Thank you very much ברשות הרב הגאון שליט"א מורי ורבותי. Now the Rambam's entire Mishneh Torah has been recognized since first disseminated as really a unique, unprecedented, and subsequently unequaled tour de force. But within that, Hilchos Teshuvah occupies a very special place. All the other areas in halachah, so the Rambam with tremendous erudition and originality, so he wrote Hilchos Shabbos, he wrote Hilchos Nizkei Mamon. But b'ma'aseh, if you look in Shas, there's clearly a discipline of Hilchos Shabbos, there's clearly a discipline of Hilchos Nizkei Mamon. When you look in Shas, there's a little bit of Agad'ta over here, a ma'amar over here, there is no Hilchos Teshuvah in Shas. The Rambam created the field. He didn't just systematize it, he didn't just with great erudition and originality contribute to it, but he really made the field. If you take a look, the Ramban, during the Ramban's lifetime, so there was the whole dispute raged over the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim and Sefer HaMada. And the Ramban wrote in defense of the Rambam, he wrote to Chachmei Tzarfas. So the whole letter is a fascinating letter, but the part that pertains to us now he says, and from Sefer Mada he says, what do you want from the Rambam's Sefer Mada? It's a beautiful thing. And especially look at Hilchos Teshuvah. He says until the Rambam came around, he says there was no such thing as Hilchos Teshuvah. No one had been able to piece together a Hilchos Teshuvah from the ma'amarei Chazal and it's one within the Rambam's overall lifetime work, it certainly stands out as something very, very special. So let's take a look. As we'll spend a few minutes and as we have time to try to derive some instruction, guidance, and maybe even inspiration from the words of the Rambam. So let's begin in פרק ב' הלכה ב'. Umah hi hateshuvah? What exactly is teshuvah? What are the components? If we're going to analyze it and break it down into its constituent components, so what exactly is the teshuvah? הוא שיעזוב החוטא חטאו. The sinner should abandon his sin, v'yisirenu mimachshavto, ויגמור בליבו שלא יעשהו, and he should resolve that he's not going to regress, that he's not going to repeat the sin, shene'emar Ya'azov rasha darko V'ish aven machshavosav. V'chein says the Rambam, yisnacham al she'avar. He should also have a sense of regret, of remorse about the past, shene'emar כי אחרי שובי ניחמתי ואחרי הוודעי ספקתי על ירך. Okay, let's perhaps a couple of comments here. So first of all, what's perhaps a little bit new to us that when we summarize the elements, the different components of teshuvah, we don't necessarily zero in on this is the Rambam's yisirenu mimachshavto. Again, clearly the Rambam thinks reflected in the pasuk of ish aven machshavosav. What does it mean yisirenu mimachshavto? So lachora as follows, משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you have someone he's ich veis addicted to smoking, whatever the case may be. And his doctor calls him in and tells him, you know, this is really a very, very unhealthy habit, it's a dangerous habit, and it can do lung damage, and reads him the riot act. And he tells the patient, you know, you really need to, he tells this patient, you really need to quit. And so the patient responds, you know what, I'm really addicted, but I'm going to try since you're telling me, I'm really going to try, I'm going to give it my best shot. So that's one patient. Then the doctor sees another patient, again with the same smoking addiction, and reads him the same riot act. But this patient's reaction... I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I realize that I have to do it. I realize from what you're telling me that there's no alternative, that there's that there's no other way to proceed, I have to do it. The second reaction is what Yisnacham Al Sheavar means. What the Rambam says is that the resolve to leave the chet is that a chet has to be unthinkable. Not that the resolve is well I'm going to do my best, I'm not going to do it, but the teshuva process יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו means that it has to be unthinkable, not just that there's a sense of of resolve that I'm going to do my best. No, we know that if lechatchila we go into it with such a mindset, so then we're not going to we're not going to bat a thousand. But if something is is actually unthinkable, it's much more likely to to succeed and generate results. Now if if you turn the the page just to פרק א הלכה א for a moment. So in פרק א הלכה א the Rambam says that there is a chiyuv viduy, there is a chiyuv to articulate the teshuva process and the Rambam says around eight lines into the halacha כיצד מתוודין אומר אנא השם חטאתי עויתי פשעתי לפניך עשיתי כך וכך והרי ניחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה.
