One of the nicest questions in Hilchos Teshuva is how it is and why it is that we can do Teshuva year in, year out, and then find ourselves the next year doing Teshuva for the very same Chata'im. Now it's true that it's possible to be doing Teshuva for the same Cheit on a different level. It's possible that last year when I did Teshuva for Bittul Torah that my Hasagos of Bittul Torah were in units of hours, of Sedorim. And maybe this year, this year's Teshuva on Bittul Torah might be in units of minutes, half hours, in which case, Be'emes, it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't reflect that there was a regression, Rachmana litzlan. It doesn't reflect that the Teshuva didn't stick, but Adaraba. The fact that, that I now can understand and recognize and appreciate the need for more of a Teshuva is a confirmation of progress. Chovos Halevavos has a very beautiful idea. He says that Chassidim do Teshuva on their Teshuva. What's Pshat? Not just Teshuva on their Aveiros, they do Teshuva on their Teshuva. Dehainu, to take, to take the example we just gave, if last year a person did Teshuva, how could it be that I skipped entire Sedorim, that I wasted entire days? And then this year continues to, to work on his Hasmodo, continues to work on, on overcoming that flaw of Bittul Zman. And this year he comes to an appreciation of Yakrus Hazman, of the value, of the preciousness of time, that he realizes that last year's Charata was superficial. Having distanced himself from the Cheit even more, having developed more of an appreciation and understanding for Yakrus Hazman, he realizes that last year's Teshuva was so inadequate, so shallow. He does Teshuva on his Teshuva. So that's, that can be one, one form of this phenomenon of every year doing Teshuva for the same Chata'im. And basically that's a very positive one. Aval da oka that sometimes, too often, we find ourselves doing Teshuva for the same Cheit Peshuta kemashma. Not because we're now in a different Madreiga and we're capable of a higher and better Teshuva, that we have a greater sensitivity to the nuances, to the subtleties. No, Bipshuta kemashma. I'm doing Teshuva for Bittul Torah in the same units, the same units of days, of Sedorim, of hours. So how does that happen and why does that happen? And maybe the Teshuva wasn't for real. Maybe when that happens it's an indication that my Teshuva wasn't for real. Maybe, but Kemeduma that if that... Answer, even if that answer is true some of the time, it's certainly not true all of the time. When a Jew stands Yom Kippur by Kol Nidrei and על אחת כמה וכמה by Neila and he's misvadeh, he's mekabel lehabah, I don't, I don't know whether, I don't know whether we're even, even capable of not doing that bilev shaleim. Avada it's bilev shaleim. So it's not as simple as the teshuva wasn't emesdik. We do it with an emes, and yet אף על פי כן too often it doesn't hold, doesn't stick. So perhaps we'll just discuss briefly two, maybe three perspectives on how this is and why this is. The Rambam says in perek beis of hilchos teshuva, halacha beis, מה היא התשובה הוא שיעזוב החוטא חטאו ויסירו ממחשבתו ויגמור בליבו שלא יעשהו עוד.
What does it mean yasiro mimachshavto? Lichora it doesn't mean that he erases the memory of the cheit. The Rambam later in the perek, as does the gemara in Yoma, quotes the pasuk from Dovid Hamelech, כי פשעי אני אדע וחטאתי נגדי תמיד. So what does it mean yasiro mimachshavto? So the pshat says that he banishes from his thoughts the very prospect, the very hava amina of ever repeating this cheit. And just to try to bring to the surface a little bit of what that means, so consider the following moshel. Person goes to the doctor. Doctor tells him, gives him a physical and weighs him, tells the person, you should lose 20 pounds. Be much healthier, you'll feel better, it will improve your all-around health, and I'm really, really urging you to lose 20 pounds. Okay. But it's not so simple, not so simple for him to diet. He has to change his eating habits, his maybe sedentary lifestyle, not so poshut. But okay, he has confidence in the doctor, so he resolves takeh he's going to diet. He thinks he can do it, he thinks he'll be able to trade in the chocolate cake for the carrot sticks, and he thinks he's going to be able to do it. Okay. And that's one scenario. Second scenario is a guy goes to the doctor. Doctor gives him a checkup, sits him down in the office for the consultation afterwards, and the doctor tells him, if you continue the way you're going, I'm convinced of the fact that within six months rachmana litzlan you're going to suffer a fatal heart attack. You're so overweight, your blood pressure is so high, your cholesterol level is so high, I'm convinced of the fact that within six months unless you begin today to introduce dramatic change into your diet, into your lifestyle, that you'll be finished. What's this guy's reaction? I think I can do it? No, his reaction is not I think I can do it. His reaction is, it's inconceivable to me that I won't do it. It's inconceivable to me after that warning, after that hasra'ah administered by my doctor, it's inconceivable that I won't. Is it going to be easy? It's irrelevant. It's just so absolutely necessary that of course I'm going to do it. So we can do teshuva or we can set about doing teshuva in in either of two