Okay, we are going to begin now our final piece in our study of Ralsalvijic's approach to Chuvah as contained in his famous work Alta Tashuvah, and even though I've extolled the insights, inspiration, and profundity of the other pieces we've learned together, I have to say I think that this really, the piece we're going to learn now as our final installment, really is my favorite one. I still remember almost perhaps already 30 years ago when I first read this particular chapter, and it totally changed my life. That sounds melodramatic, but I mean it seriously, and I mean it literally. It changed the way I understood Chuvah, it changed the way I understood myself, it changed the way I understood the people in my life, the people around me, culture, a lot of things, and I'm really very excited to share it with you. For me, it stood the test of time, even in reviewing it now all these years later. It contains the same amount of profundity and insight as it did the first time I learned it. So with that dramatic introduction in place, let's begin. We're on page 169, and Ralsalvijic says as follows. There's actually two fundamentally different ways a person could do Chuvah. After all, in Sleeghos we say, "Vaderik Tashuvah Horesa," you taught us the way how to do Chuvah. However, says Ralsalvijic, it's not one way, "Ella Shtayim." It's actually two different ways we can do Chuvah. "Darikat Biurhara," "Darikashni'a Tikkunhara," "Halato." The first way is to obliterate, to destroy, to erase the evil. The second alternative way of doing Chuvah is to fix or to elevate the bad. Very intriguing. Let's see how Ralsalvijic develops this. And he begins with the maybe most famous Gomara about Tashuvah, and he was going to use this as a starting point, as a place to jump off from, and we're only going to return to this Gomara at the end. But the Gomara he's referring to is, in quotes, is Yuma da Fpeva Vibes. Famous teaching in the name of Rish Lakhish. There seem to be actually two teachings that seem to contradict themselves, and the Gomara itself resolves it in a way that is very important, although very unclear, and therefore, the basis of an important analysis. On the one hand, Rish Lakhish says, "Gidolah Tashuvah shizadonos nassas lokushkagos." You know how great Chuvah is? It can make it as if you didn't really do anything rebellious or terrible, as if you did something by accident. Barely anything. Wow, that's an incredible power of Chuvah. On the other hand, the Gomara says, "Rish Lakhish, the same Amorah, said Gidolah Tashuvah shizadonos nassas lokas lokas lokas lokas." How great is Tashuvah? It can actually turn the Avera into a Mitzvah. Something even more ambitious, not just turn the Avera into an accidental omission, but rather it can turn the Avera into a Mitzvah into a zachos. Had he resolved the contradiction, says the Gomara, it depends on how you are doing Tashuvah. Kannmehava, Kannmehira. If you do Tashuvah out of love of God, so then it's not only that you've gotten rid of the sin, you can transform the sin into a Mitzvah. So to speak, like real magic. However, if you did Tashuvah out of fear, you're scared. You're going to get punished, you're scared of the consequences. That's not as ambitious, it's not as ideal, but it's still effective. It turns even the willful and deliberate sin into a mere accidental omission or commission. So this is the Gomara. And as I mentioned, it's famous, but it's also very confusing if you think about it. And the way of Selavitchi asks the question is as follows. Next paragraph. "L'chil l'amma notinimlo la Russia. Why do we give a certain priority?" he says. A certain benefit, a certain premium, that's the word he uses in modern Hebrew. Why do we give a certain premium to the Russia whose Averos were Zidonos that it can even turn into Zechlios? "L'amma m'ai gile l'oclese." Why does he deserve that? You know, it's a little bit overboard. It's enough to forgive him but that we should turn certain people's Averos into Mitzvos. Why? Why go so far? Plus, what does it mean in this context to say that Chuwami Ava can be more effective than Chuwami Europe? However, Chuwah works. Chuwah works. Why should there be such a fundamental and huge difference between the two? "Kine la hazbius l'gia mucchazot u la vin echte hadrachim bechuvah. Yeeshli taqib ala baya habakshaftid hai karit. Shriesh bhatteshuvah, turning over the page. So, it's all about you, if we're going to understand this question, we actually have to take a step back and delve into a more profound and a deeper question. The question with the capital T that relates philosophically, theologically, to the possibility of Chuwah. The kind of question he says, "Shaashkubo gudole bali makhshaba bhi yisrael." Over the centuries, some of the greatest Jewish thinkers in gudolem have raised this very question from Absajigon, Rabena Yona, Rabena Bakhaye, and even from Chaimu Vologen. Furthermore, he points out some of the greatest non-Jewish theologians and philosophers have asked this question. What is the question? As follows. Baya hachuvah, shiwaq, shiwaq, shiwaq, shiwaq, yisrael, mucchazot l'gia hai haa dam. The real fundamental question of the possibility of repentance and atonement goes to the heart of our understanding and our relationship to time. And he quotes a poem or the line of a poem of one of the greatest early medieval Jewish poets, who was originally from France, if I'm not mistaken, but then had most of his influence in Spain, who were salvaged to refers to as "Ravidaya hapanini". Now, hapanini wasn't his last name, but because his poetry was considered so beautiful, "panini" from the lachon of "panini" in pearls. He was "Ravidaya", you know, the stringer of pearls. His poetry, his words were beautiful. They were like pearls. So that's how he got this kind of nickname. And perhaps his most well-known poem, frankly, is a little bit depressing, but in Hebrew, as it's quoted here, he says, something very profound and worthy of our consideration. "Havar ayen haa tira dain habaha hove ke haaif ayen". The past is already gone. The future hasn't happened yet. And the present is gone in the blink of an eye. If you think about it, and this is where "Ravidaya" is pointing out, we have no control, no concept, no ability, in any sense, hold time. "Makrashain lo clal achizabazman", in essence, what it means is "Qum haa dame shavel fis". This really raises the question, "Who am I? What am I? What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to be a person? When do I exist? In what dimension do I exist? In the past? Where's the past? Show it to me, point it to me. The future didn't come yet. And every moment of the present is over simultaneously. So what's going on? How do we understand the human experience as it relates to time? So this is a very deep question, even deeper than the question of repentance. But obviously it's related to the question of repentance. Because if, as the opening sentence goes, "Havar ayen", so then if the past is no longer, how could