כל המצות שבתורה בין עשה בין לא תעשה אם עבר אדם על אחת מהן בין בזדון בין בשגגה כשיעשה תשובה וישוב מחטאו חייב להתוודות לפני האל ברוך הוא.
So the Rambam has two phrases: keshe-ya'aseh teshuvah and veyashov me-cheto. It would seem that either would be sufficient. If the Rambam would have said כשיעשה תשובה חייב להתוודות, we wouldn't have noticed anything amiss. If he would have said וישוב מחטאו חייב להתוודות, we wouldn't have missed anything. What are the two phrases? Later in perek gimmel, the famous Rambam about tekiat shofar, so the Rambam writes that אף על פי שתקיעת שופר בראש השנה גזירת הכתוב, we can't definitively, absolutely assign a reason for it, אבל רמז יש בו. We can understand, we can glimpse, we can offer a suggestion. עורו עורו ישנים משנתכם והקיצו נרדמים מתרדמתכם וחפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה וזכרו בוראכם.
Right? Awake from your sleep, be aroused from your slumber, scrutinize your actions, return, do teshuvah, remember HaKadosh Baruch Hu. אלו השוכחים את האמת בהבלי הזמן. They forget emet because they're so caught up and so preoccupied with the futile, empty, vacuous pursuits. ושוגים כל שנתם בהבל וריק אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל.
They are immersed all year, all year long, their entire lives, behevel varik with futility, with emptiness, אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל, which has no content, there's nothing meaningful, nothing enduring. הביטו לנפשותיכם והיטיבו דרכיכם ומעלליכם. So the Rambam says that the shofar is a call to teshuvah. It's a wake-up call for teshuvah. What's so remarkable, my father zichrono livracha would comment, what's so remarkable here is to whom the Rambam says this call is addressed. We would have expected the Rambam to say that a call to teshuvah is addressed to chote'im, to sinners. And yet initially the Rambam doesn't describe or define or characterize the intended audience as chote'im. אלו השוכחים את האמת בהבלי הזמן. They forget emet because they're so caught up and so preoccupied with the futile, empty, vacuous pursuits. ושוגים כל שנתם בהבל וריק אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל.
The Rambam here says that the shoresh, the root for chet, is when a person lives superficially. A person lives a life which is devoid of value, of meaning. He lives bekallut rosh. And that emptiness is what allows for chet to sprout. It's that, that's the habitat for chet. Chet doesn't just emerge yesh me-ayin, but it's because of that, the superficiality and the emptiness of a person's life where you have that kind of vacuum, that's where chet, Rachmana litzlan, fills the vacuum. In our halacha, כשיעשה תשובה וישוב מחטאו, the Rambam is referring to exactly that. Keshe-ya'aseh teshuvah, the beauty of that phrase that the Rambam crafted is that the Rambam ingeniously figured out how to speak about teshuvah without mentioning chet. You wouldn't have thought that was possible. But keshe-ya'aseh teshuvah does exactly that. The Rambam speaks of doing teshuvah without referencing chet, referring again to this root cause of chet. The root cause of chet again is not chet per se. Okay, so we'll come up with an excuse for why it's not bittul Torah. It's not, it's not chet per se. Again, it's that involvement with hevel varik, it's the fact that there's such a void in a person's life, that there's such a vacuum. So keshe-ya'aseh teshuvah when a person will recognize that, when a person will change his mindset, and then veyashov me-cheto, and then he'll also target the specific chet or chata'im that he committed, so then chayav lehitvadot.