ways, raboysai. You know, it's going to be hard for me to to introduce this change or these changes into my life, whatever whatever it is, bain odom l'makom, bain odom l'chaveiro, whatever it is. But you know what? I'm really going to try. I think I can do it. Or no, I now realize that I've been doing devarim ha'asur. It just can't be. It can't continue. I realize that X, Y, and Z that I'm doing is not falling short of a middas chassidus, falling short of a mitzvah min hamuvchar, but simply being mevatel chiyuvim or being over issurim, Rachmana litzlan. So it's not it's going to be hard, it's going to be difficult, but I'm going to give it my best effort. I have to do it. It's inconceivable to me that I won't. So the first perspective is, and that's the Rambam's yasiru mimachshavto. Part of the resolve of teshuva is that there isn't a hava amina of cheit. There's no hava amina. I I can't tolerate a hava amina that I'm going to continue with. If there's a hava amina, so then we can find ourselves in a year's time clopping al cheit for the same aveira on the same level. In last week's krias hatorah we had the pasuk of זכור את אשר עשה ה' אלהיך למרים בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים,
one of the zechiyos. Machlokes rishonim, Rashi and Ramban al hatorah, Ramban and the Rambam in Sefer Hamitzvos, whether or not this is a mitzvas asei. The Ramban in both places holds that this is a mitzvas asei. Rashi al hatorah basically says it's an eitzah tovah k'mashma'an, that previously the Torah's been talking about hishamer b'nega hatzaraas, about avoiding lashon hara. And the Torah here is saying, and if you want to succeed in so doing, you want to succeed in avoiding lashon hara, so here's the eitzah: זכור את אשר עשה ה' אלהיך למרים בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים.
The emes is that when you read the Ramban, the Ramban agrees that it's an eitzah, but says that the Torah mandated the eitzah. The Torah didn't leave it up to our discretion whether or not we decide to follow and implement this eitzah, but the Torah says no, it's mandatory. So the Torah here, besides giving an eitzah, besides being m'tzaveh on an eitzah in terms of lashon hara, the Torah here establishes a paradigm. And that paradigm is that when we resolve to do something, we have to strategize how we're going to implement that resolution. It's one thing to say no more lashon hara, no more lashon hara, but if it's something I've been aduk bin, so I have to understand where it comes from and I have to figure out how am I going to successfully implement this resolve. When we do teshuva and just say no, again, al chato'im באונס ברצון באמוץ הלב בבלי דעת בבטוי שפתים בגילוי עריות בגלוי ובסתר,
all the chato'im, I'm not going to do them anymore. But if I don't have a very definite plan as to how I'm going to avoid them, again, the chances of finding myself in a year's time... is too great. And the reason for that is that even though we sometimes sort of dismiss our own actions and ourselves if we're asked or if we ask ourselves, 'Well, why'd you do it?' So we shrug and say 'I don't know, I just stam did it.' Right? That's the if confronted or if it's a monologue, so that's sometimes the response. But there is no such thing. There's no such thing as just stam doing it. Everything is driven by something. Everything has a shoresh. For the teshuva to be able to stick, a person has to understand what precautions do I need to take? What underlying middos do I need to address, to attack, to refine, and how do I do that? What support system do I have to try to find or construct for myself? But just stam, the resolve can be one hundred percent that I'm not going to do it. But if I don't have an eitza tova how to go about that, how I'm going to succeed in implementing that, so then we can set ourselves up, rachmana litzlan, for failure. So maybe to give one or two examples. There's an awful lot to be discussed in this context and every mitzvah has its own plan, its own strategy. But just perhaps to give one or two examples. A person is working on middas haka'as, middas haka'as. So he resolves, Chodesh Elul, Aseres Yemei Teshuva, I have to be misgabeir, I have to be mesakein that midda. He needs the mitzvah or the binyan av without being a mitzvah of, as the Mesillas Yesharim says, well how you gonna do it? How you gonna do it lema'aseh? I can't, I can't succumb anymore to that midda of ka'as. But how lema'aseh, practically? Halacha lema'aseh, how am I going to do it? So in general, there are two complementary approaches to tikun amiddos, complementary, supplementary approaches to tikun amiddos. And let's try to illustrate it with regard to middas haka'as. The Ramban writes of course, kayadu'a, in his iggeres that a person should always talk softly, always talk benachas. כל דבריך יהיו בנחת the Ramban tells his son, ובזה תנצל מן הכעס שהיא מדה רעה להחטיא בני אדם,
