Tanya Igeres Hateshuvah - Chapter 1 - Part 4

00:00 As we see here in Igeres Hateshuvah, on the second page, page 91, the Alter Rebbe began by saying that the mitzvah of teshuvah according to the Torah is simply abandoning the sin. The question is: What does “simply abandoning the sin” mean? What does that involve? Here the Alter Rebbe adds an explanation of what it means to abandon the sin. The Alter Rebbe says: “That is, he must resolve in his heart, wholeheartedly.” A person has to make a decision, but it must be wholehearted: “Never again to return to his folly”—not to become foolish again—“and rebel against His blessed sovereignty.” There will be no more rebellion against His sovereignty. “And never again to transgress the King’s commandments, G-d forbid, whether positive commandments or prohibitions.” He will not again transgress the King’s commandments, the commandments of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, whether positive commandments or prohibitions. This is how the Alter Rebbe defines abandoning the sin. Now, in these lines we see a very, very important principle that the Rebbe explains in his sichos on Igeres Hateshuvah—a major principle in the work of teshuvah according to the Alter Rebbe’s approach. On the one hand, as we said, the Alter Rebbe comes to cut through the multitude of details associated with teshuvah. When a person wants to do teshuvah and looks in the books written before Igeres Hateshuvah, he encounters a great many things. There are many elements to teshuvah: regret, making a commitment, asking forgiveness, receiving forgiveness, confession, fasts, mortifications, acts of rectification, and all sorts of other things mentioned in the books. So a person gets confused. Is all of that teshuvah? Does it include all these things together? Some of them? All of them? As long as I haven’t done everything, am I not doing teshuvah? What exactly is going on here? So the Alter Rebbe comes

02:14 to explain: No, there is one central point. Teshuvah is not a thousand things; it is one thing. And this is the point the Alter Rebbe introduced: abandoning the sin. According to the Torah, the definition of teshuvah is abandoning the sin, nothing more. That is the one point. On the other hand, though, someone might think the Alter Rebbe is coming to be lenient: Fine, no need for fasts or mortifications, no need for regret—just abandon the sin. As though the Alter Rebbe is making it easier. So the Alter Rebbe explains: No, there is something deeper here. What does abandoning the sin mean? People tend to think the opposite. When you hear the words “abandoning the sin,” it seems, at first glance, to mean deciding not to commit that particular transgression again. And that appears to be explicit in the Rambam. If you look in the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah, how does the Rambam describe abandoning the sin? A person does teshuvah by saying he will not commit that transgression again. That is the plain meaning of abandoning the sin: I will not commit this sin anymore. The Alter Rebbe says no—teshuvah is much more than that. Abandoning the sin is not just abandoning this particular sin. What are the Alter Rebbe’s words? “He must resolve in his heart, wholeheartedly, never again to return to his folly and rebel against His blessed sovereignty.” The Alter Rebbe does not say only to abandon the sin. It is not merely a decision not to commit this specific sin; it is a general decision no longer to rebel against the King’s sovereignty. What does that mean? Who is talking about rebellion against the King? A person has committed a sin—lashon hara, neglecting Torah study, some particular sin. So he needs to decide not to do that again. The Alter Rebbe says no: Teshuvah is not about one detail.

04:20 Teshuvah addresses the foundation, the central issue, the cause. When a person comes to do teshuvah, he needs to consider what happened here. There is the act of sin: he stumbled in observing Shabbos, rachmana litzlan; he stumbled with tefillin or tzitzis, with lashon hara or theft. He failed in a positive commandment or a prohibition. Those are the particulars. But addressing those particulars is already the atonement and rectification that come afterward. There is a broader point: the essence of the transgression is not the particular act, but casting off the yoke. That is the point—rebellion against the King. You are a Jew; you have a King. The moment you commit any transgression, you go against the King’s will. You become someone rebelling against the King’s sovereignty. Which transgression it was, what you did, how much you did—that is not the point. There is one underlying issue: rebellion, casting off the yoke. So what is teshuvah? Abandoning the sin. Abandoning the sin means abandoning that casting off of the yoke, abandoning the rebellion. That is why the Alter Rebbe defines teshuvah as abandoning the sin: “Never again to return to his folly and rebel against His sovereignty.” The decision in teshuvah must be: I am not going to rebel against the King. Accepting the yoke of Heaven is the foundation. And then the Alter Rebbe continues. After all, the particular act must be rectified too. So it cannot stop at accepting the yoke of Heaven. The Alter Rebbe continues: “And never again to transgress the King’s commandments.” That is another element: the King’s commandments. “Accept My sovereignty, and accept My commandments”; “Accept My decrees.” Teshuvah must address the general issue: he will no longer rebel against the King. That is accepting the yoke of Heaven. Afterward, there must be a renewed acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvos. When a person commits a transgression, there were

