On Repentance 4
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Two mechanisms of repentance and grace
- The paradox of changing values and cooperation between the “inside” and the “outside”
- A continuum between technical repentance and great repentance, and the use of dichotomy
- The Ten Days of Repentance, the intermediate person, and two directions of repentance as an opening to two channels
- The commandment of repentance and the commandment of confession in Maimonides and the Minchat Chinukh
- The Book of Commandments versus the Mishneh Torah: command, reason, and the counting of the commandments
- Repentance as an obligation grounded in reason, and the connection to Rabbeinu Yonah and the Sefat Emet
- “Why do I need a verse? It is reason,” blessings over enjoyment, and the distinction between essence and command
- Why there is no command to repent: character work, Rabbi Kook, and Rabbi Chaim Vital
- Reading the structure of the laws of repentance: complete repentance, confession, and “I am not the same person”
- Choice in the laws of repentance and the meaning of repentance as returning to being a “chooser”
- The laws of repentance as a “book of ethics”: persuasion, “a person should strive,” and completing the circle through serving out of love
Summary
Overview
The text presents two channels of repentance: technical repentance, made up of four stages, which erases the sins for which the procedure was performed; and essential repentance, a comprehensive spiritual revolution that operates on all transgressions at once and is connected to the Maharal’s division of the divine name. The claim is that technical repentance involves grace in that it is accepted even though there is no reason to “rewrite history,” as Ramchal puts it, whereas great repentance is accepted as a matter of justice if the person has truly changed, though the grace lies in the very possibility of changing in that way. The central difficulty in great repentance is the paradox of changing one’s value system, and a proposal for softening that difficulty comes through blurring the boundary between “from within” and “from without,” and through cooperation between the human being and the Holy One, blessed be He, with a link to the phrase in the Tanya, “One who blows, blows from within himself,” and to the idea of the divine point within a person. The text then offers a reading of Maimonides’ laws of repentance: the tension between the commandment of confession and the question of whether there is a commandment of repentance, the distinction between the Book of Commandments and the Mishneh Torah, the centrality of reason as an obligation that is not counted, and finally the claim that the structure of the laws of repentance includes elements of a “book of ethics” meant to persuade a person to repent, because repentance is tied to choice and to doing the truth because it is true.
Two mechanisms of repentance and grace
The text distinguishes between technical repentance and great repentance, which is a spiritual revolution operating on all transgressions together, and which is “repentance of the Name, the Name” according to the Maharal’s division. Technical repentance is built from four stages: abandoning the sin, regret, confession, and resolution for the future, and it erases the sins for which the procedure was performed, along the lines of “He cleanses and does not cleanse”—He cleanses those who repent and does not cleanse those who do not repent. The text argues that in both mechanisms there is some departure from the ordinary rules, or a special grace, with technical repentance involving grace in the very fact that it is accepted after a sin, as Ramchal argues that there is no reason history should be rewritable after a person has sinned, while in great repentance its acceptance is according to strict justice if the person has really changed, and therefore “the righteous person who rebels at the end loses his merits.” The text concludes that in great repentance the grace is not in its acceptance but in the possibility of doing it in the first place, because it goes beyond ordinary logic and accepted rules.
The paradox of changing values and cooperation between the “inside” and the “outside”
The text formulates a principled problem: changing a value system is not only difficult but “not defined at all,” because if a person already wants to change, then apparently he has already changed, and if he does not believe in the new system, then he has no reason to want it. The text rejects a solution in which the change happens only “on its own,” because then it is “valueless” and not an intentional process of repentance, and it locates the difficulty in the dichotomy of whether repentance is done from within or from without: the person alone cannot do it, and if the Holy One, blessed be He, does it to him from the outside, that seems valueless. The text proposes softening the difficulty by giving up on a sharp distinction between the person and the Holy One, blessed be He, so that a joint action takes place, inside and outside together. The text cites from the Tanya the phrase, “One who blows, blows from within himself,” and attributes it, apparently, to the Zohar, connecting it to the idea that the soul contains a part of the Holy One, blessed be He, and to the notion of the divine point within every person. The text adds the distinction between the “two planes of choice,” between the intensity of choice and the content of choice, and notes that the speaker is “not one hundred percent at ease” with the proposal, but that the problem is difficult in any case, and therefore even in great repentance the ability to do it still remains an act of grace.
A continuum between technical repentance and great repentance, and the use of dichotomy
The text emphasizes that in practice there are not really two disconnected mechanisms but a continuum, and that almost any deviation from “pure technicality” already involves something of great repentance, together with its difficulties. The text says that the dichotomous discussion is meant only to clarify concepts, whereas in reality things are mixed together. It then seeks to examine implications in Maimonides, including the structure by which Maimonides builds the laws of repentance.
The Ten Days of Repentance, the intermediate person, and two directions of repentance as an opening to two channels
The text opens the discussion of Maimonides with the question of the intermediate person during the Ten Days of Repentance: why at that time does it help only to repent, and not to add commandments in order to tip the scale as one normally would. The text claims there are two directions for answering this, and that these opened up the two channels of repentance, placing the discussion in chapter two of the laws of repentance. It then moves to the structure of the laws of repentance and to the differences between the opening of the laws and the formulation in the Book of Commandments.
The commandment of repentance and the commandment of confession in Maimonides and the Minchat Chinukh
The text quotes the opening of the laws of repentance: “There is one positive commandment, namely that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess,” and presents the Minchat Chinukh’s remark that in the Book of Commandments, positive commandment 73, the commandment is “that we were commanded to confess the iniquities and sins that we have committed before God and say them together with repentance,” which implies that there is no commandment to repent, but rather that if one repents one must confess. The text notes that in halakhah 1 Maimonides returns to wording similar to that of the Book of Commandments: “When he repents and returns from his sin, he is obligated to confess,” and concludes that confession is the positive commandment based on the verse, “And they shall confess their sin that they have committed.” The text examines whether this is an existential commandment or a conditional commandment, illustrating a conditional commandment with fringes and grace after meals, but argues that a conditional commandment here leads to the strange result that someone who repents but does not confess is worse off than someone who never repented. The text suggests the possibility that confession is the form of repentance itself, and therefore that this is really a commandment of repentance, but says that Maimonides’ formulation is “not completely clear,” and raises the possibility of seeing confession as an existential commandment in a way that avoids a “nullification of a positive commandment” when there is no repentance.
The Book of Commandments versus the Mishneh Torah: command, reason, and the counting of the commandments
The text presents Maimonides’ rule that commandments are counted only if they have a written source in the Torah, and emphasizes that in the second root Maimonides defines commandments derived through the thirteen interpretive principles as commandments of rabbinic status because they are not written explicitly. The text brings Rabbi Yerucham Perla’s discussion of an apparent contradiction in the ninth root between content and command, and concludes that both a command and a unique content are needed in order to count a commandment: where there are commands without unique content, it is not counted; and where there is content without a separate command, it is also not counted. The text argues that if one reads Maimonides like the Minchat Chinukh, then “and they shall confess” is not a commandment about repentance itself, and the verse “and you shall return to the Lord your God” is explicitly interpreted by Maimonides in chapter 7, halakhah 5, as a promise and not as a commandment, unlike Nachmanides. The text concludes that according to Maimonides there is no verse commanding repentance, and therefore it is impossible to count repentance as a commandment in the Book of Commandments; but in the Mishneh Torah Maimonides includes halakhic obligations, not only counted commandments, including rabbinic obligations, obligations grounded in reason, and obligations based on interpretation, and therefore the obligation to repent appears there even without a formal command.
Repentance as an obligation grounded in reason, and the connection to Rabbeinu Yonah and the Sefat Emet
The text argues that the obligation to repent is grounded in reason, and cites Rabbeinu Yonah at the beginning of his book with the parable of a tunnel in a prison: the moment one knows there is a mechanism for escape, reason says to use it, without the need for a command. The text connects this also to great repentance, where if a person truly changes then “people no longer come to me with claims,” though the question of the possibility of doing that is mapped onto the question of choice in general. The text mentions the Sefat Emet on the portion of Vayelekh concerning the combination of awakening from below and assistance from above, and connects this to Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, who asks, “Heavens, ask for mercy on my behalf,” and “Mountains, ask for mercy on my behalf,” as an image of seeking external help for self-transformation. The text adds a distinction between types of “matters of the Sages” in Maimonides, and emphasizes that an obligation grounded in reason is not counted and is not considered Torah-level in the sense of lashes, though sometimes its uncertainty is treated stringently.
“Why do I need a verse? It is reason,” blessings over enjoyment, and the distinction between essence and command
The text brings the Talmudic discussion of blessings over enjoyment: the Talmud determines by reason that one who eats without a blessing is as though he committed sacrilege, and cites the Pnei Yehoshua, who wonders why a doubt is not treated stringently if “why do I need a verse? it is reason,” as opposed to the Tzelach, who argues that reason does not have Torah-level status to establish a new law. The text resolves this by saying that reason receives the force of a verse when it interprets a commandment that already has a verse, but it does not create Torah-level law without a command, and according to Maimonides there are no lashes for a law that emerges from reason or from interpretation. The text suggests that even the Pnei Yehoshua may not disagree, but rather sees here an essence that obligates stringency in cases of doubt even without a command, and it distinguishes between different kinds of rabbinic laws in Maimonides: a law with essence but without command is stringent in cases of doubt, while a law with the command of “do not deviate” but without essence is treated leniently in cases of doubt, along the lines of “perhaps it is rebellion, perhaps it is not rebellion,” in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev. The text cites Rav Nissim Gaon in his introduction to the Talmud, that “anything dependent on the understanding of the heart” has always been binding on a person, and comments on the discussion regarding commandments grounded in reason and their relation to non-Jews.
