Transcript

Masechet Megillah concludes as follows: Tanu Rabanan, Moshe tikein for Yisrael שיהיו שואלים ודורשים בעניינו של יום, hilchos Pesach on Pesach, hilchos Atzeret on Atzeret, and hilchos Chag on Chag. The Maharsha in Chidushei Aggadot comments, nakat habraisa Shalosh Regalim, Pesach, Atzeret, and Chag,

ולא נקט נמי ראש השנה ויום הכיפורים דכתיבי נמי בזו הפרשה. יש לומר דלא תיקן משה בשאר מצוות משום דלא אתיין מזמן לזמן. והכי נמי ראש השנה ויום הכיפורים לא מיקרי מזמן לזמן, שיש לאדם ליתן ליבו לתשובה בכל השנה כמו בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים, מה שאין כן בשלוש רגלים דמצוותן בזמנן בעניינו של יום.

Why does the Baraita only mention the chiyuv to be osek in the halachos of that Yom Tov with regard to the Shalosh Regalim? Why doesn't the Baraita mention that that same chiyuv exists on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Says the Maharsha: Because the chiyuv is to focus on a mitzvah which is seasonal. Hilchos Sukkah are seasonal. Chametz u'matzah is seasonal. Shteihalechem is seasonal. If the Baraita would have included Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so it would have conveyed to us that mitzvah shofar, mitzvah teshuvah, the dominant theme of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is also seasonal. And it's not, says the Maharsha.

שיש לאדם ליתן ליבו לתשובה בכל השנה כמו בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים.

That's an amazing, amazing formulation from the Maharsha. If the Maharsha would have said שיש לאדם ליתן ליבו לתשובה בכל השנה, that would have been a powerful enough mussar. But the Maharsha says, it's amazing,

שיש לאדם ליתן ליבו לתשובה בכל השנה כמו בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים.

Amazing. Same, same preoccupation that a person has with teshuvah on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the same preoccupation a person is supposed to have an entire year. The Sefer HaTeshuvah, the two-volume peirush from Rav Yosef Cohen on the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah, so he begins, he quotes this Maharsha in his hakdama as sort of encapsulating and expressing what his motivation was to write a peirush on the Rambam's Hilchos Teshuvah. He says teshuvah is something which is nohag every day, and there's no Shulchan Aruch. So the Shulchan Aruch is the Rambam's Hilchos Teshuvah. Now, the emes is, I think if we look inward, outward, this Maharsha is not, not very well-known. And to the extent that it's known, I'm not sure to what degree it's observed, to what degree it's implemented. From the time of the tekiat shofar after Neilah until tekiat shofar on Rosh Chodesh Elul, we don't, we don't hear shmuzen about teshuvah. We don't, we don't talk about teshuvah. And, and most critically, I'm not sure how much we even entertain a thought about teshuvah, much less to focus, much less

ליתן ליבו לתשובה בכל השנה כמו בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים.

The negative fallout from this neglect is very, very real. So let's, let's spend a few minutes trying to understand what the chiyuv of teshuvah as a daily mitzvah is, some of the elements. of mechayev, some of the perspectives. Ramban writes in the derasha le-Rosh Hashana as follows:

התשובה חסד גדול על הבריות אבל עונש גדול להם שבזמן שאדם חוטא עובר על רצון בוראו שעה אחת בשעת החטא וכשהוא עומד ואינו שב בתשובה עומד במרדו כל ימיו ואינו חושש לעשות רצון בוראו.

