The Gates of Repentance

Many tzaddikim (great and holy ones) like Rabbeinu Yonah seem to transcend space and time, and to speak to the ages. After all, they're divulging immortal truths rooted in Divine Will, and needn't concern themselves with whom they're addressing, or at what point in the continuum their readers live. Other times, though, they speak directly to their generation.

This week we find Rabbeinu Yonah expressing his disappointment in his contemporaries. It seems they'd slipped into spiritual mediocrity and insensitivity in particularly onerous ways. And they were being told just where they went wrong.

It seems, among other things, they were sometimes disingenuous, insensitive, impious, stingy, slanderous, hateful, haughty, and the like. And they were being advised as to how to get back on-course.

What proves to be most off-putting to those of us "overhearing" all this is that we find ourselves falling into the very same ruts, steering off-course the very same ways.

Who among us isn't sometimes disingenuous and can't quite be taken at his or her word? Who isn't insensitive to others' feelings? Who's always pious and never goes off the mark? Who's not stingy and ungiving from time to time? Who never takes comfort in citing others' faults? And who's never "full of himself"?

So, what's a person who's slipped into such patterns to do? Rabbeinu Yonah's advice both for his contemporaries and us is to keep a record of the day.

In point of fact, many people keep journals that cite the more prosaic or accomplished moments of the day. But the kind of record Rabbeinu Yonah seems to be talking about is closer to the diaries many of us kept when we were younger that listed our fears and triumphs, dreams and realizations.

We're advised to keep a sort of "state of the spirit" diary each day. One in which we'd recount just where we'd striven for spiritual excellence that day, and where we'd settled for mediocrity.

And to read from it from time to time in order to stay the course, and to allow for the deepening of the self that is teshuva (the process of returning to G-d).

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

We often delude ourselves, or at least misjudge ourselves. Yet in order to achieve true spiritual excellence we'd need to know who we are at any given moment, the circumstances we find ourselves in just then, and what effect we're having on others that very instant.

That's to say, we'd need to develop self-awareness and other-awareness. But on two levels: spiritually and materially. Let's explain.

In short, "spirit" is the heart of the matter, a thing's inner presence, its electric center. While "matter" is the full and wide range of things associated with that thing. In human terms that refers to a person's heart, soul, and intentions, as opposed to his or her circumstances and surroundings.

When we're self-aware on a *spiritual* level, we know our hearts, our souls, and our intentions. And when where other-aware, we're sensitive to others' heart, souls, and intentions.

When we're self-aware on a *material* level we're aware of our surroundings, the way we affect others, and how much our actions matter to the other person. And when we're other-aware on a material level we're aware of the other's surroundings, how he or she is affecting us, and how much what he or she is doing is affecting us.

But, again, we often misjudge ourselves and those around us-- both materially and spiritually-- simply because we're often not self- or other-aware.

As such, we very often undervalue the things we do, and forget the good intentions we have, and the kindly and sensitive ways we respond to others in many situations. And contrarily we oftentimes overvalue ourselves, and discount our untoward intentions, how often or to what extent we hurt others or lapse into wrongdoing.

Among the many things Mussar (Jewish ethics and values) teaches us is the art of self- and other-awareness. And it places great weight on those skills, in the belief that each one of us is ultimately reponsible for his or her spiritual station at each and every moment. As such, we'd need to be aware of what we have in mind, what we're feeling, and what effect we're having at any given moment if we're to do what's right.

Now we begin to understand the significance of Rabbeinu Yonah's statement here that "if you repeat a sin ten times over (for example) you're considered to have committed ten separate sins".

At first glance this seems to be as redundant as saying, "Do ten things wrong and you've done ten wrong things." But the truth behind this statement-- its spirit-- comes through once we understand it in light of what we said above.

Its point is that when a person is *oblivious* to self and others on both a spiritual and material level, he tends to look at things broadly and superficially. So if he happens to mock people insensitively, when pushed to own up to his faults he'd only claim to have one: he sometimes mocks people.

"Shoot me!" he'd say, "So I make fun of people sometimes!"

Rabbeinu Yonah's point is that if such a person were to somehow be moved to teshuva (i.e., to draw closer to G-d) he'd need to become self- and other-aware enough to realize that *each instance* of mocking someone was itself a sin. Everyone he'd mocked would have to be apologized to, for each incident. And that the converse is true as well-- each instance of *goodness* would itself be an incident of spiritual excellence.

If we're wise we, too, would be self- and other-aware enough to realize how shallow we sometimes are in our moral assessments.

