Teshuva: Its Meaning and Laws – Rabbi Michael Avraham – Lesson 3, Part B
This transcript was generated automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Values, sin, coercion, and weakness of will
- The paradox of self-change and choice
- Ron Aharoni, subject-object, and Munchausen
- Repentance, the commandments of love and hatred, and the good inclination and evil inclination
- Grace in minor repentance and major repentance
- Our Father, our King, restore us; soul, organism, and the non-sharp boundary with the Holy One, blessed be He
- Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya and major repentance as a living paradox
- Second-order choice and energy in realizing values
Summary
General Overview
The text sets up a logical paradox at the basis of repentance and choice: if a person sinned, then apparently that is what his value system determined to be right; and if it did not come from his values, then he was coerced, and there is no place for repentance in the sense of “I was in the wrong.” Within this difficulty, a distinction is presented between “minor repentance” and “major repentance,” and it is said that in major repentance the grace lies in the very possibility of changing, not in the acceptance of the repentance. Two directions of response are then proposed: blurring the dichotomy between “I do” and “the Holy One, blessed be He, does” through the idea of a divine point / soul that connects inside and outside; and also a practical-conceptual solution to the paradox of “weakness of will” by means of “second-order choice,” which is the choice whether to choose and invest energy in realizing existing values.
Values, sin, coercion, and weakness of will
The text assumes that if a person did something, then the act expresses his actual value system, and there is no meaning to the claim, “I didn’t believe in it, but I did it anyway.” It states that if a person thought he wanted to serve God and yet sinned, then at that moment the pleasure in the sin or the interest involved was more important to him than serving God, and that itself is his value scale. It argues that there is no sin that does not begin in the value system, because if the act did not come from one’s values but was imposed from outside, then the person is coerced and repentance does not apply to him. It sharpens the point by saying that if the person himself consciously realizes his values, then he already believes in them, and then the question arises how it could be that he decides to repent and return to other values that he did not believe in at the time of the sin.
The paradox of self-change and choice
The text argues that the ability to choose a value system, and especially to change a value system, seems logically impossible: either the change “happens to me,” in which case there is no credit and no responsibility, or it is done intentionally, in which case the doer and the one acted upon are the same “I.” It presents the difficulty that if “I change myself,” then apparently I am already equipped with the new value system, and if so there is no one to change and nothing to carry out. It describes “weakness of will” as a paradox in which, on the one hand, there is a sense of ability to change and of responsibility, while on the other hand a systematic analysis points to a logical impossibility.
Ron Aharoni, subject-object, and Munchausen
The text cites Ron Aharoni in the book The Cat That Isn’t There as claiming that philosophy is characterized by a confusion between subject and object, and that this is a fundamental error that recurs in many issues. It applies this to the claim that when we say “I act on myself,” we are setting things up as though there is an X acting on Y and then declaring Y = X, which cannot be right. It compares the attempt to “pull myself out of the pit” to Baron Munchausen pulling himself up by his own hair, and concludes that this picture is funny in a story but reappears in the way people speak about repentance, choice, and changing values. It presents the problem as unavoidable: if you have already pulled yourself out, then you were already outside, and if you are inside, there is no one to pull.
Repentance, the commandments of love and hatred, and the good inclination and evil inclination
The text points out that even commands such as “And you shall love the Lord your God” and “You shall not hate your brother in your heart” seem to demand inner change, but suggests interpreting them as a command to internalize and realize a value one already believes in, rather than replacing one’s value system. It distinguishes between the good inclination and the evil inclination and the “I” that makes decisions, arguing that the inclinations do not decide but push and pull, while the decision whether to comply belongs to the person. It emphasizes that the claim about weakness of will holds up a mirror from which there is no escape: if the sin was committed willingly, then it was a value choice, and if not willingly, then it was coercion and there is no repentance for it in the sense of cleansing guilt.
Grace in minor repentance and major repentance
The text presents a distinction between “minor repentance” and “major repentance,” and defines that in major repentance the grace lies in the very possibility that such repentance exists, whereas its acceptance is “by strict law,” because the person has become “a different person.” It states that in minor repentance the act itself is possible as a technical process, and the grace lies in the fact that it is accepted even though the person “hasn’t really changed, you’re the same person.” It argues that the sharp logical question appears mainly in major repentance, where what is at stake is a self-reversal and not merely a procedure of realizing existing values.
Our Father, our King, restore us; soul, organism, and the non-sharp boundary with the Holy One, blessed be He
The text suggests that in order to solve the dilemma of “if I do it, it’s impossible, and if another does it, it’s worthless,” one must blur the sharp distinction between outside and inside in the relationship between the human being and the Holy One, blessed be He. It uses ideas such as “the divine point” and “the soul is a part of God above” to say that the act of change is both from outside and from inside, and therefore there is no simple dichotomy. It cites the Talmud in Berakhot 10a, “Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, fills the world, so the soul fills the body,” and formulates a picture of the world as an organic entity whose soul is the Holy One, blessed be He, just as the soul unifies a body that otherwise would be only a collection of cells. It interprets “Our Father, our King, restore us in complete repentance before You” as a request that the Holy One, blessed be He, perform the act of repentance together with the person, because otherwise self-initiated change is undefined, and without such partnership the person remains with a paradox that has no solution.
Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya and major repentance as a living paradox
The text brings the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya: “He went and sat between two mountains and hills” and turned to the mountains and hills, heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars and constellations, saying, “Seek mercy for me,” and they replied that they would first have to seek mercy for themselves, until he said, “The matter depends on nothing but me,” “He placed his head between his knees and cried bitterly until his soul departed.” It interprets his appeal to outside factors not as blame but as a request for help, because major repentance cannot be carried out “from within yourself” and is like trying to pull yourself out of a pit. It presents “The matter depends on nothing but me” as the decision that if others do it, it has no value, yet at the same time that very decision rests on the profound helplessness of someone who does not know how self-change even begins. It describes the difficulty as a logical entanglement and not merely a psychological problem of “we’re not strong enough,” and presents Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya as its sharpest expression.