Why there is no command to repent: character work, Rabbi Kook, and Rabbi Chaim Vital
The text asks why the Torah did not command repentance if it wants us to repent, and parallels this to the question about character refinement raised by Rabbi Chaim Vital in Shaarei Kedushah. The text presents Rabbi Chaim Vital’s answer that the Torah speaks to human beings, and one who has not corrected his character traits is not yet fit to be commanded, and brings Rabbi Kook, who explains that there are areas in which “greater is one who is not commanded and does,” and therefore the Torah intentionally does not command character work so as not to undermine the greatness of human behavior that comes from inner understanding. The text sharpens a difficulty with the very claim that the Torah does not command character traits, since there is the commandment “and you shall walk in His ways” and “and cleave to Him,” interpreted as “just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called gracious, so too you should be gracious,” and it suggests a distinction between a behavioral command to imitate God in action and an inner psychological labor of correcting one’s character, for which there is no command. The text argues that great repentance resembles character correction, as an inner reversal and adoption of proper values, and therefore according to Maimonides the Torah leaves it as an obligation grounded in reason and as a motivation of awakening from below, and not as a command.
Reading the structure of the laws of repentance: complete repentance, confession, and “I am not the same person”
The text examines whether Maimonides himself presents two channels, and brings chapter 1 on confession, atonement, Yom Kippur, and the distinctions of atonement, followed by chapter 2, “What is complete repentance?” described as standing a test in the very same sin and under the very same conditions, “and he separated himself and did not transgress.” The text quotes Maimonides’ definition: “What is repentance? It is that the sinner abandon his sin, remove it from his thoughts, and resolve in his heart never to do it again… and likewise regret what has passed,” as well as “among the ways of repentance,” which include crying out, weeping and supplication, charity, distancing oneself from the sin, changing one’s name—“that is to say, I am someone else and not the same person”—changing one’s deeds, and exile, which atones because it humbles. The text notes that Maimonides moves between describing repentance as a set of technical stages and describing repentance as a change of identity—“I am not the same person”—and therefore it is unclear whether this is an orderly account of two mechanisms or a realistic mixture. The text raises a practical implication from the Sefat Emet on Maimonides: whether one may initially put himself into a test in order to complete full repentance, and notes that the mechanisms of a penitent include exceptional behaviors, such as someone who lent on interest, who must “not lend on interest even to a non-Jew” and “tear up his documents.”
Choice in the laws of repentance and the meaning of repentance as returning to being a “chooser”
The text explains why the discussion of free choice appears in chapters 5–6 of the laws of repentance and not in other areas such as grace after meals: in repentance itself the person “returns to being a chooser,” and therefore choice is not merely a condition for the commandments but the very essence of repentance. The text argues that for that reason repentance is not counted among the commandments, just as “and you shall choose life” is not counted, because there is no meaning to commanding the very act of choice itself. The text raises the possibility that there is value in choice itself beyond its practical outcomes, and connects this to evaluating success in education, where leaving out of conscious decision can in some sense count as success as opposed to staying from inertia, and gives a personal example of a conversation with a high school student, his questions, and his later continuing in yeshiva.
The laws of repentance as a “book of ethics”: persuasion, “a person should strive,” and completing the circle through serving out of love
The text points to Maimonides’ wording: “Since permission is granted to every person… a person should strive to repent and confess,” and argues that the phrase “should strive” is unusual in a book of law and suggests that repentance is not a formal commandment but an obligation that requires persuasion and motivation. The text describes how large parts of the laws of repentance seem like “poetry” and praise for the penitent, unlike other collections of law, because Maimonides is explaining “why it is worthwhile” to repent so that someone who does not understand this on his own will act. The text explains that the final chapters on the World to Come, excision, serving for its own sake, and the messianic era also belong here in order to persuade, but Maimonides ends by saying that it is not proper to serve God out of fear of reward and punishment but out of love, “doing the truth because it is true.” The text concludes that this ending closes the circle: doing the truth because it is true is a return to proper values through inner choice, and it fits with the view of repentance as returning to take the reins and becoming a person who chooses, even if the paradox of how such a change is possible remains.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We saw the two mechanisms, or two channels, of repentance: technical repentance and essential repentance. Technical repentance is basically four stages: abandoning the sin, regret, confession, and resolution for the future. And that erases the sins for which I performed that procedure—“He cleanses and does not cleanse”: He cleanses those who repent and does not cleanse those who do not repent. And the great repentance, the spiritual revolution, which works on all the transgressions together—that is the repentance of “the Name, the Name,” in the Maharal’s framework. I spoke about the fact that in both of these mechanisms there is some kind of deviation from the rules, or a special grace that the Holy One, blessed be He, shows us. In the small, technical repentance, the grace is that it is accepted, because really there is no reason—as Ramchal writes—there is no reason that after a person has sinned it should be possible to rewrite history. And in the great repentance, my claim was that the fact that it is accepted is actually a matter of justice. It is not beyond the letter of the law. That’s also why a righteous person who rebelled at the end lost his merits, because if you truly changed, truly regret it, then obviously they relate to you as you are now. It doesn’t matter what you were once. That is strict justice. The grace is that it is possible to do such a thing at all. If you did it, then by law they accept you; but the grace is that doing such a thing is possible in the first place. And I explained that the problem with great repentance is that there is something here that seems like an impossible claim. How can a person change a system of values that he believes in? Not that it’s hard, not that it’s beyond his powers—it isn’t even defined. Because if he wants to change it, then it has already changed, meaning he already believes in the new system. And if he doesn’t believe in the new system, then why would he want to change the system he believes in to another one? So if it already changed, then let’s take one step back and ask: how did it change? Did he change it? Then the same question comes back again. So what, then? Apparently it changes by itself, on its own. And if it changes by itself, then it has no value. It just happened. It’s not an orderly or intentional process of repentance. At the end I spoke about that perspective that says the problem stems from the fact that I’m discussing whether this repentance is done from within or from without. Say, does the Holy One, blessed be He, do it to me, or do I do it myself? I myself can’t do it; if He does it to me, then it’s valueless. And I said it could be that maybe we can soften the difficulty a bit, or solve it—I’m a bit unsure about this—if we give up on the sharp distinction between us and the Holy One, blessed be He. In other words, the claim that we are standing opposite Him and need to decide whether it is being done from outside or from inside—I’m not sure that the boundary between outside and inside is really that sharp. It could be that there is some kind of joint action, and it happens inside and outside together.
[Speaker B] I saw in the Tanya this week that it says, “One who blows, blows from within himself,” meaning that the blowing of the soul contains something of the Holy One, blessed be He. So maybe that’s connected to the fact that it’s part of Him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s from the Zohar, apparently—“One who blows, blows from within himself.” Yes. And people talk a lot about the divine point in every person, and things of that sort, each in his own style. So I’m saying, maybe that helps solve the problem; I’m not sure. I also added to that the two planes of choice: the choice to choose, as opposed to the content of the choice, what it is we choose to do—or the intensity of the choice as opposed to the content of the choice—and together, maybe that solves the problem. I said I’m not one hundred percent at ease with it, not one hundred percent certain of it, but in any case there’s a serious problem there. And so it seems to me that even in great repentance, although if you did it then its acceptance is a matter of justice, the ability to do it is in fact grace. In other words, it’s something beyond ordinary logic, beyond the accepted rules.
[Speaker C] Wait, that question of how it’s possible to do this—you could also ask that about how it’s possible that you have any choice at all in the realm of values. Or not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How do you choose fundamental values? Yes, I think that question arises about choice in general, not just about repentance—about choice altogether. That’s my next step.
[Speaker D] So basically what that means is, the first mechanism isn’t difficult? What? The regret? The other side—the first mechanism isn’t difficult?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I already said there’s a continuum. These are not really two separate mechanisms. Obviously, everywhere I might be, except for a split second—say, at the full extreme of pure technicality—other than that, every little deviation already contains something of great repentance, with the difficulty and everything. Yes, I said that. The dichotomous discussion is only there to clarify the concepts; obviously in reality it’s all mixed together. I want to see this in Maimonides,
[Speaker E] or—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] some implications of this in Maimonides. First of all, in the very way he constructs his laws of repentance.