Or in other words what the Ramban says is that the failure to do teshuva is to prolong and if rachmana litzlan the teshuva is is not only not only late in coming but rachmana litzlan never comes, so then the failure to do teshuva prolongs and even perpetuates the cheit. The cheit itself happens in a split moment. Maybe maybe just a moment of weakness, a person is nichshal. Okay, so for that one second, for that one second, the person was chotei. The longer it takes for a person to respond to that, so the longer he prolongs and perpetuates that cheit. Many of the acharonim in in explaining the shitas HaRambam in the beginning of Hilchos Teshuva, following the the approach that the Rambam doesn't count teshuva as the mitzvah but counts vidui as the mitzvah, given that understanding, explain it in similar terms. That the chiyuv to do teshuva isn't some kind of supplementary, additional mitzvah, but is is inherent within the mitzvah itself, within the mitzvah itself, within each mitzvah is is the chiyuv that if a person was nichshal, that he has to be shav me-reisho on that mitzvah. That the imperative for teshuva is contained within the mitzvah gufa. The Meshech Chochma for instance writes in Parshas Vayeilech that

היך נחשבת למצוה שישוב מכסלו ולא יחטאו הלא בלא המצוה מצווה ועומד לבלי לעבור על מצות השם יתברך.

So that's one element of chiyuv or mechayev of bechol hashana kula lasun libo liteshuva because if this morning rachmana litzlan I was chotei, to ignore that, to let that, to let it be until Rosh Chodesh Elul until Ne'ila is to prolong and rachmana litzlan perpetuate the cheit. Rabbeinu Yona writes in Sha'arei Teshuva towards the very beginning:

ודע כי החוטא כאשר יאחר לשוב מחטאתו יכבד עליו מאד ענשו בכל יום כי הוא יודע כי יצא הקצף עליו ויש לו מנוס לנוס שמה והמנוס הוא התשובה והוא עומד במרדו והנה ברשעו ובידו לצאת מתוך ההפכה ולא יגור מפני האף והחמה על כן רעתו רבה.

Rabbeinu Yona has a different emphasis. Rabbeinu Yona says we know, perhaps we don't feel, but we know cognitively, intellectually, that rachmana litzlan a person is chotei, so that means rachmana litzlan that he's on track for an onesh. He's on track for an onesh. When a person doesn't avail himself of the recourse for teshuva, so what that demonstrates is a sense rachmana litzlan of bitul to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. משל למה הדבר דומה משל למה הדבר דומה. You're about to do something. You're about to throw throw a stone and break that pane of glass. tell you if you do that you're going to incur so and so's wrath. And you go ahead and you do it anyway. So what does that insinuate? I don't care about so and so's wrath. Okay, I hear you. If I throw that rock through that pane of glass, I'll incur his wrath. I'm muzhar ve'omed, but I don't care. Icho ha'teshuva, icho ha'teshuva means that we're not nispoyel, we're not nispoyel from the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is displeased and that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says that rachmana litzlan if we don't do teshuva, so there's a reckoning. Parenthetically, we see here a very very important clarification within the mitzvah of yiras Hashem, right? הדברים עתיקים והדברים ידועים, the two types of yira, yiras ha'onesh, yiras haromemus. There's one type of yira, the Rambam says, שיירא בביאת עונשו בכל עת. That's what the Rambam talks about in Sefer Hamitzvos, that's what the Sefer Hachinuch says as well. And then the Rambam in Yesodei Hatorah talks about more of a sense of yiras haromemus, the sense of awe and fear that a person has from the greatness and exaltedness and overwhelmingness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What Rabbeinu Yonah is saying is a person, again, what emerges from Rabbeinu Yonah, a person can feel and experience yiras ha'onesh in one of two ways. A person can feel yiras ha'onesh is that I can have either have had drilled into me as a result of chinuch or perhaps I drilled it into myself, that I know, I know that if I rachmana litzlan commit chato'im, oy ve'voy. Yiras ha'onesh. There's another way to express and to experience yiras ha'onesh, and that is to say if rachmana litzlan I commit certain chato'im, so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not a vatran and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, הצור תמים פעלו כי כל דרכיו משפט, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not a vatran, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to punish. What's the difference between those two? Difference between those two is, it's possible, don't think we have to go further than the closest mirror to verify this statement, it's possible to experience and express yiras ha'onesh without Hakadosh Baruch Hu, without focusing on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That in our minds, okay, so I missed zman krias shema, I whatever I did, whatever I did, there's going to be an accounting for that, there's going to be an accounting from that. It's a pachad. Says Rabbeinu Yonah, says Rabbeinu Yonah, no, again, what emerges from Rabbeinu Yonah, it's not his focus, but what emerges from Rabbeinu Yonah is that yiras ha'onesh is a kiyum in yiras Hashem when the emphasis is not, not again, if I do this, it's going to cause an onesh, but if I do this, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu punishes. If a person has that type of yiras ha'onesh, that takeh is a kiyum in yiras Hashem, that's a kiyum in yiras shamayim. And it's interesting, the lashon haRambam takeh is in Sefer Hamitzvos is שיירא בביאת עונשו בכל עת. Okay. So that's two perspectives, perhaps two elements of the mechayev of teshuva as a constant mitzvah, what the Maharsha is talking about in Megillah. First of all, that the lack of teshuva prolongs, perpetuates cheit, rachmana litzlan, and second of all, the lack of concern for the impending onesh, rachmana litzlan, insinuates an attitude rachmana litzlan. which is absolutely unacceptable. The Maharsha earlier in Megillah in commenting on the Gemara in the second perek where the Gemara explains the sequence of Berachos in the Shemoneh Esrei, so the Gemara says מה ראו לומר תשובה אחר בינה? So the Gemara quotes the pasuk of ולבבו יבין ושב ורפא לו. So what's the pshat in that pasuk of ולבבו יבין ושב ורפא לו? So says the Maharsha:

היינו דיבין האדם גודל חטא וכנגד מי חטא ואז ודאי ישוב בתשובה שלמה.

Again, the same idea again sort of straddling the Ramban, the Rabbeinu Yonah, more along the lines of Rabbeinu Yonah, not so much emphasizing the onesh as emphasizing keneged mi chata. If a person understands keneged mi chata then of course that has to result in vadai yashuv biteshuva. And if that reaction of vadai yashuv biteshuva is not forthcoming, so then that's indicative of a lack of appreciation of keneged mi chata. And that gufa, that a person has to have that understanding, that appreciation, is part of the chiyuv of teshuva which we have all year long. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk on a more pragmatic level in terms of the chiyuv, the daily chiyuv as it were of teshuva. And again, the Rabbeinu Yonah continues at the beginning of Sha'arei Teshuva:

ועוד התבונן ברעות המאחר מן התשובה כי רבה היא כי לולי התמהמה כי עתה שב נאנח במרירות לב ברוגז ובדאגה ודלפה עינו מתוגה כי יפגשהו יצרו שנית ויזדמן החטא לידו יכבוש את יצרו ויזכור אשר עבר עליו כוס המרירות ולא יוסיף לשתותו עוד.

For in other words, if a person is chozer biteshuva immediately, if a person doesn't, as I think Rabbeinu Yonah quotes the Gemara, that אם ראית תלמיד חכם שעבר עבירה בלילה is don't be choshed him bayom because vadai asa teshuva already. The effect, the advantageous effect of that immediate teshuva is that if a person will encounter a similar opportunity to be chotei, if he's already been chozer biteshuva the first time, chances are he won't be nichshal a second time. If he hasn't been chozer biteshuva from the first time, the chances are that he will be chotei the second time. Ramchal in Mesillas Yesharim expresses a very similar idea:

כלל הדבר יהיה אדם מעיין על מעשיו כולם ומפקח על כל דרכיו שלא להניח לעצמו הרגל רע ומידה רעה כל שכן עבירה ופשע והנני רואה צורך לאדם שיהיה מדקדק ושוקל דרכיו דבר יום ביומו.

Again:

הנני רואה צורך לאדם שיהיה מדקדק ושוקל דרכיו דבר יום ביומו כסוחרים הגדולים אשר יפלסו תמיד כל עסקיהם למען לא יתקלקלו ויקבע עתים ושעות לזה שלא יהיה משקלו ארעי אלא בקביעות גדול כי רב התולדה הוא.

