This is the Drasha for Rosh Hashana that I delivered on Parshas Nitsavim two years ago.
Jewish life is full of paradoxes. A believing Jew swings from moment to moment, from Fear to Love, from regret to hope, from reverence to joy. So also is the Jewish calendar full of paradoxes. Among them one must count the period between the beginning of the month of Elul until Yom Kippur.
Look what we do. A Jew enters the month of Elul in dread and fear, in repentance and return. We arise for Slichos, we beg of Ribbono shel Olam that he should be compassionate in Judgment, to forgive our sins. Ands then suddenly, we abandon the entire enterprise for two days-for Rosh Hashana. One these days there is no forgiveness of sins, no confessions, no repentance. And then Rosh Hashana passes and we go back again to the business of repentance. How does this make sense?
Perhaps the answer can be found in this weeks's parsha, the parsha of Teshuva.
Nitsavim starts of with the words:
"You stand, this day, all of you before Hashem you God."
Likkutei Torah of the Alter Rebbe cites the Zohar that says that "this day" refers to Rosh Hashana. "All of you" tells us that the theme of Rosh Hashana is Jewish unity, the love of all Jews for one another and the love between Hashem and the Jewish nation.The entire Jewish nations is united by love of one another and the love of their King, uniting the Congregation of Israel, Knesses Yisroel with their King.
The expression, "you stand this day", recalls another kind of standing, "The place in which baalei teshuva stand, complete tsaddikim are unable to stand (Brochos34)". This statement has occasioned much comment throughout the ages, for it arouses the incredulity in that a penitent, tainted by sin and transgression, can be closer to God than a complete saint. Can a sinner, even a repentant sinner be more precious ion Hashem's eyes than a saint who has never sinned? The Maharsho expressess this difficulty in refusing to accept the literal meaning of this statement of Chazal and attempts to explain it as referring to a sinner only in thought, not in actual action. Sefer Hayashar (attributed to R. Tam, Ch.10)) says that this place in which the penitents stand, is a lesser place than that of the tsaddikim. Hashem, so to speak, is compelled to provide to the penitents a place of special closeness, for if he does not, who will do teshuvah. Yet, it is lesser than the place of of the fully righteouss - that is why the righteouse cannot stand there. Others take this statement literally, maintaining that baalei teshuva are in some way superior to wholly rightheous. The Maharsho to Yoma 86 relates it to the statement there that teshuva from Fear converts intentional sins to unintentional ones but Teshuvah out of Love changes sins into merits. This teaching seems to also maintain that penitents are greater than the wholly righteous (for they have the additional merits of the sins that have now turned into merits). But, how, how can sins become merits? One of Maharsho's suggestions is that the penitent performs future mitsvos with greater effort and beauty, thus accruing additional merit.However, aside from it being difficult to read it into the language of the statement in Yoma, Tanya in Iggeres Hateshuva 1 appears to negate such an idea, with proofs.
Chovos Halevovos in Shaar Hateshuva points out that the one advantage that a Baal Teshuva always holds over a "natural" tsaddik is that the Baal Teshuvah must perforce be humble and submissive. "A teacher once told to his students: "May God preserve you from that which is worse than sins". "What can be worse then sin?", they asked, "Arrogance, self-delusion...", he answered. R. Bachya, the author of Chovos Halevovos is true to his teaching, that the Duties of the Heart is what truly constitutes religion, that it is not about whose tallies of merits and sins add up to a better total. In such a worldview, fewer sins do not outweigh arrogance and pride. A Baal Teshuvah who is aware of his sins stands much closer to God than a wholly righteous individual tinged with pride. (Of course, a baal teshuva who is so, so proud of having repented, a specimen unknown to our elders but not uncommon in our day and age, is not included in that Chazal).
I would suggest that Repentance from Fear, the one that turns intentional sins into unintentional ones, does not earn its adherents any particularly special place before Hashem. All it establishes is the fact that the sinner did not take all the factors into account, and that had he known what he knows now, the would not have committed the sins(See Tanya, Iggeres Hateshuvah 2).