[Speaker D] So—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I started, if you remember, from the question why during the Ten Days of Repentance, for the intermediate person, the only thing that helps is repentance, and not doing additional commandments in order to tip the scale in the usual way. I said there are two ways to answer that, and those opened up these two channels of repentance for us. This whole discussion is actually in chapter two of—wait—yes, in chapter two of the laws of repentance. But the structure of the laws of repentance begins like this: “All the commandments in the Torah, whether positive or negative…” Before I get into that structure for a moment, one prior remark. At the beginning of the laws of repentance it says: “There is one positive commandment, and that is that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess.” The Minchat Chinukh already comments on this, because in the Book of Commandments, positive commandment 73, the commandment is—let’s see what it says there. Commandment 73 is that we were commanded to confess the iniquities and the sins that we committed before God and to say them together with repentance. Meaning, we are commanded basically to confess; when one repents, one must confess. So the Minchat Chinukh says: from here you see that there is no commandment to repent, but rather, if you repent, you have to do it in this way, in the form of confession. In contrast, at the beginning of the laws of repentance, in the list of commandments he gives in the introduction, it says: “There is one positive commandment, and that is that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess.” So here the wording is that there is a commandment to return and to confess. Now true, it is one commandment in which there is—when he returns—what? The letter is missing there, but I checked; there isn’t another version. In halakhah 1 he goes back to sounding like the Book of Commandments; I’ll mention that in a moment. But the wording here is: “that the sinner should return from his sin before God and confess,” meaning there is a commandment to return and to confess. True, there are two details here, but it is still one commandment that includes two elements, like the four species. There are commandments that include several details. But clearly there is an obligation, or a commandment, to repent and to confess—meaning both of those are parts of the commandment of repentance. So the Minchat Chinukh asks: how does that fit with the wording in commandment 73, where the commandment is to confess together with repentance—that is, if he repents, then let him confess. And in fact, as you correctly pointed out, inside the laws themselves it says: “All the commandments in the Torah, whether positive or negative—if a person transgressed one of them, whether intentionally or unintentionally—when he repents and returns from his sin, he is obligated to confess before God, blessed be He, as it says: ‘A man or woman, when they commit… and they shall confess their sin that they have committed’—this is verbal confession. Confession is a positive commandment. How does one confess? He says: Please, Lord, I have sinned…” So here he returns to the wording found in the Book of Commandments. In other words, confession is the positive commandment, even though above he writes that there is a commandment to return and confess. That’s the first point. How are we supposed to define the commandment in the Book of Commandments? What does it mean, “that we were commanded to confess the iniquities and sins… and say them together with repentance”? What? Sela turned on the lights there.
[Speaker E] Yes, Sela.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “That we were commanded to confess the iniquities and sins we committed before God and say them together with repentance.” So what exactly are we to make of that? Is this an existential commandment? A conditional commandment? A commandment… how do you understand this wording? “That we were commanded to confess the iniquities and sins we committed before God and say them together with repentance.” I’m talking now about the commandment of confession. There is no commandment of repentance. What is the commandment of confession?
[Speaker B] It sounds like it’s existential, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning that if you repent, then confess; and if you don’t repent, fine, nothing happened. That’s not an existential commandment; it’s a conditional commandment. An existential commandment is something else—we already talked about this—a commandment that can be fulfilled but not violated. Right? If you fulfilled it, you have a commandment; if you didn’t, nothing happened. A conditional commandment is a commandment that can also be violated. For example, fringes: it is conditional on wearing a four-cornered garment. If you wear a four-cornered garment, you have to put fringes on it. But that is not an existential commandment. How do I know? Because that commandment can be violated. In other words, if you wear a four-cornered garment and didn’t put fringes on it, you nullified a positive commandment. So what is the difference between that and a regular positive commandment? That this is a conditional commandment. In other words, your obligation in that commandment is conditional on certain conditions being met—namely, that you wear a four-cornered garment. Grace after meals is also a conditional commandment. That is, if you ate to satiety, you are obligated to recite grace after meals. Many of our commandments are conditional commandments. But that has nothing to do with an existential commandment; those are two entirely different things. Why am I saying this? Because from the wording of positive commandment 73, it seems this is a conditional commandment. In other words, if you repent, then confess. Except that if you really understand it that way, a strange result comes out—and the Minchat Chinukh comments on this too. I’m not entirely sure, not one hundred percent sure, but it seems to me. A strange thing comes out: if you repented and did not confess, then you have nullified a positive commandment. But if you didn’t repent at all, then nothing happened. Do you understand? Someone who repented and didn’t confess ends up worse than someone who didn’t repent. That sounds odd. So it’s not likely that this is a conditional commandment. So what is it? Well, actually, maybe one could say—especially in light of the Minchat Chinukh’s contradiction—that when we say he should confess together with repentance, what it means is: that is the way to do repentance. This is really a commandment to repent; it’s just that the proper form of repentance is to confess together with it, not to do repentance only in the heart. But really what we have here is a commandment to repent, not a commandment to confess. What?
[Speaker C] And is that what it means, that it’s indispensable? What? Is that what it means, that it’s indispensable?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. No, that part is clear; it’s explicit. It’s not connected to what I’m saying now. But that would just explain what exactly the proper way to do repentance is, with the assumption basically being that confession is not a separate commandment. Confession is the form in which repentance is done. That’s all. Fine. In Maimonides’ wording it really isn’t completely clear.
[Speaker C] What is the source for that? What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And they shall confess their sin that they have committed.” In other words, simply from the Torah. Yes. So if I don’t understand it that way, then presumably I have to say this is an existential commandment. Because it’s hard to define it as a conditional commandment. It seems it’s an existential commandment. Meaning: repent—it is proper to repent—but you are not obligated. And if you do repent, and you want to do it fully, then confess. And if not, then you simply have not repented. It’s not the nullification of a positive commandment; you just don’t have repentance.
[Speaker B] Could you say that repentance is an obligation, it’s just not a commandment because it doesn’t fit the framework of the 613 commandments?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s where I’m getting in a moment. Yes, I think you can say that—and in fact that’s what makes more sense here. So if we really accept that definition, that there is basically a distinction here between an existential commandment and an obligatory commandment in the laws of repentance, then it seems to me—and I don’t know of another good answer to this contradiction, assuming it is a contradiction; I said earlier that I’m not one hundred percent sure there is one—but assuming there is, I don’t know any solution other than what I’m about to say, and it seems to me that this is what one has to say here. In Maimonides, the rule is that counted commandments are only commandments that have a source in the Torah. If there is no verse commanding it, then the commandment is not counted, and it also won’t really be Torah-level. Even in the second root he writes that even commandments derived by means of the thirteen interpretive principles are commandments of rabbinic status, and he explains that this is basically because they are not written. In other words, commandments derived by interpretation are not written in the Torah; they are only learned or inferred somehow from verses in the Torah. And because they are not written in the Torah, they are not counted in the enumeration of the commandments. So all the more so, a commandment for which there is no verse commanding it at all. I mentioned once that contradiction in Rav Saadia Gaon’s Book of Commandments—Rabbi Yerucham Perla says there is a contradiction in the ninth root between its first part and its second part. I mentioned that once, I think. The first part talks about the fact that we do not count commandments that repeat themselves. When the Torah repeats the commandment to keep the Sabbath twelve times, we count one commandment. In the second part of the ninth root, Maimonides says that we do not count a general prohibition except once. For example, “Do not eat over the blood”—Maimonides sees that as the warning for the stubborn and rebellious son. The Talmud says this is the warning for the stubborn and rebellious son, because in the passage of the stubborn and rebellious son only the punishment appears. So the warning is derived from “Do not eat over the blood.” But other laws are also learned from there—for example, that a court may not eat on the day it issues a death sentence; and not eating before prayer, where in Maimonides it sounds like this is Torah law, which is interesting. In any case, he brings those too, and he counts it only once. So Rabbi Yerucham Perla asks: there seems to be a contradiction here, because in the first part of the ninth root everything seems to go by content. That is, we do not count commandments that are repeated several times in the Torah because they have one content. Meaning, what determines the counting of commandments is whether it has unique content, regardless of the command or how many commands there are. In the second part of the ninth root, it seems the opposite. There it seems that what determines things is the command, because in a general prohibition there are several different contents, and nevertheless Maimonides says we count it only once—only one commandment—even though the contents are different. So you see that we go by the number of commands, not the number of contents. Rabbi Yerucham Perla asks: so there is a contradiction between the first and second parts of the ninth root. Of course, there is no contradiction at all. What is needed is both. In order for a commandment to be counted, it must have a command, and it must have its own unique content, meaning that it is not included within another commandment. But for our purposes, what matters is that the first part of the root deals with a case where there are commands but no distinct content—so it is not counted. The second part deals with a case where there is content but no separate command—so that too is not counted. Okay, that’s clearly what Maimonides meant to say. In any case, what comes out of this is that we count only a commandment which, besides having content, also has its own distinct command. Is there a command to repent? If I read Maimonides in the first way I presented, in the Book of Commandments—that confession, “and they shall confess their sin that they have committed”—then there is a command to confess. And if confession is simply the way repentance is done, then perhaps one could say that this verse commands us to repent. Then there would be a verse commanding repentance. But that is only if I read Maimonides in the first way, not like the Minchat Chinukh. If I read him as meaning that when he speaks of the commandment of confession he really means the commandment of repentance, except that the way to do it is to confess verbally. But really it is the commandment of repentance. If, however, I read it like the Minchat Chinukh—that there is a commandment to confess, an existential commandment, but there is no commandment to repent—then in effect “and they shall confess their sin that they have committed” is not a command to repent. So where, then, is there a command to repent? There is the verse, “And you shall return to the Lord your God.” But Maimonides explicitly writes that this verse is not a commandment. In chapter 7 of the laws of repentance: “All the prophets commanded concerning repentance, and Israel will be redeemed only through repentance. And the Torah has already promised that in the end Israel will repent at the end of their exile, and immediately they will be redeemed, as it says: ‘And it shall be when all these things come upon you… and you shall return to the Lord your God… and the Lord your God will restore your captivity,’” and so on. So Maimonides interprets “and you shall return to the Lord your God” as a promise—a prophecy, a promise of what will happen in the future. True, Nachmanides on that verse says it is a commandment. But that is Nachmanides; Maimonides says not. So according to Maimonides, if that verse is not commanding repentance, then according to Maimonides there is no verse commanding repentance. There is no command to repent. In the Book of Commandments, which is the list of counted commandments, you cannot bring a commandment that has no command attached to it, no verse commanding it. In the Mishneh Torah, by contrast, Maimonides brings all our obligations, not only counted commandments. Rabbinic obligations also appear in the Mishneh Torah, and obligations grounded in reason, and obligations from interpretation. Of course, all of Jewish law appears in the Mishneh Torah. Therefore in the Mishneh Torah, when Maimonides states the obligation, there is indeed an obligation to repent. Why? Because although there is no command, there is certainly a halakhic obligation. Clearly there is an obligation, even if there is no command. And therefore in the Book of Commandments, when he writes what we are commanded to do, he writes to return and to confess. Why then at the beginning of the halakhic section does he go back to the wording of the Book of Commandments? Because Maimonides’ way of constructing his halakhic sections is that first he presents the commandments, and then he details and adds the rabbinic laws, the rational obligations, the interpretations, and everything around them. But at the beginning he always opens every halakhic section with the commandment—with what we were commanded in the Torah—and only afterward does he expand and add what goes beyond that. So I think that at the beginning of the laws he really does bring the wording of the Book of Commandments when he tries to define what the positive commandment is. So he says: “All the commandments in the Torah, whether positive or negative—if a person transgressed one of them, whether intentionally or unintentionally—when he repents and returns from his sin, he is obligated to confess before God, blessed be He, as it says: ‘A man or woman, when they commit… and they shall confess their sin that they have committed’—this is verbal confession.” So he brings the verse, and that is what we were commanded from it. “Confession is a positive commandment.” He always begins this way; every halakhic section begins with the commandments it contains. We have such-and-such commandments. Then he begins to spell out what that commandment means and what gets added to it.
