On Repentance – By Sandy Kress.
The great 20th century sage, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, gave several noteworthy addresses on the topic of repentance during the High Holy Days in various years of the 60s and 70s.
I have devoted considerable effort to distill important and compelling points from those remarks for this blog.
I hope that Jews will consider using this reading for reflection during the Days of Awe.
I hope, as well, that these words will be of value to all people of faith who believe in a God Who offers grace but also asks of us, as appropriate, a true turn of confession and repentance.
If not fasting, get a large coffee. Read slowly. And interact with these ideas. If you seek to get back on the right path with others and with God, I feel certain you’ll find the time you spend here time well spent.
1. A. “Sin constitutes a sort of spiritual pathology…
If sin is a sickness, then it also has the characteristics of a sickness. What is characteristic of sickness? Suffering.”
B. “We have discerned the stage of acknowledgement of sin in the process of repentance. Before this stage, however, there is another phase, which I call the sensing of sin. Sensing of sin is analogous in every respect to feeling sickness.”
C. “As in sickness of the body, so, also, in sickness of the soul which is sin, man tries to minimize and to distance himself from the pain.”
D. “The sinner also mourns…
What does the sinner mourn? He mourns that which he has irretrievably lost…
The sinner has lost his purity, his holiness, his integrity, his spiritual wealth…the spirit of sanctity in man – all that gives meaning to life and content to human existence.”
E. “The sinner begins to sense a feeling of contempt…”
F. “The feeling of sin which drags a person to repentance is an aesthetic sensation…
The suffering of sin lies in the feeling of nausea toward the defiling… uncleanliness of the sin.”
G. “We are human beings with a sense of beauty, an aesthetic soul, and we are attracted to fine things; how then could we have let ourselves…do contemptible things?
H. “In addition to the sense of bereavement, remorse is related to another emotion: the sense of shame – the sense of shame a person can feel for himself.”
2. Having sinned, we are led to “an element that is the diametric opposite of the despair resulting from the acknowledgement of sin: the possibility to free oneself from sin and overcome it.”
3. A. For Jews, “Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – has a double function. The first is kapparah – acquittal from sin or atonement…
The second aspect of Yom Kippur is taharah – catharsis or purification,” a subject which we’ll address in a moment.
B. “For acquittal of sin, remorse is sufficient,” yet what constitutes remorse requires deeper understanding.
(i) The way of sin: “It overtakes man while indulging in a night of iniquity. Mist and fog conceal the inner light of the soul of a man who is immersed in the blinding, obsessive night of his passions…”
(ii) So, what is meant by remorse? “Remorse…results in true recognition. The manner of regret is related to the sin and its meaning. At the moment when man sobers up from the drinking party, he grasps the implication of his sin. They are: failure, despair, and spiritual bankruptcy. To sin actually means to miss the target.” Remorse comes when one says: “I stumbled, I missed my goal; sin has failed me; sin has brought me to despair and led me astray.”
C. In that remorse, “the expiation afforded by the Day of Atonement” also involves a sort of “commuting of sentences” which has the effect of reducing “the amount of suffering.” This commutation involves:
(i) Offering a “trace of something,” that is, though we may have erred in bigger, more dramatic ways, we perform a “small, modest, perhaps unseen act” that may be “a simple manifestation of human kindness, a display of decency toward people.”
“Man is too weak, his life too short, to pay all his debts in full. So the Almighty makes do with the nominal payment of a single penny.”
(ii) Offering by “exchange,” that is, by responding with something of substitution, appropriate, but without monetary value.
”The sinner owes something to the Almighty because he stole from Him.” Fundamentally, God has given us life. And the issue here is how and to what extent we’ve misappropriated the “rights and privileges” that in trust have been given to us in life.
“When man repents and regrets his sinful acts, it is as if a new transaction has taken place and the contract of ownership has been renewed between him and the Creator.”
