Transcript

Let's take a look at that Rambam a little bit in perek beis halacha vov.

יום הכפורים הוא זמן תשובה לכל ליחיד ולרבים והוא קץ מחילה וסליחה לישראל לפיכך חייבים הכל לעשות תשובה ולהתודות ביום הכפורים.

So the Rambam speaks of the chiyuv teshuva on Yom Kippur. So the immediate association that we all have is what Rabbeinu Yonah has twice in Shaarei Teshuva. That there's a special chiyuv. Rabbeinu Yonah also says there's a special chiyuv teshuva on Yom Kippur. The context in which Rabbeinu Yonah says it is Rabbeinu Yonah quotes, as the Rambam did at the end of perek aleph Hilchos Teshuva from the Gemara in Yoma the chilukei kapparah. That if a person is mevatel an asei and he does teshuva, so right away Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mochel. If a person is over on a lo sa'asei, not לא חייבי כריתות ומיתות בית דין ושבועת שוא, so then teshuva toleh and v'Yom HaKippurim mechaper. If it was chamuros, so then teshuva v'Yom HaKippurim tolim ויסורים הבאים עליו וגומר כפרתו. And if it's chillul Hashem, Rachmana litzlan, אם יכופר לכם העון הזה עד תמותון. That it's teshuva and Yom HaKippurim and yissurim are all tolim, tolim in the sense that he doesn't die prematurely and misa is mechaper. So Rabbeinu Yonah says in light of those chilukei kapparah, so what does it mean when we say כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם מכל חטאתיכם? But the chilukei kapparah says that we don't get kapparah for everything on Yom Kippur. So Rabbeinu Yonah answers and says no,

כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם לטהר אתכם. מכל חטאתיכם לפני ה' תטהרו.

Lifnei Hashem titharu is a chiyuv, it's a mitzvas asei. You have a mitzvah to do teshuva mikol chatoseichem. What is Hakadosh Baruch Hu—כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם לטהר אתכם, but the mikol chatoseichem is linked to the lifnei Hashem titharu. So that's the context in which Rabbeinu Yonah says it and he says that b'nosaf, in addition to the chiyuv teshuva that one has all year long, there's a special chiyuv teshuva on Yom Kippur. What's the difference? It's just a sort of kefel ha'inyan? No, so the difference is that all year long, the mechayev in teshuva is yedias hachet. That all year long, a person doesn't have to go making a cheshbon hanefesh to see maybe, maybe there are chato'im that I'm unaware of. Maybe the chato'im and he doesn't have to engage into a nachpisa dracheinu v'nachkora. I know that I did cheit ploni, okay, so that's mechayve me in teshuva. And Yom HaKippurim is chayav le'hipas rucho and a person has to, has to look, has to engage in chippus. There may be other differences. So at first glance one associates the Rambam with Rabbeinu Yonah. But lema'aseh, the Rambam doesn't quote a pasuk for this. Right? U'lfi kach חייבים הכל לעשות תשובה. He doesn't quote a pasuk. He doesn't quote Rabbeinu Yonah's lifnei Hashem titharu. Okay, what's he going to do with Rabbeinu Yonah's kasha? Everyone has to deal with that kasha, but let's leave that for now. In the Rambam kimedumeh is mentioned something else. Rabbeinu Yonah again lishitoso at the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva, I think it's even in os beis or os gimmel about ro'as hamis'acher biteshuva. Someone had it? It's Shaar Aleph maybe os beis maybe. Ro'as hamis'acher. Yeah, Os Daled. I was not looking for that, sorry, sorry. V'od z'manen, no, no, no, no. Okay. V'lo yimatzei, V'darkei hateshuva, this is still Os Gimmel? V'Os Daled? Os Vav? Os Zayin? No, Os daled.

ודרכי התשובה כאשר יחזה החוטא מה חטאתו יכבד עליו מאד ענשו בכל יום.

Again,

ודרכי התשובה כאשר יחזה החוטא מה חטאתו יכבד עליו מאד ענשו בכל יום.