[Speaker E] Where do we learn the obligation from? From reason? From reason?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes.
[Speaker B] Could you also say that there is no obligation, because it’s sort of like there’s no reason to say there’s a commandment to believe, because if I already… if I repent, then I do it on my own, so there’s no need to command it. In other words, I’m not going to come to repentance because there’s a commandment to repent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, there is no command to repent.
[Speaker B] No, also from reason—meaning, if there is such a reason to repent, then that is what will cause me to repent.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. Reason is… these aren’t two separate things. Reason means what I understand is right—to repent. That’s the reasoning.
[Speaker B] No, but even without the reasoning there would be some initial something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Without reason I wouldn’t do it?
[Speaker B] What? Why? If there’s no reason, why do it? I repent not because of that reasoning, but because… meaning there is…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I want to fulfill repentance because reason says one should fulfill the commandments. No, that’s the Meshekh Chokhmah. There is a Meshekh Chokhmah that wants to argue that according to Maimonides there is no commandment to repent because there is no need: to abandon the sin and not continue sinning is obvious; we are already obligated by the very fact that the Torah defines it as a transgression. So what is there to command in repentance? I spoke about that once. I don’t think he is right, because there is also verbal confession, and resolution for the future. What am I obligated to do? On the contrary—there is no logic in resolving for the future. The Torah already obligates me not to commit any transgression, whether I “accept it upon myself” or not. So what kind of vow of encouragement is this resolution for the future? After all, in any case I’m already obligated not to commit those transgressions by the very fact that the Torah defines them as transgressions. If you tell me that repentance is something beyond just not committing sins, then regarding that additional element there certainly is room for a commandment. Maimonides says there isn’t such a commandment, but that’s not an explanation. There is something there that could have been commanded. Okay? So this issue now—if there was no command, then why should a person do the things that go beyond merely not sinning? Not sinning is obvious, but that is not repentance. The added value in repentance beyond not sinning is the regret, the resolution for the future, the verbal confession—not the mere fact of not sinning. Okay? Where do all those things come from? On the one hand, they do not follow from the mere fact that these things are defined as transgressions. If I have to avoid sinning, who says I also have to regret having done it, or resolve for the future, or confess verbally? Where does all that come from? On the other hand, there is no command for it. So why do it? So here I say that one has to say that apparently this is reason. And the reasoning is what Rabbeinu Yonah writes at the beginning of his book—I brought this last time when I spoke about the special grace in great repentance—with his parable about the tunnel, yes, that people dug a tunnel out of the prison and the person didn’t leave. The moment you know that there is such a mechanism, reason says to make use of it. You do not need to be commanded to make use of it. What you need is only to be told that such a mechanism exists. Now with lesser repentance, you need to be told that you have such a mechanism. But with greater repentance, as I said before, it is also just reason that there is such a mechanism—or that it is accepted, or that such a mechanism… in other words, if I do greater repentance then certainly I am a different person, so people no longer come to me with claims. And that is simply the straightforward reasoning in favor of greater repentance. The only question is: how is it possible to do it at all? Fine, but that is already mapped onto the general question of choice. The fact is, if we assume that we have free choice and that we have the ability to change, then once a tunnel like this has been dug for us, reason says that we ought to use it. And since that is so, there is an obligation to repent—an obligation grounded in reason.
[Speaker B] And I mentioned that the Sefat Emet on the portion of Vayelekh says there that there is a combination of awakening from below, and through that the upper realms kind of help you in the process of repentance. So that goes back to the point that there is cooperation here between the two who are involved in it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, we also saw this with Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, when he said, “Heavens, ask for mercy on my behalf; mountains, ask for mercy on my behalf.” Meaning, he understands that he can’t do this by himself; he’s looking for some thing or someone from outside to help him do it, because how can I change myself? It’s kind of an incomprehensible thing. So what comes out is that the obligation to repent is grounded in reason, right? We talked about that; we had a whole chain of arguments, right? Now, we discussed that although the Talmud says in several places, “Why do I need a verse? It is logical,” and apparently what comes out of that is that reason has the status of a verse, but that’s not true. It’s clearly not true. Reason has the status of a verse when it comes to interpreting a commandment that already has a verse attached to it—whether to remove a detail, add a detail, or shape the commandment—then reason can do the work of something written explicitly in the verse. But when reason introduces a new foundation, then it does not have the status of Torah-level law. We saw this with the blessing over enjoyment in tractate Berakhot, with the dispute between the Pnei Yehoshua and the Tzelach, where the Talmud says that one must bless before eating based on reason, because “whoever partakes of this world without a blessing is as if he committed sacrilege.” So Pnei Yehoshua asks: then why wouldn’t a doubt here require stringency? After all, “why do I need a verse? It is logical”—meaning reason has the status of Torah law—so in a case of doubt we should be stringent. And the Tzelach attacks him and says, what are you talking about? Where have we ever heard such a thing, that reason is Torah law? What do you mean, where have we heard it? The Talmud says, “Why do I need a verse? It is logical.” The Tzelach also knew those Talmudic passages. Rather, what he means is that “why do I need a verse? It is logical” applies where reason shapes an existing law that already has a verse, and for that you don’t need additional verses; reason can shape it. But here, with the blessing over enjoyment, reason is establishing a new law, not shaping or interpreting an existing one. A law like that will not be Torah-level. For something to be Torah-level, there has to be a command; without a command, it isn’t Torah-level.
By the way, I don’t think Pnei Yehoshua disagrees with him either. I think I said this already. In my opinion, Pnei Yehoshua doesn’t really disagree with him. Pnei Yehoshua is only saying that true, there is no command, but still, since there is a reason showing that there is essentially something wrong with eating without a blessing, therefore in a case of doubt one should be stringent. And that’s not like an ordinary rabbinic law. In Maimonides there are several categories of rabbinic law. There are rabbinic laws whose doubtful cases are treated stringently, and rabbinic laws whose doubtful cases are treated leniently. Meaning, a law that comes from reason, or a law that comes from interpretation by exposition—the same thing—both are laws that are not Torah-level in Maimonides’ classification; they are not counted in the enumeration of the commandments, but their doubtful cases are treated stringently. That has other practical implications—for example, lashes are not administered for them. A law that comes from reason or from exposition does not incur lashes according to Maimonides; he says this explicitly. But doubtful cases are treated stringently.
And by the way, many attacked Maimonides from various places where you see that laws derived from exposition are treated stringently in cases of doubt. That’s not an attack, because Maimonides agrees that their doubtful cases are treated stringently. They think that “rabbinic laws” is some kind of umbrella term, and that all rabbinic laws have the same rules: anything that is a rabbinic law, its doubtful case is treated leniently, human dignity overrides it, and all sorts of things like that. But that’s not true. According to Maimonides there are several kinds of rabbinic laws, and each kind has its own rules. So a law whose basis is reason or exposition is a law that has substance but no command, and therefore its doubtful case is treated stringently. A rabbinic law has the command of “do not deviate,” but it has no intrinsic substance, and therefore its doubtful case is treated leniently, because a doubtful command or doubtful rebellion is not rebellion, as Rabbi Yitzhak Ze’ev says.
[Speaker B] You also said that gentiles are obligated in a commandment that comes from reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Rav Nissim Gaon writes in his introduction to the Talmud that anything that depends on the understanding of the heart has already obligated every person from the beginning of time. Meaning, anything that comes from reason obligates every human being.