Second-order choice and energy in realizing values
The text proposes a response to the problem of weakness of will through the claim that there is “a choice whether to choose,” that is, a second-order choice about the degree of autonomy and psychic resources invested in realizing values. It argues that a person can hold a correct and well-defined value system and still not act in accordance with it, not because he prefers another value, but because he “didn’t want enough to be a chooser” or “I was asleep” and left the reins to “autopilot.” It gives examples from dieting, athletic training, and religious transgressions in order to argue that failure is not necessarily a change in the hierarchy of values but a weakness in activating choice. It concludes that the change required in repentance is not a change in the value system but an increase in the power and energy of realization, and that the continuum between minor repentance and major repentance is a continuum of the intensity of autonomy: at 0% this is minor repentance, supported by the grace of its acceptance, and at 100% this is major repentance, in which the person “completely takes the reins into my hands” and always does what he believes in. It adds that even the decision to invest more energy leads back to the question of the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, and formulates the request “Return us, O Lord, to You, and we shall return before You” as a request for help in being autonomous and realizing what one already believes, and not as a request “to believe correctly” in a way that would recreate the same paradox.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that comes afterward, but first of all I need to decide what my basic values are. And that I don’t decide; it just—it simply happens to me.
[Speaker B] Freedom with the Holy One, blessed be He?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Freedom with the Holy One, blessed be He? So if the Holy One, blessed be He, does it, then He repented, not me.
[Speaker B] Fine, but afterward I have acquisition, I also arrived at labor.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] After the repentance I did work. So I said: implantation and internalization. I’m talking about repentance itself, the basic point. The question of weakness of will that I brought up here—I probably brought it up here last time too—basically says, the fundamental assumption there says that if you did something, that’s basically what your value system says to do. Don’t tell me stories that you don’t believe in it but you did it anyway. If you did it, then that’s what you wanted to do. Now if you want—you think you want to serve God—and nevertheless you committed a sin, what does that mean? It simply means that the pleasure in the sin, or whatever interest caused you to sin, was, from your point of view, more important than serving God. That’s your value system. There is no sin that doesn’t begin in your value system. Either way: if it didn’t begin in your value system, then something imposed itself on you, so you were coerced. You don’t think that was the right thing; you were just forced to do it. Just one second. If it came out of your value system and that’s what caused you to do it, then that’s what you really wanted to do. But if that’s really what you wanted, then either way: if something else caused you to do it, then you were simply coerced, and you don’t need to repent. If you yourself decided and consciously realize your own values, then you yourself think it’s right—so what does it mean to repent? How will you decide to repent? After all, you believe in this; you don’t believe in the other path to which you want to return. Because if that’s what you want to return to, then you already believe in it now, so why did you commit the sin?
[Speaker C] So you’re saying that a person’s values are forced on him—you don’t choose your values.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently there’s something here that’s terribly problematic. Meaning, this process of repenting, or basically choosing, brings us back to the question of free choice. Right? Our ability to choose a value system at all, and especially to change a value system, is something that is apparently logically impossible. Either it happens to us by itself or it can’t happen. It can’t be done in an intentional way, in a way I decide on and carry out, because the one who carries it out and the one on whom it is carried out are both me. So if I change my own value system, then what does that mean? I, the changer, am already equipped with that new value system. So why do I need to repent? I’m already there. And whom am I changing? There’s something deeply problematic here. I’m sure I mentioned Ron Aharoni then, with his book The Cat That Isn’t There. He says there that all of philosophy as a whole—fascinating book, you should read it—that what defines philosophy is basically the confusion between subject and object. He shows how all the important issues in philosophy are all mapped onto one error. He claims there is no such field as philosophy; it’s simply a collection of mistakes. And they are all one fundamental mistake, and it appears in all the contexts of the central questions in philosophy—that’s what he shows there. The claim is, in practice, that when I act on myself, think about myself, all things of that kind, then the “I” and the “self” are the same one. We often describe it as though X acts on Y. Now we set Y equal to X. I act on myself. That’s how we always think, that’s how we always relate to it. But that’s not true; it can’t be true. Meaning, you can’t set Y equal to X. Because if you act on yourself, then you’re already there; you don’t need to do anything. You already—I’ll apply it here now, never mind, he does this in other contexts. Therefore the “I” serves here in two roles: I’m both the subject who performs the action and the object on which the action is performed. Okay, but if I am the same one, then there’s no need to do the action; I’m already in the place to which I want to bring myself. It’s like Baron Munchausen who tells—yes—that he fell into a pit and ran home to bring a ladder, or pulled himself up by his own hair and that’s how he climbed out of the pit. Right, all those kinds of stories. There’s no such thing. Meaning, if you pull yourself up by your own hair, that means you’re already outside; there’s no one to pull if you’re already outside. And if you’re not outside, then you’re inside—who’s going to pull you out? You can’t do such a thing. Now, with Baron Munchausen everyone dies laughing, but when we talk about free choice and repentance and changing a value system, we all do
[Speaker D] exactly that, we speak the same way. It’s exactly the same story. We take ourselves and pull ourselves out of the pit. Either way: if we pull ourselves out of the pit, then we’re already outside—there’s no one to pull, no reason to pull. And if we’re inside the pit, then who is doing the pulling?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who takes us out? What does it mean that I take myself?
[Speaker D] There’s no such thing. There’s something very problematic here. Okay? So the claim is that in practice our ability to change a value system or… Wait, according to your approach, let’s say in rehabilitating prisoners who committed an offense, who rehabilitates them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Their thinking? It’s one of two possibilities. Either someone from outside changes them—the rehabilitator changes them—or they were never sick in the first place, like with the turkey prince. Did I mention the turkey prince? Yes? So that’s it: they were never sick, it was always something external, coercion basically, in our language. They really never needed to sit in prison as punishment; they were coerced, and we’re helping them treat the coercion that happened to them, and they get rid of the coercion that happened to them and return to being themselves. Fine? But either way, that can’t really be. I’m saying again, this is a difficulty, not a solution; I’m not saying it as a definitive claim. Every paradox is like that. Did we talk about the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise? Surely you’ve heard of it—but Achilles obviously catches the tortoise, so what’s the paradox? It’s obvious that he catches the tortoise, right? That’s the paradox. On the one hand it’s obvious to you that he catches the tortoise, but
[Speaker D] on the other hand I can
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] show you with an orderly argument
[Speaker D] that he’ll never catch the tortoise. That’s exactly the paradox. And here too, weakness of will is a paradox; it’s not a claim. A paradox in which, on the one hand, we really feel with every fiber of our soul that we can change ourselves, but on the other hand, when you think about it systematically, you see
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that there’s something here that is logically inconceivable. It doesn’t—something here doesn’t work. It can’t be. And it’s not only with repentance. Right? Not only with repentance. When the Torah commands, “And you shall love the Lord your God,” at the outset you don’t love, and somehow you “shall love the Lord your God.” “And you shall love the Lord your God”—you could say that really the commandment is only to internalize within me the value “I want to love Him”; I always wanted to love Him, and the commandment is to internalize that in my heart and also to feel it or experience it or identify with it. But it’s not—“You shall not hate
[Speaker D] your brother in your heart,” same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s only not—it’s only not a command to change a value system, but a command to implement a value system that I already believed in even before the command. Meaning, if I understand that it is right not to hate my fellow and I can’t manage to live up to that, but I understand that it is right not to hate my fellow, then there is no problem. What I need now is to work on myself in order to realize what I believe in. But to change what I believe in? What does it mean that I will change what I believe in? How can I? Then who is the changer and who is the changed? If I’m already changing, then I don’t need to change, because I’m already there. I’m saying again, clearly this is a paradox. Clearly, as a fact—well, what kind of fact? At least a feeling—that we do change. And we change in a way that doesn’t merely happen to us, because otherwise we really deserve no credit for it on the one hand, or punishment if we do it in the negative direction. So clearly we do grasp that a person is responsible for his choices, for his values.
