Teshuva and the value of not giving up

(6) If a man [is tilling his vines] and sees herbs [growing] in the vineyard, and says, When I reach them [the place where they are growing] I will pull them out, he is permitted to do so. [But if he said], When I return [from harvesting] I will pull them out, [if in the interim] they have increased [grown] one two-hundredths, it is forbidden.

(1) Because every man was endowed with self-will, as we have elucidated, it is meet that man shall strive to repent, to confess his sins by word of his mouth, and to dust off his hands from his sins, as a preparation for death after repentance, so that he may acquire life in the World to Come.

(4) Let not a penitent man imagine that he is removed at a distance from the degree of the righteous on account of the iniquities and sins which he had committed. It is not so, forsooth, but the Creator considers him beloved and desirable, as if he had ever known of no sin. Moreover, his reward is great; for, after having partaken of the taste of sin, he separated himself therefrom and conquered his passion. The sages said: "The place whereon the penitent stand the wholly righteous could not stand;" as if saying: "their degree is above the degree of those who ever did not sin, because it is more difficult for them to dubdue their passion than for the others.²Berakot, 34b. C. G.

(1) Every man was endowed with a free will; if he desires to bend himself toward the good path and to be just it is within the power of his hand to reach out for it, and if he desires to bend himself to a bad path and to be wicked it is within the power of his hand to reach out for it. This is known from what it is written in the Torah, saying: "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Gen. 3.22), that is as if saying: "Behold, this species, man, stands alone in the world, and there is no other kind like him, as regards this subject of being able of his own accord, by his reason and thought, to know the good and the evil, and to do whatever his inclination dictates him with none to stay his hand from either doing good or evil; and, being that he is so, 'Lest he put forth his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'" (Ibid.)¹Abodah Zarah, 16b; Megillah, 25a. G.

(2) Permit not your thought to dwell upon that which ridiculous fools of other peoples and a majority of asinine individuals among the children of Israel say, that the Holy One, blessed is He! decrees at the very embryonic state of every man whether he should be just or wicked. The matter is not so. Every man is capable of being as just as Moses our Master or as wicked as Jeroboam, wise or incony, merciful or human, miser or philanthropist, and so in all other tendencies. There is none to either force things upon him or to decree things against him; either to pull him one way or draw him another way, but he alone, of his own free will, with the consent of his mind, bends to any path he may desire to follow. It is concerning this that Jeremiah said: "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not the evil and the good" (Lam. 3. 38),²I am amazed that the English version of the American Jewish Publication Society, too, makes this sentence interrogatory. G. which is as if saying, the Creator decrees not that man should be either good or bad. Now, this being so, the consequence hereof is that the sinner alone brought harm upon himself. It is, therefore, meet that he should lament and shed tears because he sinned, and because of what he did to his soul and rewarded it with evil. Even this is the meaning of the succeeding Verse: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, or a strong man? Because of his sins" (Ibid.)³The English version in all existing translations is entirely opposed to what was an accepted doctorine by all medieval and modern Hebrew scholars. I corrected it to harmonize the texts. G. Again, he continues, in the succeeding Verse seeing that it all is in our power, and we did all the evil of our own free will and accord, it is, indeed meet for us to turn in repentance and abandon our wickedness, for our free will is in our hands now as well as at the time we committed the sins saying: "Let us search and try our ways, and return to the Lord" (Ibid.–40).⁴See Niddah, 16b; but the Maimoni doctorine does not contradict that text; you can not teach a brainless idiot wisdom, but a man with brains is often a charlatan; the choice is his. C. G.