So the Rambam is telling us again just including the most essential indispensable elements in the Viduy. And of course the Viduy is just mirroring what the experience of Tshuva is. That a person has to feel a sense of regret, of remorse, that without a sense of regret, of remorse, there's no Tshuva. That we understand. Even if a person leha-ba will cease and desist from the cheit, if there's no sense of regret or remorse, then there's no understanding, there's no real genuine acknowledgment of the cheit, so there's no Tshuva. It's also equally clear why there has to be a resolve of לעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה. But why is it so absolutely vital that a person be able to honestly say that not only nichamti but also boshti? Why is it so crucial that a person be able to honestly say to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "I'm ashamed"? Where the Rambam got it? So we know, the Rambam got it from psukim, psukim that we say as part of the Selichos: Elokai boshti venichlamti and other psukim kayotzei bo-zeh. So it's clear the question is not where the Rambam got it from, but what's this emphasis on busha? What's pshat? What's pshat in the centrality of that feeling, of that experience of busha? On one hand every cheit has its own dynamic, it reflects its own weakness. לא ראי החטא בין אדם לחבירו where a person Rachmana litzlan is unkind, impatient with his chaver, כראי החטא בין אדם למקום be it a bitul asei Rachmana litzlan, be it an aveiras lo sa'aseh. It's a different yetzer hara, a different weakness, a different character flaw. But on the other hand, there's also a common denominator to virtually every cheit. And that is that no matter how strong the yetzer hara, whichever yetzer hara it is, if I knew beshas ma'aseh, not if I knew, if I were aware, if I felt, if I had an acute awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that yetzer hara would have been inhibited. And on that level, every cheit as different and as varied as chataim are, but every cheit, virtually every cheit, points to a lack of awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not a presence in our lives. Because no one, משל למה הדבר דומה? A person may have a yetzer hara, he may be sufficiently or he may be sufficiently unethical to cheat on an exam. But no one, no matter what the yetzer hara. That's got nothing to do, you don't have to be especially ethical, and and you don't have to have been koveish the yetzer hara. If the proctor is staring right at you, you don't cheat on the exam. Very simple. No matter how how strong the impulse, or no matter how great the temptation may be to cheat, if the proctor's looking at you, you don't cheat on the exam. The proctor's looking at us and we cheat. So what's the kasha hashlishi? The kasha hashlishi is that we're oblivious to that ultimate reality of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The experience of busha differs from other emotions in the following respect. Pain doesn't require an audience. If a person rachmana litzlan injures himself, so whether he's in the whether there's a packed stadium that witnesses it or whether he's in the gym by himself, so either way rachmana litzlan he experiences and he endures pain. If I walk into an empty room and I clumsily trip over my old my own feet, so rachmana litzlan a person can hurt himself, a person can think to himself, that was a stupid thing to do, but if there was no one in the room, he's not going to be embarrassed. Not going to be embarrassed. If he walks into a room that's full from wall to wall, the same clumsiness, he wasn't any more clumsy, it's the same clumsiness, but now if people see it, so then that's what generates the sense of busha. So busha means I feel busha when I know there's an audience who's witnessing my failure, my foolishness, my inadequacies. That's when I feel busha. Why does a person have to be able to say in the ikaro shel viduy, in the quintessential viduy, why is it that you have to be able to echo Ezra Nechemiah and he has to and he has to say nichamti uvoshti? Yirmiyahu Hanavi as well. What am I embarrassed about? Most of my chataim happen and no one is aware of them. So what am I embarrassed about? So the explanation is obvious. If a person can't say boshti, so he's no more aware and sensitive to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence, to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's omnipresence now than he was when he was choteh. So the ikaro shel teshuva is missing. The ikaro shel teshuva is missing. Emes is Rabbeinu Yonah says this whole shtickel Torah. If you look in the shaar harishon in Shaarei Teshuva, Rabbeinu Yonah lists the various ikarei hateshuva, so one of the ikarei hateshuva Rabbeinu Yonah has is busha. And he says that the reason busha is so crucial is because the original cheit, how did the original cheit ever happen? How is it that my yetzer hara wasn't suppressed, wasn't inhibited? אין זה אלא היות השם יתברך רחוק מכליותיו. Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu wasn't on my radar screen. And the teshuva for that is to have a sense of busha about the cheit because the busha is in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Yitachen, I don't know if this is al derech pshat or al derech agada, the Rabbeinu Yonah there quotes the Gemara towards the end of the first perek in Masechet... The Gemara in Zevachim, the Gemara says וכל העושה דבר ומתבייש בו מוחלים לו על כל עוונותיו.
