Parashat Nitzavim: Repentance - The Astounding Statement of Resh Lakish

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September 26 2008
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Parashat Nitzavim: Repentance: The Astounding Statement of Resh Lakish
Deuteronomy30: 1-5, the biblical locus classicus of repentance, goes as follows:


    When all these things befall you- the blessing and the curse that I have set before you- and you take them to heart amidst the various nations to which the L-rd your God has banished you, and you return to the L-rd your God, and you and your children heed His command with all your heart and soul, just as I enjoin upon you this day, then the L-rd your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from all the peoples where the L-rd your God has scattered you. Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the L-rd your God will gather you, from there he will fetch you. And the L-rd your God will bring you to the land which your fathers occupied, and you shall occupy it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers.


Perhaps the most difficult Talmudic statement regarding teshuvah is one version of a statement ascribed in the Gemara (Yoma 86b) to R. Shimon ben Lakish, popularly known as Resh Lakish.


    Resh Lakish said, “Great is repentance, for because of it premeditated sins are accounted as errors, as it is said: Return O Israel, unto the L-rd your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. (Hosea 14:2). Iniquity is premeditated, and yet he calls it “stumbling.”

    But this is not so! For Resh Lakish said that repentance is so great that premeditated sins are accounted as though they were merits, as it is said, And when the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful
    and right, he shall live thereby
    (Ezekiel 33:19).

    There is no contradiction: One refers to a case (of repentance) derived from love, the other to one due to fear.


One version of the statement is that following teshuva, one’s sins are considered (presumably, by God) as if they had been committed unintentionally. The second version declares that they are considered to be mitzvoth. The Gemara proceeds to claim that both versions might be considered correct: the first statement refers to

one who has repented out of fear (then, his demerits still stand, but only as unintentional ones, and thus much less, if at all, deserving of punishment). The second statement refers to someone who had repented out of love. In that second case, his demerits turn into merits, into mitzvoth!!


The second version of Resh Lakish seems impossible to fathom. Granted that as an article of Jewish belief (though not one of thirteen principles of Maimonides!!), teshuvah “wipes away” one’s sins. That fits with the first version of Resh Lakish. Moreover, one can certainly fathom that after he realizes the error of his ways; he can spur himself on and return to an even better state than the one he was in before his sin. But how can the averah itself turn into a mitzvah? Moreover, this seems to put at a disadvantage someone who never sinned in the first place, which makes (from an ethical point of view) the whole proposition unfair!


Before discussing the explanation of Rav Soloveitchik, z”l, of the matter, I think it is important to put this statement of Resh Lakish in a broader context. Certainly, not only the first version of Resh Lakish, but the unarticulated assumptions of numerous other Talmudic passages do not imply the second version of Resh Lakish at all. It is by no means “normative Jewish theology” to necessarily assume the second version of his statement. We do know that it is a mitzvah to repent: even if the truth would be
according to the first version of Resh Lakish, or according to the numerous Talmudic passages that do not make the audacious claim that one’s demerits after repentance turn into merits. After all is said and done, the second version of Resh Lakish remains an incredibly difficult remark.


In the Guide of the Perplexed, the Rambam’s comments concerning repentance can be understood according to this more limited notion of what repentance achieves.


    It is manifest that repentance also belongs to this class, I mean to the opinions without the belief in which the existence of individuals professing a law cannot be well
    ordered. For an individual cannot but sin and err, either through ignorance- by professing an opinion or a moral quality that is not preferable in truth-or else because he is overcome by desire or anger. If t hen the individual believed that this fracture can never be remedied, he would persist in his error and sometimes perhaps disobey even more because of the fact that no stratagem remains at his disposal. If, however, he believes in repentance, he can correct himself and return to a better and more perfect state than the one he was in before he sinned. For this reason there are many actions that are meant to establish this correct and very useful opinion, I mean the confessions, the sacrifices in expiation of negligence and also of certain sins committed intentionally, and the fasts. The general characteristic of repentance from any sin consists in one’s being divested of it. And this is the purpose of this opinion. Thus the utility of all these things is become manifest. (Guide, III:36, Pines ed., p. 540)


On the other hand, those who take all the words of Hazal seriously possess a moral obligation to give their words a coherent meaning and to place them, if possible, into some kind of conceptual substructure. Thus, it is indeed appropriate to try to find some meaning that we can understand for the second version of Resh Lakish as well. This leads us to the explanation of the Rav.


(Although numerous articles detailing the Rav’s approach exist, I will cite both the formulations and the ideas found in Yitzchak Blau, “Creative Repentance: On Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Concept of Teshuva ,” Tradition 28:2 [Winter 1994], pp. 11-18, for what follows.)


The Rav rejects the notion that according to this view, if a person repents,
God “magically” transforms one’s ‘averot into mitzvoth (which is indeed how many authorities understood this notion!). The Rav apparently felt that according to that view, the role of the human being is too passive. On the contrary, he understood that Resh Lakish’s second version expresses the remarkable notion that man himself accomplishes this transformation. How does he do it?


The Rav examined how an individual who has done teshuvah relates to his previous condition. There are two possible reactions. One can simply cut oneself off from it, considering that someone else had committed the misdeeds. Alternatively, the penitent does not erase the past, but remembers the sins with a sense of regret. Knowledge of his sins becomes a motivating factor to perform better in the future, to make up for the time wasted.


These two alternatives fit with the two versions of Resh Lakish. People who react in the first way are themselves treating their previous voluntary misdeeds as unintentional ones. (One might add that halakhically, what defines an unintentional misdeed is the existence of a ma‘aseh ‘averah, a heinous act, without the retzon ha-gavra, the will to violate the law. By now proclaiming, “from a moral point of view, I am now not the same man that committed those previous sins,”
one is detaching his ratzon from the sin. Without the will, the sin that had previously been defined as a willful misdeed is now merely a mechanical act, and is tantamount to an involuntary act produced by that person.)


According to the second way, one who continues to relate to his previous sins turns his memories of his sins into a positive force. Here the Rav utilized and built upon the ideas of the philosopher Max Scheler. (See “Repentance and Rebirth,” in On the Eternal in Man (translated by Bernard Noble, London, 1960), pp. 33-65. Scheler understood that memory and anticipation are essential parts of the human psyche.
He writes, “We are not merely the disposers of our future; there is no part of our past life which…might not be genuinely altered in its meaning and worth.... (p.40)” Every moment of our lives contains the past, present and future.
Hence, we can change that part of ourselves now that is connected to the past! Since the significance of our acts in our consciousness depends upon how we relate to them, if a penitent now channels the very energy that caused him to sin in the past into a positive orientation , he indeed is able to turn his “misdeeds” into “ merits.” Resh Lakish’s statement is now understood not as a metaphysical statement, but as an expression of the will of a human being to recreate himself can accomplish.


Resh Lakish’s statement, at the end of the day, should not, however, obscure the fact that it is God who forgives us. Hence, it may be appropriate to end this piece with a citation of R. Akiba’s homily on Teshuvah.


R. Akiba said: Happy are You, Israel! Who is it before whom you become clean? And Who is it that makes you clean? Your Father in heaven, as it is said, “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean (Ezekiel 36:25).” And it further says, “Hope of Israel (miqveh), the L-rd (Jeremiah17:13) (The Hebrew word miqveh is a homonym meaning both fountain {=ritual bath} and hope.)
Just as the fountain renders the unclean clean, so does the Holy One Blessed be He, render (the people of) Israel clean. (Yoma 85b)








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