[Speaker D] And that gives me merit—so I committed the offense and that’s okay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What gives me merit to do it? Well, “gives me merit” doesn’t matter, those are just words. In the end the question is what I do.
[Speaker D] In Jewish thought literature they call it the way of the good inclination and the evil inclination.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The good inclination and the evil inclination—we talked about that when we discussed emotions. The good inclination and the evil inclination say nothing. The good inclination and the evil inclination are both inclinations trying to pull me in different directions. Now what do I do with that? I am not the inclinations; I am the one the inclinations are trying to act upon. And when I decide whom to listen to or not listen to, that’s my decision, not the inclinations’ decision. The inclinations don’t decide; they try to push and pull and take me to different places. My job is to make decisions: what do I do, do I comply with them, not comply with them, which one do I go with, how do I do it. So I’m talking only about my net self; I’m not talking about my environment, which exerts all kinds of forces, urges, and pressures on me. The inclinations are outside the game here. The inclinations, from my point of view, are the environment. I’m talking about the person who acts within that environment. There’s something here—meaning, the argument of weakness of will is very strong in that sense, because it places us in front of a mirror from which apparently we have no way to escape. Meaning, if we committed a sin, that means that’s what we thought was right to do. Because if not, then we were coerced, so there’s nothing to repent for. Because we didn’t intend to do it and were forced; something caused us to do it.
[Speaker B] You corrected the coercion, because it wasn’t just some external coercion for me, it was internal coercion, and that inner thing needs to be corrected.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what does it mean to correct it? Why didn’t you correct it at the time when you sinned?
[Speaker B] Because it was stronger than you?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you were coerced, so why does it need correction? And why… No, I’m talking before the correction: why do you need to repent? You were coerced.
[Speaker B] Because it was—because there was partial will there, because it was something inside me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that means you did have a will to do it. There’s no partial and non-partial. You wanted to do it, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have done it. So if you wanted to do it, then it’s you—so yes, you wanted it. Either way: if you didn’t want to and nevertheless did it, then you were coerced; you have nothing to repent for. Fine, to correct or not correct, that’s
[Speaker B] another matter—then go to a psychologist with a scalpel and hammer so he can fix you, but that’s not repentance. Repentance means that I was in the wrong. Meaning, it’s not correct to say of someone who was coerced that he needs to repent. Repentance isn’t just correction, correction in the technical sense. Repentance is cleansing—it’s cleansing something that was wrong. Not just in terms of consequences. I was in the wrong—that means I could have avoided it, I wasn’t coerced, because if I was coerced there’s nothing to repent for in a case of coercion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Coercion is coercion—what can I do?
[Speaker B] So like, what the Rabbi said before, kind of as a point of thought…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t help here at all. How does the Holy One, blessed be He, help here? I’m asking now what I do. Whether He purifies me or doesn’t purify me—after He purified me and after everything—what do I do now? How does it work with me? I don’t care who gives me the power to do it, who built me—everything is the Holy One, blessed be He. I’m asking what happens in my own process that I undergo. My own process that I undergo—you can’t formulate it. There’s something problematic here.
[Speaker B] Why? Work of internalization.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So internalization means I’m already built correctly from the start?
[Speaker B] There is a proper construction composed of a couple of parts.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But which one prevails? If I have a set of values, then there is also a scale among them.
[Speaker B] A certain scale—one side was in any case stronger than the negative sides. Okay. And repentance is to strengthen the positive sides.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why did you decide to strengthen the positive sides if you believe in the negative ones?
[Speaker B] God purified you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, leave aside “God purified you.” Again—repentance. Again, what the Holy One
[Speaker B] blessed be He does here together with you doesn’t interest me, because there will be a lot of work here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you do a lot of work and He decides to repent? But a person has to repent, not the Holy One, blessed be He. You can’t escape that. After all, if we repented, that’s from before here. Okay, so what?
[Speaker B] In the end, yes, it’s all the Holy One, blessed be He. We need to be partners in the work. No, not all of it is the Holy One, blessed be He.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I absolutely do not agree with you. In no way is everything the Holy One, blessed be He. “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.” Absolutely not.
[Speaker B] Here it’s fear of Heaven, so it’s not in the hands of Heaven, it’s by the mouth of Heaven. It requires everything—that the Holy One, blessed be He, should purify.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not—“the Holy One, blessed be He, purifies” doesn’t help me at all. Again I’m saying: I don’t care. He purified—fine. Now I’m worthy, purified, and refined. Now I’m asking: explain to me what happens. Okay? After that, what happens in my own process?
[Speaker B] That there is work here? What? That there is a partner in the work of purification. What is a partner?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you believe? You—not the Holy One, blessed be He. What do you believe? Do you believe that one should not desecrate the Sabbath? Okay, then why did you desecrate it?
[Speaker B] Because there was a moment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because at that moment, what happened at that moment?
