The Road to Teshuva | Parts 6-7, by Rav Moshe Taragin
Paradoxes of Teshuva: Can Teshuva Be Selective?; The Halakhic Definition of What is Considered "Forgotten" Paradoxes of Teshuva: Personal Teshuva vs. Collective Teshuva; Believing in Jews as a Route to Teshuva; Covering With Snow Rather Than Cleansing
So today we're going to revert back to chuva We talked about the paradoxes of chuva and we spoke about the reality that when you relate to Hashem Your interface is going to be full of paradox good morning good morning Because you know you're so different from Hashem there isn't one Factor or one element that can serve as that interface when I relate to you and being good morning Alex either I like you or I don't like you either. We're similar or dissimilar Me and Akrash barco we're so different and that interface through which we interact with Hashem is always going to be a Combination of factors that clash with with one another and that's the Foundational premise of our salvation that when it comes to our relationship with Hashem Paradoxes that meant to be resolved. It's meant to be sustained because that's what led to depth and meaning and sometimes you serve a chuva I can't love you if I fear you for the carish barco they alternate and all this comes to the four in chuva if there'd be one way I can summarize Reverend's book is that chuva is a microcosm for voter session and all the thoughts ideas Perspectives attitudes contrast paradoxes as you encounter in chuva if you blow them out and zoom out They're reflective of voter session. So this is not just the time to perform chuva This is the time to sharpen your resolution about a voter session and today's the perfect example Because we're going to talk about a second paradox and a second paradox which shouldn't be resolved But I'll give you a practical solution But a paradox that's reflective not just of the complications of chuva but in general This is part of what reversing talks about in the book One of the metaphors for chuva is to immerse it in mikla Kiva yama zay yachapar left on the tire is semiko kotos efem lift nashm In fact when cuz I'll speak about a hypocrite ball chuva. What do they say? It's like a tovel the sheriffs bea though Now it's a metaphor going to the mikla doesn't mean you perform truly you can go to the mikva and think about the whole game Mikva doesn't per se alleviate state. That's my caries atonement We don't believe it in my caries to tell men, but it's a metaphor in Hasidos It's a little bit different, but it's only for non-Sasidim going to a mikva It just means your tariya tama doesn't reflect your spiritual state When it would be a Kiva who restored hope after the base amictus was destroyed He quotes the Pasek in Yeshaya mikva yisra al Hashem the literal meaning is Hashem is your hope He reinterpreted ma mikva matayra satsameyam afakarish bar for entire ami so so mikva is the paradigm or paradigmatic metaphor for chuva Now regarding a mikvas all or nothing if you immerse in a mikva and one body part is external to the mikva The entire tphila is disqualified so it's not a piecemeal staged experience You either in or you're out and to be in has to be comprehensive so using mikva as a metaphor for chuva How can chuva be valid if it's partial and? Chuva is always partial because there are parts as you'll see in life as you start to know yourself better as you start to Understand yourself better as you start to keep hitting certain walls in your life There's certain parts in your life which honestly you say I just can't get past this right now I don't have the resources. I don't have the courage. I have the ability I just have to accept the fact that I will remain film the blanks petty jealous weak Competition whatever factors you you you end up performing a selective Chuva. These are the things I'm confident I can change these are the aspects. I realize it's gonna take longer It's it's it's right now as we said or the bandwidth of the emotional capacity to make these changes But if Chuva is a mikva, then it's all in nothing proposition and it can't be selective So that's the second paradox of Chuva. I'm sorry for the table two days ago We spoke about the paradox of Chuva namely the cyclical nature wash rinse repeat You know, you're gonna be the same place next year. How do you climb out from under that paradox today? We're talking about the paradox of self-tivity that for Chuva to be To be ideal it has to be all encompassing so the answer to this and this is classic You have look to see he spoke about it regarding Talmatura a little bit about Chuva, but I'll apply to Chuva It's classic of us because he sees who is such a hilarious and such a tumultuous that all of his mind Concepts came from the Gomara The Gomara says it's a mission payoff based on the pasting unless we expression that if you're walking through your field harvesting and you forget some grain What do we call that? Sheh, but if you forgot grain that's still ahead of your roots You still haven't gotten to that part of the field you forgot that it was there and then you remembered it That's not Chuva cuz the terrace is low Tasha of Lekkato that you shouldn't return back in backpedal Upon grain that you forgot and bypassed, but if you haven't bypassed it yet Even though momentarily was that of your mind you forgot that it's down the next row and then you recall it You