It is very exciting to begin this series of shurim on the topic of chuva based on the incredible safe air al-hachuva. I want to just begin with a brief word of introduction about the safe air and then we'll dive right in to the sheer itself. This is a book al-hachuva which was based on oral presentations, famous shurim really drushas that of salivacha gave this type of year, I think maybe even more precisely during a sarsime chuva about the topic of chuva. These were huge and popular and famous drushas, if I'm not mistaken I believe they were given in Yiddish. And then eventually there was an Israeli journalist named Penchas Peli who translated them into Hebrew and published a number of the drushas in this work al-hachuva. Subsequently, I think there's also an English translation but the more well-known presentation in the written work is this Hebrew book called al-hachuva. I bought this safe air must be 30 years ago, maybe even slightly more, approximately 30 years ago and it has been one of my most famous favorite, excuse me, favorite, sarsime in general and specifically when it comes to the topic of chuva, the ideas I have always found are both brilliant in the sense of the Torah analysis, but also incredibly brilliant and insightful and inspiring and just impactful when it comes to the psychological insight, the spiritual insight and the ability to really understand from the inside what it means to be a person who struggles, who falls, who fails and hopefully can pick himself up and do tushuva and I haven't learned the safer consistently in many years but I used to do it very consistently year after year and it really is one of my favorite all times far and certainly when it comes to the broader topic of chuva really in general so I could not be more excited to share a safe air and learn a safer with you than this particular safe air. All the essays are great and all are important and therefore I figured why not just start at the beginning, I have no reason to go out of order, we might as well just start at the beginning and the opening essay is called kapara and tahara, it goes for I think about 20 pages or so and we will break it up into a few mini shurim so I appreciate you joining me in imerza shim, tomorrow we'll have the next year and I look forward to hopefully having the shirim also recorded and then we'll post them for anyone who misses it. Okay, let's get started and it begins as follows, this is if you have the handout that I've gave and I shared, it's page 15. Leoma kipareem came out with tahshuva yeshnay aspectim, again because this was originally an oral presentation even if it was in Yiddish but there's a lot of English that gets included into the Hebrew here and says or solvacic at the outset Yom Kippur like chuva more broadly has two aspects, two dimensions. First of all, Yomaki kipareem is mecha pare, in atones. As the possuk says in my yukra pare tazain, kiba yomazear yeshapare alecham. So Yom Kippur is an intense opportunity for atonement and more broadly chuva grants atonement. This is also an expression that is found in the feel of the coin godol where he pleads with Hashem kaperna labonos, please give atonement to the Jewish people's sins. However, it says or solvacic, there's also a second in additional dimension, Yomaki pareem is mit tahair, it's not only in atonement but it also purifies us, kiba yomazear yeshapare alecham lit tahair eskam. So it's not just the kapara but also tahara and in the abode of the coin godol, we say litne ashem, titaru, not only kapara, again we have the second phrase of tahara and these two motifs are repeated time and again in our telos kapara and tahara and as our solvacic has in the next paragraph, these two elements, shakapara and tahara, heim totsah yeshirah, shalakheit, ulumatam, arbakheit atsmo, shne elementi mele, arbakheit mechayev, arbakheit mit tahmei, ceter solvacic something very logical, very methodically and very compellingly. If he has SES retains chuva as exemplified by Yom Kippur but more broadly to chuva contains two dimensions, two motifs kapara and tahara, the reason for this is because sin actually generates two problems to which the two aspects of teshuva will be the two solutions or the two antidotes. The reason that there are two dimensions of chuva as our solvacic is because if we go back to ground zero when necessitates the need for chuva is sin and sin itself generates two problems, two obligations on the sinner. Number one, ceter solvacic, the sin is mechayev, we owe something, we deserve to be punished, we have a debt now that we've incurred, we are obligated to make a payment as it were. And number two, in addition, and this I would suggest is perhaps the more original, creative shittish, sin is also mit tahmei, it doesn't just require us something, it actually impacts us, it contaminates us, that just to obligate us to do something, it says something about us in our essence. Let's unpack this. Ceter solvacic continuing here on the bottom of the page. K'ayev la havine, mahine kapara, vith tahara, shibjama, kippurim, he actually dot mahine kippur vithuma beyachas lechate. And therefore, in order to truly appreciate teshuva, we need to first go a little bit on to the dark side and understand sin as it were. H'ayte v'on show no duk echad. Number one, he says you have to realize that sin and punishment, go hand