[Speaker B] That a negative side overcame me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning that you wanted the pleasure more than obedience to the Holy One, blessed be He, right? So that’s really what you wanted, right? Now you repent. What does “repent” mean? You want to increase the side of serving God over the side of pleasures. Meaning, you’re already there, so you have nothing to repent for. So it’s already happened to you. I’m asking how you decide that the value of serving God overrides the value of immediate pleasure. The decision—I’m speaking before the internalization—I’m talking about the decision to change the values, not the internalization. Is that decision, the decision to change the values, really a decision? Do you make it intentionally? Because if so, I don’t understand how that happens. After all, at a certain stage you said: from my point of view, serving God is less important than momentary pleasure—that was at the moment of the sin. A moment later, what happened now? After all, I’m in the same state. Rather what? Something happened to me so that now suddenly serving God became more important—then it happened to me. I didn’t do it; it happened on its own. Rather what? No, I do it intentionally. So what you’re coming to do intentionally—I myself now decide: come, let me bring myself to a state in which serving God is more important than momentary pleasure. Fine—but then I already believe that serving God is more important, so I’m already there. I don’t need to bring myself there. You can’t escape this. You can escape, sure—everything you say in the prayer
[Speaker D] “Purify”—woe to me that I yielded to the inclination, woe to me that I did this, that I followed the counsel of my eyes and the counsel of my inclination and the counsel of… What you say in the prayer “Purify,” how does that help me? Explain the mechanism.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do I care what you say in the prayer “Purify”? The mechanism?
[Speaker D] Explain to me how it works. I asked a question. What does it help me, what they say in the prayer “Purify”? The fellow last week said this. Fine. Usually you’re in a place where you didn’t activate your intellect. And if you didn’t activate it and yielded to the inclinations and acted automatically—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so you acted automatically; you were coerced.
[Speaker D] So in my opinion you’ve stretched the concept of coercion a bit too far.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? If you had no choice, then you were coerced—that’s what coerced means, no? Rather what—you decided on it? So if you decided on it, then that’s the value system you had. So how did it change? Either way, there’s something problematic here. Again, you have to be careful with the “solution” to paradoxes that says, okay, obviously this isn’t true. I also know that obviously this isn’t true. That’s exactly the paradox. The paradox is that in the logical accounting you arrive at one conclusion, but the bottom line is obvious to you that it’s not correct. That’s why it’s a paradox. You can’t wave it away by saying that obviously it isn’t true. I also agree that it isn’t true. I’m asking where it isn’t true. What exactly isn’t true here? That’s the question. Meaning, show me in the reasoning what isn’t right here. Don’t tell me that in the end it isn’t right. I know that too. You understand? Meaning, you don’t solve paradoxes like that. A paradox has two sides, and to solve it it’s not enough to point to the other side. You have to explain why the first side doesn’t contradict it. Where is the flaw in the reasoning of the first side? I think the point is… I’ll say two things—or maybe before I say the two things. Basically what I want to show through this reasoning is that even in major repentance there is grace. And the grace is… Therefore there needs to be some sort of deviation here from the usual rules, from the usual way things operate—here it’s almost a deviation from logic, I don’t even know whether one can talk about such a thing—in order for such a thing even to be defined, not in order for it to be accepted. Meaning, if I changed, if I did major repentance and changed, then by strict law it is accepted. There is no grace there. The grace is in minor repentance, that it is accepted. In major repentance the grace is that it is possible to do it at all. If you did it, then by strict law it is accepted. Fine? In minor repentance the grace is that it is accepted. The fact that it can be done is no problem—it’s a technical process, do it. Fine? That’s not the point. So the fact that it is accepted is grace, because you haven’t really changed, you’re the same person. In major repentance, I said before, it’s strict law. Right—if you did it. If you did it, then the fact that it is accepted is strict law; you are a different person, so what is there to reckon with you about things you did in the earlier phase? But here too there is grace. The grace is not that it is accepted, but that such a thing can be done at all. Now what’s the idea here? I’ll say two things that I’m not completely sure solve the problem. Meaning, that’s why I’m telling you in advance that I’ll try not to fake it. Because there is something very slippery here, and each time I wonder whether it really solves the problem or doesn’t solve the problem. First of all I’ll start with your formulation: “Our Father, our King, restore us in complete repentance before You.” Right. The root of the problem, if we formulate it in a certain way, is basically the question of who performs the change. Right? By the way, every change. To repent, or to ask a question—also the Talmud in Kiddushin. The Talmud in Kiddushin parallels major repentance. That’s the major question; it parallels major repentance, right? There it is strict law. I said: it is strict law that if you did it, it is accepted. But the fact that it is possible to do it is grace. And also the fact that you can turn from righteous to wicked is grace. Why? Because the fact that you are given the ability to choose to change a value system is pure grace. What you do with that—whether you take it in a positive direction or a negative direction—that is already your choice. But your very ability to change is pure grace from the Holy One, blessed be He. Sometimes you make bad use of it; what can you do?
[Speaker D] Or grace—it’s just the way the world was created.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine? It is grace that we were given the possibility of being choosers, unlike every creature or every other thing that is deterministic, that behaves deterministically. Now the point is, the difficulty in this process of self-change lies in the either-way dilemma. If this change happens through some external factor, I don’t care whether it’s my inclinations—from my point of view my inclinations are also an external factor—or through the Holy One, blessed be He, or whoever you like, then it’s worth nothing. Meaning, He repented, not me; it has nothing to do with me. If it happens through me, it’s impossible—how can I change myself? Right? Either I’m already changed, or it’s impossible. Okay?