So the ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה right clearly parallels the יגמור בליבו שלא יעשהו. The Yisnacham parallels, excuse me, the Nichamti parallels the Yisnacham Al Sheavar. But the Rambam here in the viduy introduces an element which is not paralleled in Perek Bais and that's the Boshti. The question is why the Rambam has the Boshti here in פרק א הלכה א which you don't find in in פרק ב הלכה ב. Again, where the Rambam in Perek Aleph got it from, so that's no mystery. He got it from the pesukim that we say as part of our selichos. אלקי בשתי ונכלמתי להרים פני אליך pesukim in Ezra Nechemiah, pesukim in Yirmiyahu that we say as part of our selichos. So we know where the Rambam got the the Boshti from, but why doesn't the Rambam say that Umah Hi HaTeshuvah וכן ישנחם וישתבייש על שעבר and then he could cite the appropriate prooftext? So he mentions the bosha here in the in the viduy, he doesn't mention it in the teshuva. And again, it's what makes the question pointed is that basically the viduy is simply an articulation of what the teshuva is. So how is it that you have the boshas mentioned in the in the viduy when the Rambam doesn't describe it as one of the elements of the teshuva? So let's reflect for a moment, leaving this question aside for a moment, let's just try to understand why the sense of boshas is so indispensable to teshuva. Again, the Rambam says if you take a look after he gives this this formulation, the Rambam says זה הוא עיקרו של וידוי. This is the quintessential viduy וכל המרבה להתוודות ומאריך בעניין זה הרי זה משובח. And if a person will will amplify, if a person will elaborate, so that's even better. So what's included in the Rambam's formulation, again, is what's absolutely indispensable. So there's something very, very central and pivotal about about boshas. Rabbeinu Yonah in in Shaarei Teshuva, so the first part of Shaarei Teshuva, Rabbeinu Yonah lists the different Ikarei HaTeshuva, the different fundamental aspects and components of teshuva. One of those that he lists is boshas. He says one of the Ikarei HaTeshuva, one of the fundamental elements is that there has to be a sense of boshas. Why does there have to be a sense of boshas? So Rabbeinu Yonah explains as follows. Again, just with a little bit of a just a word of introduction to what Rabbeinu Yonah says. The the feeling, the experience, the emotion of shame is one which is created by having other people experience, witness our vulnerability, our inadequacy. So if I... if I... if I'm walking into a room and my shoelaces are untied and I trip over my own feet, so if there's no one in the room, so I don't feel embarrassed. I may be bruised, but I don't feel embarrassed. If there were people in the room and they saw my clumsiness, so then my... my inadequacies were exposed. So then I have a sense of shame, a sense of humiliation. So Rabbeinu Yonah says as follows: a person has to have boshas, a person has to be able to say boshti as part of his teshuva because the common denominator of almost every cheit is that whatever a yetzer hara we may have, there are different yetzer haras, we have different weaknesses. Virtually, virtually every yetzer hara is going to be inhibited if we were aware of the Ribbono Shel Olam's presence. משל למה הדבר דומה, you have someone, he has a yetzer hara to cheat on a test. It's a big test, it's gonna make or break whether he gets into law school, medical school, his life's dreams, so he has a yetzer hara to cheat on a test. Okay, and he has a strong yetzer hara, maybe he doesn't necessarily have the strongest scruples, and he's ready to do it. The only thing is, throughout the entire test, the proctor is staring right at him the whole time. The proctor doesn't take his eyes off of this guy for a second. So he's not going to cheat. He may... he may not have necessarily had an epiphany and become... become a more righteous individual, but the yetzer hara is going to be inhibited if he knows that he's... that he's going to get caught. If he knows that he's being watched, and if he knows that he's going to get caught, so then that's going to inhibit any yetzer hara. So every cheit has its own dynamic, every cheit reflects, again, virtually every cheit, we're not talking about a tinok shenishba, we're not talking about, you know, pure, unmitigated ignorance. Virtually every... every cheit, again, has its own... its own root, but there is a common denominator. And the common denominator is, as Rabbeinu Yonah writes in Sha'arei Teshuva, that when a person sins, it's אין זה