So it's clear Rabbeinu Yona holds that the chiyuv teshuvah is immediate. If a person becomes aware of the cheit, he's mechuyav teshuvah. Kamidumeh that the Rambam disagrees with him and for the Rambam the pshat is

היום כי יום הכפורים הוא לכפר עליכם וכי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם,

that becomes the deadline for the chiyuv teshuvah all year long, which is why the Rambam doesn't have a pasuk for chiyuv teshuvah on Yom Kippur because for the Rambam it isn't an additional chiyuv the way it is for Rabbeinu Yona. For the Rambam who never gives a deadline for teshuvah, this is the deadline. If you take a look in the Sefer HaChinuch in Parshat Naso, I think it's Shin Samech Daled. Do you have it? Chinuch, Parshat Naso, מצוה שסד. נוהגת מצוה זו בכל מקום ובכל זמן. Again this is the mitzvah of vidui.

מצות וידוי על חטא שנצטוינו להתוודות לפני השם על כל החטאים שחטאנו בעת שנתנחם עליהם וזהו ענין הוידוי שיאמר האדם בעת התשובה אנא השם חטאתי

etc. Okay, so vidui again, vidui with teshuvah. Now as the Chinuch does at the end of every mitzvah:

נוהגת מצוה זו בכל מקום ובכל זמן בזכרים ונקבות והעובר עליו זה ולא התודה על חטאו ביום הכפורים שהוא יום קבוע מעולם לסליחה וכפרה ביטל עשה זה.

So in the Chinuch it's mefurash. In the Chinuch it's mefurash that Yom HaKippurim is the deadline for the chiyuv teshuvah and vidui all year long. And kamidumeh that's the pshat of the Rambam. That's why unlike Rabbeinu Yona, the Rambam doesn't have a pasuk for his chiyuv teshuvah on Yom Kippur because for the Rambam it's not a new chiyuv. It's the if you haven't yet, so now is the deadline. Now is the deadline. For Rabbeinu Yona what is there? Like what's that? We'll all hope that in Shamayim the halakha like the Rambam, right? I don't know what to say. Is it one day? He does, he quotes there, can we go back to Os Beis, Gimmel, Daled, whatever that was?

ואמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה ולא ימצא אחרי תשובה. נידחים מעל השם ברוך הוא ולא יאמינו

Onesh Ha'cheit Onesh Ha'cheit excuse me

ואמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה אם ראית תלמיד חכם שעבר עבירה בלילה אל תהרהר אחריו ביום כי באמת עשה תשובה.

So although that again the Gemara says this about a Talmid Chacham, but in the way Rabbeinu Yona is learning Pshat, it's not that it's a Middas Chasidus that the Talmid Chacham is Noheig, it's that the Talmid Chacham is Muchzak that he's that he's doing the Din. So it sounds like Bo Bayom. Clearly better not to do the Cheit in the first place. But it doesn't mean that it's a deadline, it means once the deadline passes you can't get Kapparah for that, yeah? No, it means that a person would be guilty of a Bittul Assei. Oh okay, Pshat. Yeah. No it it doesn't it doesn't mean that he can't do Teshuvah because that's what the Rambam says in Perek Beis that אפילו עבר כל ימיו ועשה תשובה. So if he's 95 years old and the Yom Kippur a lot of a lot of years have have elapsed. But it means that he'll be guilty of ביטול מצות מצות תשובה ווידוי on Yom Kippur. And according to Rabbeinu Yona every day that there's a it's sort of you know that if if a person wasn't given a Milah B'katanusas so then he incurs the Chiyuv when he becomes a Gadol. So then every day he's being Mivattel An Assei that he doesn't that he doesn't arrange to have a Milah. So according to the Rambam according to Rabbeinu Yona basically it's every day a person is guilty of some degree of Bittul. According to the Rambam no, a person is not guilty of any degree of Bittul until Yom Kippur comes, but but any Cheit that the person has done and now Yom Kippur comes, so now to avoid being guilty of a Bittul so then a person should have done Teshuvah. This is the Rambam. Okay now, okay go to Perek Zayin, Rabosai. כל רשות כל אדם נתונה לו כמו שביארנו. We have it, Rabosai, Perek Zayin.