Tushuvah undo the past? If the past no longer is there to be fixed? So by the way, I'll just add that around the same time, I first became aware of this safe error, this essay. Also, I think it was a Mordechai bin David, at a very famous song in which he also included two other words, "Dagami nayen". What's the point of worrying? Worrying about what? The past is over, the future didn't happen yet, and the present is in a millisecond. So if you can take this poem and just say, "I can live a carefree, anxiety-free life", so I guess it's not so depressing. But I'm salvaging from a philosophical perspective, it thinks it really raises some deep questions, which could be quite depressing, honestly. So to answer this question, what does it mean to be a human being, if we have no control over time, and time seems to be completely fleeting in every direction? So, as Salav Hijik says, "B'amet, yesh qum la dum, bishnayim ailah", in fact, are two ways we can actually truly become ourselves, and relate to time. Number one is our memory, and number two is "Sippi'al Atid", our hopes for the future. "Hazikaron, me shiv le shayla, shal me'ani". The memory that we have, the memories, I should say, they are partly answered the question, "Who am I?" "Ani, who's there?" "She actually has ikaron, mikach, vakach, vakach, rigachot." "Kach, vakach, vakach, vayot." "Kach, vakach, smahot." "Kach, vakach, vakach, et bonaut." "B'zikaron, en impshechat, vitzifut, hani." You know who I am? When I ask the question, what's a deeper question in life than that? I am the person who remembers the following experiences, who remembers the following happiness, happy moments, who remembers the following and specific sad occasions, who remembers the actual and specific emotions. That ongoing and continuous memory of experiences is who I am. It's true the past doesn't exist. I could have a positive memory from five years ago. I could have a sad memory and a horrible experience from 10 years ago. It's in the past and their very real sense. It doesn't exist anymore. But my memory of that experience, my memory of my feelings, then and now about the experience, that keeps the past alive. And that's what gives me my definition. Who am I? Who is Bhavagatleb? Bhavagatleb is the person who had all those experiences in the past and can remember them even in the present. In davening, we say, "Ata zochar mase olam, who pocade kolluture kedem." Two different seemingly synonymous terms for the fact that God remembers all of humanity and all of our actions. Cesar Solvedic. What's the difference between the zikaron and pikadon? Don't they both mean to remember? Cesar Solvedic, yes, but in a sense. Shnei am yeshvam mashmut bikur. On a deeper level, it refers to the idea of visiting. Hashem pocade es sara, right? When the Torah wants to say that God remembers, so to speak, sara in her longing for a child uses the term pocade. Cesar Solvedic, on a deeper level, what does that mean God remembers, sara? Rather, kaviyachal, as it were, arach bikureth slow. He, so to speak, visited her. He, so to speak, came down to her and opened up the gates of heaven for her prayers. Cesar Solvedic, kashasham pocade es sure kedem. Kashvam haddam pocade u muvakir et avar hashamur lo bazikaron. This language of pikadon also refers to a human being. And this is really quite a deep insight. It's not our main topic, but quite a deep insight into that even idea of memory. Cesar Solvedic, when we think about memory, it's not just something that's purely cognitive or intellectual. Memory is a way we visit the past. Just like Hashem remembers other people, and when he remembers them, quote unquote, it means he visited them. So to a human being, he is, so to speak, visiting his past that is saved in his memory. Now, the truth is that in idiomatic English, we have a phrase that actually captures this profundity. When we say someone took a trip down memory lane, we're visiting, right? If you think about a vacation, you think about a family simcha. God forbid a family tragedy. If you really get into the thought, and it's not just fleeting for a millisecond, but you really are thinking about it, you can sometimes even notice a change in your heart rate. You can have perspiration, et cetera. You can, so to speak, visit and revisit the experience through your memory. Now, Assalveachik points out, someone who is constantly obsessed with and only living in the past, (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Someone who's only doing it, and spends too much time, that could be very, very unhealthy. You can't live in the past. (speaking in foreign language) is very important and natural and healthy every now and then, to take a trip down memory lane, to visit, to remember the past. So one answer to the question of who am I, at least my memories of the past. And I would just add, you know, parenthetically, this is, of course, a deep part of the tragedy of people who, in their older age, have forms of senility in which they lose their memory. There's the obvious, you know, human pain and tragedy of that. But even on a deeper level, it's not just the obvious emotional part, it's even philosophically. If a person no longer has a memory of who they are, of who other people are, of their past experiences, so that who are they? They really aren't the same person in some deep way. It's very painful to say, but it's supported by Roselovich's insight here. However, this is only half the coin. The other side of the coin is that who am I? It's not only my past, but it's also, I am the one who is (speaking in foreign language) My hopes, my dreams, my aspirations for the future, that also defines who I am. (speaking in foreign language) I am the person who is thinking about tomorrow in two days from now, and next week and the year after this. It's true, Soselovich, at the bottom of page 170. When you're younger, (speaking in foreign language) Old and younger people experience this duality but equally, but not the same. Every human being has this experience living in both memories of the past and hopes of future. However, the younger you are, the less focused you are on the past, and the greater you have an emphasis on your hopes for the future. And of course, older people, the zikaron, the memory of the past, is greater, (speaking in foreign language) And the hopes for the future are a little bit more brief and modest. (speaking in foreign language) Whether you're older or young, everybody is, so to speak, floating along the stream as it were of time, of the continuity of time, in which there's a past that I recognize and I'm familiar with. I see myself as I had that experience, or this experience, good or bad, etc. And in uncertain future, which I hope for the best. The ratio of the proportion might be different from person to person, and broadly speaking from old to young. But the phenomenon is equal to every human being. (speaking in foreign language) And if every human being is defined as a combination of their memories and their dreams, what makes a person not schizophrenic, but ties those two together, as Raffsolvitcha calls it, the bridge between the two, is the past. Excuse me. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I blew that one. Is the present, excuse me, is the present. The present is the bridge to the memories of the past and the hopes of the future. (speaking in foreign language) Now with all of this digression, if you will, philosophical background, the sinner who wants to do chuva, now let's get back to our topic. He is thinking about the (speaking in foreign language) He is thinking about the things in this past, and that's part of what defines him. His past experiences and memories of his past define him. And you cannot do to chuva without that. (speaking in foreign language) Regret for the past is the (speaking in foreign language) part of the essence of chuva. But it raises the question now. If my past memory is part of who I am, it's now defining me. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) But I want to regret that past, because I sinned in the past. So how can I regret the past while still maintaining who I am, my identity? (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) You could have people who, maybe it just happened to have one sin, but basically they're good people. Yeah, people who were repeating the same sin, or maybe even a wholesale sinful lifestyle. Five years, 10 years, 15 years. Serus Olavecic, I know a person who only did chuva after 75 years. But whatever the number is, if we're talking about a significant amount of time, it really raises a profound question. (speaking in foreign language) What will this person do when he looks backwards into the rear view mirror of his life? And visits, as it were, the years in which he was a (speaking in foreign language) or was a dishonest businessman, or stole, or whatever. (speaking in foreign language) As we just mentioned, the past experiences, the memories of those experiences is part of what makes a person, him or herself, that's part of our identity. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Oh, (speaking in foreign language) How should a person who wants to do chuva relate to the past, including obviously, specifically the past that he or she is now no longer proud of. And in fact, it regrets. How luckily you must regret those experiences or else there's no discussion of chuva. So how does that person, it's not just the sin? Now they're salvaging. And now we understand why he took that digression to have this little philosophical meditation on human experience and the relationship to the past and the future. Because the upshot of all that for our purposes, even for the less philosophically inclined to help it and lose you. So let me get you back now. The bottom line was, our memories of the past experiences are part of the definition of who we are. So if I wanted to chuva, it raises a deep question, aside from all the obvious questions and challenges of chuva. But a deeper philosophical question, how do I relate to my past? It's not just a question, how do I relate to my past. It's how do I define myself if that past is part of who I am? Is there some way to live with that past and still to chuva? Or does chuva require me to, so to speak, erase and obliterate my past? That is the question that he sets out to answer in this piece. And our salvaging is basically going to answer, as I already kind of foreshadowed in the title of the piece, that there are two different answers to the question, because there are two different approaches that one can take. The first one, so there's a lot of HJQ in the middle of page 171. Hijvadam Mohhek, Shanim Mehayav. There are some people who take the approach, they are going to totally wipe away, to erase certain years of their life. (speaking in foreign language) So there's a lot of HJQ, we have a Marshall for this. It's well known that sometimes people who spend many years in jail, when they come out of jail, the only way they can go on with their life is to totally have a kind of self-induced amnesia. They want to completely forget about that part of their life. They need to write out those years of their life. (speaking in foreign language) They completely erase it from their past. (speaking in foreign language) This is what saluted to, where the post-it tells us, embrace us. (speaking in foreign language) That the Butler, (speaking in foreign language) didn't remember Yosef, and he forgot him. You all recall that Yosef had said to the Butler before he went free. Please remember me when you meet Paro, and he forgot. Why did he forget? What is this consequence? Was it just laziness? Was it antisemitism? (speaking in foreign language) It could be a deeper, but simpler answer. When the Sarmashim got out of jail, the one thing he wanted to do, more than anything, was completely forget. All of his memories, all of his past, all of those experiences. The melee he also forgot about Yosef, but not because he wanted to forget about Yosef, deliberately or otherwise, because he wanted to completely distance himself from his whole memory of being a jail. That's why he forgot Yosef. (speaking in foreign language) It's possible to do this. When you do Chula, just like we see someone who leaves prison, for example, can sort of speak "erase" and remove certain years and memories from his life or her life. And therefore, a person who was not in a physical prison, but may look at their past years of sinfulness and say, "I was in a spiritual prison, and I want to completely free myself from that, and I have to erase those bad memories, a person can do that. That is one approach to Chishulah, but one has to realize that Arsalvijic that if you do it, and it's legitimate, and it may even be admirable for people who need to do it. But if you do it, Arsalvijic, you're not just wiping away and erasing the specific sins that happen in the past. You can't separate. It's all or nothing. If you wipe away those years, those experiences, you're wiping away everything that happened during those years, you are cutting away part of your personality, part of yourself. You are, so to speak, making yourself smaller in a sense, that the bigger you, who's 40 years old, 50 years old, 20 years old, whatever it is, if you want to erase those years, whether it's your college years, your high school years, or this year, whatever years we're talking about, you can't just say, "Oh yeah, because the Chishol Shabbos of those years, the stealing of those years, the dishonency of those years, no, if you erase, you're erasing everything, and it says Arsalvijic to, you know, with great, the profundity, but quite obviously, the Tuachka'se, if you do that kind of surgery on yourself, Anodavarkal, that is not an easy thing. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) It's not an easy thing to just wipe away a third, a half, or even three quarters, God forbid, of a person's life. But if it's not easy, what's the alternative? (speaking in foreign language) A person wants to do Chuva. What am I supposed to do? I have to regret the past. That's part of the Holocaust of Chuva. Am I supposed to forget the past completely? Obliterated? What do I do? And Arsalvijic, came over to page 172. There were great thinkers, including Nietzsche and Spinoza, who could not resolve this question, and therefore, they reject the possibility of Chuva. They were co-fair in the possibility of Chuva. But that's not the Jewish approach. The Jewish approach is, yes, it is possible. And for this, we look not only to the Rambam, but also to Tanach. The Rambam, there are salvijic quotes, is in Perkebe's, "Hala Khadallad of Chuva" a very well-known piece. (speaking in foreign language) A person who's really sincerely regretful and wants to do Chuva, has to be crying out to God. (speaking in foreign language) He completely distanced himself very far distance from that sin. And in a certain sense, even has to change his name. As if to say, (speaking in foreign language) I am not the same person. (speaking in foreign language) I'm not the same person who did such and such sins. Wow. (speaking in foreign language) What is the Rambam telling us? It's extreme. But that is what the Rambam's saying. It's possible. And it is effective. A person can be Chuva. When they do Chuva, they can be a 70-year-old man or woman. And they can, in one moment, (speaking in foreign language) They can wipe away all of their past. (speaking in foreign language) And all of a sudden they're a little baby. And again, so to speak. (speaking in foreign language) I've seen this happen. (speaking in foreign language) And to be honest, (speaking in foreign language) There are consequences. The positive of this is it's effective. And you can do incredible to Chuva that way. On the other hand, (speaking in foreign language) You're basically inducing in amnesia. It's almost if you prefer a slightly different metaphor. It's an amputation. Not of a leg, not of a limb, but an amputation of something just as real and maybe even more important. Of a part of who you are. If you want to, so to speak, forget and erase all those years when you, all those experiences of sin. And the only way you could do that is by erasing. You can't, sometimes, you know, you can dissect the tumor itself. Just remove that. But an amputation means it was too intertwined. And you have to take off the whole leg. There's a lot of good net leg. You don't want to lose a leg. But you have no choice. And even though it might be the right decision, a person is less than they were beforehand when they don't have a leg or an arm, etc. There's a lot of itchic. If you, so to speak, amputate part of your personality. You amputate some of your memories, some of your years of your life, because you want to regret the sins that you did during that period of your life. It's effective. It's a part of Chuva. But it comes at a cost. Because it impacts you. You're not the same person anymore. And so there's a lot of itchic. Sometimes, and he says, there's a lot of itchic. I've seen this. People who do that. Nasu muzareem. Vizareem le mishpahatam vididiham. When they do this, they really change who they are to the point that they can appear strange and different, even to their closest friends and family members. And it can really affect a person. You know, you thought you knew a person. It's one thing that, you know, maybe they didn't keep shopping, now they keep shopping. You know, that just, you know, maybe on a superficial level, that's a lifestyle change that you're not familiar with. But our person totally changes their personality. So then, even people who knew them the best, who love them the most, don't fully recognize them anymore. They might, on the outside, look the same. But they're really not the same person, and the people who knew them the best can tell that. I think if we think about that, some of us may see ourselves in this description, or certainly see people we know. Certain Bali Chuva, God bless them, wonderful people. But they're not the same person that they were beforehand. And sometimes it's all good, but not always. But yet this is a legitimate thing. And I think part of what makes this part of our solubetric piece, so poignant to me, is that on the one hand, he's totally legitimating this. It's real. It's legitimate. It's effective. We saw it in the Ram-Bam, or a solubetric system, the next paragraph. This is the story of Avin Ravinu. When we were told La Chuva, when we had to rip himself away, Karatsma, Laganriman Avar, Avram totally separated himself at the age of 43 from his entire family, his entire past. And he completely separated himself from it. So it's possible Avram did it. The Ram-Bam described it. And it should be admired. First person who has the courage to do it, and it's effective as a form of Chuva. But at the same time, a solubetric even as he sang that, can also have the awareness and the honesty to admit, that it comes at a price. It may be effective and legitimate, but it's not necessarily ideal, given that it can carry with it a painful price. Before we switch to the second type of alternate option for Chuva, a solubetric points out a beautiful diook in the Ram-Bam, which I think really strengthens his insight, that the Ram-Bam is describing this process. The same Ram-Bam, which we read previously, but let's not reread it more carefully. When the Ram-Bam says how a person can totally change who they were, as if they changed their name, then the Ram-Bam says, "A person in essence can say, 'M-E-S-S-A-Nui-Lith-Namakom.' Yesterday, last night, this person was hated by God, so to speak. Mushukats was dirty, it was sullied. Murukak was distant from God. Toyvan abomination. And Hayom, and yet today, after doing Chuva, who Ahuv, Vanechmad, Kaurov, Viedid, this same person is now beloved and close, and a deep, cherished friend of God. Now, this is incredibly powerful poetic and famous language of the Ram-Bam that described the power of Teshuva, how the same person who was disgusting in the eyes of God, one day, the very next day, can be beloved by God. That's the power of Teshuva. However, says Rifsallvaychik, all true. But note the shift in a language. When the Ram-Bam describes this person thinking about yesterday, when he or she was disgusting and hated by God, because of their sinful actions, the Ram-Bam refers to that person as Emesh Hayah-Zeh, in the third person, almost objectifying. This person, this was hated. But in the second half of the sentence, when the Ram was talking about it, who the person is now that they did the Teshuva, it's who is who? He himself, Ahuv, Nakhmad, Kaurov, Viedid. It switches from Zeh in the first half of the sentence to who in the second half. Why this change to Teshuva, Viedid. Perfectly consistent with what we were saying until now. Because a person who does this kind of Teshuva, when he's standing on, just to make it simple, when he's standing on Monday, having done this Teshuva, he looks at himself. Who? Or he? Herself. When they think about who they