in hand. Ain h'ayte, blow onish, right? If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime, but the crime always comes with a punishment. There's no such thing as a free ride. Im onish bebezden, shamata, the im, turn of the page, onish bebezden, shamala, whether we sometimes, for reasons that we don't always understand, banashhem has divided, the Torah has divided our punishments, sometimes it's an earthly punishment that can be meted out by the bezden and other times it's something only Hashem will take care of, in the bezden shamala. But either way, scarve onish, hemi esodus, amunah of yajas. We know that the idea of reward and punishment, and here we're focusing on the punishment side of the ledger, but we can, we don't have to forget the good stuff also, there's also reward, and both of those are direct results of our actions, if we sin, we get punished, if we do mid-sauce, we get rewarded, and this is a foundation of yiddishkite. It says, "The Gomara and Babakama, Dafnun, kolomara karish mawful vatran, who yotro may have." That is to say, a person might go get carried away, you know, nowadays, especially, there's a trend, and I think it's an overall good trend, to focus on Hashem's midas rafimim. And I love Hashem, Hashem loves me, no matter what I do, Hashem will always love me, a lot of positivity. And again, that's a very, there's a place for it, it's true, and it can be very, very powerful, and it is certainly, I would say, somewhat popular nowadays. However, a person could get carried away and go too far, a person might think, "Well, Hashem is so wonderful, Hashem is so much rafimim, Hashem is so much love for me, that no matter what I do, Hashem will just forgive it." And it says, "The Gomara, that is going too far, because that is in essence whether you realize it or not, denying this principle of reward and punishment, and therefore, if a person will just say, "Whatever I do, Hashem will vatran, Hashem will forgive it, i.e. even without Hashem, but just Hashem, he's so loving and forgiving, he doesn't care." A person like that in the Gomara's vivid and graphic formulation, it forfeits their right to life. That is a very, very severe misstatement, and Hashem emphasizes this, because it coalesces it, coheres with the point he's trying to make, that the essence of Yiddishkite includes both reward and punishment. Hashem doesn't just let things go. If you have a stronger declaration than that, there is no such thing as Yiddishkite, without a belief, without this awareness that sin is not a davar hacholeif of Over, Kalohaya. Sin is not just something that disappears in an instant, you can see here today, gone tomorrow, as if it was meaningless to leave a lasting impact, and that it's not going to leave an impact that will require punishment. On the contrary, achaita onesh simudimheim, they go together. Ratsangcha, hare etsam, hare etsam, ha'gdera achaiti, the ka'chaishkan act, hakuregimmo onesh. In a certain sense of their salvation, we can define sin, definitionally, as an act which generates the obligation of a punishment. You simply cannot have a sin without the direct result, it's kind of metaphysical law of nature. Or a law of metaphysical nature, perhaps that's a better way of putting it, sin generates an obligation of punishment, and therefore, it says it's all about achic, now we understand the first motif of teshuvah, which we called kapara. It says it's all about achic, kapara perushah, mikhilah, the first aspect of chuvah, what it means to achieve atonement in English, is to be forgiven, that is to say Hashem is a mochael, he forgives this debt, this kriyev that we have incurred, he's willing to forgo and forgive the punishment. Hamussah, mikhilah, mukarob, dine maminas, kadam mocha, lakhabirah, kasafshuhayavlo, kahmohal, karish barkal adamal, onesh, hukayavlo. Just like a person who is owed a debt, you sold someone to someone, he owes you money, you lent somebody money, he owes you money. In either of those cases, the person who is owed the debt can decide, the creditor can decide to forgive the loan, they don't do it that often in the real world, in the financial world, but in theory they could, it's money owed to them, and therefore they have a right to forgive it. So too says our solvacic by doing teshuvah, kapara means Hashem forgives the debt, forgives the sriyev that we owe him. And he points out that this goes back to the earliest examples that we have in history of sin, with kaiyev and hevel, where the Torah itself tells us in paragalid, that if Hashem tells the kaiyev, if it's good for you, imtative, sate, then Hashem could so speak, remove, or release the punishment. But if not, then the patah, patah, rovates, the sin will always be crouching, so to speak, at the door. It's there, it exists as a given, because this is a direct result. Scarv onesh, as we've said, and only can be removed by, in essence, paying the debt, that's if we got the punishment, or Hashem forgiving the debt, that's if we do teshuvah. Any quotes, other examples in shmul bed, in other places, in shmul bed, or we have this idea. Ayide, teshuvah, the kapara, this first dimension, this first element of chuvah, a person is bonnet, chomak magain, achod satsat, menon levain ha'onesh, chakashur, beret. This is a very resident metaphor, and vivid language that our salvation used all those years ago, at