Tanya Igeres Hateshuvah - Chapter 1 - Part 6

00:00 So we are at the end of chapter 1 of Igeres Hateshuvah. The Alter Rebbe has discussed three aspects of teshuvah. First there is the essence, the very essence of teshuvah, which according to Torah law is simply abandoning the sin. That is the central point of teshuvah: a person must return to Hashem with all his heart and soul, accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, and no longer be in rebellion against the King. That is the central point of teshuvah—abandoning the sin. Then there is the completion of teshuvah, also required by Torah law, which the Alter Rebbe calls confession and asking for forgiveness. And then there is fasting, which the Alter Rebbe says is neither the essence of teshuvah nor its completion. It is something else entirely, as the Alter Rebbe will explain shortly when he discusses the purpose of fasting. But fasting is not needed for teshuvah. For teshuvah, one must abandon the sin, confess, and ask for forgiveness. That is why the Rambam and the Semag do not mention fasting in connection with teshuvah. Now the Alter Rebbe raises a question. We are near the bottom of page 91, five lines from the bottom: “And as for what is written in Yoel, ‘Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping,’ etc.” The Alter Rebbe asks: There is a verse in Yoel—Yoel is one of the prophets, one of the Twelve Minor Prophets—that says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping,” etc. In his prophecy, he tells the Jewish people in the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu to do teshuvah. And how are they to do teshuvah? With fasting and weeping. So this would seem to contradict what the Alter Rebbe says. Here is an explicit verse in Tanach indicating that teshuvah involves fasting and weeping. That is the question. The Alter Rebbe answers: “This was

02:23 to annul the decree that had been issued to cleanse the generation’s sin through much suffering.” The Alter Rebbe says there was something particular going on then. What was particular about the time of Yoel? A decree had been issued because of the generation’s sin, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu intended to cleanse that sin through much suffering. This was not a matter of an individual suffering for his own sin. There was a general decree affecting the people: Hakadosh Boruch Hu intended to bring much suffering to cleanse the generation’s sin. That was why Yoel said, “Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping.” But it is no proof concerning an individual who wants to do teshuvah for his own actions. In that case, we do not find anywhere that fasting is part of teshuvah. Fasting has other purposes, which we will learn about later, but it is not part of teshuvah. So what exactly is the Alter Rebbe saying here? What is the question, and what is the answer? There are several details we need to understand. The verse does say, “Return to Me ... with fasting and with weeping.” What difference does it make whether this concerns an individual or the community? Either way: if fasting and weeping are not part of teshuvah, why are they called for when it is the generation’s sin? And if they are part of teshuvah, why not for an individual too? What is the explanation? A second thing we need to understand is why the Alter Rebbe needs to tell us the whole story.

04:20 Why is it relevant to us here in Tanya to know that there was a decree against the community involving locusts? The Alter Rebbe generally does not include things that are unimportant. Every word of Tanya is precise. Why does the Alter Rebbe tell us exactly what happened—that this was to cleanse the generation’s sin? He could have left out all those details. Another question the Rebbe asks is: Why does the Alter Rebbe say, “what is written in Yoel”? When the Alter Rebbe cites a source, he often just says “as it is written,” without saying where. Just before this, for example, he says, “as it is written, ‘I will punish their transgression with the rod,’” without saying that it is written in Tehillim. Why does he specify here that it is written in Yoel? Why mention that Yoel said it? I remember once at a farbrengen in 770, Reb Mendel Futerfas was farbrenging with Rabbi Yoel Kahn. He spoke to Reb Yoel about the recordings of his classes and how the bochurim listened to them, and he gave him a bit of a talking-to there at the farbrengen. He said, “In Tanya it says, ‘what is written in Yoel.’ These days, for the bochurim, it has become ‘what Yoel says.’” In other words, he was giving him a little talking-to about becoming somebody in his own right. Anyway, that is beside the point. But what is the explanation of the Alter Rebbe’s wording, “what is written in Yoel”? The Rebbe gives two very interesting explanations. In one explanation, the Rebbe says that fasting is mentioned many times in Tanach. In Yeshayahu, in Yirmiyahu—the Rebbe brings many verses. The words “fasting” and “fasting and weeping” appear repeatedly in Tanach. But in all those places, one could say that fasting is not necessarily part of

06:22 teshuvah. One could say that the fast there serves some other purpose. There are several purposes for fasting, as we will see later in the chapter. But in Yoel—and this is why the Alter Rebbe says “what is written in Yoel”—it says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping.” He is calling for teshuvah, and in that context he says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping.” The wording suggests that fasting is part of teshuvah. That is why the question specifically concerns what is written in Yoel. That is one explanation. The Rebbe gives another explanation. In another sicha, the Rebbe says there is also a more allusive point in the Alter Rebbe’s specifying Yoel: Yoel himself was a baal teshuvah. As is known, the Midrash tells us who Yoel was: Yoel son of Pesuel. It says that Yoel son of Pesuel was the son of Shmuel the prophet. Pesuel refers to Shmuel the prophet—it was one of his names—and Yoel son of Pesuel was his son. Now, when we look in Tanach, it says that Shmuel’s sons did not follow his path. They did not follow the straight path; that is what is related in Sefer Shmuel. Yet here we find that Yoel was a prophet. Rashi says in Yoel that he did teshuvah. In other words, Yoel was a baal teshuvah. He was the son of Shmuel the prophet, but he strayed from the path, rachmana litzlan, and afterward became a baal teshuvah and then a prophet. So the Alter Rebbe specifically emphasizes “what is written in Yoel”: as a baal teshuvah, Yoel knew what the work of teshuvah required. And he is the one who says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, with fasting and with weeping.” In any case,

