Imagine you’re sitting in the synagogue, or at some event, and a fellow in your row needs to leave. He stands up and passes your seat. There’s plenty of room in front of you for him to pass, but in his carelessness, he accidentally steps on your foot. He politely apologizes, and then continues along his way.
A few minutes later, he comes back. Once again, as he passes by your seat, he steps on your foot. And once again, he apologizes.
If you’re a very nice person, you probably won’t say anything, despite your clear displeasure with this guy’s repeated carelessness that is causing your foot to hurt.
But when this fellow stands up to leave a while later, and, for the third time, steps on your foot and apologizes, even if you’re an exceptionally nice, patient and forgiving individual, you are not likely to remain silent – or, for that matter, to remain nice, patient or forgiving…
But Gd does.
“Abundant” Forgiveness
Three times every weekday, we recite in the Amidah prayer a special request for forgiveness, which concludes, “Baruch Ata Hashem, hanun hamarbeh lislo’ah – Blessed are You, O Gd, the gracious One who forgives abundantly.” Gd is not just forgiving; He is “marbeh lislo’ah” – “abundantly forgiving.” He is willing to forgive repeatedly. No matter how many times we “step on His toes,” so-to-speak. As long as we are sincere in our repentance, He forgives each and every time.
There is a basic truth that we must never overlook – the yetzer hara (evil inclination) doesn’t go away just because we sincerely regretted what we’ve done and asked Gd to forgive us. The fact that we’ve performed sincere teshuvah (repentance) does not magically eliminate our weaknesses and temptations. So, if we repeat the same mistake even after repenting, this does not invalidate our initial teshuvah – provided, of course, that our teshuvah was real and genuine, and not mere lip service. And just as Gd lovingly accepts our sincere repentance the first time, He lovingly accepts our sincere repentance the second time, and the third. As our Creator, He knows even better than we do that change does not happen instantaneously, that growth is a gradual process, that bad habits take time to break, that the spiritual challenges we face are real, that we really are struggling to do the right thing and to avoid wrongdoing. And so, He is “marbeh lisloah,” forgiving us “abundantly” while patiently waiting for us to make the permanent changes that we ought to make.
The “Tzadik” and the “Rasha”
For most readers, I imagine, the point we just made is not new. This is something that most of us have learned and heard, probably numerous times, especially during this season of the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays). But here is something which, I believe, is not said often enough: The recognition of this idea marks the fundamental difference between a tzadik (righteous person) and a rasha (sinful person).
Too many people have a grave misconception about who a tzadik is, and what being a tzadik means. They think that a tzadik is somebody who was born with a uniquely spiritual DNA, who is naturally wired differently, with an instinctive drive to act righteously and avoid sin. They view a tzadik as somebody who is all but incapable of mistakes and failures, and who therefore always gets it right.
This might be how some biographies of great sages depict them, but this is not how King Shlomo depicts them. In the Book of Mishleh (24:16), King Shlomo tells us the secret to being a tzadik: “Ki sheva yipol tzadik vekam – For seven times does a righteous person fall and then rise.”
The tzadik isn’t somebody who never makes mistakes. He is somebody who makes mistakes and then gets back up. Who doesn’t feel discouraged after making a mistake. Who doesn’t feel that Gd hates him because of his mistakes. Who doesn’t conclude that his mistakes mean he can never be good again, or can never earn Gd’s favor again. Who sees a mistake as something to learn from, and not something to be ruined by. Who understands that Gd forgives the first time, the second time, the third time, and even the seventh time.
King Shlomo continues: “ursha’im yikashelu bera’ah – the wicked stumble through wrongdoing.” Whereas the righteous person gets up, the rasha (wicked person) allows his wrongdoing to keep him down permanently.