כל רשות כל אדם נתונה לו כמו שביארנו. ישתדל אדם לעשות תשובה ולנקות כפיו מחטאיו כדי שימות והוא בעל תשובה כדי שיזכה לחיי העולם הבא.

Halacha Beis.

לעולם יראה אדם עצמו כאילו הוא נוטה למות ושמא ימות בשעתו ונמצא עומד בחטאו. לפיכך ישוב מחטאו מיד ולא יאמר כשאזקין אשוב שמא ימות קודם שיזקין. הוא ששלמה אומר בחכמתו בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר.

So the Kesef Mishneh quotes the in פרקי אבות פרק שני שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך and the Gemara in Shabbos says וכי אדם יודע מתי ימות. So so how does a person schedule to do that? No, Ein Hachi Nami so

כל יום יראה כאילו הוא יום אחד לפני מיתתך נמצא כל ימיו בתשובה.

So how how does this first of all why did the Rambam why did he why did he hold off on on quoting this until until Perek Zayin? A and B which is sort of doubling dipping here sort of the same question just asking it twice, like how does this connect with what we said in in Perek Beis? Halacha Vav, Halacha Zayin is the Pshat. So how does how does this all how does this all integrate? Sounds like here no sounds like here that this practically yields what Rabbeinu Yona says. לפיכך ישוב מחטאו מיד. But on the other hand here it's attributed to Shema Yamush. Here it's attributed to because no one knows for whom the actuarial tables are going to be true and for whom the actuarial tables are not going to be true. But even here with the Rambam does speak of chiyuv, it doesn't say it as, it doesn't say the way the Ben Ish Chai says. And it's because of the unpredictability of life. And the third question is: what do you mean shema yamus? In Halacha, we're not choshesh that a young person's gonna die. You have a kohen. A kohen goes on a business trip in days when that meant that there was no communication and no reports. So his wife continues to eat Teruma. We don't say that there's a sofek that maybe the kohen died, and let's say she has no children from the kohen. So we don't say there's a sofek whether she's allowed to eat Teruma. If he's an old man, okay. But a young man, al pi din, we're not, we don't say, al Halacha we don't say shema yamus by a young man. Okay, let's see Halacha Gimel. Perek Zayin, Halacha Gimel.

ואל תאמר שאין תשובה אלא מעבירות שיש בהן מעשה כגון זנות וגזל וגנבה. כשם שצריך אדם לשוב מאלו כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות שיש לו ולשוב מהן, מן הכעס ומן האיבה ומן הקנאה ומן התהתלות ומן ההיתול ומרדיפת הממון והכבוד ומרדיפת המאכלות וכיוצא בהן. מהכל צריך לחזור בתשובה. ואלו העונות קשים מאותן שיש בהן מעשה שבזמן שאדם נשקע באלו קשה הוא לפרוש. וכן הוא אומר יעזוב רשע דרכו ואיש און מחשבותיו.

When the Rambam says that the reality is that for deos raos that we have that it's kasha lifrosh. שבזמן שאדם נשקע באלו קשה הוא לפרוש. So what does kasha lifrosh mean? Let's say I say that it's easy to pick up this sefer, but it's difficult to pick up this desk. Well, let's say it's easy to walk a mile, but if you want to walk from the southernmost tip of New York State to the northernmost tip, it's much more difficult. So in the first case, it doesn't take any longer, it just requires more exertion, right? It doesn't really take any longer to lift the desk than it does to lift the sefer, it just requires much more muscle and much more exertion. But if you can do it, it won't take you, maybe take a second longer, but it's not really going to take you. The kasha is in terms of the exertion. In the second example, so the kasha also encompasses, it certainly does include exertion in the second example also, but the point is that it also means that that's a long process. So which does the Rambam mean here when he says kasha? So the pashtus is again 999 times out of a thousand, 9,999 times out of 10,000, it means that it's a longer and drawn out process because to uproot a deiah, as the Rambam writes in, you know, when the Rambam talks about in Perek Beis in Hilchos Deios when it talks about if a person sees that he has deios ra'os,

כיצד רפואתם מי שהוא בעל חמה אומרים לו הנהג עצמו שאם הוכה וקולל לא ירגיש כלל וילך בדרך זו זמן מרובה עד שתיעקר החימה מלבו.