Says Ramchal, a person just like businesses make inventory daily, daily, just like the bank checks the cash drawer against all the deposits and all the withdrawals that were made today to make sure that everything adds up and that's done on a daily basis so that things can't spiral out of hand, so too a person has to make a cheshbon hanefesh daily. Ramchal is emphasizing cheshbon hanefesh, but obviously cheshbon hanefesh and teshuva go hand in hand. The two, the two go in tandem. But let's elaborate this a little bit. Consider the following fictional case which if it bears any resemblance to cases we know is not coincidental at all. Person learns in, learns in, learns in Yeshiva and as they say lommed chazzak. Okay, vayehi hayom, the time comes, יגיע כפיך כי תאכל, גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפו. He goes, gets a job. Initially he's very makpid for ittis ba'torah. He learns every morning before he goes off to work, learns every night again when he comes home. Tefillah b'tzibbur is a given. Even Mincha Gedolah, there's a Mincha Gedolah lunchtime not far from where he works. He doesn't miss a Mincha either. And and it goes without saying that when he's in shul, כל מי שמיחד בתוך בית הכנסת לתפילה, he's not there to talk, he's not there to socialize, he's not there to catch up on the the the news of the week. He's there to daven. And you you follow out of touch with this person and you meet him again 10 years later, maybe it's 15 years later, maybe it's only 8 years later and physically he looks more or less the same. Okay, he looks a little bit older. But spiritually the person's hardly recognizable. Doesn't have a seder, doesn't have a regular seder. Every now and then goes to the rabbi's shiur an hour before Mincha and if he didn't finish his nap before he went to the shiur, he's mashlim, he's mashlim for the nap now. Instead of tefillah b'tzibbur, puts on his tallis and tefillin very quickly at home in the morning and as they say in Yiddish davens up from brachos to the ani ma'amins in in 20 minutes. And when he is in shul on Shabbos, he's he's no longer bothered by the problem of talking, but he's he's part of the problem. And you stand and you nishtomaim, so what happened? What happened? What happened to him? All of a sudden he he fell? B'teret ploni? All of a sudden it just just happened בן יום בן לילה? So the answer obviously is that it didn't. What happened was one day he was especially busy, especially pressured, wasn't able to wasn't able to keep his seder that day. Another day coming on the heels of an especially tiring and enervating day at work, instead of getting up when the alarm clock went off, so he he turned the alarm off, went back to sleep and then when he did wake up it was late, missed minyan, even if there was a later minyan, didn't have time to go to minyan, so he had to daven very quickly at home. At some point his his neighbor in shul said something to him during davening and instead of motioning to him as he always had done in the past that I can't answer you or instead of motioning to him to come come out of shul with me and and I'll answer you there, he answered him. So Chazal tell us mitzvah gorreres mitzvah and Rachmana litzlan aveirah gorreres aveirah. Whatever a person does generates momentum. Momentum. Now does that mean that it's an inexorable momentum, unstoppable? So how does one break out of the cycle of aveirah gorreres aveirah, so what does that mean Rachmana litzlan a person is nichshal once, he can't break out of that cycle? So the answer is that what ends the cycle, what stops the momentum, the negative momentum in its tracks is teshuvah. Our fictional friend, if that same night when he had missed his seder for the first time had followed Ramchal's eitzah. And had made a cheshbon hanefesh that night, there wouldn't have been any momentum. And it's highly, highly unlikely that it would have happened the second time anytime soon. If the same night when he had turned the alarm clock off in the morning and for the first time had missed tefilla betzibur, he had made that cheshbon hanefesh, it's highly, highly unlikely that it would have happened again anytime soon. But if we ignore the Maharsha, if our fictional friend ignores the Maharsha at the end of Megilla at his own peril, so then once, once a person misses a seder once, it's easier to miss it a second time. It's easier to miss it a second time. Once a person doesn't pull himself out of bed in the morning even though he's tired because he has to be makpid on tefilla betzibur, it's easier to do it a second time. Now על אחת כמה וכמה the third time is not just easier but is easy. Na'aseh lo ke-heter Chazal say. See, it didn't happen overnight. Our fictional friend, he wasn't yored pelayim overnight. He didn't go from one of the best and strongest guys in the yeshiva to someone who's spiritually mediocre overnight. It happened gradually. But it happened gradually because he never stopped the negative momentum. Because he neglected