[Speaker E] So how can it be? You’re presenting a binary situation here, but as the Rabbi said earlier, there’s a continuum, and basically it’s not that I’m either this way or that way; rather these two continua are both present before and after and during.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, let’s take the pole of major repentance. Let’s focus for a moment on that pole; leave the whole continuum aside. In major repentance, I now want to understand how it works. Let’s talk about that repentance and say that perhaps no human being is really there except maybe some Elazar ben Dordaya, who I don’t know if he ever existed—but let’s say he did, and this is some story meant to teach us this idea. Okay? But this idea is supposed to be some mechanism that is in principle possible. Not everyone reaches it, and maybe in different degrees, but let’s discuss it. How does it happen? Now it is already pure—it’s not a continuum, he is already completely pure. And I’m asking: how does this work? What happens there? It seems to me that here too we really need to blur the dichotomy a bit in order perhaps—it may solve the problem. The claim is what you said before, that the Holy One, blessed be He, purifies us, or formulations of that kind. In the binary way of looking at it, that won’t help. Because in the end the question is: if I do it, then it’s impossible; if someone else does it, then it’s worthless. It’s possible but worthless. So someone programmed me. So what difference does that make? My question is: what credit do I deserve for repenting? The claim is that perhaps these two possibilities are not so sharply distinguished from each other. And that already brings us to somewhat problematic metaphysical entities—when I stand before the Holy One, blessed be He, the question is how I conceive the relationship between me and Him. Do I stand opposite Him, I’m here and He’s there, and now the whole question is whether I do the work myself or He does it to me? But if I truly understand that something—meaning, there is some continuum between us, not the continuum of repentances, but our relationship is not… not a dichotomous relationship, I’m here and He’s facing me, but rather something of Him—what people always call the divine point and things of that kind—something of Him is also involved in me, and therefore this action, I don’t know whether to define it as being done from outside or from inside; it’s both together. The moment you can’t make the sharp distinction—either from outside or from inside—it may somehow take the sting out of it or solve the problem, because the whole problem is this either-way dilemma. If it happens from outside, then it’s worthless. If it happens from inside, it can’t happen. But no—the distinction between outside and inside, which is the basis of the problem, is a distinction that perhaps we are not being careful enough about when we make it. Because it may really be that the boundary between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, is not so sharp—not that we’re here and He’s there—but that there is within us something that is from Him. And when I speak of my doing something, it is always together with Him—something like the formulations you suggested earlier. But for that you really have to adopt a non-dichotomous picture: not either I do it alone, or He does it to me. The distinction between me and Him is not sharp.
[Speaker D] Meaning, there is—we talked about the soul being a part of God above. Right.
[Speaker E] And therefore we once talked about the organism. What? There’s a process: at first he places the blame, maybe, on the mountains, on the hills, on the heavens, the stars—“The matter depends on nothing but me.” No—there’s a process here, some kind of continuum.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that in a moment, to that story; we’ll return to that story in a moment. So the claim is that perhaps this dichotomous distinction between me and the Holy One, blessed be He, which creates the problem, is the root of the problem. But then really—I don’t even know how to define it completely—something of “me” is nevertheless something of Him. That’s a bit pantheistic. We once talked about collective and particulars, one of the topics last year, and I said that in order for an organic entity not to be just a collection of cells, but for it to be a human being that I relate to as a new entity, there has to be something additional that weaves all those cells together and turns—the soul. Right. In a materialist world you can’t understand why a human being is one creature. A collection of molecules, of cells, of atoms, depending on what resolution you go down to. It has no meaning; it’s a fiction. Collective entities are a fiction. What defines this collection of cells as one thing? It’s just a definition, it’s a convention. Right? Only if you understand that it is an organism—an organism in the sense that there is something, “the soul fills the whole body,” like the Talmud in Berakhot 10a there: “Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, fills the world, so the soul fills the body.” What does that mean? That the world is perceived as an organic entity, as a collective entity, as one thing. True, there are many parts within it, but they function as one organic whole because the Holy One, blessed be He, is the soul of this world. And just as we have a soul within us, and that turns the body into one entity—otherwise it is just a collection of cells—so too in this sense I’m saying here that the—I don’t know if it’s a part of the Holy One, blessed be He, but there is something of the Holy One, blessed be He, that is found within each of us, and that basically turns us into some kind of one organism. And that basically means that the distinction between me and Him, and the question whether this is done from inside or from outside, is not a sharp distinction. And here indeed all the “Our Father, our King” that we say is usually “Our Father, our King, save us, do this, do that, give us this and give us that, forgive us and pardon us,” and all sorts of things. All that can be understood. But what does “Our Father, our King, restore us in complete repentance before You” mean? That is a very unusual “Our Father, our King.” Now usually with “return us in complete repentance before You,” people will tell you: accept our repentance. But we already ask for that in “forgive and pardon all our sins,” right? Cleanse us, accept what we are… “Restore us in complete repentance before You” means: perform the act of repentance on us. Why? Because if I do it to myself, it’s not—it’s impossible to do it to myself. I ask myself: after all, I’m already in that state; what does it mean that I should intentionally perform a change on myself? In order for this thing to be defined, you have to have the Holy One, blessed be He, involved in the matter together with you, meaning that He acts. And now I asked: if so, if He does it, then it has no value—He repented and not I? The point is that what is called “I” probably includes something of Him. Meaning, the distinction is not sharp. Otherwise…
[Speaker C] You don’t pray “restore me,” you pray “restore us.” That means that I as an individual pray for the whole community that they should be restored, meaning it’s like I pray for my friend
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that he should do it. But if He does it for us, then it’s also worthless for the community. What difference does it make? It’s worthless—so He did it.
[Speaker C] Yes, but the Hazon says this in some responsum—that he says that when a person with free choice prays for someone else who has free choice, then it began in choice, so even though he compels it upon him, it’s still a result, an outgrowth of…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the repentance is mine, not his. I don’t understand this. The repentance is mine—why does he deserve credit for it? So it’s someone external—it’s the Holy One, blessed be He, or me or whoever it may be—but it’s not him. You have to say that there is some kind of mixing here on the metaphysical level itself; it’s not just a question of… I know I’m saying things here in a way that I don’t even know how to define fully, but without that we really remain with a problem for which I don’t see much of a solution.
[Speaker C] Once you talked about some model where there’s a kind of gradient, a sort of two-dimensional plane, and you’re like a ball that has to overcome the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This model creates the whole problem. Because if I decide to overcome it, then okay, I decided to overcome it because I believe I need to climb the mountain, even though it’s a mountain. After all, I had decided not to climb the mountain; the evil inclination, let’s say, made it into a high mountain, and I decided not to climb the mountain. So what does that mean? That it really wasn’t important enough to me to climb the mountain. So how did I now repent and suddenly decide yes to climb the mountain? On the contrary, within this model the process of change becomes much more problematic. This model is exactly what sharpens the issue, because you can’t tell me that now the mountain turned into a valley—thank you very much, the Holy One, blessed be He, repented, not me. I simply don’t have the trial anymore, so I succeed. That’s not the point. The point is that before I didn’t climb the mountain, and now I decided yes to climb the mountain. That means that in fact I changed. Before, my values said not to climb the mountain; the momentary pleasure was more important, and now my values suddenly got reversed: the momentary pleasure is less important and serving God is more important. How did that happen? If it’s not a change in the environment, then it’s apparently a change within me. But a change within me can’t be, because for that very purpose I created the environment—to try to define the changes sharply. But here exactly you can see why in repentance that won’t help, because repentance is a change that happens inside this little ball that moves along this topographic outline, not in the outline itself. Now, that’s not defined; that’s why we created the outline, because you can’t talk about the structure of the ball. Okay. And that really is the meaning of “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You”—the idea is: come along with us. Meaning, otherwise I can’t do it; I don’t understand how one does it. And the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya now gets much more significance, because in fact it says this: “He went and sat between two mountains and hills. You read the second part; we saw this. He said: Mountains and hills, ask mercy for me. They said to him: Before we ask for you, we’ll ask for ourselves, as it says, ‘For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed.’ He said: Heaven and earth, ask mercy for me. They said: Before we ask for you, we’ll ask for ourselves, as it says, ‘For the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall wear out like a garment.’ He said: Sun and moon, ask mercy for me. They said to him: Before we ask for you, we’ll ask for ourselves, as it says, ‘Then the moon shall be ashamed and the sun abashed.’ He said: Stars and constellations, ask mercy for me. They said to him: Before we ask for you, we’ll ask for ourselves, as it says, ‘And all the host of heaven shall rot away.’ He said: The matter depends on nothing but me. He placed his head between his knees and wept loudly until his soul departed.” Okay. What is the meaning of this appeal to heaven and hills and clouds and I don’t know, all these things around him? What is this?