אלא מפני היות השם יתברך רחוק מכליותיו, that when a person is chotei, it means Hakadosh Baruch Hu isn't on the radar screen. Because if Hakadosh Baruch Hu is on the radar screen, so then I would react the same way the test-taker reacts when the proctor is staring at him. When the proctor stares at you, you don't... you don't cheat no matter how strong the temptation or how weak the scruples are. So the same is true in terms of cheit, and you do have this common denominator. That's what Rabbeinu Yonah says, that's why boshas is so... such a... a central aspect and pivotal aspect to... to teshuva. Okay, so in certain ways that only seems to sharpen the question of why the Rambam doesn't mention it in Perek Beis and only has it here in Perek Aleph in the formulation of the vidui. So why didn't the Rambam say in Perek Beis: yisnachem v'yisbayesh? So let's try a different... a different mashal. Let's say you have a teenager, recently got his license. Okay, so he asks... he asks his parents for the car. They give him the car with the following conditions: that he has to be home by 11:00 at night and he can't have more than one passenger in the car with him. Okay, so what does he do? So it's 11:45 at night and he's not at home, and the car is full with his friends, and then he totals the car. Totals the car. Okay, Baruch Hashem, he's okay, his friends are okay, but the car is... is totally wrecked. Okay, he feels terrible, he feels guilty, but when does he feel embarrassed? When's he going to feel embarrassed? He feels embarrassed when the car is wrecked, or when he has to go home and he has to look his parents in the eye and he has to tell them it wasn't 10:45, it was 11:45 and I wasn't alone with... with one friend in the car, but the car was full of friends and I broke every rule, every stipulation you made and... and that's when it happened. So the embarrassment, the shame, the regret, the remorse, the resolve, all of that will happen even before he gets home, even before he has to look his parents in the eye. But the boshes, so that's going to be triggered by when he has to come home and he has to tell them what happened. So the Rambam apparently was medayek that the sources we have for boshes, again, יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו, so that's describing teshuvah. The pesukim that we have about boshes are all when Ezra Nechemiah, when is speaking to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When he speaking to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then that's the analog again when you have to come home, when the teenager has to come home and look his parents in the eye. The Rav zichrono livracha famously called attention to, if you take a look in פרק א הלכה א for a moment rabosai, let's just read from the beginning of the halacha. 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.
What's the phrase לפני האל ברוך הוא? So the Rav said that clearly the association which this triggers and which the Rambam intends it to trigger is that lifnei haKel is a description that we associate with tefillah, right? That tefillah is amida lifnei Hashem, is amida lifnei haMelech, and the Rambam's description, definition of the viduy of the articulation of the teshuvah is חייב להתוודות לפני האל ברוך הוא. So what the Rambam is clearly saying again, that the teshuvah is from the cheit and the teshuvah is to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The Rambam, I think you don't have this in front of you, so I'll just try quickly to read you one line here. The Rambam in פרק ז הלכה ז in the famous, I guess you could call it an ode to teshuvah, very famous halacha, so the Rambam writes in פרק ז הלכה ז, כמה מעולה מעלת התשובה. אמש היה זה מובדל מהשם אלהי ישראל שנאמר,
the pasuk says that עונותיכם היו מבדילים ביניכם לבין אלהיכם. So the pasuk says, the navi says, that a cheit imposes a barrier, it imposes distance, that a cheit alienates a person from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. A cheit pushes a person rachmana litzlan away from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. עונותיכם היו מבדילים ביניכם לבין אלהיכם. So then what's the culmination of the teshuvah process? Is that a person comes lifnei haKel. That's the counterpoint to the עונותיכם היו מבדילים ביניכם לבין אלהיכם is that in the teshuvah process a person comes back lifnei haKel. חייב להתוודות לפני האל ברוך הוא. Oh, so that's what the Rambam says. Avada the busha is an integral part of the teshuvah. The busha is an integral part of the teshuvah precisely because that's the tikkun, that's the, that remedies again the common denominator to virtually every cheit that Hakadosh Baruch Hu wasn't on the radar screen. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu was on the radar screen, right, we're all familiar with the famous story with the Chofetz Chaim. Chofetz Chaim is traveling with a baal agala, with a wagon driver, and the wagon driver pulls over and he's going to, he wants to purloin some fruits from a field. And he says to the Chofetz Chaim, so you'll tell me if anyone's coming and anyone's watching. So he makes his way over and he's about to take and the Chofetz Chaim starts yelling, starts yelling, "Watch out, someone's coming, someone, someone can see you!" And the guy looks around, doesn't see anyone. The scene repeats itself again and again. Chofetz Chaim tells him the Ribbono Shel Olam is watching. So that exactly illustrates what the Rabbeinu Yonah in Shaarei Teshuvah is talking about. Again, that this common denominator to virtually every cheit is because rachmana litzlan when we, when we slip, it's because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not on the radar screen. What reflects the tikkun of that, the corresponding remedial measure to that, is when a person has an enhanced awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And it's that which allows a person to say boshti. But the Rambam includes it bedafka in the viduy rather than in the teshuvah because it's in the viduy again, that's the analog to when the child full of remorse looks his parents in the eyes and tells them and owns up to what he did without trying to hide. The sequence is also interesting if you compare פרק ב' הלכה ב' with פרק א' הלכה א', so the Rambam also has it the sequence is depicted differently. In פרק א' הלכה א', so what does the Rambam say? Rambam says הרי נחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה. That first a person articulates his attitude towards the past, his sense of regret and remorse, and then he speaks about the future. Then he looks with an eye towards the future and says ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה. When the Rambam describes the actual teshuva, so the Rambam says that first of all יגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד. That the resolve about the future comes first, and then the yisnechem al she'avar the Rambam only has later. So the question is why the Rambam presents it again in two different sequences. Why doesn't he have the same sequence in both halachos? So I think it's on one of these halachos, I think the Avodas HaMelech comments by Menachem Kurkovsky in his sefer in the Rambam in Hilchos Mada, so he comments, he refers to Rabbeinu Yona in Sha'arei Teshuva has a discussion of what comes first. Does a person first have the azivas hachet? Does a person, does a person first, again, leave the chet and change and lo ya'aseihu od, and then only later does he have the regret and the remorse about the past, or does it happen in the opposite direction? So Rabbeinu Yona discusses this in Sha'arei Teshuva. Rabbeinu Yona suggests that there's a difference between who the chotei is. Again, let's say משל למה הדבר דומה. So let's say you have a person who for whatever reason, for whatever reason, so habitually for an extended period of time has never really been careful about being koveia itim latorah or has never really been careful, makpid on tefilla betzibbur. And then finally he realizes. He realizes what life is about, realizes what we're here for, and realizes that whatever else he's been doing which interferes with kivias itim latorah, which interferes with tefilla betzibbur, that's not what he was born for. And okay. So gradually he begins, he begins being koveia itim, he begins, he's inspired, so he begins, he begins davening more regularly in shul. Now that's one person, that's one scenario. Another scenario Rabbeinu Yona says you can have, to have a person his whole life has never missed a tefilla betzibbur, never missed a tefilla betzibbur. His whole life he's never missed a learning seder. Then vayehi hayom eichshehu he misses tefilla betzibbur one morning. Vayehi hayom eichshehu he misses a learning seder. So says Rabbeinu Yona, the person in whom it's really ingrained, so he's in a position to begin with the regret and the remorse right away, because he doesn't have to change himself, he doesn't have to gradually develop and cultivate. No, his whole life he's been so makpid on tefilla betzibbur, he's been so makpid on kivias itim latorah. What happened was an