The central distinction between Repentance through Fear and Repentance through Love is that the latter is integrative rather than fragmenting. Fear is fragmenting; it is a repentance which is a conversion experience in which a man faced by the terror of the encounter with the Almighty surrenders a part of himself in order to forestall the complete anihilation of the self. It is full of dread, darkness, depression and fear. It is inherently unstable. It must be followed by the hard and long road of reintegration in the light of the King's countenance, or backsliding, anger, depression and guilt.
Love is redemptive; it does not reject or negate. Nothing needs to be walled off or renounced when Love is the motivation; for the past is what led one to the new knowledge and thus the past is redeemed and reaffirmed.
Consider two boys who grow up in most unfortunate circumstances, let’s say in a neighborhood where all young men join gangs. As they rise and gain status, as they, in fact, become gang leaders, they realize the dangers and the essential immorality of their lifestyles. They see all their friends end up dead or in jail and finally they both leave. One makes a clean break, signs up with the Army, and after finishing his term of enlistment, moves to a farm. He will never return to the old neighborhood lest he be sucked back up into his previous life. He has made a clean break and must unquestionably be commended. Yet, how much has he lost! He has resolutely and decisively renounced his former friends, his parents, schoolmates, upbringing, and memories - his very essence. he now is a new man! Is there any doubt that his move, while necessary and commendable, has made him poorer and caused him deep inner injury?! His friend, chose differently. He, inspired by his new conviction, goes back to the old neighborhood, as, let us suppose, an addiction counselor. He builds a social service organization. He uses his intimate knowledge of criminal culture and its distribution networks and patterns of association, to preach a gospel of communal renewal. He turns the sordid past into an inspiring future - for it was his past that enabled him now to accomplish all this. It is there that he learned how to lead. It is the past that gave him the connection, the credibility, the story, that enabled him to build something good in the place of past evil. He did not give up his past; he made it the basis and foundation for new gains.
Repentance through Love turns sins into assets, for if not for the sins there would not have been assets.
"Reish Lakish said: Great is repentance, for intentional sins become for a penitent as if they were not intentional, as it says: Return Israel to your God for you have stumbled in you crime (Hosea 14,). Crime refers to intentional sin and yet it is called "stumbling". Is this really so? Did not Reish Lakish say, "Great is repentance, for it turns sins into merits, as it says, "When the wicked returns from his sin…he shall live (in the sense of "prosper") (Ezekiel 33,)". No problem - this statement is about repentance through love and this one is regarding repentance from fear (Yoma 86b)".
We now understand how sins can turn into merits. Now let us return to the parsha of Nitsavim.
The parsha goes on the speak of teshuva. Interestingly, however, it seems to present two separate accounts of Teshuva. Let us focus on these two passages and the verses that divide and transtions between them.
#1
1.And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt bethink thyself among all the nations, whither HaShem thy G-d hath driven thee,
2
and shalt return unto HaShem thy G-d, and hearken to His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul;
3
that then HaShem thy G-d will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples, whither HaShem thy G-d hath scattered thee.
4
If any of thine that are dispersed be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will HaShem thy G-d gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee.
5
And HaShem thy G-d will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
Now, after presenting the complete account of Jewish repentance, the Torah presents another account (to be read in a moment).
That the two accounts present two different types of Teshuva a fact noted by commentators such as Ramban, Ohr Hachaim and others. The first one is repentance that arises out of fatigue and frustrations with the long and bitter exile and the realizations that sin brings with it suffering, and out of the fear for the future. Even though it is not the best, Hashem responds to it, thusly:
And HaShem thy G-d will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love HaShem thy G-d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
Then follows a different kind of Teshuva:
#2.
And thou shalt return and hearken to the voice of HaShem, and do all His commandments which I command thee this day.
9
And HaShem thy G-d will make thee over-abundant in all the work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good; for HaShem will again rejoice over thee for good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers;
10
if thou shalt hearken to the voice of HaShem thy G-d, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law; if thou turn unto HaShem thy G-d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.
We have come full circle. One begins with the repentance from fear, epitomized in the calendar by the dread and trembling of the time period of Ellul. Then comes Hashem's response, the two days of Rosh Hashana, the days of Love and Inaugaration of our King. Only after Love, is the second kind of Teshuva possile, Repentance from Love is that which will occuppy as throughout the Ten Days of Repentance and culminate with Yom Kippur.
