing Jew, a God-fearing Jew. So the assumption is that if I can bring him to behavioral treatment, that the behavior will change, that the result you wanted to achieve you will not succeed in achieving, then the fictitious worldview you built will also eventually dissipate, and therefore in the end it will be a valid bill of divorce. Meaning, even though at the beginning I start with “I’m doing this against your will and I’m ignoring you, and even if you say you don’t want to, I don’t care,” in the end that itself will turn the bill of divorce into a valid bill of divorce. And that is “we compel him until he says ‘I want to.’” By the way, there is a practical difference here. For example, if there is a person who is not God-fearing, then “we compel him until he says ‘I want to’” won’t work. Someone who is truly sick, meaning someone who… inside him does not have that point that truly believes in it—nothing will help. And there are later authorities who write this; afterward I found two or three. I found the Maharik—it seems implied by him—and I saw another place in one or two later authorities who really argue this, that it does not help with someone who is not God-fearing. Which is obvious. Therefore, for example, compelling a bill of divorce today in the rabbinical courts—if he is not a commandment-observant Jew, you cannot compel him to give a bill of divorce. If he is not a God-fearing Jew, you cannot compel him to give a bill of divorce. I think it cannot be done. What? One second—he observes the rest of Jewish law. If he observes the rest of Jewish law and it matters to him to observe Jewish law, and you see that here specifically he suddenly decides that this is not for him, then clearly the presumption is that he built for himself some fictitious worldview only in order to justify this. If in the other areas of his life he is also not like that, then for free—from there I don’t think one can compel a bill of divorce in this way. In any case, the claim is that this process is exactly the process that the prince undergoes in Rabbi Nachman’s story. Meaning, there is here a kind of dual consciousness, where the consciousness within which you live is actually a consciousness that you yourself understand is not correct—you understand it, in some inner sense. Not fully consciously, but it is pecking at you all the time from behind consciousness, that this picture you are looking at is not right. You find yourself excuses and justifications because you want their practical consequences. But if we change the practical consequences, then the justifications will dissipate on their own. So that is one point. I now want to look at the same situation from another angle. Again, this dual consciousness. After all, what did I want to show here? Dual consciousness is exactly a situation in which a person thinks that X is right but behaves Y. Right? After all, this is basically the penitent of the second type. It is a penitent who does not change his worldview. His worldview was correct and still is correct. But he did not behave correctly, and he wants to return to behaving correctly. I asked: how can that be? If he thinks it is correct and he does not change his world, his worldview, then what is the problem? Why didn’t he do it? He didn’t do it because he lives in dual consciousness. The urge basically caused him to build some alternative theory, so he does not really believe in Y. Deep down he knows that X is the correct one. He needs to get rid of Y and go back to X. But Y is only the external wrapping. Inside him there is X. He has to return to X not from nothing, but return to the X that is already inside him, only to get rid of the layers. Okay, so that is a first point about repentance of this type, about the penitent of the Sages—not the one who changes his worldview. Those who look at penitents today in this way often start from the assumption that inside every Jew it is basically clear that there is a Holy One, blessed be He, and that there is an obligation to keep His commandments and so on—the Jewish spark, the Jewish point, or various nonsense of that kind. Many people make that assumption, and therefore they really do not make the distinction between the two types of penitents, because they are basically claiming that everyone is like that. I don’t accept that. I think that someone who doesn’t believe really doesn’t believe. But fine, that is a first point. A second point is a philosophical topic called weakness of will. It fills shelves in philosophy. I’ll follow a formulation by an American philosopher named Donald Davidson. He formulates the problem of weakness of will like this. What is a weak will? A weak will means: I think X is right, I want to do X, but I did Y. Yes, you can talk about this in the context of morality, you can talk about it in the context of Jewish law, you can talk about it in the context of dieting. Let’s talk about dieting because it is the most neutral. Okay? I want to eat healthily. Suddenly I saw a cream cake in front of me, I was tempted, and I ate it. Now I explain to myself what happened. I had a weak will. I always wanted not to eat the cream cake. Even then, when I ate it, I didn’t really want to eat it, but my desire overpowered me. I had a weak will. That is called a state of weakness of will. Now Donald Davidson says: there is no such thing as a state of weakness of will. You are feeding yourself nonsense. What does that mean? We’ll see in a moment. What does it mean? So he says like this: let’s assume two assumptions. One assumption is what the person thinks is right. That is what he wants, that is what he wants to do. Now “right” doesn’t mean morally right, but right after all considerations—interests, pleasures, values, religious, moral, whatever you want. Okay, after all considerations