yom kippur 2

Before I discuss the dvar torah, I want to apologize to everyone for all the mean things I've done this year.  I am sorry.

I want to wish everyone a gmar chasima tovah, and we should all be zocheh to a yom kippur that, in addition to atoning for all our sins, inspires us to return to G-d in a lasting and meaningful way.

In the previous post we discussed how teshuvah is similar to hataras nedarim.  This idea is really based off an idea of the Ramchal in mesillas yesharim perek daled:

כי לפי שורת הדין ממש, שלא יהיה תיקון לחטא כלל, כי הנה באמת, איך יתקן האדם את אשר עיות והחטא כבר נעשה? הרי שרצח האדם את חברו, הרי שנאף, איך יוכל לתקן הדבר הזה? היוכל להסיר המעשה העשוי מן המציאות?

from a strict perspective of din, teshuvah makes no sense - you cant undo what you've done.  Teshuvah is part of the tremendous rachamim hashem has for us in allowing "akiras haratzon" to count as akiras hamaaseh, just like in hataras nedarim:

אמנם, מדת הרחמים היא הנותנת שהתשובה תנתן לחוטאים בחסד גמור, שתחשב עקירת הרצון כעקירת המעשה, דהיינו, שבהיות השב מכיר את חטאו ומודה בו ומתבונן על רעתו ושב ומתחרט עליו חרטה גמורה דמעיקרא כחרטת הנדר ממש - שהוא מתנחם לגמרי והיה חפץ ומשתוקק שמעולם לא היה נעשה הדבר ההוא ומצטער בלבו צער חזק על שכבר נעשה הדבר ועוזב אותו להבא ובורח ממנו, הנה עקירת הדבר מרצונו, יחשב לו כעקירת הנדר ומתכפר לו. והוא מה שאמר הכתוב (ישעיה ו): וסר עונך וחטאתך תכפר, שהעון סר ממש מהמציאות ונעקר במה שעכשיו מצטער ומתנחם על מה שהיה למפרע.

R Elchanan Wasserman asks a tremendous question on this idea of the Ramchal from Kiddushin 40b (This is in biurei ha-aggados al derech hapshat siman daled, which is printed in the back of the kovetz hearos).  The gemara says:

אפילו צדיק גמור כל ימיו ומרד באחרונה איבד את הראשונות שנאמר צדקת הצדיק לא תצילנו ביום פשעו -- בתוהא על הראשונות:

If a person regrets the mitzvos he has done , he loses them.  But I thought it was a special rachamim of hashem to allow aveiros to be undone by regret - if so, then it shouldn't extend to mitzvos - doesn't the fact that it does extend to mitzvos prove that even from a perspective of midas hadin, one can undo actions -- both mitzvos and aveiros -- by regretting them?

R Elchanan writes that he asked this question to the chafetz chaim, who answered as follows: True that undoing actions through regret is part of middas hadin - not just middas harachamim.  The part of teshuvah that is rachamim is that not only can we undo aveiros, but we can even make them into mitzvos - zedonos become zechuyos.

R Elchanan points out that this is clearly not what the Ramchal is saying.  The Ramchal says that min hadin, we shouldn't be able to undo aveiros at all, the same way you can't bring a murdered person back to life.  So we need to look for another answer.

R Elchanan himself answers with a slightly technical Tzvei dinim (I summarize bikitzur here - he explains his answer in greater depth in the piece.  If I don't explain clearly this part, you can skip to my answer below.)

There are two reasons to keep every mitzvah:

1.  Because G-d commanded you to do them.

2. Even if G-d hadn't commanded you to do the mitzvos, we believe that every mitzvah has a taam, that every mitzvah has inherent good within its action such that it perfects the person and makes them shalem.  That is why the avos kept the torah even though G-d did not command them to - they did mitzvos because of the inherent good of mitzvos.