[Speaker F] And specifically in the book by Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel that we learned, he brings sources there for Torah-level commandments that also come from reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Newly created Torah-level commandments? I haven’t found an example like that. I don’t know—bring me an example. I don’t remember anything like that right now.
[Speaker F] No, that the attitude toward it is as toward a Torah-level commandment on the basis of reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Definitely not. Impossible. They’re not counted—
[Speaker F] not counted, and lashes are also not given for them. What? You can call it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can call it Torah-level if you want, but it isn’t counted and lashes are not given for it. Counting it—that’s not the practical difference.
[Speaker F] They don’t give lashes—there’s no such thing as giving lashes for a commandment that has no verse, that comes from reason. Fine. Okay, so you’re saying that the counting may really just be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] just a technical matter. It’s not a halakhic question whether you count it or don’t count it; it doesn’t make a difference.
[Speaker F] You can say: even if it’s not counted, it’s still a Torah-level commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there are halakhic practical differences too—like the fact that lashes are not given. You can say it’s a Torah-level law for which lashes are not given; at that point it’s terminology. In Maimonides it’s called words of the Sages. What? Maybe words of Torah? You said words of the Sages. A commandment from Heaven. It’s a question of practical differences, not a question of names. The name doesn’t matter. You have to keep this and that alike. According to Maimonides it’s clear that there is “do not deviate” regarding rabbinic law. Right. So if I go back to the commandment of repentance: basically, the commandment of repentance comes from reason. And since it comes from reason, it can’t be counted in the enumeration of the commandments. But there is an obligation to do it, and maybe it’s even an obligation that other medieval authorities (Rishonim) would call Torah-level. But there is an obligation to do it; the exact label doesn’t matter right now. And therefore in the laws of repentance Maimonides brings both the obligation to repent and the obligation to confess. Okay.
Now the question that arises here is: why were we really not commanded about this? About the commandment to repent? Why did the Torah leave this as an obligation that is supposed to emerge for us from reason? Why doesn’t it command it? If it wants us to repent, then let it command it. This question comes up regarding all the things we are expected to do but are not commanded about. So I’ve mentioned more than once what Rabbi Kook writes about character refinement. Yes—he says that character refinement, and already Rabbi Chaim Vital asks this in Gates of Holiness: why doesn’t the Torah command character refinement? So Rabbi Chaim Vital says that the Torah speaks to human beings; if someone isn’t a human being, you don’t speak to him.
[Speaker C] So then why is there a commandment about “do not murder,” for example?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently, first of all, it could be that the Torah wanted to impose punishment. Because really, the prohibition against being a murderer is not dependent on “do not murder,” but in order to impose punishment for it—whereas for character refinement there is no punishment—for that you need a command. But the prohibition itself—for example with Cain—they came to him with complaints even before there was a command regarding murder. And you see that there is a prohibition on being a murderer that we are supposed to understand on our own. But in many such matters the Torah commands because there is punishment, because it has to define this as a prohibition, as a negative commandment.
[Speaker B] Here too it says in the Torah all kinds of “cursed.” What? All the “cursed.” Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Cursed” just for the sake of “cursed” is not a commandment. Okay.
[Speaker B] But there are various character traits that are written there in the section of “cursed.” So why is it written there in the Torah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Under “cursed” it doesn’t speak about character refinement. It speaks about ugly behaviors, but not character refinement. Which “cursed” statement is about character refinement?
[Speaker B] “Cursed is he who strikes his fellow in secret.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Who strikes his fellow in secret”—fine, fine, that’s an evil act. It’s not character refinement. Evil deeds come from bad traits, but character refinement—okay, I’ll sharpen this in a moment. Character refinement is inner, psychological repair; it’s not an act.
[Speaker E] You have to define what traits are.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. So Rabbi Chaim Vital says yes, there’s no point in commanding traits, because one who doesn’t refine his traits is not fit to be commanded. So what’s the point? Rabbi Kook adds to this. He argues that generally it is accepted that “greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” That’s what the Sages say. Ordinary reasoning would say—if we asked people today, they’d say that greater is one who is not commanded and does. But the Sages say that greater is one who is commanded and does. Rabbi Kook says: there are things regarding which the original intuition remains, that greater is one who is not commanded and does. And those things the Torah intentionally does not turn into commandments, so as not to destroy the possibility of doing them in a greater, more complete way.
Yes? Someone who refines his character because there is a section in the Shulchan Arukh saying that one must refine one’s traits—that is not like someone who refines himself because he understands that one has to be a human being. And therefore the Torah intentionally does not command this, so as not to make it something done in a diminished way. Here, the one who is commanded and does is actually lesser than the one who is not commanded and does. Yes, the example that always comes to mind in this context is from the world of matchmaking: a yeshiva boy who rejected all the suggestions—we already talked about this—a boy who keeps rejecting everyone. So the spiritual supervisor says to him: what did you do this year? And he says: I worked on my character traits. Of course I did. A year ago, when I was arrogant, no one suited me. Now that I’m humble, all the more so and certainly no one suits me. Character refinement, when it looks like this because there’s a verse and a clause in the Shulchan Arukh saying to refine one’s traits—
[Speaker E] That’s how—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that’s how someone looks who refines his character because there’s some clause and he has to discharge the obligation of character refinement. But the Torah expects us to refine our character because we understand that a person should be refined.
The only question—and I’m adding this parenthetically—is an interesting one. It’s like the famous story about Rav Chaim: “there is no such Tosafot.” So this question of Rabbi Chaim Vital always bothered me, because the Torah actually does command character refinement. So what kind of difficulty is this? It says to cleave to God’s traits: just as He is merciful, so you be merciful; just as He is gracious, so you be gracious. There is an explicit commandment, and all enumerators of the commandments count it, to cleave to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He. So what kind of question is that? It seems to me one can perhaps explain it.
[Speaker F] What? No, that’s Nachmanides. “You shall be holy”—that’s not connected to our issue; that’s going beyond the letter of the law.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Going beyond the letter of the law is not what we’re talking about now.
[Speaker F] To cleave to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He, is “and to cleave to Him,” not “you shall be holy.” “Just as He is merciful, so you be—”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] merciful; just as He is gracious, so you be merciful. Nachmanides says that from “you shall be holy.” What are you talking about? No. “You shall be holy” is about not being a degenerate within the bounds of the Torah, about doing things beyond the letter of the law. Those are two different things. Cleaving to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He, is—
[Speaker F] a counted commandment, and even Nachmanides doesn’t disagree with that. It’s “and to cleave to Him.” And is it possible to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rather, cleave to His traits, or cleave to Torah scholars; there are midrashim here. In any case—marry the daughter of a Torah scholar, and so on. So I think the explanation could be this: Rabbi Chaim Vital—I don’t know whether he knew how to learn; impossible to know—but Rabbi Kook certainly knew how to learn, and it doesn’t seem that they simply missed this commandment. I don’t know; maybe Rabbi Chaim Vital also knew. I just don’t know.
[Speaker F] What is the source in the Torah for “just as He is merciful, so you be merciful”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And to cleave to Him,” “to walk in His ways,” “and to cleave to Him.”
[Speaker B] Maybe you could say that this isn’t character work; it’s simply to act mercifully, but that doesn’t mean to work on the traits, only to behave that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—here, commandment 8: “He commanded us to imitate Him, exalted be He, according to our ability, and this is His statement, ‘and you shall walk in His ways.’ And this command was repeated when He said, ‘to walk in all His ways.’ And it was explained: just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is called gracious, so you too be gracious.” Positive commandment 8. Yes. To cleave to His traits is “and to cleave to Him,” “and you shall walk in His ways”—yes, it’s the same commandment.
In any case, it seems to me that “walking in the ways” of the Holy One, blessed be He, is a behavioral command: to do what He would do. But refining one’s character is not a behavioral command. Refining one’s character means simply having more refined traits, repairing the soul; that is inner work. That inner work is not commanded.
[Speaker D] To be merciful—isn’t that inner work?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Merciful means to have mercy, to do acts of mercy. That’s what “merciful” means in the commandment—not that this is the literal meaning of the word “merciful,” but I’m saying that the commandment to be merciful and gracious means to be gracious to someone, to have mercy on someone, to walk in the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Speaker E] So if you worked on your traits and now you have the trait of mercy, then now you don’t need a commandment, because from the trait itself you’ll already do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. You don’t need the commandment, but you still fulfill a commandment; there is a commandment. It can help you fulfill the commandment if you refine your traits; obviously that has value beyond just helping on the practical level. Once your traits are already refined, true, maybe you would do it even without a commandment, but certainly you are fulfilling a positive commandment. A positive commandment overrides a prohibition, or something like that—that’s a practical implication. Yes, if there were no positive commandment, it wouldn’t override a prohibition. Now that there is a command, a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. Does the positive commandment of character refinement override a prohibition? By the way, that too is a difficulty. There’s an interesting point here, yes—categories.
There is a Sefat Emet on Maimonides—I’ll get to it in a moment—on “What is repentance?” in chapter 2, law 2. No, chapter 2, law 1. “What is complete repentance? It is when a person is confronted by the same matter in which he sinned, and it is possible for him to do it, and he refrains and does not do it because of repentance, not out of fear and not because of weakness.” How so? “Suppose he had illicit relations with a woman, and after some time he is secluded with her again, and he still loves her, and his bodily strength is intact, and he is in the same country where he sinned, and he refrains and does not sin—this is complete repentance.” And about this Solomon said: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,” and so on.
