In פרק א הלכה א, Rambam says Keitzad Misvadin? Omer Ana Hashem חטאתי עויתי פשעתי לפניך Ve’asisi Kach Ve’kach והריני ניחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה וזהו עיקרו של וידוי.
V’chol Hamarbeh L’hisvados U’marich B’inyan Zeh Harei Zeh Meshubach. So what's the Ikaro Shel Vidui? Chatasi Avisi Pashati, Shogeg Mezid Nodeh, Ve’asisi Kach Ve’kach, Hirhur HaChet. והריני ניחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה, Charata V’Kabbalah L’haba. That's Ikaro Shel Vidui. Meaning the Rambam here, there's not an extra word, right? Kol Hamarbeh L’hisvados, Harei Zeh Meshubach. But this is the Ikaro Shel Vidui. But part of the Ikaro Shel Vidui is also Boshti. Person has to say Boshti, I'm ashamed. Without the Busha and obviously the point is not to say Boshti, a person can only say Boshti if he feels Boshti. A person can't say Nichamti if he doesn't feel Nichamti. So without the feeling of Busha, without the feeling of Busha, so the Teshuva is incomplete, there's no Teshuva. So why is that? So L'chora the answer is as follows. If a person walks into a room, he trips Rachmana Litzlan and breaks his leg. It's a very painful break. So he feels acute pain. Doesn't make a difference whether there's 100 people in the room, whether there's no one in the room. The level of pain is going to be the same. But a person walks into a room and he clumsily trips, trips over his own feet. If there's 100 people in the room, he's going to be humiliated. If there's no one in the room, he's going to look around and if there's no one in the room, he's going to breathe a sigh of relief and he's not going to feel embarrassed at all. So Busha is a function of whenever a person's weakness or foolishness or folly is exposed to others. That's when a person feels Busha. But as long as no one sees my weakness, no one sees my foolishness, so then I'm not embarrassed. And that's what Busha is. When a person sins, Rachmana Litzlan, so whenever we sin, so there are two forces which are acting. One is that we have a Yetzer Hara for something. We have a weakness for something and we succumb to that Yetzer Hara. We give in to that weakness. The second thing is and that varies depending upon what the Cheit is. It varies. If I have a bad temper, okay, so I have a weakness that I get angry and that I lash out in anger. Okay, so that's a weakness. That's a Yetzer Hara. And if I do get angry, the Rambam says later in Hilchos Teshuva that there's Teshuva not only for actions, but there's Teshuva for Middos as well. So then the Yetzer Hara for Kaas, I succumb to that Yetzer Hara. But then in addition, there's also a common denominator to every Cheit. Whatever Yetzer Hara I have, whatever Yetzer Hara was acting upon me, whatever weakness it is. If a person would have had a real, acute sense of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, so he never would have succumbed to any Yetzer Hara in the world. There's no Yetzer Hara in the world which is so powerful that a person would be Chotei if שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד at that minute. Right? אין אדם חוטא אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות.
The Ruach, what's a definition of a Shoteh? What definition of a Shoteh? So the Gemara in Chagiga tells us the Simanim of a Shoteh. Halon b'veis hakevaros, hamikarei kesuso, those are the Simanim. But what's the psychiatric diagnosis is that he's out of touch with reality. That's what definition of a Shoteh is. So the Gemara says, well, someone who does these things is obviously... out of touch with reality because no one who's in touch with reality would do those things. So אין אדם חוטא אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות,
he's out of touch with reality. What do you mean he's out of touch with reality? He's out of touch with reality if it's not שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד, if it's not שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד and a person can be oblivious to the presence of the Ribbono Shel Olam and because of that can be mamre devar Hashem, that's the only way cheit can happen. The only way cheit can happen, that's what the Rama quotes from the Rambam at the beginning of Shulchan Aruch, שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד, he calls gadol baTorah because if a person would יסים האדם על לבו that המלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו, מיד יגיע אליו היראה וההכנעה בפחד השם יתברך ובושה ממנו תמיד.