least other ways translated into Hebrew, certainly resonates with us nowadays, all over, but especially for those who are living in Israel, he says basically by doing teshuvah, we are forging, we are creating an iron dough, or he calls it an iron wall, if you will, or a chomak magain, a defensive wall, right? You know, that there was supposed to be a wall separating Israel from Gaza, unfortunately it got breached, and we have the iron dough that protects us, so there could be bad things on the other side of the wall, but if we have a protective shield or a protective wall, so that we are safe. So too, the sin is there, the punishment exists, the need to be punished is an automatic direct metaphysical result of the sin that's already there, it's a given. So what does chuvadu through kapara, it creates this force shield, this defensive wall, this defensive protective shield, which will hopefully protect us from the sin, which otherwise would be a natural result. Haudesh Aino, Batelmi Atzmo, sin, punishment doesn't just get erased on its own, that's why the Gamara, which we quoted before, had said it's such a terrible mistake, if you just say God, it forgives everything, he's a vatran, no, no, no, sin, punishment cannot be erased, it does not go away on its own automatically. Ha'kofehr, hachuvah, ha'kapara, he afo mein, pyjio nephish. We need to speak, we're paying for it alternatively, it's like the kind of the old small villages or the country, we have a little local doctor maybe or something, and the poor farmer, perhaps or whatever the classic cliche is, needed the services, but doesn't have enough money, he says I don't have enough money to pay you, but you know please, I had a good harvest this year, take a few pumpkins and some carrots, and my cow, here's a few buckets of the milk, you pay it off the debt with something else, so the solvence, that's basically what happens with chuvah, we owe a debt and we should be punished, but we can assume it is kindness allows us if we do chuvah to quote unquote pay off the debt with something else, we can use chuvah to redeem ourselves, to save ourselves and not get, excuse me, what we actually deserve which is the punishment, in that sense we can redeem ourselves, save ourselves from the punishment we deserve by offsetting the debt with a different form of payment that is to chuvah, however this is only the first dimension, he continues he says, there is a second dimension of sin, achate is also mittame, it also contaminates us, it doesn't just obligate us in something, it does something to us, yesh musakshil, tumas achate, achate can contaminate the person, him or herself, and we have this example, this phenomenon he says throughout the tanakh, where we see that a person can become dirty and you know contaminated and just made gross if you will, through sin, tumas achate, achate, this is a kind of metaphysical, you know, spiritual reality, but says it or solvéchic, sin automatically changes the person, changes the sinner, achate, kamom avir, esa kate ha'alokim, alro shushaladam, upogaya, ushleim utoha ruhanit, sin itself, as a man or speaking, he uses kind of a different metaphor here, but it says if every Jew has a sort of speak a crown of royalty, we start off automatically in a good place, but by sitting we've removed that crown and we have taken away something of our perfection, of our essence, and this has numerous expressions, he says both in agada and in halacha, for example, in halacha, yudish au vera vera, mishtane mama ado, hakuki, his legal status, persons legal status and stature and standing, can change by sinning, after all, a person who does certain more severe of arrows, the kinds that need to get punished in the bazedan, so in addition to the punishment that is incurred and owed and will come to the person, in addition to that, ugham nifsala edut, he's already viewed as a Russia, and that is not just a rhetorical exaggeration or a term that a preacher might use, your sinner, but actually has halachic teeth, it has concrete implications, a person with otherwise eligible and kosher to be a witness, loses that, becomes disqualified, it's postulateous, because the sin has changed them, has denigrated them, has contaminated them, inseba makhmat onesh, sider of solvageic, the fact that you're disqualified from being a witness has nothing to do with the fact that you're also being punished, was punishment after you, whether you, I saw something happening, I saw a bank robbery and I could testify about it, what's got to do with the fact that yesterday, I ate trafe and maybe I need to deserve a punishment, or I did some other a vera, I deserve a punishment, this is an academy, there is no connection, the fact that you get punished has nothing to do with the fact that you are now considered unreliable and disqualified from being in a witness, so solvageic that has nothing to do with the onesh has to do with the second dimension of sin, that is the contamination, the denigration, the fact that you're no longer the same person, your makhmat ishi, your personal standing and stature has been diminished, the person after he or she sins is a different person, they started off with a hezkatan ammanut, they were assumed to be implicitly reliable and believable, and they lose that automatically because of this type of sin, in which it contaminates and