So Sefat Emet discusses here—and several later authorities talk about this too—whether this is permitted from the outset. If someone failed in a certain sin in a certain situation with a certain woman, and he wants to be secluded with that same woman—yes—
[Speaker E] to put himself back into the situation—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] yes, to be secluded with that same woman in the same place, in the same situation, and maybe even to come close to the sin—
[Speaker E] and not transgress.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that permitted or prohibited? Yes, just in order—exactly, that’s why I mentioned it—maybe this is a positive commandment overriding a prohibition. The positive commandment of repentance, if we say it’s a positive commandment. According to Maimonides, apparently there is no positive commandment, so I don’t know. But maybe there is some kind of positive commandment overriding a prohibition here. And what if you don’t withstand it? What? If you don’t withstand it, then you’re in trouble. So be careful—don’t do it. But if you feel you can withstand it and you really want to complete your repentance all the way, I don’t remember Sefat Emet’s conclusion. It seems to me Sefat Emet says it is permitted. He discusses this Maimonides. Check in Frankel; Frankel surely brings it.
[Speaker F] But every day in prayer we say, “Do not bring us—”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “to a test and not to disgrace.” A penitent has a different framework. A penitent has special paths in any case. A person who lent money with interest, for example—part of his repentance is not to lend with interest even to a gentile, to tear up his documents, meaning not even to take back the principal from the loans he made. So there are special behaviors for a penitent. Here the novelty is that these behaviors involve a prohibition, and that’s a greater novelty.
[Speaker B] Never mind, but that’s another practical implication of this not being counted—that if it’s not a positive commandment, then a positive commandment won’t override a prohibition—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] so here there would be no overriding of the prohibition, yes, as I said in this context. In any case, for our purposes: I think Rabbi Chaim Vital’s question is why the Torah does not command character refinement, not why it doesn’t command walking in the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He. Because in that sense there really is no “cleaving” to the Holy One, blessed be He. To be merciful as He is merciful—He is not merciful in the sense of a character trait. You can’t describe what His inner traits are, what His heart is like. That’s not relevant. What we can describe is what He does, meaning how He behaves. Therefore, the command to walk in His ways and cleave to Him means doing what He does, behaving as He behaves. Character refinement is not about cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. Character refinement is about becoming a complete human being. And a complete human being is one whose traits are refined. And that is reason. Therefore the Torah does not command it, because the Torah specifically wants to leave it as something grounded in reason, since doing it from reason is greater than doing it from command.
Now repentance, in some senses, is not even an example of this; it is the same thing. Repentance in the sense of major repentance is character refinement—to adopt the right values, meaning not behaviorally but inwardly, the inner revolution I talked about, which is basically character refinement in a certain sense. Right—it’s not an example, it’s the same thing. And consequently it is clear why, according to Maimonides, repentance is not commanded: because the Torah wants to leave it so that it is done from motivation that comes from us, from below, not because of a command from above.
[Speaker D] I also said this in the name of Rabbi Chaim Vital in the name of Maimonides, who brings “A person should never say: I do not want to eat pork, I do not want to wear wool and linen mixed together,” and he says there is a contradiction with chapter 6 of the Eight Chapters. There, basically, the distinction is between commandments—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] commandments—
[Speaker D] that a person should do on his own, rational and moral ones, that a person should do on his own without a command, and commandments that a person should do only because—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. Yes. Meaning, the question there is not exactly whether to do them on one’s own even without the command, but after there is a command, how to do them in a fuller way. Should one do them out of identification—or out of estrangement? Just because there is a command? On the contrary: I don’t identify with this at all, but I’ll do it because I am a servant of God and there is a command. Or no—I should… This is a comparison between two ways of fulfilling commandments when there is a command, not necessarily a comparison between whether there should or shouldn’t be a command. So Maimonides there isn’t talking in order to say—though maybe that also emerges from there. The question is whether one should identify with commandments, whether there is value in that, or on the contrary, whether one need not identify, and doing it specifically because one does not identify is somehow more…
[Speaker F] Doesn’t it depend on this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. And then Maimonides says that with rational commandments there is value in identifying, whereas with decreed commandments there is value specifically not to, specifically to do them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them, and not out of my own identification.
[Speaker E] And a person doesn’t need to work on himself so as not to love pork.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. There’s no point in pork becoming disgusting to me. That does happen quite a lot, by the way; I think it happens to many people. But there’s no value in it. Meaning, it’s not an advantage. What? Is that Maimonides? Yes, that’s Maimonides. Maimonides, yes.
[Speaker B] And regarding “a jealous God and avenging,” and avenging—is there any idea of being… yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that question—we once discussed it, I think, when we were talking about Jewish law and morality. I said that morality clearly precedes Torah. Even when we are told to cleave to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He, the fact is that there are traits to which we do not cleave. Why not? Because the obligation to cleave to those traits, to behave in that way, comes from that verse of cleaving to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He. Those are the traits—go with them. Clearly, we choose which traits are appropriate to cleave to and which are not. Meaning, we already know beforehand what is fitting and what is not fitting, and only afterward does the Torah come and tell us to walk in His ways, “and you shall do what is right and good,” and things like that. The Torah does not spell out exactly what “right and good” is; rather, it assumes that we also understand on our own what “and you shall do what is right and good” means. It only wants to tell us that this has religious value, and is not only human value—in contrast to Leibowitz, yes, who said that morality is an atheistic category. No, it’s not an atheistic category; it’s a theistic category, meaning a religious category, but not a halakhic category. Those are two different things.
[Speaker C] It seems to me I saw—or I just heard now—that in the Guide for the Perplexed he writes, when Maimonides writes that there is something in which one also learns from the trait of vengeance—that the Shelah writes about this, that because of that one should learn how punishment ought to be administered, but also if—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That may be true—I’m not familiar with it—but even if it is true, the fact is that we don’t do that. So a ruler does, and we don’t. Why not? Formally speaking, all the traits are there, so do everything. No—we understand that for us it is not appropriate, while for a ruler it is appropriate. Meaning, I have never seen anyone derive from those traits something that his natural morality doesn’t already tell him to do. There’s no such thing. It always works out. So in the case of a ruler, it makes sense that he should act that way. “A jealous God and avenging”—that’s the ruler. Fine. Even if Maimonides hadn’t said it, the ruler would do it anyway, because it’s logical. In the end, reason determines. There, we were talking about how there is no such thing as “Jewish morality”; that’s an oxymoron, “Jewish morality.” There is morality. What is Jewish morality? Whatever people understand to be moral—that’s morality. There is Jewish law. In any case, how did we get to this? Ah yes—so why doesn’t the Torah command repentance? Because repentance as part of character refinement is something the Torah specifically wants us to do out of our own understanding, not because of a command. And indeed—at least major repentance. Minor repentance, fine, we do that out of self-interest. Meaning, here there is no need to command, because this is the way we erase sins. If you want, do it; if you don’t want, don’t do it. Your problem. But major repentance is something the Torah truly expects from us, and yet it does not command it, in order to leave it for us to do on our own initiative.
In the structure of Maimonides’ laws, maybe—like I said, I began this whole move with the two mechanisms of repentance from Maimonides, from this point about the intermediate person and the Ten Days of Repentance—but in Maimonides himself it doesn’t really look that way. In Maimonides himself it looks like he’s talking about minor repentance, with the rules and confession and all the rest—what you’d call the laws of repentance as laws. But maybe Maimonides is talking about it; I’m not a hundred percent sure. I don’t know whether this is the same logic. You tell me what you think.
Maimonides, Laws of Repentance, writes: “All the commandments in the Torah”—that’s what we read earlier—“one confesses”; confession is a positive commandment; and likewise those liable to death by religious court, the scapegoat, atonement, and Yom Kippur in our time when the Temple no longer exists, the essence of the day atones, and the categories of atonement with suffering, and all that. That ends chapter 1. Chapter 2: “What is complete repentance?” Now, one could read it like this: until now he discussed that there is a commandment to repent, or to confess; there is a matter of repenting. Now he specifies—meaning, what exactly counts as repentance? Until now he didn’t specify. Now he specifies. But what is “complete repentance”? He should say: what is repentance? That the sinner returns from his sin. Instead he says: “What is complete repentance? It is when the same matter in which he sinned comes before him…” No—what is this “complete repentance”? Until now I was talking to you about the laws of repentance: rules, confession, stages, abandoning the sin, do whatever you need to do, fine. In chapter 2 he says: “What is complete repentance?” Complete repentance is full repentance, the inner reversal.
And then he says: “It is when a matter in which he sinned comes before him, and it is possible for him to do it, and he refrains and does not do it because of repentance, not out of fear and not because of weakness. How so? Suppose he had illicit relations with a woman,” and as I read earlier. And then: “What is repentance? It is that the sinner should abandon his sin, remove it from his thoughts, and firmly resolve in his heart never to do it again, as it says, ‘Let the wicked abandon his way’; and likewise he should regret what has passed, as it says, ‘For after I returned, I regretted.’ If he immerses while holding the creeping thing in his hand, it is worthless. And he must confess. Among the ways of repentance: the penitent should constantly cry out before God with weeping and supplication, give charity according to his means, distance himself greatly from the matter in which he sinned, change his name, meaning: I am another person and not the same one who did those deeds, and change all his deeds for the good and to the straight path, and exile himself from his place, for exile atones for sin because it causes him to be subdued, humble, and lowly of spirit,” and so on.