That's what the Rama quotes from the Rambam. Exactly this yesod, right? If the שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד, it doesn't make a difference whether I have a yetzer hara for ka'as or whether it's a yetzer hara for lashon hara or whatever, whatever that yetzer hara is. It's gonna be suppressed by the yiras shamayim which a person will feel if only שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד. So what emerges, what emerges is if a person is chotei, it means that he's oblivious to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He's oblivious to the fact that we live in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He's oblivious to the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sustains us. He's oblivious to the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mamtzi kol nimtza, that we exist through Hashem. He's oblivious to all that. Says the Rambam, and again, obviously the Rambam wasn't mechadeish the centrality of busha, the centrality of busha, so we see already in Tanach, we see already in Tanach the pesukim that we quote in selichos from Daniel, לך ה׳ הצדקה ולנו בשת הפנים, from Ezra, Nechemiah, אלקי בשתי ונכלמתי להרים פני אליך, pesukim in, pesukim in Nach. So says, says the Rambam, if a person doesn't say boshti, so there's no teshuva. If a person doesn't say boshti, so what it means is, and sometimes we do this, too often we do this. Sometimes when we klap al cheit, על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בשנאת חנם, על חטא שחטאנו לפניך במאכל ובמשתה, על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בזלזול הורים ומורים.
So sometimes so we say to ourselves, so sinas chinam is a terrible thing. I was chotei besinas chinam, I'm not gonna be over in sinas chinam anymore. ma'achal u'mishteh, I didn't say a bracha, I ate too much or whatever it was, it's a terrible thing, I'm not gonna do it anymore. So a teshuva me'ula, no? No, but there's something missing there. The Ribbono Shel Olam isn't anywhere in the picture. It's almost as if the cheit becomes autonomous, takes a, takes on a life of its own. It's not על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בשנאת חנם, it's על חטא שחטאנו לפניך that Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells us in the Torah, לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says this is a mida meguna. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world and this is a mida meguna and I was over sinas chinam. That's what the teshuva is. And too often when we're klapping al cheit, it's almost as if the cheit becomes independent, the cheit becomes autonomous. So the Rambam says if a person does teshuva, the Rambam says, Ezra, Nechemiah said, Daniel said, if a person does teshuva and there's no sense of busha, so there's no teshuva. How did the cheit happen in the first place? The cheit happened in the first place because the Ribbono Shel Olam was absent from his life. Because the Ribbono Shel Olam is not a part of his awareness, a part of his consciousness. Ribbono Shel Olam's absent from his life. That's how the cheit happened. The teshuva has to be not just that I'm not gonna get angry anymore, not just that I'm not gonna have sinas chinam. The teshuva has to be that shivisi Hashem, that I'm gonna work on the שויתי ה׳ לנגדי תמיד to be aware of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and mimela not to be chotei. If I now have a heightened awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I have to have a sense of busha. Because that cheit, it didn't go unobserved. It didn't go unobserved. Maybe it was unobserved by human eyes, but דע מה למעלה ממך עין רואה ואזן שומעת. It certainly was noted and it certainly was observed. If a person doesn't have busha, so then a person hasn't, hasn't done teshuva. And be'emes, with this in mind, you see something remarkable in perek daled of Hilchos Teshuvah. Perek daled of Hilchos Teshuvah, so the Rambam quotes the Gemara in Yoma about eizehu teshuvah gemurah, so the Rambam says זה שבא לידו דבר שעבר בו ואפשר בידו לעשות ופרש ולא עשה מפני התשובה, לא מיראה ולא מכשלון כח, כיצד הרי שבא על אשה בעבירה ולאחר זמן נתייחד עמה והוא עומד באהבתו בה ובכח גופו ובמדינה שעבר בה.
All circumstances are the same, ופרש ולא עבר זהו בעל תשובה גמורה. הוא ששלמה אמר וזכור את בוראך בימי בחורותיך.