[Speaker E] He’s blaming others, of course.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I don’t think he’s blaming others. He said, “Ask mercy for me”; he’s not saying, “You’re to blame.” Help me repent, ask mercy for me, right? Because I can’t. Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya taught us the great repentance, the inner reversal, “I am not the same person,” as Maimonides writes. Now, this repentance cannot be done from within yourself—it’s simply not defined. What does it mean that I’ll grab myself by the hair and pull myself out? The literary expression of that is what’s written here. Somebody has to do this to me from outside; I’m helpless. I want to… what does it mean that I’ll change myself? In what sense will I change? If so, then I’m already different, so why do I sin? How did I sin my whole life if I’m that kind of person? Rather, what? I’m not that kind of person, but I do want to change. There’s something terribly confusing here. And now you’re trying to take yourself—something every one of us experiences to some extent. We want to change, but it doesn’t really work. We really do want to change, and that feeling—that the desire to change is itself a kind of paradox. I want to change, but it’s not really happening. I need someone to take me. A psychologist—you were talking earlier about therapy, whatever—it’s also that kind of thing, because the psychologist basically takes me; he doesn’t change me with hammer and chisel, he helps me, supposedly helps me, go through some kind of process. “Our Father, our King, bring us back in complete repentance before You”—the Holy One, blessed be He, helps us go through some process. Now, Eliezer ben Dordaya, Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya, feels that he wants to change, but he performs the great repentance, yes? He’s called Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya because he taught us that there is such a thing as great repentance; that’s what I spoke about last time. So now, how does it work? He says, okay, I understand that the situation is difficult. What do you do? He sits there and cries; he’s helpless, he doesn’t know what to do. What does it mean that I will take myself and now change? I am what I was yesterday and the day before and what I always was. So what is going on here? Now I feel that I’m not okay, but it could be that in all his previous sins too he felt he wasn’t okay, okay? And now he wants to change. What does it mean to change? So then I’m already different; fine, so what’s the problem? But then too I was different—if I’m already different, then why did I commit those sins? It’ll come back later too. There’s something here that’s not just philosophical confusion; it’s a real difficulty. Meaning, someone who wants to repent doesn’t really know how to do it. It’s not that many times we feel there’s a psychological difficulty, that it’s hard for us to repent. I think it’s not only that; it’s much stronger than that. It’s something that is logically impossible; it starts there. The psychological difficulty is an expression, but I think a large part of what we miss is because we don’t understand that there’s a problem in the very definition of the process. It’s not just a question of not being strong enough. Not only are we not strong enough. There’s something here—it’s not clear where to begin. What does it mean to change the… okay, I really want to, and therefore what? What am I supposed to do now? If I want to, then I’m already there. Finished—I’m already a complete penitent. So what’s the problem? What remains for me to do? But I know that I haven’t changed, because overall I want now what I wanted a year ago and two months ago, yet then I did sin. So what’s going on here? Am I already different? Am I not different? What does it mean that I’ll change myself? This whole collection of things, from every direction—look, this is really the tangle at the basis of repentance. The tangle is logical, not psychological. And Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya expresses it in the strongest way. He says—he turns to all the external factors around him because he understands that by himself he can’t do it. He says: mountains, hills, heaven, I don’t know, stars—ask mercy for me. The intention is: you do it. I very much want to, but what does that mean? I can’t pull myself out of the pit by my own hair. So help me; I ask you to help me. My contribution is that I ask you, but the ones who in the end have to do the work are you. I don’t know what it means that I will do the work on myself. Something is undefined. And then at the end he says: “The matter depends on nothing but me.” He doesn’t… nothing happens, they don’t do anything for him, they can’t do anything. It won’t happen. You have to do it, otherwise it has no value. And what does “you” mean? After all, it’s not defined. “You,” of course, together with the Holy One, blessed be He, as we discussed earlier. And then his soul departed. He said: “The matter depends on nothing but me,” he cried, and his soul departed. And Rabbi says: “There are those who acquire their world in one moment.” That’s how one actually does great repentance. The process of great repentance is deeply bound up with this paradox that I’ve been talking about here. Because the process of small repentance does not involve changing myself, changing my basic values. Therefore indeed the kindness is that it is accepted; but that it can be done—fine, it can be done—that’s not the point. Great repentance, which is a change of my very self—there’s something terribly problematic here on the logical level. The kindness is that such a thing exists at all, not that it is accepted. If I changed, then as I said, by strict justice it makes sense that my repentance should be accepted. But the fact that it’s even possible to do it—that’s kindness. And that kindness is because of this connection that I have with the Holy One, blessed be He, that we are not sharply distinct from one another.
[Speaker B] From the side of His transcendence, from the side of His encompassing aspects.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that mean? Surrounding and filling? Sort of. Okay. Something of Him is in any case present within me. I’m not getting into definitions right now—what of Him and what… something of His somehow operates together with me. He says: otherwise it couldn’t work. The whole concept of choice and changing the value system—even the adoption of the initial value system, that too is a kind of change—apparently has to be carried out somehow together with some factor that is external-internal. If it’s external, then again it’s not me, so it made a change in me; that has no meaning, that’s not choice. That’s conditioning or programming. Okay? Choice is when I do it. And my doing it to myself is always problematic. So it has to be that I simply do not stand by myself. In a certain sense, choice does require some external factor that is also a little bit within me. Something of it is also inside me, and it is also outside. Meaning, so that I won’t be alone in the world. A person who is alone in the world, and the whole world stands opposite him—I don’t think one can really speak about choice in such a situation, or about a change of values.