something to that effect. One way to correct, uproot when necessary middos is by certain types of behavior, certain types of behavior. means that there's a cap on emotion. It's being controlled. And that control suppresses anger. דון מינה ואוקי באתרה in terms of other middos. But behaviors which and then eventually eventually as the Chinuch as the Mesillas Yesharim of achrei ha'peulos so then eventually it's something which transforms a person internally as well. The other approach also Mesillas Yesharim has. They're not competing, again, they're complimentary and supplementary. Is a person has to try to understand which hashkafos which hashkafos zoros which kuma hashkafos need to be fixed in order to undercut this middah ra of kaas. The two most common ones we mentioned them just a moment ago. Kaas usually reflects pettiness. Most of the things that we get angry about are petty. The Rambam says by nekama netira that the דברים של מה בכך which don't justify the reaction of nekama netira. Pettiness and gaiva. Invariably when a person becomes angry when we become angry there's an element of gaiva which fuels the anger. V'haraya very very rarely does the same offense perpetrated against someone else elicit the same intensity of reaction from us. Siman davar that as much as we would like to think that it's all just moral outrage it's not moral outrage. There's too much of an element of ego within it. So a person then has to work on internalizing hashkafos which combat pettiness which combat gaiva. So what's the halacha l'maaseh of that? How does a person do that? How does a person bridge what we know what we believe and what So again Ramchal, others as well, the constant reinforcement of the idea, thinking, rethinking, reviewing again and again and again this idea מאין באת ולאן אתה הולך ולפני מי אתה עתיד ליתן דין וחשבון,
that constant, we know it. What makes the difference between knowing it and feeling it, it seeps in when a person reviews again and again and again and again. I think where we've in the past discussed the very beautiful story with Rabbi Yisrael Salanter traveling once when he had already, as it were, revealed himself to the world in his effort to establish and disseminate the Mussar movement. So he was staying in an inn overnight and there was another lodger in the inn who was a little bit of a cynic, a little bit of a skeptic, and he wanted to see whether or not this person who is reputed to be such a big Tzadik was really the case. So what does he do when he thinks that he's not on stage? What does he do when he thinks people aren't looking? So he decides that in the middle of the night he's going to very quietly go over and he's going to peek through the keyhole of Rabbi Yisrael's room to see what does he do at night when he thinks he's all alone and no one's watching. So he goes out 1:30 in the morning, everyone is sound asleep, creeps over to Rabbi Yisrael's door and he sees that he's pacing back and forth and he's saying to himself in Pirkei Avot u-mi-nu-lo sa-zua, u-mi-nu-lo sa-zua. Don't move, don't budge, don't move away from Torah. And he stays and he watches five minutes, ten minutes, half hour, an hour, up and down, up and down. Finally, finally, this former cynic skeptic is too exhausted, he can't keep his eyes open anymore. He goes back to sleep and convinced of the fact that the world has no hassaga of how big of a Tzadik Rabbi Yisrael Salanter really is. But what's peshat in this story? That he should have been up, ich veis, learning Gantz Shaarei Teshuva, he should have been up Mesillat Yesharim, writing Iggeret HaMussar. What? Three words in Pirkei Avot is enough to preoccupy a person for an entire night? So the answer is that Rabbi Yisrael also understood this yesod of the Ramchal, of others, that the way we internalize hashkafa is just again and again and again reviewing it. That's the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu created our teva. That constant thinking, meditating, repeating on the idea, that that's the way we internalize it, that's the way it becomes absorbed, that's the way it's niklat. The appreciation that we have, and it's a good appreciation, for chidush in learning, is sometimes co-opted by the yetzer hara to undermine such a tactic. I know it, so what am I, I know this, let me, okay, so we have to chazer a few times to make sure we don't forget, but I'm not going to forget either. But even halevai that that's a madreiga we should attain. But there's there's there's another madreiga besides knowing and ensuring that one doesn't forget, and that's the madreiga of of of vehashevosa el levavecha, of of internalizing. And that's the the second aspect again to the strategizing. So if I'm attacking a mida ra, if I'm attacking midas hakaas, there are certain behaviors that I have to implement. It's not enough that I'm not going to get angry anymore. How am I going to do it? How am I going to do it just because I said I'm not going to do it? I'm not going to get angry because I'm not going to raise my voice. And that's going to that's going to control my emotions. I'm not going to get angry because I'm going to spend time every day, I'm going to spend time, I'm going to find quiet time and then periodically remind myself of again these hashkafos which undercut that mida ra. It's something which has to be adjusted. We need to have a program for each aveira depending upon what the aveira is, but for the teshuva to stick, yeah there has to be a plan of implementation, has to be a plan how it's going to be different, how it's going to be different. I did A, B, and C wrong last year and not just that I'm not going to repeat it this year but how is it going to be different? And that planning, that strategizing is is part of the avoda of chodesh Elul, Aseres Yemei Teshuva.