changes and degrades the person. Continues with solvageic, burega shadam khot, who nifsad nifsad nifsad tunit mahu yaradmimamado, the moment a person sins, there's a second direct result, you're diminished, some of you is being degraded, destroyed, contaminated, you are not on the same stature that you were, it's not a punishment, this is not a punishment, this is not a fine, but rather this is not a shem just being quote unquote angry at you, this is rather a direct result of a spiritual transformation, zoti bigima, metaphysit, vishutto, viktushya sotala dhamm, there's a metaphysical change, it's a law of the spiritual metaphysical nature, there's nothing you could do about it, it's not a decision as much as it is in automatic reality, but just interestingly, as we get to the end of this section, but we're going to end the shear in a moment, he, the last paragraph here at the Bama page 17, he talks about the communists, now I have to say I may be missing some of the historical or philosophical insight I should say, I'm not sure why he's specifically focusing on the communists as much as I would say the secular general, the secular perspective, the godless perspective, and maybe that's all he means and maybe just when this speech was being given, you know, it was still at the height of the Cold War and communism was first and foremost in everyone's mind, but at least, you know, sitting here now in 2024, I think what he says is still true, but I don't know why he specifically focuses on communism as much as it sounds like secularism. Namely, what's the point here, look at the bottom of the page, how communist imidabreem al-stiyat, tout, but not aret, communist, as he says it, or I would say more just secular people, they don't talk about sin, right, that word, you know, in our modern, our post-modern secular culture, right, sin, it like makes people feel weird, it's like an icky, you know, because it's too religious, secular people don't use such religious language, right, sin sounds, you know, we don't talk in those terms. We could talk about a stiya, a deviation from the norm, a tout, you know, this person made a mistake, mistakes were made, he made a mistake in his marriage, you know, we use that type of a very secular, you know, type of language, it's very much, you know, destigmatized, but I would say sin on the other hand is a stigmatized language, and it's sort of being laundered, if you will, in a secular parlance, and now instead of speaking about sin, and things like sin, you know, way too scary and just weird, frankly, from a secular perspective, so now we speak about deviated, he made a mistake, we don't talk about sin, this is a fundamental mistake, with tout, aint humor, metaphysit, aint his, the hamut, because if you just talk about a quote unquote mistake, so that doesn't have the metaphysical implications, that doesn't contaminate the person, that doesn't change the person, it was a mistake, tout, he continues to look over the page, he, Musag Logi, Ligali, it's a logical category, it could even be in certain contexts, a legal category, but it's not what we're talking about, we're talking about a spiritual metaphysical category, het, it's pogame, bezim, a hutoshala dum, okay, the depths of the person, and the kishkas of the person, they are different and unfortunately lesser and degraded, and in light of all of that, we return now to the original thesis, because there's the second dimension, the second result of sin, there has to be a second dimension and a second motif of teshuva, teshuva amititi afo low rak mecha parit, it's not just the first thing we saw that it's a kapara and it tones for us, it saves us from having to pay our debt and be punished, but teshuva is also gan mit taherit, it purifies us from this tuma, mechaherit ada ha'dam mitim tuma lathe, when a person sins, there's a certain contamination, a certain plaque as it were, that is sitting on the heart of the person, it's like kind of a cholesterol clogging the spiritual arteries, and the second dimension of teshuva has this metaphysical power to free us from that, to purify us from this, from these blockages of our spiritual potential, and mahzer ada ha'dam luchiyutto it brings us back to our spiritual, healthy place, no tenet lo mechaadach et dubutto amit korit, you bring us back to our default setting, which was healthy and vibrant spiritually, but by sinning we've clogged our arteries, so to speak, there's dirt on the windshield, we can't see clearly, we can't act fully, we're less than, we're not 100% anymore, we've been degraded, we've been downgraded, we've been contaminated, and therefore we need the second dimension of teshuva, it is not only mechaarit, it gets out of punishment, that's important, but even more important, and more profound, and more mahzerudach, is that teshuva is midchaarit, it transforms us, it doesn't just free us from something that is owed to us, but external to us, a debt we owe, rather it changes us, not just freeing us from a punishment, but it changes who we are, it elevates us, it returns us to the higher spiritual level, which we begin with, so in Mirtasya we will continue, tomorrow with part two, in the continuation of this essay, but what we've seen is this very important and compelling thesis, there's two aspects of sin, and therefore corresponding two dimensions of teshuva.