So, what’s the consideration due? It involves “suffering and hardship as a result of his sins.” But, on this day of mercy, the God of grace, through “the divine quality of loving-kindness” asks only a “particle of suffering,” by, say, experiencing “deep and heartfelt spiritual anguish and pangs of conscience, by the travail of discomfort and lack of tranquility.” This suffering helps usher in renewal.
(iii) Much as with sacrifices in the time of the Temple, these offerings must be purposeful, with intent, and directed to effect renewal. But, as with the scapegoat offering, all that we have offered during the year – including that which was not God-ward – is today accepted by God as part of our sacrifice.
4. “Repentance sprouts forth and grows in the course of a long and drawn-out process typified by doubt and speculation, soul-searching and spiritual reckoning.”
5. Through faith in God and in man’s spiritual potential, the sinner finds through repentance that “though the highway be blocked, it is still possible to travel the hidden byways;” “there is always a tiny window through which man may seek entry.”
6. A. The ability of man to attain repentance can be considered a divine gift. “The fact that a person is able to rise above his lowly state and ascend the mountain of the Lord is one of the most wondrous favors with which the Creator has endowed His creatures.”
B. “The grace of repentance…is revealed by two factors: first in the fact that the human personality is the true sanctuary of the Holy One, blessed be He…The second one, which is a divine favor throughout eternity, is the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, who chose the human soul as His dwelling place, does not remove Himself from man even after he sins.”
C. “When a person becomes penitent it is because the Holy One, blessed be He, who is present within him, has aroused and altered him to do so.”
7. A. What is satisfactory repentance? “If, from the start, the repentance was made so ‘unreservedly and sincerely’ that the penitent called upon the Almighty to bear witness to his earnestness, then the repentance is operative, even if he later reverted to sin and failed to live by his vow.”
B. “What is perfect repentance?” asks Maimonides…
’That in which the former transgressor is afforded an opportunity of repeating his sin but stays his hand and refrains from doing so because he has repented, and not out of fear or due to incapacity.’”
C. “There is however a type of repentance which surpasses even perfect repentance: namely, ‘repentance from love’,” neither a “repentance from fear,” nor one from “misgivings and skepticism,” but rather one that also “practically excludes the possibility of ever reverting to his sin,” but is in the nature of “redemption,” and not merely “expiation.”
8. Repentance of purification goes a step further; it “necessitates a complete breaking away from the environment, the contributing factors and all the forces which created the atmosphere of sin.”
“‘A new heart and a new spirit’ come about only by means of departure from the path of sin…”
“How does one arrive at repentance of purification? The repentance does not come about as a result of punishment…
It is necessary to bend one’s head…only ritual immersion may achieve this end. We are referring to a double baptism – of water and of fire.
A. Immersion in water represents an analytical plunge into the sea of knowledge, which is done through intense self-contemplation and profound soul-searching.
B. The baptism of fire, in contrast, represents the great act of breaking one’s own will, passing through the fire of one’s passion. The proof of man’s self-transcendence: when he succeeds in subjugating his animal will to the supernal will.
These two immersions are what bring man to the stage of repentance of purification.”
C. Our hope is to end feeling “remote from God” and instead feel His “close proximity.” It’s not just the exile of Israel in a geographical sense that is our concern: it is the individual’s spiritual “absence of a home,” the sinner’s having “lost his way from home.”
“A house is no home for a Jew if the Almighty is not present in it, too.”
A sinner is “blown to and fro by each gust of wind,” with one part of him found in one realm while another part of him is an another…” Through repentance of redemption, “the sinner also gathers together the dispersed sparks of his spiritual self in order to reintegrate his personality.”
9. “Repentance not only cleanses the sinner of the pollution of sin, it implies a sort of reenactment of the covenant between an individual person and the Holy One, blessed be He.”