R Elchanan claims that by mitzvos, regret only takes away from you the first of these 2 aspects. Regret, however, cannot undo the inherent good the mitzvos did to you when you performed them.  The rachamim of teshuva is that even though from a din perspective, aveiros should be parallel to mitzvos and you shouldn't be able to undo the inherent bad within aveiros, teshuva allows you to do so.

Yosef Krausz Shlita pointed out to me that you could easily say the opposite within this tzvei dinim - which in my opinion means that the whole approach is arbitrary and inappropriate for the question being asked.

So lets try the following approach:

What does it mean exactly to chas vishalom regret the mitzvos one has done.  The Rambam explains (Teshuva 3:3):  כל מי שניחם על המצות שעשה ותהה על הזכיות ואמר בלבו ומה הועלתי בעשייתן הלואי לא עשיתי אותן הרי זה איבד את כולן ואין מזכירים לו שום זכות בעולם שנאמר וצדקת הצדיק לא תצילנו ביום רשעו אין זה אלא בתוהה על הראשונות.

To understand the depth of what the Rambam is saying, contrast with the radak in yechezkel:  תוהא על הראשונות  שפירשו רז"ל  רוצה לומר כי הוא חושב כי יועילו לו צדקותיו אשר עשה אע"פ שתוהא עליהן כי ענין תהייתו הוא לאהבתו תאות העולם ולעשות מה שלבו חפץ ותוהא על הזמן שעבר שלא עשה כתאות לבו:

The radak says that regretting mitzvos doesn't mean thinking that mitzvos aren't good - you still know that mitzvos are good (כי הוא חושב כי יועילו לו צדקותיו) and hakadosh baruch hu rewards for mitzvos.  Rather, it means that one is so caught up in aveiros and loves aveiros so much that he wishes he had spent the time in which he had done mitzvos doing more aveiros.

In contrast, the rambam says that regret of mitzvos means to say, מה הועלתי בעשייתן - what good are mitzvos?  To regret mitzvos, a person has to think that mitzvos are meaningless - doing good is not important.

If we think back to the mashal of hattaras nedarim, there are two ways in halacha to be mattir neder.

one is through a pesach (an opening, not as in passover).  Example - You swear to eat the piece of bread in front of you, but when you flip over the bread, see you a huge patch of mold on it.  You have a pesach - had you known that this piece of bread was moldy you never would have sworn to eat it.

Everyone agrees that hataras nedarim works with a pesach.  There is a machlokes, however, whether the second type of hattara works.

The second type is charata - there is no new information you know now that you didn't know before that makes the neder void. Rather, you regret that you ever took the neder, and you only took the neder because you were in the wrong state of mind.   As we just said, some opinions in the gemara think this too is enough to warrant voiding a neder.

According to the Rambam's understanding of regretting mitzvos, one only loses his mitzvos if he has the higher form of hatara = a pesach: Had he known that mitzvos are meaningless (according to him), he would never have performed them.  Thus, even from a perspective of din, his mitzvos are null and void.

But Teshuva isn't the same: there is no new information that we know now that we didn't know when we sinned - we knew what we were doing was wrong and we did it anyways.  We have no pesach - how then can we do hatara for our sins and receive atonement?

The answer is through charata.  We come before Hashem and say, we weren't in the right state of mind when we sinned.  We were bad, but now we've become a different person, with a different state of mind, with new values and ideals and committed to not sinning.  In our core identity, we don't really want to sin - hence there is no sin that can reach to and affect our core identity.

This is charata.  From a strict perspective of din, maybe this doesn't work.  Why should G-d trust us when we claim that our sins don't reflect who we really are?  Do we have any evidence, anything to show for ourselves? But that is where the rachamim of Teshuva kicks in - Hashem accepts our charata and allows akiras haratzon to become an akiras hamaaseh - he gives us another chance to allow our pure core identity to come to the surface.

Hashivenu Hashem eilecha vinashuvah - May G-d accept all of our Teshuvah.  Gmar chasimah tovah to all!