08:26 So what was the Alter Rebbe’s point, and how does the Alter Rebbe answer the question? If so, what—so that is the question. Yoel says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, and with fasting.” How does that fit with what we said here, that fasting is not connected with teshuvah itself? The Alter Rebbe explains: it is to annul the decree. The Rebbe makes an interesting point: what the Alter Rebbe means to emphasize by “to annul the decree” is that fasting is not part of teshuvah at all. It is not, as we might initially have thought, a distinction between an individual’s sin and the sin of the community, the sin of the generation. It is something entirely different. Fasting has nothing to do with teshuvah; fasting is meant to annul the decree. There are two things here. First, they must do teshuvah for the past—abandon the sin. So that is what Yoel says: “Return to Me with all your hearts.” That is teshuvah. Teshuvah addresses the past; it means abandoning the sin. Then there is something to address for the future: there is a decree. Since Hakadosh Boruch Hu had decreed that He would bring locusts, and Yoel wanted to bring the Jewish people to a point where the locusts would not be needed, the means of annulling the decree was a fast. That is an entirely different matter. It is not a fast of teshuvah; it is a fast to annul the decree. So there are two parts: teshuvah addresses the past, and the fast addresses the future. That is the point here. And he adds, concerning “the sin of the generation, with suffering through locusts”: why specify suffering through locusts? The Rebbe says there is an interesting point here. A person might think, after all, what is the purpose of the fast? Fasting is connected with a kind of—fasting

10:29 diminishes one’s fat and blood. When we are speaking of sins a person has committed, he needs to rectify his sins by diminishing his fat and blood—that is, by fasting. Through the fast he takes something from his own fat and blood, from his body, and that would also rectify the decree. So the Alter Rebbe adds that the decree involved locusts. The Alter Rebbe wants to tell us that this was not a decree against the body. In Yoel’s case there was something distinctive: there was no decree against the body at all. The decree was against the fields. It was a decree of locusts. Locusts do not affect a Jew’s body, a person’s body; they affect his property. Hakadosh Boruch Hu intended to send locusts that would damage their property, and for that they were told to fast. In other words, this makes it even clearer that the fast is not a matter of diminishing one’s fat and blood, something a person does to rectify his soul. It is something done in response to any kind of decree, even one that does not affect the person himself but concerns his property, things seemingly external to him. Fasting is also the means to address that: it is a means of annulling every kind of decree in the world. That is why the Alter Rebbe specifies that the suffering was through locusts. Now the Alter Rebbe continues: “And this is the reason for all the fasts observed over any calamity that may befall the community, as it is written in Megillas Esther.” The Alter Rebbe says that this also helps us understand why fasting is not about the past, not part of teshuvah or rectification. What, then, is fasting for? It is to annul a decree against those concerned. We see this from the various fasts

12:26 that are observed. The Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of fasts, the Rambam, and the Gemara in Tractate Taanis all discuss various fasts. These are not fasts of teshuvah; they are fasts to annul a decree. Fasting is a means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that the Torah, gives us, as we learn from the account of Yoel. Along the same lines, he says, “as it is written in Megillas Esther,” where we also see that there were fasts. What was their purpose? Those fasts were for the same reason. They were not about teshuvah for the past, but about the present—to annul a decree. In Esther’s time, Haman the wicked had decreed that all the Jews be killed and destroyed. To annul that decree, they needed the fast, as it says in Megillas Esther. Here, too, the Rebbe pays attention to the wording, “as it is written in Megillas Esther.” Why does he cite Megillas Esther at all, and why specify “Megillas Esther”? Why does the Alter Rebbe give its full name? There are two interesting points here. First, he brings Megillas Esther because the wording of its verse resembles the wording of the verse in Yoel. In Yoel it says, “Return to Me with all your hearts, and with fasting and with weeping.” Megillas Esther also speaks of fasting and weeping. Since the wording is similar, we understand that the purpose is similar: just as in Yoel, the fasting and weeping were meant to annul the decree against those concerned, so too in Megillas Esther, the fasting there was connected with annulling the decree against those concerned. That is one explanation. But then the Rebbe adds: why does it say, “as it is written in Megillas Esther”—Megillas