can still advance within the next row and collect the Chuva Chula Fana of misha says in Ta'a love is Chuva Shilah Rovarans saw this as a metaphor Rovarans saw this as a metaphor for things that are still ahead of you in life And you still plan to get to them and you haven't disengaged from them emotionally Then I considered forgotten Follow Shilah becomes the paradigm for what is considered forgotten and the agricultural situation serves as a Yardstick for what is considered forgotten. I wanted to remind apply this the mission that says in avos Coha shilch ech davar mili mudo kilimus haib minachia if you forget tar you hide me, so that's a very strident misha everyone forgets tar Some comes in some comes out to the Bobbatar abi the original Bobbatar abi which narrows down the vliate he wrote a cruncher's tama tara And his cruncher's tama tara he suggests based on this mission a literal reading that every day You should hazard all the tar you studied until that day and only afterwards can you go by to only afterwards? Can you move forward until you retain all your tar your haib minachia? Mitev ad verm the way most of our minds work some of us have a photogenic line most of us don't the more tar that enters Some of it has to slide away through cut through out of consciousness So the mission says you're not high even so you're in the serum mili boat until you actively forget that that can't be taken literally Cuz you can't actively forget something try to actively forget something you end up remembering that we call that neurosis When you try to think about something so much because you want to forget about it you end up reminding yourself about it too much So what's the interpretation that's a shame. She is here mili boat. We're foreign interpreted it based on this mission That if you stop learning and you disengage from learning and you bypass learning and so you know what? I'm past that I want to another stage in life either attitude nearly or experientially then that's considered tara that was forgotten and the Both the attitude as well as the Torah the content that's forgotten because of that attitude you must write the nasha But if you're going on the path of life and you still see a color to our cool ahead of you I could call up the pill test if you take the pill. I know color to our color would you of course you would so it's still in your front horizon It's still in your plan still in your identity cuz our plans are part of our identity So I need it still in front of you that you're still interested in still engaged in even if you're not Remembering it at that moment neurologically. It's not considered tari. That's forgotten. It's not shehaha based on that mission and pay Behind you you've bypassed you've disengaged. That's forgotten. That's neglected in front of you That's not shehaha so if I're an extrapolated from the mission and pay up to this mission of Turkey of both of our forgetting tara the same and he eludes to this also in the safe They're the same with chuva Let's say there are parts of my personality that I just can't change and touch and pay Bob And I know I can't change and I know I can't get past it for whatever reason. I Know this year It's gonna be the hardest year of my chuva like it. I can't imagine a heartier I can't find my own voice of jewelry because it's so much sadness and so much tragedy and so much trauma I'll grab I sv yesterday call me up. He says he's writing what he sent me a message messenger He's starting to write his sermons and he wants my input What lessons can we take? About how people respond to post trauma from a religious standpoint. I said How can you even begin to use the word post trauma? We're still living through a trauma on a daily basis people are dying. Who knows what's happening next week in Lebanon? Just this week and and the captives it's not post trauma. It's trauma We unfold the manifold layers of people whose Russia's China Families hostages marriages parents have been home. I don't know how I'm gonna think about a shaman but God I I think to see I'm not gonna get the personal true about because I feel selfish I'm gonna sit there and talk about my own moral inventory when there's so much sadness and a Jewish people So that's one example. I just I don't know if I'll get to it this year, but it's not like I I've checked out from that something which deeply deeply interests me I just don't know with all this sorrow and all this that it's if I can perform that properly this year for honest with myself Maybe I will maybe I'll find that voice, but it's not out of my interest. It's still part of my plan Something else with parts of my person I'm not gonna share because they're private parts of my personality And I'm still struggling through in life. I'm still trying to work better and some of them I overcome and some of them I reached the point of young kid because you have to be honest and kipper You can't forge you can't counterfeit young kipper can't lie to a curse barcode and say things you don't mean now The good thing about being young is you still mean it when you say it as you're older You're more attuned to what you really mean when you say when you're young you're innocent enough and I even have to say I really believe that I can pull it 180 and I can change everything as you get older you realize you're carrying around a lot of spare Parts and not