were yesterday before the Teshuva, it's not me, but different. It's Zeh. It's as if I'm looking at a different person. I'm looking at a caricature or a cartoon figure that may look like me, have the same eyes, it's me, the same hair as me. But it's not me. That was Zeh. Now I am who. And again, this is effective and powerful, but it comes at a price. Because you no longer truly identify with your past self. Now you're doing that maybe for good reasons, because you regret the sins you did in the past. But it comes at a cost, a steep price even, because you're not truly the same person you were. You're not identifying completely with who you were in the past. And even though there may be a good reason for that, because there were some bad things in the past, you can't selectively wipe away just the bad, serve salvechik. The person who takes this approach to Chuvah, in essence is wiping away everything, and it really will impact who they are, their personality, and it could even therefore impact relationships. Set another way of salvechik says, the options of Tushuvah that stand before us present us with the following question, which serves as the fork in our spiritual road. Hachaylahi page 173. "I'm not Tushuvah, he have shayl he have sake." Is Chuvah something that's continuous and a kind of continuity in my life, but an elevated continuity? Or is it an interruption? "In whom the tiamatet of our, om of a tellerotho, is Chuvah a way of continuing and uplifting and maintaining the past, or is it canceling and neutralizing the past? All of that depends on what type of Tushuvah. Until now, we've been seeing a certain kind, a specific kind of Tushuvah. What's that? What is that? What type of Tushuvah, which is a hef-sake, interrupt, cancel, hard reset, amnesia, amputation, or whatever you'd like, destroying the past. However, and we've seen that it's effective, it's legitimate, it's certainly admirable, but it also is less than ideal because it comes at a price. However, if we turn the page, page 174, et cetera, salivacechik, that is all only one way. (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) Until now, we've been talking about obliterating the bad, which also, unfortunately, has a collateral damage of obliterating our past. But there's another way that doesn't obliterate or destroy anything, rather it elevates or redeems our past. We don't have to interrupt, or cancel, or destroy our past or our memories. Rather, this is a type of Chuvah, with which and through which, a person is able to (speaks in foreign language) he can remain identifying with his avar. (speaks in foreign language) again, to be clear, salivacechik is not talking about a person who looks back wistfully, fondly, and so happily with all my memories. Oh, it was so great when I was younger, and I did all these sinful things. Okay, maybe I'm different now, but I have great memories of my past sinful ways. I can understand that on a human level, I really can, but it's not Chuvah. Chuvah means you have to regret the past. That is definitional. But salivacechik, there can be a form of Chuvah, which does regret the past, but doesn't deny it, doesn't seek to cover it up, to obliterate it, to cut it away, to send it down to the road of Amnesia. There's a way of regretting the past, and yet still living with it, in a way that elevates it. Our salivacechik uses as a kind of metaphor for the importance of trying to find this second way, and not destroying the past, from the Pozok in the Varan Parachav, that talks about if a siege was made by a Jewish army and on a city, even as they do certain things that they need for themselves, doing things to deprive the enemy of resources, there's a halakha that you're not allowed to cut down a fruit tree, baltashras. That's the source for the halakha baltashras. I'm not wasting food unnecessarily. So salivacechik, if you see the Torah cares about not wasting food, and fruit trees, and not destroying them for no reason, Kavhomer, all the more so, we should try to avoid, and certainly not do it without serious and heavy thought, wiping away or cutting away years of our life. We shouldn't cut away a tree, we shouldn't cut away years of our life. The question is, how can we do that? How can we regret the past, but still live with it? How can we truly regret our past, and do genuine serious chuva, and at the same time maintain our identity? How do we do that? So let's turn the page now to page 175 on the second half of the page. If you take the second approach as a salivacechik, het het, ein le schkowach, ein limchot, ein la schliech, limch tulat yam. Unlike the first approach that we saw, which looks at a person's past, and he or she says, "I need to forget the past, I need to wipe it away, I need to throw it, so to speak, to the bottom of the ocean." The second approach, this alternative approach, says on the contrary, lefhech, ein le schkowach, we need to remember it, because memory of the sins, The second motive to Shiva is not to forget the past, yes regret it, but not forget the past and so not obliterate it. I'd rather utilize it, use it as a catalyst as the engine or as a result of what he calls your anergea, the energy of the better, present and improved future. I've been using all sorts of Michelle them previously, but here I will turn to a baseball one, where in the middle of the playoffs, for those who know or care and certainly one of the hardest things we know in human sporting competition is to hit a baseball and to hit a baseball far requires not only that you swing at the right time and get the right part of the bat on the ball and you have to be strong and have a strong swing, but no matter how strong you are and no matter how well timed your swing is and how good your bat is, there's a limit to how far the ball can go if it came at you at a slow speed. The really huge far inspiring majestic towering home runs are because a person managed to hit the ball so hard and the ball was going a hundred miles an hour at him and by hitting the ball, not only hit the ball hard, but you then use all of that force and all of that speed that was coming at you and you turn it around and that same force is what carries the ball so far in the opposite direction. Setor salvechik, that's the second mode of tushuva. You're not obliterating the past, you're not forgetting the sin, you're using the memory of the sin as the energy, as the speed, as the fast ball, as the turbocharger for the tushuva itself. The memories of the sin, the regret of missed opportunity, looking back at my life at whatever stage and saying, you know, I really, I had it wrong then. I lived what I thought was a good life, but now I realize it wasn't as meaningful as it could have been. It might have been even worse than just not meaningful, maybe it was degenerative, degenerate. Maybe it was really shameful. My regret for the past, my regret for missed opportunities, that feeling of regret itself instead of burying it, if I can live with the regret, the regret itself can push