from all aspects, drives, whatever you want, after everything, what I think is right for me to do is what I want. Second assumption: if there is nothing preventing me, what I want is what I will do. Again, if I can’t, I can’t, but if I can and this is what I want after all considerations, this is what I will do. That is the second assumption. These two assumptions sound very reasonable. But understand that weakness of will—a state of weakness of will—means that there is something I think is the most right thing to do and I didn’t do it. And that cannot be. If the first two assumptions are correct, then it follows that there cannot be such a thing as weakness of will. Let’s go back to our cream cake. The person ate the cream cake and says, actually I didn’t want to eat it, I had a weak will. What do you mean you had a weak will? You actually wanted the pleasure more than the health or the aesthetics—whatever, each person has his own reason for dieting. You simply wanted the pleasure more. No problem, but that is what you wanted. Don’t tell me you didn’t want it and nevertheless did it. The only way to say that you really didn’t want it, and that pleasure is not more important in your eyes than aesthetics or health, is to say that the urge overpowered you and you were coerced. But if you were coerced, then there is no need to repent. That is what is called, in legal jargon, an irresistible impulse. I couldn’t withstand it. Fine—one does not repent for that. So either way, a state of weakness of will in the sense that requires repentance is a state in which after all considerations I think one should do X. Since I think one should do X, I also want to do X. But I do Y. That is a state of weakness of will. How can that be? If you did Y, then apparently that is what you wanted. Right, I wanted it because of considerations not necessarily value-based—just a second—not necessarily because of value-based considerations, but because of urge or whatever, okay, no problem, but that is what you wanted. Unless the only escape you can give me is: I did it not by my decision; the urge overpowered me. I didn’t decide to do it at all; the urge just took me over. But then this is not something that requires repentance. I am coerced. Coercion—even if it is internal coercion—is coercion. It makes no difference whether the coercion is external or internal.
[Speaker B] Even if someone were to say the evil inclination was forced on me,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and in this
[Speaker B] I also object.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “The leaven in the dough hinders,” yes, these seven years already started
[Speaker B] long ago, with possibilities and a million ways and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, and then what comes out of this is that there is no such thing as a weak will. Now understand the significance of this. The significance is that there is really no difference between the two penitents I described. There is the penitent of the second type of the Sages—someone who knows that he should do X and did not do it, and he wants to return to behaving in sync with his worldview, yes, to go back to doing X. And I ask: why didn’t you do X in the past? After all, you wanted to do X. You didn’t want to do X. Because you wanted to, but you wanted Y more. Okay? Now if that really is what you wanted, then the big problem of repentance returns—so you want to change his worldview of what he thinks? We are back again to all the problems we had before. Because in that case it turns out that the penitent of the Sages is the returnee to religion of our own day. He basically needs to change his desires; he is not returning to do what he wants. That is nonsense he is selling us. I just want to sharpen this maybe a bit more. There is my favorite fateful debate: whether to eat chocolate. One person says you should eat chocolate, it is good to eat chocolate because it is terribly tasty. He is right. The other says it is not good to eat chocolate because it is fattening. He is also right. So who is right? The judge’s wife is also right. Who is right? Both of them are right. It is not an argument. Obviously chocolate is both tasty and unhealthy. So what is it then? There can be an argument about what weighs more in your eyes: do you want the pleasure more, or do you want the health more? So that can be a dispute. One person prefers pleasure over health; another prefers health over pleasure. But in the end both are right. The fact that you have two desires is no problem in principle. We all have many desires, and in many cases they need to offset one another or clash, and we need to make decisions about which overcomes which, and that is perfectly fine. There is no logical contradiction here and no problem here. Simple logic doesn’t work here. In desires, contradictory desires are not a logical contradiction. I can have contradictory desires about the same thing: for one reason I want it, and for another reason I don’t want it. That is not contradictory at all. The only thing is that I now have to decide which of the two considerations prevails: whether I prefer the pleasure or prefer the health. Okay?
[Speaker B] Doesn’t that resolve something?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, it resolves nothing. On the contrary, I’m explaining the problem I described earlier. I’m saying: when I say I didn’t want to eat the cream cake, what I actually mean is: I didn’t want to because dieting was very important to me. Why did you eat it? Because I wanted to enjoy myself even more than I wanted to be thin. So don’t say that you didn’t want to. You wanted to be thin, but you also wanted to enjoy yourself. And it turns out that the desire for pleasure was stronger than the desire to be thin.