all those spare parts can be renewed every year But you have to be honest because if you're not honest, then it's a it's a forged experience in a chem is Karoshan look over how much a groove amiss No one's gonna achieve ultimate amiss But that's to be whatever amiss you're capable of achieving So as long as you still want to make that change and it's still part of your itinerary and still part of your moral program That's not considered a partial shouva my chuva includes everything both those that I am engaged in actively as well As those that I plan to engage in in the future my future horizons just like the grain that still lies in the future Brows are not considered forgotten and just like the tar that I plan to learn hopefully not to forget It's not considered shouva the parts of chuva that I'm not able to get to but I plan to get to and This is why the Ramban and I will end with this uses a word that uses very rarely out of context in Chuva The Ramban always describes the mitzvah in the beginning of his section hai vada makah's lulov hai vada moshay vizaka hai vada When he describes Chuva and part of what we talked about two weeks ago He says how well since you have freedom of choice. I think it's in parakzaian you should all other muscles to Do you imagine you should all other muscles to it? It's a shame reaching out and saying I know how hard it is I know you won't get to everything But if you're mr Staddell and you try and part of that trying is to be as inclusive as possible But part of that trying is to be as honest as possible and to know when you hit a wall and want to focus in select Aspects that you can overcome and to walk away from the parts that you feel still saddle you and shackle you That's considered your shaddell and you're in the mikwa You're entirely in the mikwa because the mikwa is not just a mikwa of success It's a mikwa of immersion and you're immersed in that entire chuva process Which includes parts of your body that may not come out of the mikvas clean as other parts of the body We're trying to highlight what I call the paradoxes of Chuva or the inattentions of Chuva as we said before Chuva such a all-encompassing project in process and Pivots are positions a person in front of a cottage bark when waste it can't be captured in one Attribute or one facet or one feature it needs a kaleidoscope of different elements as them those elements are going to clash And that's representative and characteristic of our relationship with a cottage sparkle when you relate to someone who's on par with you It's similar to you. So it's binary. You either love you hate you read the fear or you're close You either becomes a cottage sparkle the interface is so different because the Interaction to people to peel two beings that are interacting. It's so different. It's going to be characterized by paradox so I spoke about the paradox of Chuva that It's stuck in the mud every year you push forward and then you're back right where you began And how do you get out of that cycle of after the usher of after the usher of not the flagrant after the usher where person Mocks the entire process and has no religious sincerity and just sins depending upon Chuva to rescue him Not that type of after the usher But creating cycles of mediocrity was hard to break out of these cycles and you constantly chewing your religious cud and Returning back to the same location and it doesn't seem to be moving forward and the second paradox we spoke about is Can you be selective in Chuva where you reach the point you realize I can't get over and I can't overcome this obstacle? Well Chuva is a mikvah. How can it be partial and mikvah to Vila can't be partial today? I want to talk about it slightly different. It's not really a paradox, but it's a crucial tension when the rambam writes a chuva he says Roshar aviyam a keeper is a man Chuva Lachol yachid vila robin So they spoke a lot about this rambam that yachid and robin doesn't just represent Two different groups of people that do you have every robin is composed of your freedom? So if you're yachid, you're part of the robin and of course your chuva will be performed and sure with the robin But it's two different tracks of Chuva. There's the Chuva of the yachid your personal vidu your moral accounting your pledges to improve your self-discovery Whatever we associate with Chuva in the recesses of your heart and your soul, but then there's a larger Chuva that is Was much more dominant in the days of the base of mikvah has tapered off somewhat But I think this year is even more prominent and that is a Kurdish bar who promises amisrael to forgive them When ashim forgave us at our senai he didn't itemize Rubein and shimon and levi and headstone and karmi there is an entity called amisrael And ashim looks just like if my wife asks me how was the shear today? I'm not going to iterate each one this boy did well that boy didn't do well Yeah, I get an impression of the overall shear and I treat this year as a holistic unit Or the shiva's holistic unit were parts of units and I could a sparkle offers a track of chuva To us as a people now in the days of the base of mikvah She says much much more dominant than it is today in the days of the base of mikdosh You didn't huddle under your talus in your steeple clapping achate on your chest well fit You gathered in the base of mikvah not everyone. It