A rasha isn’t an inherently evil person. To the contrary, sinfulness often results from misguided piety. A person makes a mistake, perhaps several, and maybe repeats them, and is then overcome by feelings of shame. He decides that this mistake defines him and defines his future. That Gd is no longer interested in his mitzvot, no longer cares about him, and will no longer accept his prayers. He sees himself as a permanent failure, and so he doesn’t bother trying anymore.
Feeling so ashamed of one’s wrongdoing that he feels hopelessly rejected by Gd is not piety. It is a denial of the prayer text instituted by the great sages and prophets of the early Second Commonwealth: “Hamarbeh lislo’ah.”
This might strike many as counterintuitive, but it is true, and it is critically important. The person who feels confident and beloved by Hashem even after sinning is the tzadik. The person who feels despised by Hashem after sinning is the rasha. The tzadik responds to failure by getting back up and resolving to keep trying; the rasha responds to failure by giving up.
Repentance Out of Love
In a famous passage, the Gemara (Yoma 86b) makes an astounding remark about teshuvah.
It teaches that if one repents miyir’ah – out of fear, frightened that he will otherwise be punished for his misdeeds, then his repentance has the effect of transforming his intentional misdeeds into unintentional misdeeds, such that he is forgiven. But if a person repents me’ahavah – out of love, then his repentance goes even further – turning his misdeeds into sources of merit. Astonishing as it sounds, teshuvah has the ability to turn our sins into mitzvot – such that we are actually rewarded for our mistakes!
How exactly does one perform “teshuvah me’ahavah,” and how can this possibly bring reward for wrongdoing?
The answer might be rooted in our discussion above.
When we contemplate the great gift of teshuvah, and Gd’s boundless compassion, we cannot but be overcome by feelings of love for him. No technology will ever be created to enable us to travel back in time and change our past, yet this is what Hashem does. Even when we’ve acted wrongly, intentionally, knowing full well that we are violating His word, He is willing to make the act disappear from history. And He is willing to do so even the second time, and the third, and the fourth. How can we not love Gd after contemplating His unlimited kindness? When we reflect on our negative behaviors, on all our failings, and then think of how Hashem is prepared to “delete” it all – we are filled with feelings of love and a desire to draw close to Him.
It then turns out that our wrongdoing brought us close to Gd, it was the trigger that inspired us with love and drove us to seek to enhance our relationship with Him. And so Gd, in His infinite mercy, turns our sins into merits. If we use our sins as a catalyst to change, as a force that brings us closer to Gd, then they become sources of great merit for us.
This explains why, according to several leading sages, teshuvah me’ahavah enables one to earn atonement even for the most grievous sins. The Rambam delineates different categories of sins, and explains what is required to achieve atonement for each category. For certain misdeeds, one earns atonement immediately after repentance, whereas others require additional means of expiation. The gravest sins are those which cause a hillul Hashem (defamation of Gd), bringing shame to the Torah or to the Jewish People, and they can be atoned only through the combination of repentance, punishments and death. Some rabbis, however, maintain that this entire system applies only to repentance performed out of fear. When one repents me’ahavah, out of genuine love, he achieves complete atonement even for the severest misdeeds.
In light of what we have seen, we understand why. If a wrongful act becomes a catalyst for growth, then no matter how egregious the sin, it becomes a source of merit, not to mention that it is entirely forgiven.
There’s a saying in the business world: Every problem is an opportunity. A successful businessman knows that when some challenge arises, when he confronts a crisis that threatens to destroy the enterprise, this is often a precious opportunity for growth. The need to address the problem and adapt accordingly can end up catapulting the business to greater heights than it had reached before the crisis surfaced.
This is true also in the “business” of spirituality. Being a tzadik means viewing every setback and every failure as a golden opportunity to become even better than before, to draw even closer to Gd that one had been before the fall. If this is our response to failure, then we turn our failures into successes; our misdeeds become sources of merit.
May we all seize the precious opportunity presented by these special days to use the mistakes of our past to create a far more beautiful future for ourselves, our families, our community, and the entire Jewish Nation, amen.