[Speaker B] But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want the diet itself; I’m not saying I now need to change the entire attitude completely.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You need to give up the desire for pleasure or lower it.
[Speaker B] But I assume—but I’m still within the category, not like the obligation of repentance.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s the same thing, it’s the same thing. There is no principled difference. What I said before with that example of someone who acts not for its own sake. I said that this specific donkey here is not significant; even if there are a hundred values or a hundred desires in your world, it’s the same as a single desire. You have a hundred desires; you need to change one of them—that is also called changing, I don’t care. But if that is your desire, why would you change it intentionally? The same question returns: how can one demand that a person intentionally change himself? No, because he recognizes the second value too.
[Speaker B] Obviously, he recognizes both values, and that is what he has to change.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I say to him: go more with this value. You can tell him that, but the question is why he would grasp it that way. You can tell him whatever you want, no problem, but the question is what it means to demand of him intentionally to change what he wants. That is what he wants.
[Speaker B] At a certain moment. It could be that at another moment he doesn’t want it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, if at another moment he doesn’t want it, then there is no problem—nothing needs to be changed, he has already changed.
[Speaker B] No, because he recognizes this value of the diet.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re circling around it. If at one moment he wanted it and now he doesn’t want it, there’s no problem—that changed. I’m not talking about that. Change can happen. No, what do you mean not all the time? Those are words. I’m asking: you demand of a person, “change,” right? That is the demand of repentance.
[Speaker B] If he wasn’t there at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not at all—right now a person, I’ll describe the person to you. The person wants pleasure and also wants to be healthy. Fine? But he wants pleasure more; pleasure is a higher value on his scale of values than health.
[Speaker B] And now he goes in some way and connects.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can tell him that until tomorrow, but he is going in that way. Now you want him to change his way?
[Speaker B] As he really decided that this is the best way because he
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] recognizes the other option.
[Speaker B] He didn’t decide? He decided at a certain moment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about that certain moment. You keep jumping from place to place. If he decided, then he decided at that moment. If now his decision is different, no problem—that’s not a penitent, it just happened.
[Speaker B] But
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if he is in that same situation and you demand that he change, that means that in order to—leave aside this “completely,” you keep coming back to that. You’re dancing at two weddings; it’s a logical contradiction. Every person makes logical contradictions, but I can’t talk with someone who makes logical contradictions.
[Speaker B] That’s clear.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, nothing is clear. Nothing is clear. If the person has two values, and value A outweighs value B for him, that is the situation—wait, wait, think, just look for a moment. That is his current situation. Now I come and say to him, “repent,” right? That is what I come and say to him. What does “repent” mean? Make sure that value B becomes more important than value A. I don’t understand—but value A is more important to me right now! No, if it were already like that, I wouldn’t need to repent. I’m asking: is that no longer the case? Then I have already repented. So what do you want in repentance? The question is which value will be dominant now.
[Speaker B] I’m talking about which value will be dominant—that’s the discussion. But can’t you decide which value will be dominant?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those are words, you’re playing with words.
[Speaker B] He didn’t change completely—you’re playing with words.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I am now in a state where value A is more important to me than value B; otherwise I wouldn’t need to repent. Now they tell me, “repent.” What does that mean? Change your scale of values. Fine, but if this is my scale of values, on what basis am I going to change it? And if it is already no longer there, then I don’t need to change it—it has already changed.
[Speaker B] Yes, but a person
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] recognized the fact that being at a weight of 158 kilos is not—when did he recognize that fact? Both today and then he recognized that fact. Exactly. So why did he do it? I agree.
[Speaker B] So what’s the problem? I agree, but still it didn’t replace the order.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can ask him for that thing. You can ask whatever you want; the whole question is what he will do. You can ask for anything, but you are asking according to your own view, not according to his. That is what I was talking about, that is where I started. You can’t ask something of a person according to your own view; you have to ask it according to his view. But according to his view, you cannot ask him to change his view according to his own view. There is no answer yet. I remain with this. There is a problem of weakness of will, a very difficult problem. With that I can make a bit of progress toward an answer, and we’ll talk about it next time, unlike the previous formulation.
[Speaker B] The friend of.