me and impel me to be better than ever would have been without it. If I never had it, I couldn't be as good. If the fast ball was only 50 miles an hour, I couldn't hit it as far, but it was 100 miles an hour. If I have true regret and I can live with that every day, it's so to speak reminding me of my past mistakes and regret that itself will motivate me to be better than I ever could have been. He quotes on the top page 176, the story of none other than the same Rishlaqesh. Rishlaqesh was the author of our Kamarra that we started with. So Rishlaqesh was known to be one of the most famous Ballet Teshuvah in the period of the Gamarra, the period of Amurayim, and it's known that he was a highway bandit, a robber, a listing, until he had a chance to run in with Rabiokran, who was the greatest Amorra in Israel. And one thing led to another, and Rabiokran inspired him to the Shuvah, they became harussa's lifelong best friends, and brothers-in-law, and Rishlaqesh himself became one of the greatest Amorayim, having started off so modestly as a bandit. However, Riflavitchi here quotes on page 176, the opinion of Tostos, and Babmud Siyyadah Paedalid, who says that there's a piece that we don't always recognize and we don't always know about. That when Rishlaqesh was a bandit, that was not the first stage of his life. It was the second stage of his life. But before he was a bandit, Haya Tamir Khacham. He actually was not only a religious Jew, he was a scholar of some renown. The afterwards something happened, and he regretted it, he gave up his virtue, and he went as we would say O.T.D., he went off the Daraq, he left religion. And not that he just believed religion, he left decency completely and became a highway robber and a bandit. And it was only then that Rabiokran found him, inspired him to the Shuvah, and then we have the third stage of his life. So first of all, as a historical point, that's an incredible insight. But then says Khachos, that the Rishlaqesh, version number two, the Rishlaqesh, after he was a baltoshuvah and after he had been a robber, Haya Gadol, Yotar, Miyashir, Khodam, Khachosla says Rishlaqesh, version two, was greater than Rishlaqesh, number one. Hasbro, Salvechik, Haqaitza, how can it be? Harbismansch, Asak, Ballistu, the Varela, Yafla, Motora, all those years he was a highway robber, to put it mildly. He wasn't exactly learning Torah. So he took a huge break in time. I don't know how many years he was a listing. Maybe if someone knows they could tell me, I don't know the answer. But for a huge brock of his life, in the middle of his life, he was a robber, he certainly wasn't learning Torah. So just taking the pause from learning, usually would set you back tremendously, it's hard to get back into things, let alone to be the same and impossible to imagine be greater if you took a huge break from learning. And number two is he lived a totally terrible degenerate lifestyle, evil wicked lifestyle of being a murderer, excuse me, a robber. And yet somehow when he came back from that, he not only was able to become a good person, not only be able to get back to where he was beforehand, he was better than that. How could it be? What changed? What made him better the second time around? My Ephososo, Ata, Yo Teargadomimashayakkodem, what made him better than the first version of Rishlokish? Said it was Salavijek, only one thing and one thing only. The Sin. What? The Sin? The Sin is terrible. He was a robber. How's that good? But because of the way Rishlokish did Tushuvah, because the way he related to the Sin, the Sin itself was the jet fuel that propelled him to even greater heights than he ever had been. Because Rishlokish was the second model of Tushuvah, Rishlokish didn't forget about his past years as a robber, he didn't obliterate them from his memory, he didn't induce amnesia, he didn't amputate their tears of his life. Rishlokish lived with his past, he regretted it, but he kept it front and center in his mind, in his memory, and in his soul. He remembered his past, he lived with his past, and he used the past as the motivation to be better in the present. The type of Balschuvah that Rishlokish models for us did not forget his past. Lolut losh atadapim shalakhate, he did not uproot or remove the pages of Sin from the book of his life. He gathered davkah when Adam was away specifically to remember the Sin and to use that as the water to help grow, the seeds to grow, a better present, and a better future. He used the memory of the past sins, losh atadameshboh, kiddalahagabir, bikir bohat, ohs, hagagu even lookadusha, hapartim bikir bohm. His longing for holiness, his supreme motivation to be the best person he could be, all of that was fueled by his memory, not his forgetting of his past, not his amputating of his past years, but davkah living with those memories in that regret, that motivated him to be better than he would have been otherwise. And that's how he became even better than he was the first time, incredible, incredible insight. Now, if we think about this, we know this can be true in many areas of life. Well, how do you look at these sports? It could be a doctor who got forbid once lost a patient. It could be a lawyer who once lost a big case, maybe you had a client who you really knew was innocent and unfortunately you lost the case. So some people could be crushed by these kind of defeats and other people, the way they deal with it so they don't get crushed is they just, they erase it from their memory. They can't think about it anymore, it's too painful, but an even better and even healthier and an even more productive way if one can do it and not everyone can. But if a person could do it, even better and more productive and more powerful would be to constantly remember it, if not literally, then maybe figuratively, have a post-it note up on your mirror that you see it every morning, every day when you get dressed, reminding you of that past failure because the memory of the past failure is what can motivate you to never repeat that mistake again, to become the best doctor, the best lawyer, the best whatever you could be. So I think this phenomenon, if a person could do it and it's not easy for sure, it's not easy. A person, we see this phenomenon and this idea, this dynamic and other areas of life, et cetera solvacic, is true when it comes to Teshuvah as well. A person can either obliterate the past and that's, again, it's legitimate and it's admirable, right? There's a third option, which is you just say, "What could I do? I sinned. It's too late for me. I can't make up for the past and you just stay mired and sin." That's the worst option. So this second option is far better than the first and that is to obliterate the past. I can't live with my past, okay, then erase it, it comes at a price, but it's still admirable and it's still effective, but the third option, not stay mired in my past, not obliterating my past, but elevating it, using it as the motivation and so to speak, the jet fuel as the power to help