06:23 two things involved. There was rebellion against the King, so he must once again accept the yoke of Heaven. There was also a failing with respect to a mitzvah: his rebellion took the form of a particular transgression. So he must once again accept the King’s commandments. There is both acceptance of the yoke of Heaven and acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvos—“never again to transgress the King’s commandments.” And within this, the Alter Rebbe adds: “Whether positive commandments or prohibitions.” There is an insight here too. The Rebbe explains: What does “whether positive commandments or prohibitions” mean? Even if you committed just one transgression, and it involved only a positive commandment—even if you take stock and see that all you did was fail in one positive commandment—you need to do teshuvah concerning prohibitions as well. And the reverse is also true: If you transgressed a prohibition, your commitment must encompass everything: acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvos, and, within the mitzvos themselves, a commitment to both positive commandments and prohibitions. Each of these is a matter in its own right. A person can accept the yoke of Heaven, but that still needs to extend to the particulars: the King’s commandments. And within the commandments themselves, there are positive commandments and prohibitions. The commitment must encompass them all. This is what teshuvah means: deciding that from today onward I will no longer rebel against the King, and I will not transgress His commandments, whether positive commandments or prohibitions. There is a special depth here in how the Alter Rebbe defines teshuvah according to the Torah. The Alter Rebbe says: “And this is the primary meaning of the word teshuvah.” According to what we have explained

08:11 here—that the mitzvah of teshuvah according to the Torah is abandoning the sin—we can understand the meaning of the word teshuvah. We said that teshuvah is not regret, confession, or fasting. So what is teshuvah? Abandoning the sin. From this we can understand the word itself. Teshuvah means to return to Him—to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to return to accepting the yoke of Heaven. When a person transgresses, he has rebelled against the King. What is teshuvah? Accepting His sovereignty. That is what it means to return: to accept Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King once again. “To return to Hashem with all his heart and all his soul, to serve Him and observe all His commandments.” Returning to Hashem must be “with all his heart and all his soul.” Teshuvah must be wholehearted, but not only wholehearted. “With all his soul” means returning with every faculty of the soul. “To serve Him and observe all His commandments.” Here too, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that teshuvah takes place in the heart—“with all his heart and all his soul”—but it must also come into practice. “To serve Him” refers to positive commandments, and “to observe” refers to prohibitions. So here too the Alter Rebbe emphasizes both sides. It is very interesting that, when discussing teshuvah, the Alter Rebbe continually stresses both sides. There is its essence, its inner dimension: teshuvah must repair the foundation, the root, the rebellion. That is teshuvah in the heart, “with all his heart and all his soul”—accepting the yoke of Heaven. This inner work is spiritual, but at the same time it must be expressed in actual deeds: “to serve Him and observe all His commandments,” through the observance of positive commandments and prohibitions. That is the meaning of the word teshuvah. So, as we mentioned in the previous class, this is what the Rebbe brings in Likkutei