aberration. What happened was an aberration. So then there can be even initially, right away there can be, and that will be the initial reaction will be again this profound sense of regret, remorse, and the having failed because of what happened. Says mah she'ein kein the person who's never really been much for tefilla betzibbur, never really been much for kivias itim. It's only after he again over a period of time begins to really fully understand and appreciate what it means to davven regularly betzibbur, what it means to be a koveia itim latorah, only then will he really be able to have a genuine sense of regret and remorse. A person can be inspired to do better, but it's only once the person does better, only when we look back in retrospect... back, can we really have the profound sense of regret and remorse that it hadn't happened earlier. So that's what Rabbeinu Yonah says in this question. That whether again in terms of how the teshuvah process unfolds, does the nechamah, does the regret and remorse, is that right away, is that the immediate visceral reaction to the cheit, or does it come later, depends upon whether or not there was more of a lifestyle change or no, there was an aberration, the cheit represented an aberration. Then the Rambam doesn't seem to have that distinction. The way the Rambam seems to present it again in terms of the teshuvah is that in order, without drawing this distinction, the Rambam says in order to again really really have that sense of nechamah a person has to put distance between himself and the cheit. And it's only once a person has that distance between himself and the cheit, only then does a person really have perspective on the cheit and can have a sense of nechamah, of regret and remorse. There is a very very beautiful passage in the Chovot HaLevavot. Rabbeinu Bachya writes in Chovot HaLevavot like this: He writes that chasidim have the practice that they do teshuvah on their teshuvah. Right, halevai we should do teshuvah on our chato'im. So Rabbeinu Bachya writes in Chovot HaLevavot, he says chasidim do teshuvah on their teshuvah. What does that mean? So it means that last year Elul so I did, I tried to do teshuvah on chato'im A through Z. Okay. So given what I was holding, so I felt, ich veis, a little bit badly, I felt enough that I did some type of teshuvah, there was teshuvah on some level. If a person's a chasid, so then over the course of the year, it was a year of growth. It was a year of ascent, constant constant aliyah. Now looking back at last year's teshuvah, so the chasid thinks to himself: So that superficial sense of regret and remorse which I had, that was an appropriate reaction to cheit? That was proper teshuvah to, ich veis, mashal, משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you go into someone's home and they have this heirloom, I don't know, ich veis, a vase, whatever it is that's been in the family for generations and generations. Okay. So you're not aware that it's an heirloom, you're not aware that it's so valuable, either monetarily or emotionally to them, and you clumsily you break the vase. Okay. So you say I'm sorry and you know please forgive me and I messed up. Okay. So that's a teshuvah. Then as time passes you find out, you know the vase it wasn't a twenty dollar vase, it was a more expensive vase and they really liked the vase. So then you go back the next year and then again you have a sense of remorse not only over the cheit, but Rabbeinu Bachya writes in Chovot HaLevavot you now have a sense of remorse, a sense of regret of doing teshuvah over the superficiality of last year's teshuvah. And again if another year passes and now I find out, you know why it was so valuable? It's a family heirloom from twenty generations and it was priceless and irreplaceable. So then even the second round of teshuvah I now realize what was really superficial. What the Chovot HaLevavot illustrates again is that one needs, the more distance one has from the cheit, so then the more genuine and the deeper the regret and remorse will be. And that by definition if I haven't put that much distance, there hasn't been that much growth between where I was when I was chotei rachmana litzlan and where I am now, so then the nechamah is gonna be less profound. And that's why the Rambam depicts here in פרק ב הלכה ב in terms of how the teshuvah process actually unfolds. So the teshuvah process unfolds: First a person has to get away from the cheit. יעזוב החוטא חטאו יסירו ממחשבתו יגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד.
