Gateways of Repentance
Rabbi Aryeh Citron
Parsha Halacha
Parshat Ki Tetzeh
Sponsored in honor of Maimon Chaim Abraham Behar upon his Bar Mitzvah. May he grow to be great on Torah, mitzvot and yirat shamayim and be a source of nachat for his parents, family and Klal Yisrael.
Gateways to Repentance
The Beautiful Woman
The Torah portion of Ki Tetzeh begins with the law of the eshet yefat toar – the beautiful woman.[1] This enigmatic law permits a Jewish soldier to take a gentile woman while on the battlefield provided that he then brings her home with the intention of converting and marrying her.[2] In the Torah’s words:
“If you go out to war against your enemies, and the L-rd, your G-d, will deliver him into your hands, and you take his (the enemies) captives, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her, you may take her for yourself as a wife. You shall bring her into your home, and she shall shave her head and let her nails grow. And she shall remove the garment of her captivity from herself, and stay in your house, and weep for her father and her mother for a full month. After that, you may come to her and have a relationship with her, and she will be a wife for you.”
The Inner Meaning
The Ohr HaChayim[3] interprets this law as an example of each person’s battle with his evil inclination or yetzer hara.
· “If you go out to war” is referring to the descent of each person from the Supernal realms to this world. He must be prepared to use great strength in battling the war with his evil inclination.[4]
· “Against your enemies” One should realize that his yetzer hara (evil inclination) is his mortal enemy. One may never retire from fighting this battle. Otherwise, his opponent will succeed in eradicating him from this world.
· “The L-rd, your G-d, will deliver him into your hands” Despite the superhuman strength of the yetzer hara, G-d gives a person the power to overcome it.
· “And you take his captives” By vanquishing the yetzer hara, one can reclaim the energy that had been trapped in the grip of the “evil side.”
· “And you see among the captives a beautiful woman” This is referring to the person’s G-dly soul which is still beautiful despite the fact that it was (externally) tarnished by negative actions.
· “And you desire her” One should utilize the power of desire that had previously been expended for sinning - for cleaving to G-d.
· “You shall bring her into your home” A person’s body is supposed to be “the home” (receptacle) of his soul. When one sins, the soul is distanced from the body and replaced by negative forces.[5] By repenting, one brings his soul back home and becomes a “master of the soul.”
· “She shall shave her head and let her nails grow And she shall remove the garment of her captivity from upon herself” One must cleanse the soul of the unholiness clinging to it as a result of its sins. These are alluded to by hair,[6] nails,[7] and garments.[8]
· “And stay in your house, and weep for her father and her mother for a full month” – One should sit in a holy house (Bait HaMidrash) and tearfully repent for having separated oneself from one’s father—G-d Almighty, and one’s mother—the Knesset Israel (collective soul of the Jewish people).
· “For one month’s time” This is an allusion to the month of Elul when we should all be doing Teshuvah in the above-mentioned ways.
The rest of this article contains selected teachings about Teshuvah from Duties of the Heart (Chovot HaLevavot) by Rabbeinu Bachayeh.[9] Many sages instructed their students to study this thought-provoking work, especially in the month of Elul.
Four Paths to Teshuvah[10]
There are generally four paths that can lead a person to Teshuvah (repentance).
1. One may recognize that he needs to do Teshuvah as a result of his own realization of the greatness of G-d and the folly of his ways. This path is the most successful one.
2. One may be inspired to Teshuvah through the word of G-d as transmitted by His prophet (during the era of prophecy) or as transmitted by a Torah teacher.
3. When one sees the punishment meted out to others and realizes that it is a result of their sins, he may be moved to Teshuvah.
4. Sometimes a person may not be moved to Teshuvah until G-d punishes him and sends him various troubles. As this Teshuvah is “forced” upon the person by an external force, one needs to work harder and show deep and sincere remorse in order for G-d to accept his repentance.
Four Detriments to Teshuvah
1. Persistence in Sin
When a person persists in sinning, even if the sin is a minor one, it becomes compounded into a great transgression. Whereas one who commits a major sin but does Teshuvah immediately, transforms the sin into a minor one and eventually erases it completely.
2. Relapse
If one repents with all of the conditions of repentance but then relapses and sins again, it becomes more difficult for him to do a lasting Teshuvah. The prophet Jeremiah predicted dire consequences to people who relapsed after doing (what proved to be an) insincere Teshuvah. [11]
3. Delay of Teshuvah
Some people continue in a sinful path and plan to do Teshuvah at the end of their lives. This attitude is a major obstacle to Teshuvah. Since the person is living an indulgent lifestyle as a result of his plan to do Teshuvah, G-d will not give him the opportunity to do Teshuvah. One should rather say to himself: “My soul, prepare abundant provisions for the final journey. Do this while you’re still in middle of your life with a long path in front of you. Do not say: ‘I will take provisions tomorrow’ because the day is ending and no one knows what the future brings. Know that yesterday will never return. Everything you did should be weighed, counted and reckoned. Don’t say I will do (this) tomorrow, because the day of death is hidden from all living beings. Hasten to the do the portion of every day… do not delay your daily appointed task because man moves from his place as a bird wanders from its nest.”