wasn't a din of a lea le reggels It's not this mass pilgrimage, but you can only imagine Ohm din schwufen mu shtakhavim revachim has I'll tell us the katsa base of mikdosh the courtyard the precincts were Overloaded with people some masses of people throng together I'm sure there were some davitting the most of it was joint experience looking at the coin god Oh not looking at the coin god I couldn't see his freely couldn't see a service But the you know your vah pahli so like oh - lea blah mawi bahla kawdish la hapara love no one can be in the base I mikdosh by looking at the string waiting for the string to turn white listening to krya sattara Watching the sara la zazal make its way out of the precincts of the base I make it to the desert It was a joint experience and feeling that a Kurdish barco delivered chuva tami. So in fact The Ram Man Paskins based in a Gomara that that chuva saramben is so different that it's not dependent on chuva Could you imagine you get kapara wherever you feel him kipper is meant to provide without personal truth and I can't scoff at chuva You can't stop but let's say a person's lazy emotionally indolent emotionally incapable But there's a larger drama and a larger narrative unfolding What could a spark who is delivering kapara to the Jewish people and as long as you're identified with the Jewish people And generally generally attitudinally in line with chuva even if you haven't performed the rituals of chuva You haven't performed vidoi you haven't even fasted in theory as long as the non-fasting isn't in a way That's flagrant and a denial or fasting may be different because the ramam says the only person the only katayim That can't be absolved and can't be covered by this chuva sarabim our katayim that carry karys The reason is because what's the owners of karys the nikras? Hanepeshu and mayamab there are certain sins that represent such a Deviation from collective Jewish experience that they carry karys Karys means you know long apart of the Jewish people you've walked out of your psyche You know fasted in kipper you carry karys you know long but the the general Experience of the general dynamic is if you're part of Amisrael then you receive this kapara even without the long and torturous Emotional journey of confession and vidoi and improvement. There's a larger narrative There's a bigger dynamic that I courage bar who delivers chuva to the Jewish people now What's different about this is it's not just the context am I standing in your shoe at haritzian or my personal base matters? Am I in my own heart and my own vidoi or mind the base of mikdash you shall I more in israel Why feel more of the ecosystem of the Jewish people and the collectiveness of a nation centered upon their homeland? It's also the methodology. How do we go about? Performing chuva the methodology of chuva say we all know personal improvement individual self-examination Facing your sins trying to transcend your limitations trying to repair your flaws trying to overcome your weaknesses And it's a very powerful time of the year What is life it if it isn't morally improved if it is it a surge towards constant self-examination constant hajbanan afish not in a way that's obsessive in a way that's healthy too much of a hajbanan afish to become neurotic But a healthy degree of hajbanan afish which is heightened during this period Well, we're thinking what do I have to be to be this newer person this newer version of myself Whereas true as a robin is not facing sin it's facing how deeply do you affiliate with the robin? How deeply do you affiliate and I would say it subdivides into two on the one hand. What's your vision of the Jewish people and that? Question itself subdivides into a lot of tributaries number one. How deeply committed are you to your people number two Especially in the modern world how deeply do you believe in the Jewish people or if I'm gonna tell what I would say It was hard for knock to pray for his generation, which is stunning 120 years. It doesn't stop in for one There's no trailer Avram hears that the sinners of stone will be destroyed And he launches into one of the most aggressive and audacious feelers ever a chuva the colorless lius and mishpaht We'll recite these succum in sleikos shove it close. They challenges divine justice knock 120 years And he doesn't manage to doubt him for anyone notice he managed to sue anyone The answer is knock was so alienated from his world because he had defended himself against their moral degradation That he didn't believe they could teach you but if you don't believe in selling you can't pray for them The foundation of fearless belief, which is why every day we begin our field with Gula You have to believe that I shall redeem you from its Ryan You have to believe that our critical can redeem us from our current Crisis and then you could oven if you don't believe and when I say believe I don't mean some distance belief But a belief that permeates your identity. I believe that says tomorrow the world could be different tomorrow says Bola could collapse I ran could disappear and Hamas could be buried underground Tomorrow could be the next minute. So if you believe that Hashem can Overhold this planet then you could dive in for a Kurdish bar who to over all the planet So do you believe in amisrael some people have divorced amisrael Well, they're all sinners