So there is “what is complete repentance”—I understand that maybe he’s talking about major repentance—but afterward he goes back and starts detailing the laws of repentance again with confession and regret and commitment for the future, all those stages, which again brings us back to minor repentance. And then “among the ways of repentance,” in law 4, he—
[Speaker E] goes back again; there he says, “and I am not the same person.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s in law 4. And then in law 4, after he details the ways of repentance, he goes back again and says, “I am not the same person,” which is once again major repentance. Now I’m not exactly—I’m saying again: there is some kind of reference here to complete repentance as opposed to repentance with stages. But the arrangement does not look like Maimonides had before him some structured theory of two mechanisms of repentance that he meant to distinguish. So maybe this is just a nice interpretation, maybe not—I don’t know. I do see two tracks here, but it isn’t arranged in a sufficiently distinct way to convince me that Maimonides really had two such tracks clearly in mind. But on the other hand, it is there: complete repentance, closed repentance—and “I am not the same person.” In chapter 2, when he speaks more about the—
[Speaker D] There’s a distinction in Maimonides: in chapter 2 he brings commitment for the future first—or at the end—different from chapter 1, where commitment for the future seems to appear before abandonment of the sin.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he doesn’t mention commitment in chapter 1. In chapter 1, where does he mention commitment for the future?
[Speaker D] I don’t see it here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, you mean in the text of the confession. “And they shall confess their sin that they did”—this is verbal confession; confession is a positive commandment. How does one confess? He says: “Please, God, I have sinned, I have acted wrongly, I have rebelled before You, and I did such-and-such, and behold I regret and am ashamed of my deeds, and I will never return to this matter.” And this is the essence of confession.
[Speaker E] And that’s at the end. It appears last in the confession itself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s nothing here—I don’t see commitment for the future apart from the wording of the confession, at least it seems to me. Maybe I missed something.
[Speaker C] “And I will never return to this matter.”
[Speaker D] And that’s the end of the confession.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And likewise one who injures his fellow or damages his property, even though he paid him what he owes him, is not atoned for until he confesses and repents from doing such a thing forever, as it says, ‘from all the sins of man.’” There’s nothing here—I don’t see here the—
[Speaker D] commitment for the future as one of the four. In chapter 2 he brings it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, and this isn’t commitment for the future?
[Speaker C] “And repents from doing such a thing forever,” what we just read? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he doesn’t write that he should accept upon himself not to do it. What you see is that he simply doesn’t do it.
[Speaker C] Why doesn’t he do it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why doesn’t he do it if he didn’t accept it upon himself? That sounds like commitment.
[Speaker C] Why won’t he do it? Because the Torah forbids it, so he won’t do it. But if he didn’t decide—if now in the test he didn’t decide to refrain from it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shouldn’t the act of deciding appear in the laws of repentance? He just doesn’t do it. Like the Meshekh Chokhmah. From the very fact that you don’t do it, and there is a prohibition against doing it—so no. Therefore all the bonuses beyond that—regret, commitment, confession—all those are not required by the Torah’s commandment itself not to do it.
[Speaker C] Yes, but it seems to me that if you really won’t do it, that means you also accepted it upon yourself, unless it just happened by chance. I mean, he doesn’t write it—he should write it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It could be that that’s what needs to be inferred. If there is a rule, if there is an obligation, then let him say it.
[Speaker C] “I will never return to this forever.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in chapter 2, law 2, he writes it: “What is repentance? It is that the sinner should abandon his sin, remove it from his thoughts, and firmly resolve in his heart never to do it again, as it says, ‘Let the wicked abandon his way,’” and so on, “and likewise regret what has passed.” Meaning: abandoning the sin, commitment for the future, regret, and confession.
[Speaker D] There in the confession it says—it appears at the end of the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, the wording of the confession that we read earlier.
[Speaker D] And here commitment for the future appears earlier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. I said that in the wording of the confession it appears in chapter 1, yes. I’m talking about the order.
[Speaker D] I’m also talking about the order of the four stages.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. In the wording of the confession the order is different from when he details the laws, but I don’t know if that’s a difference between chapter 1 and chapter 2, because there he brings the text of the confession; he doesn’t bring the law of accepting it for the future. So again, I don’t know whether in Maimonides one can really see these two elements, or whether this is just a nice reading and he basically sees it all as one thing. I don’t know.
Beyond that, later in Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance as well—in chapters 5 and 6, or actually chapter 5, law 3—he talks about intermediates, the righteous, Rosh Hashanah, heretics and unbelievers and all kinds of matters like that, people who have no path to repentance, twenty-four things that impede repentance—that’s chapter 4—and in chapters 5 and 6 he deals with free choice. The question is: why does the discussion of free choice appear specifically in the laws of repentance and not in the laws of Grace after Meals? A person has to choose freely whether to recite Grace after Meals, or to keep the Sabbath—why specifically in the laws of repentance? If repentance in its essence is some kind of renewed choosing, the healing of the soul that I referred to earlier, then there is logic to placing the discussion of choice in the laws of repentance. Why? Because true, in every commandment or prohibition there is an element of choice—to choose correctly and not choose incorrectly—but the commandment of repentance, or obligation of repentance—Maimonides doesn’t call it a commandment—the obligation of repentance is to choose. In Grace after Meals, the commandment is to choose to recite Grace after Meals, so there is no point in inserting a discussion of choice there, even though choice is a condition for fulfilling the commandment of Grace after Meals; you have to choose to recite it. But in repentance, what you do in repentance is simply return to being one who chooses. We talked about freedom of the will last time—you return to being one who chooses. So the whole essence of repentance is exactly that: choice. And precisely for that reason repentance is not counted in the enumeration of the commandments, because you cannot command someone to choose. If you are not choosing, what will it help to command you to be one who chooses? You have to choose; that is the whole idea—to become one who chooses again. And therefore the discussion of choice appears here—
[Speaker F] Is choosing a commandment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, exactly—that was going to be my next sentence. And of course: “Choose life,” right? There is a verse, “Choose life,” but no one counts that in the enumeration of the commandments—no one I know. Why? For the same reason that repentance is not counted in the enumeration of the commandments.
[Speaker E] There’s no meaning in saying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that they should command you to choose. Even that you won’t choose to fulfill. If they commanded you to do all sorts of things, there is no point in commanding that. But on the other hand, there is value in choosing. Suppose I do only good deeds all my life and avoid transgressions, but just because that’s what I feel like doing, not because I chose.
[Speaker E] That’s just what I like to do. What? That’s what I like doing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. So does that have value? That’s Amnon Yitzhak’s sheep. It didn’t do good deeds and it—
[Speaker E] didn’t do transgressions.
[Speaker F] What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, let’s imagine a sheep that also does good deeds and helps its friends, everything’s fine. Never mind—on the conceptual level this is Amnon Yitzhak’s sheep, and this is also a sheep that does good deeds; it’s had a genetic upgrade. There’s no value in that, right? In the end, you have to choose. And once you want to repent, what you really need to do is return to being one who chooses. And in order to return to being one who chooses, you can’t be commanded to be one who chooses. So that’s another explanation of why there is no commandment to repent—because there is precisely no commandment to choose. On the other hand, there is a discussion of choice in the laws of repentance because repentance means being one who chooses. It’s the other side of the same coin. Therefore we were not commanded, and therefore all this appears here. And as I just said, there is also value in being one who chooses. Meaning, by reason alone, there is value in being one who chooses, right? Choice is not only a means for getting me to behave well. There is value in being one who chooses.
Suppose there is a person who behaves in a good way purely by inertia. Everything is perfect, but it’s just inertia—he doesn’t choose. Another person chooses evil. Who is better? In my eyes it’s complicated.
[Speaker B] Yes, there are two planes here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. There is one plane on which the first is better, and another plane on which the second is better. The second is a human being—at least he chooses. The first does not choose. The first does good deeds and the second does bad deeds. The results favor the first. Exactly. Teleologically the first is better, but in terms of the way he functions, the second is better because the second at least chooses.
[Speaker C] Why? Why would you say the second is better? What does it mean that he chooses evil? It means he chooses. He chooses, but from the outset he chooses to do—it’s as if he’s doing it intentionally, specifically. So even in terms of conduct that’s worse, isn’t it? Why? Because he chooses evil, so in terms of outcome—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in terms of intention too it’s bad, fine. But the mere fact that he chooses is good.
[Speaker B] Even though according to what you said earlier, you can’t really choose evil; you only lose the power of choice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, we discussed that then.
[Speaker B] And then he goes back to being like the second one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We discussed that then—the question whether there is such a thing as choosing evil at all. Or maybe you simply don’t choose, and then evil follows. This is also connected to the sense of will, yes? Fine, but I’m not going into that here.
At the conceptual level I’m only saying that there is a practical implication here for how we measure success in education, for example. It is usually assumed that someone who leaves the path is an educational failure. In my eyes that is not necessarily so. If he leaves because he came to the conclusion that he truly doesn’t identify—no, that he came to the conclusion that he doesn’t identify—then there is an element of success in that. Meaning, in the end the person made decisions and is carrying out what he believes in. I very strongly disagree with him; I’m sorry he is choosing that way. But there is a certain element of success here, as opposed to those who remain out of inertia and continue on what I think is the right path, but not out of choice. In other words, evaluations of a person need to be more complex than we are accustomed to.