a better future, that is certainly the ideal. And Cesare solvacic, and what this will conclude on top of age 177, now we can go back to the Gomara we started with. L'Orsa, you've knew Leno Ata de Beresh-Lakish, and again, it's so powerful that who was the author of this statement about Teshuvah that we started with, none other than Reresh-Lakish, who not only was one of the most famous Bali Chuvah in history, but now based on what we saw from Tosto a few minutes ago, he is a model of one of these two approaches to Teshuvah. The first thing Reresh-Lakish said was, yes, sometimes you can do the type of Chuvah, which is donos, becomes shkugos, we take something that was a terrible of era, and we take away the consequences. It wasn't as if you did it on purpose anymore, it was just an accident. You know, it wasn't really a sin, it was just an accident. Cesare solvacic, despite the fact that the Gomara says on a simple level, that's Chuvah Mira. On a deeper level, what does that mean, Mira? The Dubar Khan, but Chuvah Shell, Beur Hara. A person who is just consumed with that fear of his past or her past, that's the kind of person who will likely obliterate the past in their memories. They will erase the past, a hard reset, amputate those years of their life, induce a certain kind of amnesia, so they don't have to remember and live with the past memories. And that is effective and it's admirable. Chuvah Zumokhek itatavonot, it can erase the sins, but it's not going to be the source of something productive and positive. Eno mafrikha, Eno mafre, shum davar haddash, it's not seeding a more positive future, it's not blossoming to something better, it's not giving birth to something positive. Okay, but it's saving me. It's like a tourniquet. If I didn't change, I would just go into spiritual oblivion and then sometimes in order to save the body, I got to amputate the limb, I'm going to amputate those years of my life, I'm going to induce a certain amnesia, I'm going to forget it. That is a kind of Chuvah Mira, or of Salve Chikisang is Beur Hara. However, there is a third or alternate possibility, not just that I live in my past and I stay with my past and I sin like I always did because what could I do? And not that I ignore my past because I'm too scared of it and I obliterate it, I should say, and I erase it. But the ideal Cesar Salve Chik based on the Gamara is, has donot nasot kishka got, kilu lohayu, that's the middle level. But the highest level is the second thing that Gorgeslaki says. There's a donot becomes the Chuyot, hakavanala to Chuvah, shalalala rah. The kabana is, the Gamara is called that chua me ava, what does that mean chua me ava asa al sala al sala al sala al shik is the chuvah that can live with the past but elevate it. Chua zugu ramala lahadam shaasam it's wa biyatir o usvomat biyashar asaotan lifnesha kata. This type of person who can live with his past and use it as a motivation for a better future, then it's not just living, not just doing to chuvah and so to speak, cutting off the pain, cutting off the damage, dissecting it, removing it, obliterating it so it doesn't hurt anymore. It's much more than that. It's a type of chuvah which not only neutralizes the past, but uses the past as the motivation and as the raw material for a incredible and better future. Shiyil motturah kharat mimasha lama et alifneshaat, like Rishlokish, who learned Torah on a higher lover after he sinned, not just that he got back to where he was, not just that he got up off the mat. He was better than he ever had been if he hadn't fallen to begin with. What came for Rishlokish's ability? Shuvosh asa, it was because the type of chuvah that he did, Valyideh, Allah, Atara, Sheblistyut, Ha'vrulatov, Sheblimatara. If Rishlokish would have quote-unquote just merely done the first type of chuvah, he wouldn't have been a robber anymore, he could have been a good person, he could have even become a tama hakam, but he wouldn't have become a greater version of himself than he had been initially. The reason Rishlokish became not only a good and decent person after chuvah, but became an even better version, better than he had been before the sin, is not despite his sin, but because of the sin. Of course, Rishlokish and the Ramamah nobody would have prescribed and proscribed, I should say, and recommended Rishlokish sin, God forbid, but once a person has sin and fallen, and who among us hasn't, if we can take the Rishlokish approach of not ignoring and not even erasing, rather remembering, regretting, but remembering and holding those regretful memories and experiences close so they can constantly give us insight into our life, insight how we can be better, motivation to be better, then not only can we get back to where we were before the sin, the very sin and our relationship to it are regret, but are not ignoring it, not obliterating it, not denying it, that itself can make us even greater than we would have been. And that's the example I mentioned, it could have been the lawyer, the doctor, or whoever, or the athlete who doesn't forget his or her past failure, but uses that as a motivation to become better than they would have ever been, had they not had that painful failure. I will add that even though I've given a lot of different examples of medical type of things, you know, amputation or amnesia, et cetera, one thing that comes to mind as well as an example to just close out and illustrate this idea, could be if we talked about someone with an addiction, it would be a drug addict or an alcoholic, and we know that this is something terrible, one of the slant of a person suffers from this so hard to break free from the addiction, so hard to get off, you know, that destructive path to get on the wagon and to live a clean sober and healthy and productive life, very, very hard, recidivism is huge. But let's imagine two different drug addicts who were able to, or alcoholics who were able to come clean, one model would be a person who, as part of the recovery, can't have anything to do with alcohol, can't be near any of his or her old friends, can't be in social settings, where drinking is central, still not going to have even an occasional cup of wine, he or she knows themselves, I have to have a complete and clean break and never have anything to do with alcohol again, it's the only way I can stay clean and sober. Such a person is so admirable, it's so wonderful, and it was so hard and they deserve all the credit from being able to put their life together. And even though every now and then that might cause inconvenience and difficulty, he said, come on, what's one, you're sober many years, just have one drink of wine, you can be in this environment, go to this important business meeting, so what if it's in a restaurant or in a bar, it's okay, but you know what, if this person knows him or herself, that they will not be able to handle it, so what a courageous and incredible thing, extreme, yes, but courageous and extreme, courageous and admirable, to say this is what I