If a person is misbayesh bo, so not only is that avon nimchal, but מוחלים לו על כל עוונותיו. So why, how is it possible that disproportionate reaction? A person did a particular, a particular aveira which triggers the busha, his being misbayesh. And the reaction min hashamayim is that מוחלים לו על כל עוונותיו. So first of all, the pshat is as we said, because there's a common denominator to every cheit, virtually every cheit. And that common denominator is rachmana litzlan ושכחת את ה' אלהיך. The busha, perhaps the busha is being triggered by this most recent cheit, but that busha is a tikun, is a teshuva, redresses all chataim. And yitachen, again on what level of pshat or drash in the words of Chazal, that when Chazal say כל העושה דבר עבירה ומתבייש בו, the bo means the antecedent for the bo was not only the dvar aveira, but maybe on another level Chazal mean כל העושה דבר עבירה ומתבייש בו. And then is misbayesh baHashem, is misbayesh, is ashamed, is humiliated in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, מוחלים לו על כל עוונותיו. It's possible superficially, superficially, only superficially, to live very erlich and to forget Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Baruch Hashem, and I say that seriously, not chas v'shalom tongue in cheek, Baruch Hashem we develop the right habits. We develop the right habits. We get up in the morning and we put on tefillin and we daven and we go to the Beis Medrash and we eat lunch and we bentch. Baruch Hashem we have, we've inculcated in ourselves the right habits. But because we have those habits, it's possible to do everything habitually and Hakadosh Baruch Hu isn't a presence in our lives. It's an amazing thing, an amazing thing, many many talmidim show a tremendous sense of reverence and mora rabbam and speak to their rebbe, to their rabbeim in the third person. And yet the Ribbono Shel Olam we speak to at least half the time in the second person. There is the famous Tshuvos haRashba about that, where the Rashba comments on the phenomena. The Anshei Knesseth HaGedolah in coining the matbeia habrachos did the best possible to impress upon us that while on the one hand Hakadosh Baruch Hu is transcendent, is nistar and should be addressed in the third person, but simultaneously He's nochach, He's imminent. And to drive that home, so you can only say ata if you're talking to someone who's right in front of you. There's no ata to someone who's out of sight, and על אחת כמה וכמה there's no ata to someone who's out of mind. If He's out of mind, He's hu, He's not ata. The Rambam says that Chazal תקנו ברכות רבות לזכור את הבורא תמיד, but part of that zechirah is not just לזכור את הבורא תמיד that there is a Borei, but לזכור את הבורא תמיד as an omnipresence in our lives as atah. When we daven, so the Rambam defines kavannah as יראה עצמו כאילו הוא עומד לפני השכינה. So what does that mean? The mitzvah is to pretend? The mitzvah is to let's make believe? So the Sfas Emes says in a different context on בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים, he asks the same question. And once one is sensitized by his question, the answer is telegraphed, that בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים because they are chadashim. We're not being told, the Torah's not telling us to engage in flights of imagination. יראה עצמו עומד לפני השכינה because he is omed lifnei hashchina. Elul is a time when we try, we try to try at the very least, to be me'orer to teshuvah, to do teshuvah. There's nothing more pivotal, nothing more central, nothing more vital than working on the Ribono Shel Olam being a presence in our lives. That when we make a bracha baruch atah, that the atah be used not only grammatically correctly, but experientially correctly. When I say atah, it has to mean that someone in front of me, otherwise I can't say atah. When I daven, I have to try, or at least try to try, for a little bit, or at least a little bit of time, to try to maintain an awareness of omed lifnei hashchina because tfillah is not just a chiyuv, not just a mitzvah, but it's a certain reality. And the truth is that we can't attend to the chiyuv, we can't comply with the mitzvah unless we tap into that reality. And it's tapping into this reality which is so vital and so indispensable to the avodah of teshuvah as reflected again in the indispensability of being able to genuinely say הריני נחמתי ובושתי במעשי.