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

Rabbeinu Yonah starts off by citing an enlightening verse from King Solomon's Book of Ecclesiastes. "There is no one on earth (so) righteous that (he only) does good and does not sin" (7:20). Which is to say that each of us-- even the righteous among us-- is capable of sin and spiritual mediocrity from time to time.

Now, the more sensitive among us know only too well our own foibles. After all, who among us could claim to be with G-d, to have the best of intentions, to do just what's right, etc. all the time?

Yet sadly enough, there are times when we actually *do* claim to be fully righteous. And it's usually just as we're about to err, just about to do something wrong. We call that "rationalization".

And it works like this. Tempted with the chance to do something less than uplifting, we take a quick check of the situation, factor in just how happy doing it would make us, then factor in what we just came up with to "prove" that it's perfectly alright to do it, "once you take into consideration that...", and we jump in, thrilled with both our righteousness *and* street-smarts. (Hopefully we soon start to think it over, regret what we did and how we rationalized it, and we draw close to G-d and the side of righteousness once again.)

So, we all go off, and it's only human. The difference, though, between us and the righteous is just this. While they too sin once in a while, as we saw, they become *stunned*, *repulsed* by what they did, and they take it upon themselves never to "fall for that again", if you will-- never to lapse into spiritual mediocrity again-- if they can help it. And they take steps to ensure that.

We, though, often don't react that way. For if you know your heart well enough you'll admit that there are certain known-- even fairly serious-- sins we just don't take all that seriously. That we sort of pick and chose our morals and ideals depending on circumstances, influences, mood, and on "political correctness".

(A quick aside. Ever wonder why nothing's deemed *morally* "correct" or "incorrect" anymore? Why just "politically" so? Assumedly because morals are *values*-based, which implies judgment-- which is itself "politically incorrect"; while politics is *power*-based, and never touches on values. Being "politically correct", then, allows one to be Machiavellian-effective without having to take morals and values into account.)

Nonetheless we're warned that not only would we need to *avoid* sin to achieve spiritual excellence. We'd also need to take the kinds of inner and outer *precautions* against sins that any good physician would have his or her patient take to prevent disease, or to prevent the worsening of an already-existing disease.

To do otherwise, we're told, is to be half-hearted in our search for spiritual excellence. For after all, once we commit ourselves to something as lofty as that, dare we fool ourselves into saying, "Well, I like this, but I don't like that?"

We'd do best to commit ourselves to spiritual excellence with the whole of our being the way anyone committed to any high ideal would.

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

Let's begin with a review. As you may recall, we contend that the first 9 paragraphs of "The Gates of Repentance" serve as the book's introduction, and we've thus far gone through nearly half of them.

What we've come to understand is that teshuva is a fundamental, G-d-given means of drawing closer and closer to G-d after having overlooked His presence by sinning, rather than mere "penitence" as it's usually understood.

We've seen that teshuva enables us to achieve our potential for spiritual excellence and to transcend ourselves (1:1); that it provides a sort of metaphysical "escape hatch" we'd be foolish not to take advantage of (1:2); that only an emotionally oblivious and alienated soul would overlook the great opportunity to draw close to G-d that teshuva is (1:3); and that a sensitive soul would be so moved to regret and sorrow after realizing he or she'd lapsed into spiritual mediocrity, that he or she would sit stunned, and would expend a lot of time and energy on reviewing errors of judgement, as w ell as at finding ways to draw closer to G-d right there and then, rather than later (1:4).

Our paragraph now touches upon a second reason not to delay in our quest for spiritual excellence.

It's based on this. Everyone remembers being a small child with a sense of honesty, fairness, and decency, and doing everything "right". For one reason or another, though, there came a point when we decided to take a friend's treat from him, to cheat at a game, to lie to a teacher, etc. and we somehow "got away with it". We either didn't get caught, or no one reported us. And we felt powerful. "This is great!" we probably thought, "Why didn't anybody think of this before?", we said in all naivete.

We continued being good people otherwise, all in all, and maintained a sense of honesty, fairness and decency. But somehow or another, we kept on cheating in little ways (and getting away with it).

Suppose there came a point when we were caught on tape doing wrong, the tape was then shown to us and we thus came face to face with our cheating, and it proved not to be a pretty sight.

We'd be humbled, shocked. "Is that me?" we'd ask. "Do I do that?"

After a while, a healing sense of remorse would arise, and we'd take ourselves aside to ask how we'd ever come to that.