10:07 Likkutei Sichos, vol. 2, in the early sections, “The Ten Sefiros of Teshuvah.” There the Rebbe says that people commonly understand teshuvah as repentance, as regret. The Rebbe says that is a mistake. That is not its true meaning. The true meaning of teshuvah, as the Rav says here, is to return. But what is interesting here is that the Alter Rebbe emphasizes what it means to return: to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To return to Hashem, to reconnect with G-dliness. In Likkutei Sichos, the Rebbe emphasizes that returning means returning to yourself. The meaning of teshuvah is to return—to return to your own essential self. That is the Rebbe’s approach. That is the power of the Rebbe’s approach. Redemption in serving Hashem does not mean looking for something else. You need to find yourself, to return to your essential self, to return to who you truly are. That is the meaning of the word teshuvah. To return to Him, to return to the source—the soul. In any case, here he is speaking about returning to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Ultimately, it is the same idea. What is the proof that this is the definition of teshuvah? What is the proof that teshuvah is not regret, or fasting, and so on, but rather the commitment not to return to the sin—abandoning the sin? So the Alter Rebbe now brings four proofs, as it is written: “Let the wicked abandon his way, and the man of iniquity his thoughts, and let him return to Hashem,” and so on. That is one verse in Yeshayahu. So what do we see? “Let the wicked abandon his way”—abandoning the sin. And what must one do when abandoning the sin? “Let him return to Hashem”—return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is one verse. And in Parshas Nitzavim it is written, “You shall return to Hashem your G-d and listen to His voice,” and so on, “with all your heart,” and so on. In Parshas Nitzavim, he cites the verse from which we learn the Torah’s positive commandment of teshuvah. We said that according to the Rambam, the mitzvah of teshuvah is a Torah commandment. Where do we learn that from? From this verse that he cites here in Parshas Nitzavim. What does it say in Parshas Nitzavim? It says, “You shall return to Hashem your G-d.” What

12:11 does teshuvah mean? To return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “And listen to His voice”—that is the acceptance of the mitzvos we spoke about earlier. “And listen to His voice with all your heart,” because we also said earlier that teshuvah must be in the heart. “Return, Yisroel, to Hashem your G-d”—that is a third verse. What does the verse “Return, Yisroel, to Hashem your G-d” say? Again, translate the words: Return, Jew, to Hashem your G-d; return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Not [unclear]. The fourth verse, “Return us, Hashem, to You,” is a verse in Eichah. So the Alter Rebbe brings four verses whose common theme is that Tanach plainly explains the definition of teshuvah. Teshuvah is not [unclear]. It is returning, returning to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, drawing close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the definition of the word teshuvah. So this is the Alter Rebbe’s proof that the mitzvah of teshuvah is this acceptance of Hashem’s sovereignty, not, as people commonly think, fasting. We see here that it is not as people think. It seems that in the Alter Rebbe’s time, people thought teshuvah meant fasting, and the Alter Rebbe comes to reject that idea. Now there is a well-known question here: Why does the Alter Rebbe need to bring four verses? What is the point of bringing four verses? Couldn’t the Alter Rebbe bring one verse? Say he needs two verses, three verses—but why so many? What is the point of four verses? The Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation. The Rebbe says that... And there are also a few other questions here: these verses are not in order. He begins with a verse from Yeshayahu and then moves to a verse in Nitzavim. First a verse from the Prophets, then one from the Chumash. It should be the other way around: first a verse from the Chumash, then one from the Prophets. So the order of the verses is not clear. The Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation of this. The Rebbe explains that these four verses

14:18 and specifically in this order, correspond to the four levels of teshuvah that we will learn about later in Tanya. These four verses contain four levels in the service of teshuvah: “Turn away from evil, do good; seek peace and pursue it.” As explained in the maamar on Parshas Balak, “Mah Tovu,” there is “turn away from evil,” “do good,” and “seek peace and pursue it.” In the language of Tanya, these are two levels of teshuvah tata’ah and two levels of teshuvah ila’ah. Within teshuvah tata’ah there is [unclear], “do good,” and there is abandoning sin, which is teshuvah tata’ah; and there is teshuvah ila’ah, which is... [unclear]. The four forms he discusses here, from the bottom up, are four levels of teshuvah. “Let the wicked abandon his way, and the man of iniquity his thoughts”—that is “turn away from evil.” Plainly, “Let the wicked abandon his way” emphasizes turning away from evil. In Parshas Nitzavim it says, “You shall return to Hashem your G-d.” The wicked person is no longer mentioned; it only says, “You shall return to Hashem your G-d and listen to His voice with all your heart.” “With all your heart”—this is called teshuvah tata’ah, but at a higher level of teshuvah tata’ah, where it is no longer only a matter of turning away from evil; there is also “do good.” That is why it says, “and listen to His voice,” which is the idea of doing good. Then comes “Return, Yisroel, to Hashem your G-d.” Yisroel is a name that expresses a higher standing; this already relates to teshuvah ila’ah. Yisroel [?] of our time—this is a taste of teshuvah ila’ah. That is the third verse. And in the fourth verse it says, “Return us”—from Above. This concerns the very essence of the soul. It is something given to you from Above; it is not within a person’s own powers. That is why it says, “Return us,” from Above. So we see here how every word in Tanya is precise. The Alter Rebbe brings four verses because there are four levels in the service of teshuvah; that is why he brings four verses. But what all four