[Speaker C] But the whole difficulty only begins with the extreme kind of repentance, on the side of repentance from love. But if you go even a little in the direction of repentance… great repentance, yes. If you go a little in the direction of repentance, then apparently there’s no paradox there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? There is a paradox.
[Speaker C] Because that, only you bring about in yourself?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying—that’s why I’m saying this continuum is a continuum that is very hard to define. What does it mean to be eighty percent in great repentance and twenty percent in small repentance? There is some real regret here, I changed the value system, just not… what does it mean, in what sense is it not all the way? Either that’s my value system or it isn’t. “Not all the way” always means intensity—at what intensity it’s so. And here I come to the second point. I said I would make two points that together might help solve the issue. Because when I speak about the question of the continuum between small repentance and great repentance, it really brings me to something else. Because in the end every repentance, wherever I am on the continuum, involves some degree of self-change. So in fact the paradox exists everywhere except at the left pole. At the pole where it’s only technical. Nothing essential. Otherwise, every essential thing is some change, whether at this intensity or that intensity—those are what define the intensity in the first place. So now I want to define the intensity. And this is actually the solution to the problem of weakness of will, on the philosophical plane too, but it will also lead us to the two kinds of repentance. A person who sins often feels, after all, that he doesn’t want to do it, even in real time. He doesn’t want to do it; he sells himself all kinds of stories, but underneath he knows that he doesn’t want to do it. He falls. What does “falls” mean? If he did it, then apparently that’s what he wanted; evidently the pleasure was more important to him than serving God, or morality, or whatever the sin may involve. Talk even about dieting—it’s the same model, it changes nothing. Right. You have a value system that you want, and nevertheless you don’t conduct yourself according to it. That is the concept of weakness of will. It can be in the religious context, in the moral context, in the context of dieting, in any context of an ordinary decision. Someone wants to be an athlete. It’s very important to him to train, but he doesn’t have the strength, so he doesn’t train. So what is that? Also weakness of will. It has nothing to do with morality or anything else. A person wants something, but he doesn’t carry out what he wants. Then people come and say: if you don’t carry out what you want, that’s a sign you didn’t want it. Don’t tell me stories. It was more important for you to rest than to be an athlete, so that’s why you didn’t go train. That’s all. What are you telling me, “I really want to be an athlete but I was weak”? “You were weak” means there was something else more important to you than being an athlete. There’s no such thing as weak. That’s the problem of weakness of will. What I want to argue is that that’s not true—there is such a thing as weak. And then the question is how much you wanted to be an athlete. But more than that, not how much you wanted to be an athlete, because that still stays at the level of what you want, but at what intensity you decided to activate your choice. Meaning, my claim is this: a person has a certain set of values, and he has already decided on it. He believes in it, he has a hierarchy, he can rank them, everything is fine; he has a defined set of values. That does not mean he will act accordingly. Why? Suppose, for example, that he sins against his diet, he eats something fattening. Does that mean that he actually prefers the pleasure over the… but we feel that’s not the case. A person doesn’t really prefer the pleasure; he falls. Every person feels: I fell, I wasn’t strong enough. In serving God, in dieting, in morality, it doesn’t matter, in every area. How do you explain that? The point is this: many times I did not want enough to be a chooser. That is serving God; that is weakness of will. Meaning, weakness of will does not mean I don’t want serving God. I do want serving God. And if I were in a state in which I fully chose, I would serve God and I wouldn’t fall anywhere. Rather what? Sometimes there is another choice, a second-order choice. A choice whether to choose.
[Speaker C] You just pushed it one step back.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so I also discussed this on the website once. In a moment—let’s leave that aside for a second, I just want to clarify the point. A choice whether to choose. Okay? A choice whether to choose means that the question is how much energy I invest in order to realize the values I believe in. Now what happens in such a case? Suppose there’s a high mountain that I’m supposed to climb. Fine? The mountain is metaphorical, it doesn’t matter, some kind of… in order to overcome the evil inclination it’s very hard for me, I have a strong inclination. It’s very hard for me, so I call it a high mountain. Okay? Now, if I failed and didn’t climb, I ate pork. I had a very strong desire to eat pork, and not eating pork was like climbing a high mountain. Right? It was hard for me to do that and therefore I failed. So people tell me: if you failed, that’s a sign that’s what you wanted. There wasn’t any other value that I wanted more than not eating pork, more than serving God. Rather what? I decided to sleep. Meaning, I decided not to be a chooser. If I had been a chooser, the set of values would have determined that I would not eat pork. But my set of values is the right one. What… what wasn’t right there was my decision about how autonomous to be, how much to be a chooser. How much energy to invest in choosing. Now notice what… what do I gain here? And therefore I think this doesn’t completely push the problem back one step. Push with an s. Because… because here, when I ate the pork, you cannot say: you wanted to eat pork more than to serve God. No. My value set, even at the moment of sin, was the right set. I wanted serving God more than I wanted to eat pork. Rather what? I was not in a state where I took the reins entirely into my own hands. Meaning, I was not in a state of full choosing. But regarding that itself, I did decide. Therefore I am completely responsible for my actions. You can’t say that I was coerced. Why? Because I could have decided to be a chooser. What do I gain here? I gain here that the fact that I ate pork does not mean that I really wanted to eat pork more. And that helps me with all the paradoxes I mentioned earlier. You… it’s a sign that you wanted to eat pork more than to serve God. No. I wanted serving God more. It’s just that I was asleep, and I let my inclinations… my drives take me to all kinds of… exactly, take me to places where I really didn’t want to be. Only if I had acted in a mode where I really do what I want, then I would have done the right thing. I just didn’t choose to choose. And here too—and here is the continuum. Earlier I spoke about what the continuum is, where one passes from one to the other. The continuum is: what intensity do you decide to have in being autonomous? Meaning, to what degree are you truly autonomous? And here there is a continuum of levels. You can be autonomous to the greatest degree possible—never infinite, but as great as possible—and then you will always do what you believe in. Those are strong people. They always do what they believe in… the thing. Okay? Weak people are not people who believe in something else. They can believe in the exact same thing. They just have weakness of will—that’s the expression, weakness of will. What does that mean? My will is the correct will, it’s just weak. Now what does weak mean? Then either way, if it’s weak am I coerced? Or did the mountain force me; I can’t climb it? No. I can climb it, because otherwise I’d be coerced. There’s no point in repenting for coercion. Rather what? I chose not to choose; I didn’t choose to eat pork. Once I chose not to choose, the evil inclination already took me to eating pork. So it’s not true that I chose to eat pork; I chose not to choose, or not strongly enough to choose. And therefore the inclination took me to eating pork. That is weakness of will. Why did I choose not to choose? Because of the pleasure on the other side. No? No, that’s exactly the point. If it was because of the pleasure on the other side, then there’d be no point—