Then as a result of putting distance between himself and the cheit, the more distance there is, the more change to years, so then the more he's in a position to really recognize the magnitude of what the cheit represented. In פרק א הלכה א, so the Rambam here is not describing sequentially how the teshuvah unfolded, but when a person articulates it, so he's following the timeline. But when a person articulates it, so he follows the timeline beginning with let me let me Ribbono shel Olam, let me let me let me own up to what happened in the past, and let me comment on the past and then towards the future. So the Vidui is again, isn't intended to recreate the chronology, the the unfolding of the teshuvah, but rather we follow the timeline. But in terms of the unfolding of the teshuvah, teshuvah in order to have again a very genuine sense of remorse requires the perspective of distance, not just distance in time, but hopefully distance in terms of a spiritual level between oneself and the cheit. Maybe just in concluding, just one brief comment, we'll also take a look at Halacha Daled for a moment. One of the I think haunting questions that I mean I certainly think about every year and perhaps others do as well, it's a very sobering question, which is that if you when one begins to gear up for teshuvah, for the Vidui, for the Ashamnus, for the Al Cheits, it's very sobering that the Al Cheits resonate as much this year as they did last year. So if it were because of the Chovos HaLevavos, okay, so that would be encouraging. So the reason that the be'ones u'vratzon, be'imutz haleiv, bi'vli da'as, be'vitui sefasayim, the reason the Al Cheits are resonating is oh because now this year I appreciate even more the magnitude and the inadequacy which I which I was owning up to last year. But sometimes, most of the time, the Al Cheits don't resonate don't resonate every year because of the Chovos HaLevavos, they resonate every year because one doesn't really feel that he's in that much of a different place than he was last year. So the question is, ay, but last year by Neilah, when a person was saying the Ashamnus, when a person was saying Hashem Hu HaElokim, 100% יודע עליו יודע תעלומות, a person was 100% sincere. There's no insincerity in a Jew in when a Jew is standing Neilah on Yom Kippur, there's no there's no insincerity, there's no there's no posturing on Yom Kippur. Maybe the other 364 days of the year, the Satan, the Yetzer Hara has no is not is not operative on Yom HaKippurim as Chazal say. So how is it that the sincerity notwithstanding, a person often finds himself too much in the same place as he as he was a previous year? So two possible perspectives. One is the one that we already saw in פרק ב הלכה ב, whether or not the teshuvah included vayasirenu mimachshavto. Sometimes a teshuvah can can be with יעזוב חוטא חטאו ויגמור בלבו שלא יעשהו עוד, but it's not unthinkable. Sometimes it's not I'm not going to talk during davening anymore. Is it unthinkable? Is it that I'll talk during davening? No, I'm not going to talk anymore in davening, but it's not necessarily that a person shifts to a different paradigm, to a different mindset where it's unthinkable. The other the other thing which which perhaps is missing sometimes in our teshuvah, the Rambam writes in פרק ב הלכה ד, מדרכי התשובה להיות השב צועק תמיד לפני השם בבכי ותחנונים.
A person is engaging in constant tefillah. ועושה צדקה כפי כחו ומתרחק הרבה מן הדבר שחטא בו.
That a person takes precautions. A person distances himself from the source of cheit. Right? It's much easier to diet if a person needs to diet, it's much easier to diet if I don't have the the cookies and the cake and and all the chazerai in the house, it's much easier to diet than if they're there in the the if they're there in the in the cabinet and every day... day I have the I expose myself to the same the same nisayon as to whether or not I'm going to I'm going to partake. מתרחק הוי מן הדבר שחטא בו. So one of the one of the the questions for thought in Chodesh Elul certainly is what that translates into practically halacha l'maise as as a person compiles his own personal al cheit list, so what is what is the מתרחק הוי מן הדבר שחטא בו translate into and how do we how do we implement that because without it, again darkei hateshuva, excuse me, the Rambam is describing a lifestyle of teshuva, not a moment of teshuva, but a lifestyle of teshuva. And what the Rambam is saying is that to stick, to be successful, it has to translate not into a moment of teshuva, but into a lifestyle of teshuva and an integral part of that is the מתרחק הוי מן הדבר שחטא בו. Good Yom Tov. Shabbat Shalom.