~ The reading will sound familiar to most, particularly if you were here for the Hebrew School Shabbat, when the kids read the first set of the instructions for the mishkan, the Tabernacle.
~ Why do you think the Torah repeats the instructions for the mishkan, the Tabernacle, after the sin of the golden calf?
(My hope is that people will eventually arrive at the idea of a second chance. Teshuvah.)
I rarely bring outside things directly in to Shabbat, and there is a reason for that. But I want us to see and learn with those who show us the way of doing good in the world. And one person, this week, has showed on TV the beginnings of a process of teshuvah, of return, repentance, atonement. I want us to talk about teshuvah, and how it is incredible to witness someone being cleansed, in a way, in public. I will be blunt and clear: I don't think that many of us would be able to do this process of public teshuvah if we had spent ten years doing the wrong things and hanging out with the wrong people. Maybe you would, but I certainly doubt myself. And in this, I think, I am joined by Maimonides, as we will see. But first, let's look at something powerful: God gives the "way out" as the Israelites have made the Golden Calf.
~ This does not mean that there are no punishments or consequences. But...
~ Now, we all have seen people who want the harshest punishments, the death penalty even, for all sorts of crimes. And I am not saying that for some crimes this is not warranted, but we all have the impulse to apply the harshest penalty we can think of to others. This is old as this midrash, which gives voice to those impulses, and pins them on Wisdom! Let's read in the text:
פסקא כד אות ז (ז) טוב וישר י"י על כן יורה חטאים בדרך וג' (תהלים כה ח) שאלו לחכמה החוטא מהו עונשו אמרה להם וחטאים תרדף רעה (משלי יג כא) שאלו לנבואה החוטא מהו עונשו אמרה להם הנפש החוטאת היא תמות (יחזקאל יח ד) שאלו לתורה חוטא מה עונשו אמרה להם יביא אשם ויתכפר לו שאלו להקב"ה החוטא מהו עונשו א' להם יעשה תשובה ויתכפר לו הדא היא דכת' טוב וישר י"י וגו' (תהלים כה ח) א"ר פינחס למה הוא טוב שהוא ישר למה הוא ישר שהוא טוב על כן יורה חטאים בדרך (שם) שהוא מורה לחטאים דרך שיעשו תשובה לפיכך הושע מזהיר את ישראל ואו' להם שובה ישראל (הושע שם
"Good and upright is Ad-nai; therefore He shows sinners the way." (Ps. 25:8) They asked Wisdom: What should the punishment for the sinner be? She replied: "Evil pursues sinners" (Prov. 13:21). They asked Prophecy: What should the punishment for the sinner be? She replied: "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). They asked Torah: What should the punishment for the sinner be? She replied: S/he shall bring a Guilt-Offering (Asham) and it will be atoned. They asked the Holy One of Blessing: What should the punishment for the sinner be? God replied: Let the person do teshuvah and it will be atoned. That's why it's written: "Good and upright is Ad-nai etc." Rabbi Pinchas said: Why is God good? Because God is upright. Why is God upright? Because God is good - "therefore God shows sinners the way", that God teaches to the sinners the way of doing teshuvah, and that's why Hosea warned Israel, and said: "Return, Israel [up to God, because you stumbled in your sin]" (Hosea 14:2)
This same teaching is found in the Jerusalem Talmud, Makkot 7a
The sin-offering and guilt-offering atone [for sin]. Death and Yom Kippur atone with repentance. Repentance atones for minor transgressions of positive or negative commandments; for grave transgressions, it obtains a respite until Yom Kippur completes the atonement.
One who says, "I will sin, and then repent, I will sin [again], and then repent," will not receive an opportunity to repent; [for one who says] "I will sin, and Yom Kipur will atone," Yom Kippur will not atone. Yom Kippur atones for transgressions between a person and God, but for a transgression against one's neighbor, Yom Kipur cannot atone, until he appeases his neighbor. Thus R. Eleazar ben Azariah expounds the text, "From all your sins before the Lord shall ye be clean": For transgressions between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones, for transgressions against one's neighbor, Yom Kippur cannot atone, until he appeases his neighbor. R. Akiva says, Happy are you, Israel! Before whom are you purified, and who purifies you [of your transgressions]? Your Father Who is in heaven. For it is said, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean"; and it is also said, "The ritual bath [lit. Hope] of Israel is the Lord"; even as a ritual bath purifies the unclean, so does the Holy One, Blessed be He, purify Israel.
What is complete repentance? He who once more had in it in his power to repeat a violation, but separated himself therefrom, and did not do it because of repentance, not out of fear or lack of strength. For example? One who knew a woman sinfully, and after a process of time he met her again privately, and he still loving her as theretofore, and he being in a state of potency, and the meeting is in the same land where the sin was first committed, if he parted without sinning, he has attained complete repentance. Of such Solomon said: "Remember then thy Creator in the days of thy youth" (Ecc. 12.1). Even if he made no reparation save in his old age, at a time when it was already impossible for him to repeat his misdeeds, although it is not the best repentance, it still is of help to him and he is considered a penitent. Moreover, though he continued a life of sin but did repent on his dying day, and did die a penitent, all of his sins are forgiven, even as it is said: "While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain" (Ibid. 12.2), yea, that is the day of death. Deduct herefrom that if he remembered his Creator and did repent ere he died, he was forgiven.1Ibid. 86b; Kiddushin, 40b; Shabbat, 151a. C.