Just yesterday—well, not yesterday, on Monday—I met a mother who once, two years ago or so, asked me to speak with her son, who had all kinds of questions. He was in high school, I think in twelfth grade. He had all kinds of questions and doubts and so on. The parents were in a panic. Rabbi Stav from there—Rabbi Stav contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to speak with the boy. I said, we can try; what do I know. And I spoke with him. Before that I spoke to the mother. I told her: first of all, calm down. I told her: you succeeded educationally. The boy thinks—that itself is a success. Because the parents’ panic always, in a situation like that, is very harmful. In any case it’s harmful, and not only harmful but simply wrong. Anyway, on Monday I met her, and today he’s in yeshiva. I always say I meet a lot of young people who come with all kinds of questions, but I don’t get feedback. I don’t know what came of them afterward. I don’t know whether what I said helped or didn’t help. Once in a while I do meet someone with whom it didn’t help—I’ve also met various people like that. But I don’t know; I have no statistics. I try to form patterns of how it is right or not right to conduct oneself, but I get no feedback.
[Speaker E] So you can’t learn lessons.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s it. I can be impressed, but that isn’t worth much without that feedback. So on Monday I got some kind of feedback, okay. He’s in some kind of open yeshiva like that, but he’s there and he’s continuing on his way. I told her they succeeded nicely, I’m happy for them. Anyway, to our matter: this discussion of free choice appears here because repentance means returning to being a chooser. I’ll just say a few more sentences about the laws of repentance in general; after that Maimonides really goes off to all kinds of places. “Since every person has free choice, as we explained, a person should strive to repent and confess his sins verbally.” You see? “Since every person has free choice, as we explained, a person should strive to repent and confess his sins verbally.” What does “a person should strive” mean? There’s a commandment to do it, so do it. What is this “should strive”? He doesn’t say, since this is such an important thing, “a person should strive” to recite Grace after Meals. Does he write that? He never writes that anywhere. Why? Because repenting is not a commandment. This whole collection of the laws of repentance looks like an ethics book. A large part of it. Look, read chapter 7: it’s all an ethics book with poetic praise for repentance. What is that doing in the Mishneh Torah? Usually at the end of halakhic sections there’s some kind of conceptual passage or something like that. Here, three quarters of the laws of repentance are all kinds of poetic flourishes and praise for the penitent. What is that doing in a book of Jewish law? The point is that because there is no commandment to repent, Maimonides has to persuade us to repent. He has to explain to us that it’s important, and therefore you should repent. That’s always the meaning of the “therefore.” Tosafot in Bava Batra on page 2 and onward—the discussion begins with “therefore.” The analytical scholars always make a whole interpretive point out of the “therefore.” Why is the conclusion dependent on the premise, right? So “therefore” means that. Why is this the reason they do it? There are always all kinds of analytical discussions that come out of that “therefore.” So that’s what he is saying: “Since every person has free choice, as we explained, a person should strive to repent.” Because you have the ability to choose, therefore strive to repent. What does that mean? Strive to be a chooser. That is the essence of repentance: to be a chooser. Not, because you have the ability to choose, so use it to repent. Being a chooser is the repentance. That’s what he said in chapters 5–6, so in chapter 7 he comes back to it, and then all kinds of poetic language about how great repentance is, that he was far and now he is near, and all sorts of things like that. All these poetic embellishments are meant to tell us why it is important to repent. He is trying to persuade us. In no other halakhic section in the book does he persuade us to keep the laws. He tells us what will happen if we keep them, what will happen if we don’t keep them, and that’s that. What? It’s a law book. In the laws of repentance it’s exceptional; it looks like some sort of ethics book. So it looks like an ethics book because that is the essence of repentance: it is not a commandment. So you need to persuade people that this is important—those who don’t understand it on their own. To explain why it is important, and therefore you need to repent. And that is why repentance really does contain something a bit unusual compared to all other halakhic contexts, because usually we are used to the relationship between thought and Jewish law as two sides of the same coin. Meaning, Jewish law says what must be done and what is forbidden, and thought explains the ideas behind it. In repentance, the thought of repentance—what is often called the thought of repentance—is often not at all the thought behind repentance. It is simply an alternative mechanism of repentance. The repentance bound up with all that thought, like “the lights of repentance,” which greatly broadens it—it doesn’t matter, all those approaches that soar through all the matters of repentance—that is not the repentance Maimonides is talking about in the laws of repentance. It is simply an alternative way to repent; it is not the thought that explains what lies behind the laws of repentance. It is a mechanism that is not connected to the laws of repentance at all; it is a mechanism that bypasses the laws of repentance, so that you don’t need the laws of repentance if you use it. It is another mechanism; it is not the thought that explains the law. It is two channels. Now this is, ostensibly, a non-halakhic channel, so “laws of repentance” is actually not such a successful expression in this context, because it is a non-halakhic channel. It’s poetic language, coming to persuade us why it is worthwhile. There are no positive commandments and prohibitions here. But on the other hand, it is clear that since there is an obligation to repent, you need to know how to do it, what to do, that it can be done, and why to do it, because without that we won’t do it. So it is important to Maimonides to include this whole matter, and so it looks like a book of thought or an ethics book, but it isn’t. It is actually almost a law book, because it is a book that tells you how and why to carry out the great repentance. By the way, I think—I’ll just complete this with a few more sentences—I think that the final chapters of the laws of repentance also really expand into the World to Come, serving for its own sake, yes, excision, the World to Come, Torah study for its own sake, yes, the reward of a commandment, the messianic era—what is all of that doing here? What is it doing in the laws of repentance, all these things? Put the messiah in the laws of the foundations of the Torah, or there in the laws of kings, where he talks about it a bit. What does it have to do with the laws of repentance? It seems to me that Maimonides first of all is trying to persuade us to repent, so he says: there is reward, and there is this and there is that; he needs to persuade us. But after that he says: “A person should not say: I will fulfill the commandments of the Torah and engage in its wisdom in order to receive all the blessings written in it, or in order to merit the life of the World to Come, and I will separate from the transgressions against which the Torah warned in order to be saved from the curses written in the Torah, or so that I not be cut off from the life of the World to Come. It is not fitting to serve God in this way, for one who serves in this way serves out of fear, and this is not the level of the prophets nor the level of the sages. And only the ignoramuses, women, and children are made to serve in this way, out of fear, until their understanding increases and they serve out of love.” “One who serves out of love”—this is halakhah 2—“engages in Torah and commandments and walks in the paths of wisdom, not because of anything in the world, not out of fear of evil, and not in order to inherit good, but does the truth because it is truth, and the good will ultimately come because of it.” And that is serving for its own sake. You could say: until now I persuaded you to repent because there is the World to Come and excision and reward and punishment and so on. Now he says: yes, but really that is not why you should do commandments, and not repentance either. Rather what? To do the truth because it is truth. Now here we have come back and closed the circle from the beginning of the laws. To do the truth because it is truth is exactly to return to being a chooser—that is, to grasp the true and correct values and act on them out of my own choice, not because I have some interest, some calculation, reward and punishment, and all sorts of things of that kind. And you’ll see that he also talks, for example, about love of God—love and fear. What is all of that doing here? It also appears in the laws of the foundations of the Torah. After all, in chapter 2 of the laws of the foundations of the Torah he speaks about love of God and “what is the way to love Him and fear Him,” and all those things, and sanctifying God’s name, which is part of love of God, and things like that. Why does it come back here? Here he returns to things like Torah study for its own sake, fulfillment of the commandments for their own sake, and things of that sort. He comes back to all the things that, halakhically speaking, in my opinion are not binding. In the laws of repentance you will find all the laws that are not really halakhic. Everything that reappears and also appears in another collection of laws comes back here in its non-halakhic dimension. There Maimonides uses the laws of repentance, which in their essence are this kind of law—laws that do not fit into the halakhic pattern, because you need to do this for the reason that it is indeed right to return to being a chooser. So he says: fine, serving for its own sake, and all these things too—you really need to do the truth because it is truth. That too is part of it; you can call it part of repentance, but it doesn’t matter. That too is an obligation that must be fulfilled because it is right, not because there is a commandment of “You shall love the Lord your God.” The love spoken of here is not, yes, to perform the commandments out of love; that is not the definition of love of God. Look in the laws of the foundations of the Torah: it does not mention there performing the commandments out of love. One must love God, not perform the commandments out of love. Performing the commandments out of love speaks about motivation—why I do commandments. And the love here too is defined differently: to do the truth because it is truth, that is what is defined here as love. It is not the love defined in the laws of the foundations of the Torah. Why? Because here he is not talking about the commandment of loving God; he is talking about love of God, but not the commandment of loving God. Love of God is a different section, one of the 613 commandments. Love of God is something else. Love of God here is something that is supposed to come out of love. The same goes for fear of God that he speaks about here, as opposed to the fear that appears in the laws of the foundations of the Torah. Serving for its own sake of course appears here, and serving for its own sake again—it is simply that all these things need to be done because they are right. And to do all of these, in essence, is really to be a penitent. Because being a penitent ultimately means returning to be someone who truly does what is right. You cannot make this into a commandment; you cannot command someone to do it. I have to decide to do it, and it has to come from me. And that is all the paradoxes we talked about: how can it be that it comes from me to change myself? But after all that, in the end, that is what is demanded of us—to return to being, to take the reins in our own hands. That is really the meaning of repentance, and of the laws of repentance as well. Okay, happy new year.