[Speaker D] —in introducing this whole second plane. I simply chose the pleasure at the expense of serving God. No, no, no. I want to serve God, but I wasn’t strong enough. And what stood against the fact that I wasn’t strong enough? What feeling?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Strength. I don’t have the strength to be a chooser. Being a chooser requires mental resources. A person to be constantly in control of his actions, I—
[Speaker D] I think everyone feels that that’s very hard.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To be at every moment fully in control, to think—
[Speaker D] —about everything you do, to decide on the thing. Even in driving, many times we leave it to autopilot. We’ll do the right thing many times—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And sometimes it’s even better to do it that way, because autopilot has its advantages too. We decide to leave it there. Now suppose we failed and had an accident. So what does that mean? That it was more important to me to have an accident than to drive correctly? What nonsense. Obviously I didn’t want to have an accident. But I didn’t have the strength to invest in being constantly focused and in control so that there wouldn’t be an accident. So it’s not correct to say that my value system was flawed; rather, the energy I invested in order to realize my value system was not strong enough. On the one hand, if you ask whether I’m responsible for that, unequivocally yes. I could have decided to choose, to be a chooser, and then I would have realized the right thing. But on the other hand, they tell me: but if you really did it by your own choice, because you’re responsible for it, then you did it, not someone else. So if that’s the case, then what you did is what you wanted, so what does it mean to change yourself, and all the paradoxes I mentioned earlier? That’s exactly what I’m saying. You have to—the change does not mean changing the value system. The value system is correct. The change means being more autonomous, investing more energy in realizing the values that you already in any case believe in. Not changing the value system. Changing the value system is something that is not… And this, I think, is the continuum between great repentance and small repentance. Small repentance—after all, even in small repentance you need to want the right thing, otherwise why are you doing the technique? So it’s clear that you need to want the right thing. Rather what? You don’t manage to mobilize the mental resources to be a chooser one hundred percent. At least I declare that I want the right thing, I do the procedure, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in His special kindness accepts it. Great repentance takes this all the way through, meaning that my regret is complete. What does it mean that the regret is complete? I take the reins entirely into my own hands. I become someone who completely does what he believes in. In the middle, the parameter that now varies is the energy I invest. Not the depth of regret, as I said earlier, but the energetic intensity I invest in carrying out my desires. If it’s one hundred percent, then it’s great repentance; if it’s zero percent, then it’s small repentance. And all the levels in between are really the continuum. And sometimes I fail when I don’t do full repentance because I don’t invest the full energy, only more energy than before. It’s not changing a value system, but investing more energy.
[Speaker B] This investment too has to be an investment of God, with all one’s powers. What does that mean? What does this autonomy have to be? With all one’s powers? Autonomous, and to make God dwell with all one’s powers.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what you believe. Someone who repents for the sake of idol worship—then we’d ask the same question and he’ll repent toward idol worship. Right now I’m describing a mechanism. What a person needs to do, as a servant of God, of course, is repent in order to serve God. But right now I’m speaking about the very change of a value system irrespective of the question of serving God.
[Speaker B] Complete serving of God is indeed with all one’s powers, but still God is leading here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s what I said earlier, because otherwise we return to Oren’s question. Because this decision of how much energy to invest—you can also ask about it the previous questions. If before I didn’t decide, then apparently it wasn’t important enough to me to be a chooser. So what happened now? How did I suddenly decide to be a chooser? So here I do need to arrive at the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, I want to be a chooser, but I’m weak. The Holy One, blessed be He, is involved here and takes me into being a chooser. But it seems to me that the point is that the value system itself must indeed be the right system. You don’t change the value system—that, I can’t understand, because otherwise the Holy One, blessed be He, did it. Rather, the change is in the intensity of the investment in being autonomous, in realizing what I believe in. And then maybe each time I still can’t fully decide whether this really solves the problem or not, but it seems to me that this is the closest I can get to solving this problem of weakness of will. And that is exactly the point of “Return us, Lord, to You, and we shall return before You.” We ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to return to being autonomous, to really do what we believe in. Not to believe correctly. Asking the Holy One, blessed be He, to believe correctly is nonsense. If you don’t believe it, what are you asking Him for—to make you believe correctly? Then you already believe it if you think that’s the right thing.
[Speaker B] Yes, because you…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—knowledge, yes, knowledge obviously. But to talk about returning to beliefs that I already mark as mine, not revealing beliefs to me that I don’t know. I want now to be someone who keeps the Sabbath, who is careful with the light commandment as with the weighty one. Suppose the Sabbath is tremendously important and so on—then I already know that the Sabbath is tremendously important; I don’t need the Holy One, blessed be He, to reveal that to me. I want Him to help me realize it, okay? Not to take me there. Because if I don’t think the Sabbath is important, why would I ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to make me think that it is important? That has no meaning. After all, I don’t think it’s important, and if—
[Speaker C] —I ask Him to make me think it’s important, then I already think it’s important; I don’t need Him to make me. Meaning, all the problems I mentioned earlier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore I think we should not talk about changing the value system, but about the energy I invest in realizing the value system. And what about the value system? Meaning, they’re vague. This vagueness means how much energy I invest in realizing it, not that the values themselves are vague. Rather, the question is how much energy I invest. I don’t know what vague values means; I don’t really understand it. The question is whether these are the values I believe in or not. That’s how I see it. There’s a related aggadah, “A prisoner cannot free himself from prison,” which reminded me of the topic. With David or one of the prophets who… It’s the same idea as the first source you quoted. Yes, that’s the process. I don’t remember exactly what the Sages said there. Here in the Responsa Project, I just didn’t mean to… Right, I have it here too.