The Gemara relates: There were these hooligans in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood who caused him a great deal of anguish. Rabbi Meir prayed for God to have mercy on them, that they should die. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Berurya, said to him: What is your thinking? On what basis do you pray for the death of these hooligans? Do you base yourself on the verse, as it is written: “Let sins cease from the land” (Psalms 104:35), which you interpret to mean that the world would be better if the wicked were destroyed? But is it written, let sinners cease?” Let sins cease, is written. One should pray for an end to their transgressions, not for the demise of the transgressors themselves. Moreover, go to the end of the verse, where it says: “And the wicked will be no more.” If, as you suggest, transgressions shall cease refers to the demise of the evildoers, how is it possible that the wicked will be no more, i.e., that they will no longer be evil? Rather, pray for God to have mercy on them, that they should repent, as if they repent, then the wicked will be no more, as they will have repented. Rabbi Meir saw that Berurya was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented.
And, again, there are among this group of twenty-four, five transgressions, each of which, block the path of complete repentance for the one commits it, because they are sins between man and man, and the sinner does not know the neighbor against whom he sinned, to whom to make restitution or of whom to beg forgiveness. They are: (1) he who curses the public and did not curse a single man in particular to whom he might plead for pardon; (2) he who shares spoils with a thief, because he knows not to whom the stolen goods belong, for the thief steals at large and brings it to him and he becomes the fence, thereby adding to the iniquity by upholding the thief and leading him on to further sin; (3) he who finds a lost article and does not advertise it so as to restore it to its owner, thus after a process of time when he would repent he knows not to whom to make restitution; (4) he who partakes of an ox4Alfasi gives the text as Shod, (Spoils) not Shor (Ox). (Ibid). G. which is the property of the poor, the orphans or the widows, for such people are languid, unknown and un-heralded, wandering from city to city without a friend, and he, therefore, would not know to whom such ox belongs if he desired to make restitution; (5) he who takes bribery to pervert justice, for he knows not the extent of the perversion, or what its power is, as such matter has auxiliary factors, and, therefore, could possibly not estimate the amount of restitution; and he, moreover, is supporting the evil hand of the bribe-giver and thereby leads him on to sin.6Ibid. Alfasi. G.
~ Even though such sinner cannot undo all the evil he has done or facilitated, at least nowadays there is TV, and there are bodies of representatives of the people, to whom someone can go and bare themselves, and admit their wrongdoings and evil deeds. And if asking for forgiveness and admitting sins and evil deeds is hard in front of one person, how much more so in front of many - indeed, in a completely public forum that gets televised.
And among this group of twenty-four there are five such transgressions that whosoever commits them is continuously pursuing them, so that it becomes hard for him to separate himself from them. It is, therefore, necessary for a man to beware of them, lest they become part of his habits, for they are all extremely evil tendencies. They are: (1) sycophancy; (2) an evil tongue; (3) ill temper; (4) bad thoughts; (5) companionship with the wicked, for he learns his conduct and his actions become indited in his heart. Of such Solomon said: "But a companion of fools shall be shattered" (Prov. 13.20). Regarding this, we have already elucidated in the "Treatise of Ethics" how a man of the average should conduct himself, deduct the major from the minor for a penitent.8Ibid. G.
You can find the entirety of Maimonides' Laws of teshuvah translated in Sefaria. In those lines, he is also trying to wake us up for the difficulty that it is doing complete teshuvah when some habits get ingrained in us. How by letting the silk threads of the impulse for evil become ropes, it is very hard to destroy the ropes. But it is not impossible. Humans can muster real strength when they rise to the occasion. That is why Maimonides finishes that section of Laws of Teshuvah with the following:
"Broadly defined, teshuvah is more than just repentance from sin; it is a spiritual reawakening, a desire to strengthen the connection between oneself and the sacred. The effectiveness of teshuvah is thus frequently a function of one's sense of distance from the sacred. The greater the distance, the greater the potential movement towards renewed connectedness. As one Jewish sage put it, A rope that is cut and retied is doubly strong at the point where it was severed.... All forms of teshuvah, however diverse and complex, have a common core: the belief that human beings have it in their power to effect inward change.
-- Adin Steinsaltz, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew, ed. and trans. by Michael Swirsky (New York: Free Press, 1987), 3-4.
Believing in the power of teshuvah is having faith not just in God, but above all, in human beings. And so when we embrace teshuvah ourselves, we believe in our own power for good, in our own core values to be az positive influence in our lives.