"It just seemed OK" we might say. "It just seemed perfectly acceptable-- something I just kind of do."

What it comes down to, at bottom, is an insight our sages offered which Rabbeinu Yonah cites at this point in our text. That once you repeat an untoward act once or twice it starts to seem "alright" to you, and you do it again and again with aplomb (see Kiddushin 40A).

You develop a harmful pattern, as so many of us do.

But a person striving for personal excellence would want to avoid that for any number of reasons, not the least of which is because it's simply wrong. But also because of the following principle cited by Rabbeinu Yonah as well, which is rather shocking to a sensitive soul.

It's that when you develop such a pattern and do the same wrongful thing again and again without giving a thought, the next time you start to do it, but you get waylaid and don't do it-- you're nonetheless considered guilty of it anyway!

Why? Because a pattern's been established, that's become the way you do things, and that's that. And even if you don't manage to do it, you might as well have!

Rabbeinu Yonah's point is, then, that the sort of person who'd strive for spiritual excellence would want to avoid such a moral rut. He or she would thus do everything to not repeat a misdeed, and would try as soon as possible to do teshuva for the first incidence.

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

He starts off by delving into some of the stark and chilling reactions people might have to their own spiritual mediocrity, once they begin to truly strive for spiritual excellence. And he refers to *sighing*, *trembling*, *worrying*, and *crying* in reaction to it. We'll take this opportunity to introduce a theme that will come up again and again in our discussions: our reactions to *spiritual* issues as opposed to our reactions to *worldly* issues.

Now, some people would taken aback by such raw emotional responses like sighing, trembling, etc in the face of spiritual introspection. "After all," they're likely to say, "We're talking about religious issues... not anything that important!"

Yet if (G-d forbid) our career was crumbling, our marriage failing, or our health were being threatened we'd certainly find ourselves sighing, trembling, worrying, and crying, to say the least. Why? Because those sorts of things are clearly important to us all.

It's our contention that spiritual development and the drive to achieve spiritual excellence are certainly important, too. In fact, we contend they're even more important than those others *in the big picture*. And that the sensitive soul in search of spiritual excellence would likely think so, too.

Rabbi Yonah's point in this paragraph then, is that once such sensitive and striving souls would discover to their dismay that they'd lapsed into spiritual mediocrity, they'd surely *sigh*, *tremble*, *worry*, and *cry* in reaction to that.

And he points out that we'd surely never lapse into an instance of spiritually mediocrity *another time* if we'd sighed, trembled, worried, and cried about such a lapse *the first time*. For after all, anyone who'd gone through that once wouldn't want to go through it again!

At this juncture Rabbeinu Yonah goes somewhat into the dynamics of ill judgement. He explains just what would ever move a person to lapse into spiritual mediocrity in the first place.

It comes down to the fact that our all-too-human but decidedly earthy impulses are often swift and aggressive enough to overtake our better judgements. And after all, who among us *hasn't* been thrown into a tailspin by a "crazy impulse" to do something he or she regretted later on, in a more rational moment?

The solution? We're to "ask for advice how to grow in the fear of G-d" and how to "be alert to our impulses' assaults". That's to say, we're to study holy Mussar (ethical, spiritual) texts that divulge the secrets of great spiritual growth and excellence (i.e., "the fear of G-d"). And we're to read and know our own hearts well enough to know our own failings.

By Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

Last time, Rabbeinu Yonah revealed the great opportunity for spiritual excellence that teshuva (returning to G-d) really is. This time he describes the sorts of people who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity. And we find that there are two sorts.

The unlearned, whom Rabbeinu Yonah characterizes as "asleep, inert, and oblivious". And individuals "so alienated from G-d that they don't believe there are consequences to sinning", i.e., to spiritual mediocrity. He then indicates that their opposite is the righteous Torah scholar who's *also* liable to slip into spiritual mediocrity, but who's nonetheless sure to quickly do teshuva. All this calls for explanation.

First off, there's unlearned, and there's unlearned. Most of us are learned, which is to say, we're educated. But not all of us are scholars, nor are all us are analytical or used to doing research. So in a certain sense, very many of us could be said to relatively unlearned, or unscholarly.

But I dare say most of us aren't "asleep", which is to say, *unaware*. Most of us aren't "inert", which is to say, *dull and blunt*. And certainly very few of us are "oblivious", which is to say, *intellectually and emotionally comatose*. So it's easy to assume that we'd likely be open to teshuva if we knew enough about it and came to realize how important it was to our goal of becoming spiritually excellent.