4. Partial Teshuvah
One who repents from some sins but persists in others has not completed his Teshuvah. In fact, he is like one who immerses in a Mikvah while holding an object that is impure.[12]
The Advantage of a Ba’al Teshuvah
A sincere Ba’al Teshuvah (master of Teshuvah) will always remember his sin and remain watchful until the end of his life so as not to repeat it. This will keep him humble and contrite, and he will not become proud of his accomplishments in serving G-d. This is a distinct advantage over a righteous person who never sinned and may become arrogant as a result of his good deeds.
A Tzadik once said to his students: “If you had not sinned at all, I would be afraid that you might have something worse than sin—arrogance and hypocrisy.”
Causing Others to Sin
It is extremely difficult for one who causes others to sin to repent from his ways. Even after he does so, he may not be able to repair the damage he has done.
This category includes one who is able to teach people to do good and to refrain from evil and does not do so either because he hopes to receive money from them or he is afraid or ashamed to rebuke them. The prophet Ezekiel says about such a man: “And you did not speak to warn the wicked man from his way—he is wicked, and for his iniquity he will die, but his blood I shall require of your hand.”[13] (I.e. the wicked man will die as a result of his sin, but the prophet who didn’t rebuke him will be responsible for the wicked man’s death.)
The Last Coin
Rabeinu Bachaye ends his Gateway to Repentance with the following parable: A traveler, who, laden with heaps of silver coins, cast them, in his foolishness, into the stream which he wanted to cross, hoping to pave a way across. He threw in all of his coins except for one, but the river showed no sign of abating. He then used his last coin to pay the ferryman to carry him across. The lesson is that repentance is the one coin that will carry man across the stream of life to the shore of eternal salvation, even if he foolishly spent all his other life's treasures.
“May G-d in His mercy place us amongst those who hasten to return to Him with a complete heart.”
[1] Deut 21, 10 - 14
[2] See Rashi and Tosfot D.H. Shelo Yilchatzena, Kiddushin 22a and the Jerusalem Talmud Makot, chapter 2, Halacha 6, as to whether the soldier was permitted to have relations with the woman on the battlefield or if he needed to first bring her into his home and wait a month.
[3] On the verse
[4] This is the most significant battle in each person’s life. As the Mishna says (Avot 4, 1): “Who is a strong man? He who subdues his (evil) inclination.
[5] As the verse (Job 18, 4) says “One who destroys his soul in his anger.”
[6] See Likutei Torah Parshat Emor, page 31, side 4
[7] See Zohar, Parshat Pikudei 208b
[8] See Tanya chapters 7 and 8
[9] Rabeinu Bachayeh (also known as Bachyah ibn Pakudah) was a Dayan (judge in a Rabbinical court) in Saragosa, Spain in the 11th Century. He wrote a Hebrew commentary on the Chumash as well as the Chovot HaLevavot in Arabic. It was later translated into Hebrew by the famous translator – Iben Tiben.
[10] These teachings are from the Sha’ar HeTeshuva (Gateway to Repentance).
[11] Jeremiah 34, 8 – 17 “Every man should let his manservant and every man his maidservant, a Jew and a Jewess, go free, that none should hold his Jewish brother as a slave. Now all the princes and all the people who had entered into the covenant listened and … let his manservant and everyone his maidservant go free, no longer holding them in slavery; then they obeyed and let them go. But afterwards they turned and brought back the manservants and the maidservants whom they had let free, and forcibly made them into manservants and maidservants. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
And now this day you turned and did what was right in My sight by proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before Me in the House upon which My Name is called. But then you turned and profaned My Name, and you took back, each man his manservant and each man his maidservant, whom you had let free to themselves, and forced them to be manservants and maidservants to you. Therefore, so says the Lord: You have not listened to Me to proclaim freedom, everyone to his brother and every one to his neighbor; behold I proclaim freedom to you, says the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.”
[12] It would seem to me that Rabeinu Bachayeh is referring to a person who does not plan on repenting from his other sins. Whereas one who progressing in a path towards complete Teshuvah process can do a sincere teshuvah on some of their sins and complete the Teshuvah on others at a later date.
[13] Ezekiel 33, 8