So here the Rambam says, the Rambam describes how a person is misaken a deiah, and he says exclusively that it's going to take zman merubeh. So likhorah it's clear that that kasha lifrosh mehem is the second example we gave, right? It's not just the lifting the desk, it's the walking cross state. So now the vort is like this. When you talk about deios ra'os, Yom Kippur is not the deadline for having finished the job. It can't be because zman merubeh can mean more than yud beis chodesh. Again, the Rambam doesn't tell us what zman merubeh is in Perek Beis Hilchos Deios. Why not? Why doesn't he tell? Why doesn't he tell? There's no specific time. Right. It's going to vary. It's going to vary. How deeply entrenched the middah is, how many years it's been entrenched that way. The tzad hashaveh is that it's going to be zman merubeh. If it's a deiah ra'ah that a person has, it's not a quick fix. It's going to be a zman merubeh. How long is zman merubeh? I can't tell you. You'll see. Follow this protocol and then when you write your autobiography, you'll tell us how long the zman merubeh was. But likhorah it's poshut that zman merubeh is not, doesn't have to always, that zman merubeh certainly spills over yud beis chodesh. So now the vort is like this. So here there's no deadline of Yom Kippur. There's no deadline of Yom Kippur. So what's my timeline here? What's my timeline here? So I know for something which isn't so, I'm not talking about a deiah ra'ah that's really rooted, that's really entrenched. Okay, so I know what the timeline is really. There's no reason not to do teshuvah immediately. But again the Rambam, the Torah cuts us some slack and the Torah says, you know, it's in your best interest to do teshuvah right away, but lamaiyseh, lamaiyseh, the deadline is not until Yom Kippur. The fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is handing out amnesties on Yom Kippur, so that becomes the deadline for doing teshuvah. But that doesn't work for, again here zman merubeh can't be, you know, forced to conform with a deadline of Yom Kippur. So says the Rambam, here's where the mechayev is of שוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך. Here where you don't have the Yom Kippur deadline, so what is the deadline if Yom Kippur's not the deadline? Okay so I'm twenty years old, ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה, I don't think it's going to take me fifty years to to be mesaken to be mesaken this mida. So this is what Chazal are saying that that's the that's the flow of the halacha, that's why halacha bet then then segues into into halacha gimel. Here we we talking about a teshuva which again nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of ten thousand is is is a teshuva that happens over the course of zman merubeh. I don't know, so I would have thought so okay so Yom Kippur can't be the deadline, so the only other alternative is the deadline, pun somewhat intended. The only other, the only other, the only other alternative, the only other alternative is Yom Hamisa. Okay, so I'm twenty years old, I have time. Sounds like Chazal say no. Well, that's where you have the mechayev of and and that's what the answer is that in halacha we're not choshesh shema yamus. Again, if the Kohen is twenty-five years old and the meduber is do we have any reason to think he's medinas hayam and his wife is here, do we have any reason to think he died? No. No, we have no reason to think he died. There's no, there's no, there's a safek. It's it's an overwhelming rubo de'ika kamon that tells us that he's hale and hearty. And the but when you look at a person's lifetime, a person's going to die at some point and you have no right to arbitrarily say he'll die here or die there, so then that's where you have a mechayev of shema yamus. I think the din is if a Kohen, what if you have a different case? A Kohen gives his wife a get and says the get should be חל יום אחד לפני מיתתי. So then she's taka asura to teruma. She is asura to teruma in that case kemidumeh. What what happens so the Rambam contrasts עבירה שיש בה מעשה or or identifies two two categories עבירה שיש בה מעשה and then there's deos raos. What what about ma'asim that that stem from from these deos raos that a person's nishka bahem? So where does that fall? Is there a Yom Kippur deadline? No, this is just the day of Rosh embodied. This is just the day of Rosh bubbling to the surface. So you do have so it's also it's zman meruba. So I don't know but let's look here in Halacha Gimmel. I'm not sure about this but let's look in Halacha Gimmel and it's obviously very nogea ladina.