Still and all oftentimes, the truth be known, we're *kind of* asleep, inert, and oblivious. And we overlook the chance to do teshuva.

Other times we catch ourselves being rather blase about the fact that our actions have "real world" consequences-- that they affect our very beings as well as others we love. Yet in our more sensitive moments we're certainly capable of acknowledging this. And we either sit stunned and immobilized with the realization of that; or we own up to our moral power, and use it for goodness from then on.

Rabbeinu Yonah's point seems to be that when we are in fact *unaware* of the effect we have on others (i.e., when we're "asleep"); when we're *dull and blunt* when it comes to other people's feelings (i.e., when we're "inert"); and when we're *intellectually and emotionally comatose* (i.e., when we're "oblivious")-- we're also *alienated from G-d*!

After all, our relationship to Him is said to mirror our relationship to others. Consequently, if we're emotionally and spiritually alienated from others, we're alienated from G-d too. And we'd be the sort of people who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity to draw close to G-d that teshuva is.

Quite a daunting thought!

What are we to do then? As Rabbeinu Yonah indicated, we're to become *learned*, i.e., we'd be wise to become serious, righteous students of Torah. For while they too are only human, and they too are liable to err, they invariably jump at the chance to do teshuva once they realize what they've done. For their Torah studies constantly remind them of teshuva's ultimate goals-- spiritual excellence and closeness to G-d.

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.

This week's paragraph of "The Gates of Repentance" cites a fascinating parable which reiterates just how great teshuva (returning to G-d) really is. After all, it serves as an *escape hatch* of sorts. Let's see how.

Our sages tell of a band of robbers who were thrown in prison by the king where they languished for a while till they dug an escape hatch and fled. One of them, though, decided not to escape. And when the jail keeper arrived and turned one way and caught sight of the escape hatch, then the other way and noticed the remaining prisoner, he said to him, "Fool! There's an escape hatch right before your eyes and you're not using it?" (Kohelet Rabbah 7:15)

Rabbeinu Yonah uses that story to make the point that we'd be fools not to take advantage of the "escape hatch" that teshuva is.

But let's examine this story a little more deeply.

Perhaps there's something to be said for the one remaining prisoner. After all, wasn't his an act of conscience? Isn't it likely to assume that he said to himself, "Sure I could escape with my friends, see my wife and kids again, and be a free man. But that would be wrong. After all, I stole, I was caught red-handed, I was wrong, and I deserve to be here! In fact, when the king himself hears of my altruism, he's bound to be pleased."

Rabbeinu Yonah's point, though, is apparently this.

When we're "spiritually mediocre" and we sin, we harm our own beings and others', and besmirch our reputations before G-d. Our own beings are harmed because we belittle our potential, others are harmed by what we've said or done to hurt or damage them, and our reputations are besmirched before G-d because He knows our spiritual potential and expects the very best of us.

Now, doing that sort of harm would seem to be a mortal error. It would only be logical to assume that anyone guilty of that would be landed into on the spot, excoriated, and left undone.

But no. There's always an "escape hatch". There's always the great and magnanimous second chance that is teshuva.

In fact, how many of us get a second chance in life, after all? Who wouldn't simply love to go back to the past to take back harmful words, to take an exam over again, to buy a certain stock, to ask an important question of someone we trusted, etc., etc.? And yet G-d Almighty gives us all second chances *on a very deep and holy level that's far removed from time and space* to undo errors and make right what had been wrong. That metaphysical, transcendent escape hatch or second chance, which allows us to redo the past and alter the future, is teshuva.

With this all in mind we can better understand Rabbeinu Yonah's remarks that you'd pay a higher emotional, spiritual price by *continuing* to harm yourself and others, and *not* doing teshuva when you knew it was available to you.

After all, is there anything more audacious and mean-spirited than hurting someone, knowing you could easily make amends-- and not doing so?

Excellence, Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Project Genesis, Inc.

For any comments, questions or topic requests, please contact Rabbi Yaakov Feldman.

Subscribe to Spiritual Excellence and receive the class via E-mail.

Join the Jewish Learning Revolution! Torah.org: The Judaism Site brings this and a host of other classes to you every week.

Visit Torah.org or email learn@torah.org to get your own free copy of this mailing.

Need to change or stop your subscription? Please visit Torah.org's subscription center, http://torah.org/subscribe/ -- see the links on that page.

Text Copyright © 2007 by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld and Torah.org.