לשום לבו לתשובה כל השנה כמו בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים,

so things struck root. But wait a minute, meila, that our fictional friend was distracted, that he didn't recall to mind Ramchal's advice in Mesillas Yesharim to make a cheshbon hanefesh every night, that's easy enough to imagine. But where was he erev Rosh Hashana? Where was he erev Yom Kippur? He wasn't thinking then? The answer is of course he was thinking. Of course he was thinking. And with sincerity he was klapping al cheit. With sincerity. And yitachen, klapping al cheit with such sincerity that יודע עליו יודע תעלומות שלא ישוב לזה החטא לעולם. So what happened? So how do we see him 10 years later in this condition? Because the answer is, the answer is that a person can be very sincere on erev Rosh Hashana, and על אחת כמה וכמה on erev Yom Kippur and on Yom Kippurim, בו ביום ביום הקדוש. But the force of habit is so strong that his sincerity and his resolve, it was real, real enough that יודע עליו יודע תעלומות that if only he'll stick with it. But when, but when his resolve went up against the force of habit, against the koach ha-hergel, the koach ha-hergel which came because every night he hadn't, when he first missed a seder, when he second, when he third, when he fourth time missed a seder, he hadn't stopped to think, so then he was there erev Rosh Hashana, erev Yom Kippur, he was thinking. But the koach ha-hergel was so strong that his teshuva didn't overcome it. Or in other words, in other words, in many cases it's going to turn out that our teshuva of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippurim depends upon our teshuva a whole year long. Because if there's no teshuva a whole year long, so then what we have to cope with, what we have to contend with in the season of teshuva is so much more difficult and so much closer to overwhelming. Finally, אין הקדוש ברוך הוא בא בטרוניא עם בריותיו. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us a mitzvah, it means we can do it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't set us impossible tasks. He certainly sets us challenges. He certainly sets us challenging tasks, but it doesn't say anywhere that a person's supposed to coast through life without working. But whatever Hakadosh Baruch Hu sets us as a task is one we can do. So the pi pshuto, what that means is that yeah, we have the ability to follow what Ramchal says. We have the ability to make a cheshbon hanefesh. We have an ability to check the course of our ship so that if it has veered slightly off course, we correct it immediately before it veers even farther off course and before that correction becomes so much more difficult to effect. We have that koach. It's beyadeinu la'asos. With a little bit more omek, the pshat perhaps is as follows. In Nefesh Hachaim, שער א פרק ב, Rav Chaim Volozhin teaches us as follows:

הוא יתברך שמו כמו בעת בריאת העולמות כולם שבראם והמציאם הוא יתברך יש מאין בכוחו הבלתי תכלית.

Just as at the first moment of berias ha'olam, Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world yesh mei'ayin,

כן מאז כל יום וכל רגע ממש שכל כוח מציאותם וסדרם וקיומם תלוי רק במה שהוא יתברך שמו משפיע בהם ברצונו יתברך כל רגע כוח ושפע אור חדש.