10. “In Chapter 7 of the Laws of Repentance, therefore, Maimonides – when speaking of the repentance of redemption – talks of repenting not only over deeds and transgressions but also evil character traits…This time he is dealing with a total transformation of personality and not only in regard to a specific transgression…
If a man refrains from every possible transgression but retains his accustomed traits of anger, jealousy, or hatred, he will be incapable of acquiring the new personality which is imperative for redemptive repentance.”
11. A. “If the penitent utilizes the power of free choice to form a new way of life for himself and establish a new set of rules which will affect all his natural reactions if he succeeds in shaping a radically new personality for himself, then he is not in danger of backsliding to his former sinfulness.”
B. “This repentance which brings about a radical transformation of a whole way of life leading to a rebirth of personality is repentance of redemption…”
C. “Like conversion, repentance is also seen as new birth in the sense of receiving a new identity, a whole new personality, a new life.”
12. In another fashion, there are at least two means of repentance. “The first way (as we have discussed) is by: blotting out evil. The second (and alternate way that might be more suitable for some) is by: rectifying evil, and elevating it.”
As to the first, man makes “a clean break and starts anew.”
As to the second, “the very same hunger and zest which drove him to do evil and sin can be utilized to do good…The very same eagerness and dedication with which he invested his labors to make money illicitly, he can now invest in the labor of charity and in doing deeds of loving-kindness.
He does this through his “capacity to sanctify these forces and to direct them upward.”
One thinks as an example of King David “who does not wipe out the past nor tear the pages of sin from his memory, but rather makes a point to use the memory of his sins to enhance his longings for holiness…”
13. A. “What is the concluding act of repentance? It is confession.” Confession begins by saying, “I beseech Thee, O Lord, I have sinned,” as “a clarion call that the gates be unlocked, that our confession be allowed to enter within and be heard…”
B. “God is referred to as ‘He who opens the gate for those who come knocking in repentance.’”
C. “By confession, we say to God, “free me from the tangling web of my sins and allow me to return and stand before Thee.”
D. “Repentance contemplated, and not verbalized, is valueless…
Confession completes the process of repentance…
Confession is the act which brings man acquittal.”
E. “Confession compels man…to admit facts as they really are…
This is a sacrifice, a breaking of the will…
Both remorse and shame are involved in this process…
Just as the sacrifice is burnt upon the altar so do we burn down, by our act of confession, our well-barricaded complacency, our overblown pride, our artificial existence.”
“Only then, after the purifying catharsis of confession, does one return, in circular motion, to God who is there before man sins, to our Father who is in Heaven, who cleanses us whenever we approach Him for purification.”
14. The core components of confession are: “acknowledgement of sin,” “remorse,” and “resolution for the future.”
15. One important step in the path of confession is when one says during Ne’ilah: “We are not so insolent and obstinate to say before Thee…’righteous are we and we have not sinned’; indeed, we and our forefathers have sinned.”
“We can no longer deny our guilt! Aval (indeed)…it cannot be concealed…” Attaining this level of repentance, one brings “a contrite heart and the acknowledgement of sin at the time.”
16. Returning to the two types of repentance discussed at the outset, as with the ways in which the promised land was possessed by Joshua and Ezra, there are two types of penitents – those “who sanctify themselves by conquest” and those “who attain sanctity by inspiration received from the Shekhinah.”
“Concerning both, tradition has bequeathed us a fine rule: “For him who comes, the way is cleared and he is extended a helping hand.”
17. In one instance, “repentance does not come and suddenly overtake the whole man.” It’s “step by step,” “one struggle to another.” This is “arduous and protracted.” But in the end “it leads to the establishment of the Holy Temple.”
18. In the other, if it is possible, “the Almighty aids the penitent and causes a sudden revolution to take place.” From fragmentation and dark places, “through a sudden ray of illumination, “he discovers the focal point of his existence.” “A new light shines in the depths of his soul, a new aspiration fills his being; he is released from the bonds that held him back, the fragments of his personality, collected and reunited to form an integrated person…
The penitent “regains control over his own self.” “All at once God frees him from his captivity.”
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