Right? So clearly the proof text is from bi'yemei bechurosecha, right? That even though he's omed be'koach gufo, he's at the same stage of life, so no variables here, so bi'yemei bechurosecha, right? To do teshuvah bi'yemei bechurosecha. But what's the reference to teshuvah in the first half of the pasuk? What's the reference to teshuvah in the first half of the pasuk? Zechor es borecha. And that's what teshuvah is. Zechor es borecha, because that's ultimately what the shoresh of every cheit is. The shoresh of every cheit is forgetting Hakadosh Baruch Hu and hence הוא ששלמה אמר, again the proof text of the pasuk is tashuv, shuvu bi'yemei bechurosecha. How does it say shuvu? How does it say tashuv? It says zechor es borecha. Rambam says it again at the end of the halacha. He says and even though this is the teshuvah me'ulah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu accepts a teshuvah which isn't me'ulah either. Says even if he doesn't do teshuvah until yom misaso, he says kol avonoso nimchalim שנאמר עד אשר לא תחשך השמש והאור והירח והכוכבים ושבו העבים אחר הגשם שהוא יום המיתה, מכלל שאם זכר בוראו ושב קודם שימות נסלח לו.
Right? So those two go hand in hand. Shav goes hand in hand with zechor es boro. There's no teshuvah without because that is the essence. That's the essence of teshuvah again. The essence of the cheit is forgetting Hakadosh Baruch Hu, ושכחת את השם אלקיך. The cheit is the fallout, but the what happens, what happens is forgetting Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Then you have the same emphasis again. This equation between between teshuvah and remembering Hakadosh Baruch Hu and having a heightened awareness of being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you have in the famous Rambam about tekiyos shofar as well. אף על פי שתקיעת שופר בראש השנה גזירת הכתוב רמז יש בו כלומר עורו ישנים משנתכם
venirdamim hakitzu mitardematchem. Now, חפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה וזכרו בוראכם. Because that's what it is, ve'zichru borachem. Rabbeinu Yonah says this also in the Sha'arei Teshuvah in the first sha'ar, Sha'arei Teshuvah, in the yesod hashishi of the esrim yesodos of teshuvah. So the yesod hashishi is busha and Rabbeinu Yonah says it. Rabbeinu Yonah says how could a person be chotei? He says we're all inhibited, right? Everyone's inhibited, right? That's what Yochanan ben Zakkai told his talmidim: הלוואי שתהא מורא שמים עליכם כמורא בשר ודם. Everyone, everyone is inhibited by people seeing him. Everyone is inhibited by public opinion and by spectators and that's human nature that we're sensitive to that. So how is it possible that a person is chotei? What happens to that natural human instinct of being inhibited when we're being watched, when we're being observed? So says Rabbeinu Yonah there's only one answer. The answer is אין זה כי אם היות השם יתברך רחוק מכליותיו. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu just totally, totally removed and distant from his consciousness and from his awareness. The Gemara in Berachos, Rabbeinu Yonah mentions it also at the end of the first perek that כל העושה דבר עבירה ומתבייש בו מוחלין לו על כל עונותיו.
Again also emphasizing the centrality of busha. But ad kedei kach that if he's misbayesh, is mochel lo not just al oso avon but al kol avonoso. So what's the pshat? So yitachen hapshat is like this: that when Chazal say misbayesh bo, it doesn't mean misbayesh about the cheit. Misbayesh bo means מתבייש בהקדוש ברוך הוא. Kol ha'oseh davar aveirah, a person does an aveirah and he's misbayesh bo doesn't only mean he's ashamed at the cheit, but he's ashamed in front of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So then, why is it that מוחל על כל עוונותיו? Because be'emes, that's not only a response to this particular cheit, that's a response to every cheit, because if a person now has that sense of bushah, so that means that חזרו בתשובה וזכרו ברחם, and and that's a response not only to this to this individual cheit, but to to all chataim and hence מוחל על כל עוונותיו.