The world doesn't exist by inertia. The world exists because every second Hakadosh Baruch Hu continues to infuse it with existence. Hakadosh Baruch Hu continues to continuously every second Hakadosh Baruch Hu wills that the world should continue. משל למה הדבר דומה. I think that the way when you see the way it was explained to me when you see an image on a computer screen, so we just see the image continuously. So it appears to us that when I pulled up a certain text, so it's there on the screen and it's there on the screen until I erase it or until I go to the next page. In reality, it's really there, it's really being renewed every second. The only thing is that that renewal happens so quickly and so efficiently and so seamlessly that to us it looks like it's just there. But in reality, it's not there, it's really being renewed every second. Nafka mina is when you turn something off are you erasing it? Okay, so that's not halacha lema'aseh, you have to ask a posek. So Rav Chaim Volozhin says the same thing is true in terms of the world. We see again the world exists continuously. Says Rav Chaim Volozhin, yes, but it doesn't, it's not one continuum, it's that every kol rega varega Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mechadesh es haberiah.

וכמו שיסדו אנשי כנסת הגדולה המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית היינו תמיד ממש כל עת ורגע.

Now, in the haga'ah, so he takes this a step further. He says:

ואף שאין חידוש ניכר לעין אמנם הד׳ יסודות עילאין דאינון השרשין קדמאין ואבהן דכולא כנזכר בזוהר שהם שורש כל מעשה בראשית ופנימיות כולם והם ד׳ אותיות הוי״ה ברוך הוא התמזגותם והרכבתם כל עת ורגע בשורש שורשם אינו מושג כלל והוא יתברך שמו מחדשם כל רגע לפי רצונו.

Okay, just to again to translate the words and pretend that we understand that the roots from which all everything else stems are the osiyos of the שם יקוק. And how Hakadosh Baruch Hu through the combinations of these osiyos. That's how Hakodosh Boruch Hu is mechadesh the briyah.

ועניין התמזגותם כל רגע הם התתר"פ צירופי השם ברוך הוא על פי השתנות נקודותיהם התתר"פ רגעי השעה.

The number of different tzerufim, again assuming not only the osiyos Hashem, but also nekudos, correspond to the chelkei hasha'ah. Right? When they announce the molad and so many chalokim.

וכן משתנים עוד כל שעה לצירופים אחרים וגם אין מידת יום שווה למידת לילה ולא כל יום דומה לחברו שלפניו ואחריו כלל. זה שכתוב המחדש מעשה בראשית דייקא.

So the Nefesh HaChaim says this davar nifla. He says המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית doesn't only mean that Hakodosh Boruch Hu renews the briyah. It doesn't only mean like the computer screen lehavdil that that it doesn't really exist continuously, but it's just that it's so, so efficiently and wisely and seamlessly renewed that we don't see it. But he says because Hakodosh Boruch Hu renews the briyah through these tzerufei shemos and Hakodosh Boruch Hu is constantly changing the tzeruf, so the chiddush in the briyah is not only that the world doesn't just continue to exist by inertia, but the tzerufim are constantly different, constantly changing and that's what the deeper understanding of the chiddush is. But not only is this second mechudash, not only is כל רגע ורגע ממש מחודש in the sense that Hakodosh Boruch Hu had to will the world to continue to exist, but Hakodosh Boruch Hu does it through a different tzeruf, a different harkovah of the osiyos Hashem unekudoseihem and in that sense לא כל יום דומה לחברו שלפניו ואחריו כלל. Every moment is totally mechudash in the sense of unique. Not only new in the sense that Hakodosh Boruch Hu had to be mechadesh the briyah, but every second is is new in the sense of being mechudash in the sense of being unique. This reality infuses the world and infuses us with a koach hischadshus. If the briyah is tomid mischadeshes, so then it means that we also have a koach hachiddush. And the sod, the secret and the source of of doing teshuva, of

לשום לבו לתשובה בכל השנה כמו ראש השנה ויום הכפורים

is drawing upon this koach hachiddush which is integral to the briyah. Of course there are times when the koach hachiddush is felt even more strongly. Of course there are different zmanim in the year, but the point is what the Nefesh HaChaim is teaching us is that every moment, every moment by definition because of המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית there's a koach hachiddush in the world. And it's that koach hachiddush, if only we tap into it, if only we we harness it, if only we take advantage of it, which allows us to fulfill that imperative of the Maharsha at the end of Megillah. Rachmana yizakeinu lach.