and they're not part of the end of days narrative and only the Jews who are from everyone else There are people that say that there are people who truly I know it sounds very alien to you because of your Somewhat, what should I say ideological echo chamber? You didn't grow up necessarily meeting all the Orthodox world There are many Orthodox useful say that just like him it's time only 20% left and 80% perished the Hamushim al-lubinee So am I just I'm you know who mashiach is going to greet everyone here base matters to base matters to base matters and all the Jews who aren't religious They probably just may disappear at some point. I feel Filthy saying that I can never say that with my mouth But there are people that said do you believe that actually those over the heart that at some point? I'm not a Kurdish bar who will create an event. That's so pervasive and so persuasive that even Jews today's hearts are not just indifferent but some of us and Pasta home towards the Jewish agenda hostile to as a state of Israel will turn so one Metric for how deeply you are engaged in the truth of amisrael is how deeply do you commit to amisrael? How deeply do you believe in amisrael? What's your vision of greater amisrael? What's your vision of peoplehood? The second metric is how much love do you feel tekosh bharkha the the interface for love is generally collective Obviously hajem loves me as an individual and I love a karish bharkha on an individual basis But the torrent of love is the love between Hashem and his people she or she was not about me and hajem She or she was about my people and a karish bharkha and the second part of that methodology is when you'm kippur Do you think about chuva or do you think about ava sashhem? I? Mentioned the other day that you shy use is two imageries of white one is laundering wool Cozzamory hue one is cachella gilbenu one of the differences between the whitening of snow and the whitening of wool Is that snow doesn't really whiten anything right? It's an optical illusion It doesn't whiten the dirt the dirt remains brown the dirt remains than our form ugly non-white It's just covers it So how much of him kippur is whitening wool in which case we launder and we clean ourselves and how much of him kippur is Just cover it up. I'm covered up with with love one of the most powerful lines in our to the bell Kolp shai tachaseh eva it's in the introduction to musif the Tzilah of the Chiusib of our Kolp shai tachaseh eva mr. One day you'll fall into a relationship and it's them You'll fall in love with someone and you'll build the love of your life You'll build a hopefully a long long love that will last and help you navigate this difficult world And it's not like every single part of your relationship You'll iron out even as older people were still finding our rhythm and finding our interaction with people But the love runs so deep that it covers all the Pacmarks and all the points of tension covers it And if I love Akarish barghu so deeply because I'm so committed to my people. It's a whole different ontology It's a whole different mind space for chuva. It's not me singing into my own personal recess of of darkness and trying to find out the monster that I am and Somehow convert that monster into a prince into a noble person But it's committing to my people and letting that commitment unleash a torrent of love It's a sikarish barghu. I may be a failure and I may be floored But I'm part of your people and I'm part of this historical narrative Now that's attention and if you don't feel that tension I think your chuva is shallow. Should I be thinking about myself on Yom Kippur should I be thinking about Akarish barghu And we'll talk about this tension as Yom Kippur gets nearer This year of course that tension is even more centered Because how can you even think about yourself? When so many people are suffering and so many people how can you say Meṇa Meṇa Meṇa zar kārasti kān an even mārya kāw When there are people literally living in airless oxygenless dark tunnels With their families who don't have their children Were there are people who are recovering from horrible horrible wounds? How can you think about anything else? You have to I don't have a resolution for that and somehow you have to find a way to merge these two Pistons these two sources of religious drive and Yom Kippur particularly this year with his tension is so prominent So I'll talk about a little bit more maybe tomorrow, but that's the third tension the first tension we spoke about is the tension of Shattering the routine of chuva the second tension is the tension of partial chuva the third tension is How do you find those two voices especially in a year in which it's hard to find your own voice? Even morally maybe you shouldn't find your own voice It may even be selfish to think about yourself If of course, it's not because if you think about yourself as someone that's going to be part of this process and commit to this process Then that self has to be a better self We need better over the ashm to be part of this historical Reclamation project of which we've suffered such a setback this year So even in your own personal moments of quiet solitude is there a larger objective that you're drawing Even when you're trying to strive for self achievement and self-improvement, okay, so tomorrow mr. Shen will continue on this note