16:33 verses have in common is that, even though he is speaking here about several levels of teshuvah, each higher than the last, nevertheless, even though he discusses several levels of teshuvah, none of them involves fasting or self-mortification, as he said. Rather, it is all the return of the lower hei and the return of the higher hei. There are several levels within this general framework of teshuvah tata’ah and teshuvah ila’ah: turning away from evil, doing good, and seeking peace and pursuing it. So already at the beginning of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe hints, by bringing four verses, that we are going to learn here about four levels in the service of teshuvah, corresponding to the four letters of Hashem’s Name. But what do we see here? Fasting is certainly not the point. There is a well-known teaching about this. The Mitteler Rebbe explains it in Derech Chaim, explaining the verse, “Fools, because of the way of their transgressions and their iniquities, afflict themselves.” The verse says, “Fools, because of the way of their transgressions”: instead of dealing with and understanding the path—the cause and root of what brought him to sin—and doing teshuvah for that, the fool “afflicts himself because of his iniquities.” He undertakes fasts and self-mortification for the sin, but he still has not reached the heart of the matter and has not done teshuvah for what is most important. The essential teshuvah is to accept the sovereignty of Heaven upon oneself. A person can practice self-mortification from today until tomorrow, but if he has not done the work of accepting the sovereignty of Heaven upon himself, then he still has not done teshuvah. He has not even begun. That is the point the Rebbe teaches us here at the beginning of chapter 1 of Tanya: that we should be very clear about the definition of the mitzvah of teshuvah, the essence of teshuvah, as it is according to the Torah. After that come the particulars of teshuvah. We will soon see, as we continue

18:30 He will bring up a number of points, but those are the details of teshuvah. What, though, is the essence of teshuvah? It is abandoning the sin, so that a person will not return to his folly, and so on. One more thing before we finish: Why does the Alter Rebbe emphasize, “It says in Parshas Nitzavim”? What is the significance of “in Parshas Nitzavim”? He doesn’t specify the parsha in many other places. Why does he do so for this verse? The Rebbe says it is because the verse “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d” appears twice in the Book of Devarim: once in Va’eschanan and a second time in Nitzavim. So the Alter Rebbe emphasizes “in Parshas Nitzavim” to tell us that the mitzvah is learned from there. In Parshas Va’eschanan it says, “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d,” but it is not phrased as a mitzvah. It is stated as a description, not a command. It is telling us what will happen. You see, Parshas Va’eschanan describes how the Jewish people will be in exile and undergo much suffering, and then they will do teshuvah. But it does not state this as a command; it is only a description. In Parshas Nitzavim, by contrast, it is phrased as a command—particularly according to the Ramban, who disagrees there with Rashi. The Ramban holds that Parshas Nitzavim is speaking about the mitzvah of teshuvah. “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d” is the mitzvah of teshuvah. That is why, when the Torah continues and says, “For this mitzvah is not beyond you, nor is it far away ... for the matter is very close to you,” the Ramban asks: What is “this mitzvah”? The mitzvah of teshuvah. According to Rashi, “this mitzvah” refers to the entire Torah and its mitzvos; it is called “mitzvah” in a general sense. But according to the Ramban, this mitzvah is the mitzvah of teshuvah. That is why the Alter Rebbe is precise here in saying “in Parshas Nitzavim”: those are the verses from which we learn the mitzvah of teshuvah.