כך הוא צריך לחפש בדעות רעות שיש לו ולשוב מהן מן הכעס ומן האיבה ומן הקנאה ומן התחרות ומן ההיתול ומן רדיפת הממון והכבוד ומרדיפת המאכלות וכיוצא בהן.

The way the Rambam lists the deos raos is not symmetrical. It should have been ahavas mamon is the deya and ahavas kavod is the deya and taivas maachalos is the deya. But maybe that's gufa what the Rambam says. I'm giving you an extension he tells us for kaas you have an extension. For attacking someone for insulting someone for being shover kelim b'kaas I'm not giving you an extension. It's realistic to demand that the person control the consequences and the expressions. Kinah also. I'm not saying that the Rambam says I'm not telling you to uproot feelings of kinah by Yom Kippur but I'm telling you if you're doing anything against your chaver out of kinah that no that has to stop by Yom Kippur. But itochen that when he says by redifas maachalos I don't know so that again he should have said taivas maachalos. That's the deya. Redifa is an action. But ella mai here the Rambam is saying no these actions that again that are the embodiment of the deya ra so even the actions themselves I recognize that from redifas maachalos to Baba Sali's diet I don't know they say Baba Sali didn't want any hanaa olam hazeh so he used to put so much salt on anything he ate that it tasted terrible. Eventually he got used to it so as soon as he got used to it then he stopped putting on the salt. Okay so from redifas maachalos to Baba Sali is not going to happen not gonna happen overnight. So itochen that the Rambam is distinguishing here and that's why he describes the deya ra differently. This is Yom Kippur and then totally irrelevant to the de'os, so mistama heyos that the de'ah is שבעים ואחת משבעים ושמונה, so we do need to be able to say to Hakadosh Baruch Hu on Yom Kippur, Ribbono Shel Olam, I'm working at it. I'm not here to tell you that I'm never going to get angry again and I'm not here to tell you that I'm never going to experience kinah again. I'm not up to that. But lich'ora, we do need to be able to say, but it's a work in progress. Isn't it interesting that—isn't it a little bit unrealistic to feel like someone should—that we're expecting to not fix the de'ah but we're expecting to change all the actions that emanate from the de'ah? I don't know because there is—when a person again as the Rambam is describing בזמן שהאדם נשקע באלו, when a de'ah becomes entrenched, so we make it into something which is second nature. So we make it into something that's reflexive. I don't know if the action that expresses the ka'as or the eivah ever becomes reflexive. There is I'm angry and because I'm angry so then I decide I'm going to kick the door, whatever I'm going to do. And that I think allows for control even if the de'ah is still there. To not make it second nature? Well, the action isn't second nature. The feeling is second nature. The action is deliberate. So that's why a person can exercise a greater degree of control over the action than the de'ah itself. But the Rambam speaks of de'os again in Perek Aleph of Hilchos De'os, he speaks of ad she'yikavu vo. There he's talking about the de'os tovos veha-yasharos. כיצד ירגיל אדם עצמו בדעות אלו עד שיקבעו בו. So once it's nikba vo, so then it happens almost reflexively. Okay, so then there's a way to uproot it, הכל לפי רוב המעשה, there's a way to uproot it and that's what the Rambam describes in Perek Beis of Hilchos De'os, but again, that's a process. But the action that emanates from the ka'as, from the eivah, from the kinah, that's not reflexive, even if it happens, there's a gap there and during that gap is when there is an expectation that we have to control. Okay, so we'll stop here.