need to do, I need to completely wipe away that past, I can have no connection to that past experience, it's the only way it can live a healthy, productive, present and future, wonderful, but you know what, could even be better than that, even more admirable, even more impressive, whatever the person is able to say, you know what, I'm never going to do it again, I regret it terribly, I never want to go back to that stuff, but because of my memories and my experiences and what I know about myself and addiction through my horrible painful experience, I'm going to use that to help others who are currently suffering, I'm going to become an addiction counselor, I'm going to become a 12 step counselor, I'm going to help people, advise people, talk to people and maybe I have to go into a bar and pull somebody out, maybe they have to do XYZ, who knows, but I'm not going to completely forget about and obliterate and induce an amnesia in myself about those past experiences, on the contrary, I'm going to use them to be able to do good for myself and for others that I wouldn't be able to do if I hadn't had those experiences, I am sure there are countless numbers of therapists who help people in addiction because they're trained to help, but they themselves were never an addict, and I assume there is some place you can get to where the addict could correctly say about that competent and caring therapist you don't understand, you don't understand, you weren't an addict, and they are right, but what if the therapist or the counselor or the friend wasn't an addict, but is in recovery, is able instead of ignoring and obliterating and denying his or her past, I'll be able to use that past to help himself and herself and to help other people because they actually can relate, that's incredible, that's not a criticism of the people who can't do that, you have to know yourself, some people, the only way to be healthy now is to complete distance themselves from the past, and there are other people who can, if you want to call it moderation versus extreme, that might be one way of putting it, but I think more precisely, it's not just about moderation versus extreme, but they have the personality, the inner fortitude, the makeup, whatever the reason is, but instead of needing to obliterate and erase the past, they can be successful, productive and healthy, and maybe even more successful by living with the past, by seeing that as very much a regretful part of my life, but yes, it was part of my life, and I even though I regret those mistakes, I've learned from them and I'm using them to be better, that is very ambitious, it's the highest level, so to solve a check, that's Chuvamiava, and that's on a more rational down-to-earth way, that's what Rachlakesh means when he says Chuval, it makes a veros into mitzvos, zadonos into zujos, I think a simple way of understanding this quamara, and maybe even the correct mystical way of reading a mara is I ate a cheeseburger, and I did Chuvamiava whenever years later, and now the cheeseburger turned into the carbon pesach, and it says if I ate the carbon pesach, the thing that wasn't a vera now itself became a mitzvah, it turned into a matzah, it's hard for me to understand that, but it's very hard for us to perhaps accept it, but that's a simple reading of the gamara, and that may be the mystical metaphysical way of reading the gamara, Rachlakesh takes a more logical or rational way of reading the gamara, and I think it's so compelling, zadonos nassas kazujos, my willful, terrible, rebellious transgressions themselves through tushuva can become zujos, can become merits, not that the cheeseburger magically turned into the carbon pesach, not that the drugs magically turned into something positive, of course not, what it means is that because I, the type of chuvah that I did, keeps my past close, keeps the memory of my past alive, I regret the past, I don't look back at it whistfully, oh, those were the days, that was some fun times, but you know now I'm an adult, and I'm a chore and I have kids so I can't live the wild and greatest lifestyle, that's not to chuvah, if you're just looking back with nostalgia at your sinful past, no I regret the past, and it was a mistake, I wish I would have known better, I wish I would have done better, but I don't deny it, I live with those memories, I keep those memories front and center, and those memories allow me to be better than I could be otherwise, as rechlakesh was better than he would have been had he not sinned, so in a certain sense the sin itself became a zujos, in the sense that the sin is the catalyst for greater improvement in greater contribution and greater success and productivity, in that sense, not that magically the sin turned into a mitzvah, but when we look back on the big picture of his or her life, and we see such incredible positivity in the present, such incredible continued and ongoing success in the future, if we can correctly and accurately point to the mistake, the sin as part of the key ingredients, part of the catalysts for the continued success in the present and the future, then in a very real way the sin, despite being a sin, but the sin is also a zujos, in the sense that I'm better than I ever would have been had not been for the sin, the sin itself may be better than I would have been if I hadn't sinned, so it's still a sin, it didn't actually transform into a mitzvah, it's a sin, that's why I had to do a chuva for it, but in the scheme of things after I did chuva, in some sense it is a key ingredient in contributor to the better person that I am now, in that sense it can truly be a Swiss, so these are the two models that are salvaging describes be rah rah and a la harah, destroying obliterating or erasing the past or elevating, transforming and redeeming the past, two different models I stressed as our salvaging did, both legitimate and both effective and both courageous and both heroic, halavai, halavai we should be about chuva of any level, and yet it's still important to understand the differences between the two, the cost associated with the first, if you erase the memories of your sin, it's only the sin that gets erased, a part of yourself becomes erased, alternatively there are advantages to the second idea, it can help you not only stay who you are, it could simply be the same person, just a better person, but only that it can help you not only stay personality wise the same, potentially if you keep the past alive regretting it, but keeping it alive not obliterating it, the past itself can be the fuel to an even greater, present and future, so two different models, both legitimate, both admirable, but one, what it's called in the gamartula miyava, a salavitcha calls, elevating the past, being even more ambitious, more effective and truly incredible, wishing everyone a gamarka siamatova, an easy and a meaningful fast, and halavaya halavaya we should be zocha to become balitruva in any sense of the word, and halavaya halavaya in the ideal sense of the word.