14:36 Esther? This leads to a very interesting explanation. The Rebbe says that when we look closely at the Megillah, we find fasting mentioned in two places. Queen Esther said, “Fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days.” Later it says, “the matters of the fasts and their cries.” The Rebbe explains—and this is central to his approach—that these are two entirely different fasts. “The matters of the fasts and their cries” does not refer to the same fast as Esther’s “Fast for me.” When Queen Esther needed to go to the king, she asked for three days of fasting: “Fast for me”—on her behalf, so that she could go to the king. Those fasts were specifically for Queen Esther. They are not called fasts for the people of that generation. This was not something concerning the community; it concerned an individual. Of course, it also had implications for the community, but she explicitly said, “Fast for me.” She made a personal request on her own behalf: the fasts were meant to save her, Esther. But later, when it says “the matters of the fasts and their cries,” there were other fasts. The Jewish people observed various fasts in addition to those three days, and one might think those were fasts of teshuvah. The Alter Rebbe says: no, they were fasts to annul the decree. By the way, the Rebbe also explains on this basis what Taanis Esther means. Why is it called Taanis Esther specifically, when it is a fast observed by all the Jewish people? The Rebbe offers an interesting explanation: the reason it is called Taanis Esther is to emphasize that it refers to the fast that Esther alone observed. There was the fast that the Jewish people observed for three days on Esther’s behalf. Everyone fasted then except

16:39 Esther. Esther didn’t fast. She had to go to the king, so how would that work? Ah, no, no—she said, “I too.” Sorry, I’m getting confused. Esther did fast too, but that was a fast for all of Israel, not just for Esther. Later, though, when the Jewish people went to war, there was also a fast, but only Esther fasted. All the Jewish people had to fight, so they couldn’t fast. Only Esther could fast, because she wasn’t going to war. That’s why it’s called the Fast of Esther. In any case, there’s an explanation of this from the Rebbe. So that’s the distinction he’s making here: “as it is written in Megillas Esther.” If he had written “as it is written in Esther,” we might have thought he meant the fasts Esther asked the people to observe for her. That’s why he writes “as it is written in Megillas Esther”: he means the verse about “the matters of the fasts.” In any case, the Alter Rebbe continues: “And as for what is written in the works of mussar, foremost among them Sefer HaRokeach and Sefer Chassidim, prescribing many fasts and forms of self-affliction for someone who transgressed prohibitions punishable by kareis or by a court-imposed death penalty.” Now a question arises. Okay, the Rambam doesn’t mention fasts, but when we look in the works of mussar, we see many fasts. He means works of mussar written by great Torah sages. He writes, “foremost among them Sefer HaRokeach and Sefer Chassidim.” The author of Sefer HaRokeach was one of the great early Torah sages, Reb Elazar of Worms. And Sefer Chassidim was also by one of the great early Torah sages. Sefer Chassidim was by Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid, who lived around the time of the Rambam—a little after the Rambam. He was still before the fifth millennium. He was one of the truly great Torah sages, and in their books they prescribe many fasts and forms of self-affliction for someone who transgressed prohibitions punishable by kareis or by a court-imposed death penalty. That contradicts everything the Alter Rebbe said earlier: that even

18:44 for prohibitions punishable by kareis or by a court-imposed death penalty, a person doesn’t need to impose fasts on himself. He needs to do teshuvah, and if Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves him, He will give him suffering. Yet we see that these books do prescribe fasts and forms of self-affliction for someone who transgressed those prohibitions. “And likewise for someone who emits seed in vain, which carries a death penalty at the hands of Heaven.” He also comes to the transgression of emitting seed in vain, for which it says the punishment is death at the hands of Heaven. “As it is written in the Torah concerning Er and Onan, and its law in this respect is like that of prohibitions punishable by kareis.” We’ll get to that transgression. As we know, that was the sin of Er and Onan, Yehudah’s sons. Their sin involved emitting seed in vain, and their punishment was death at the hands of Heaven. So these books, Sefer Chassidim and Sefer HaRokeach—by the way, his name was Reb Elazar, and the numerical value of Rokeach is Elazar, which is why he called his book Rokeach—in any case, these books discuss the fasts and forms of self-affliction that are required for all these sins. How does that fit with what we said earlier, that one need not undertake fasts and forms of self-affliction even for prohibitions punishable by kareis or by a court-imposed death penalty? The Alter Rebbe gives three answers here. His first answer is: “In order to be spared punishment through suffering from Above, G-d forbid.” The purpose of the fasts mentioned in these books is for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to spare the person suffering from Above. Since he doesn’t want to undergo suffering from Above, he prefers to fast; being dealt blows could be much worse, much harder. As the Rebbe will explain at the end of chapter 12 of Igeres Hateshuvah, suffering from Above is much harder. “And also to hasten and speed the completion of his soul’s atonement.” That’s another reason for the fast: he wants to speed it up. He doesn’t want to wait; he wants to hasten the completion of his soul’s atonement.

20:49 So he fasts. And there’s a third answer: “Perhaps he has not returned to Hashem with all his heart and soul out of love, but only out of fear.” The third answer is that, as we said earlier, the suffering comes specifically when he serves out of love. A person worries that perhaps his teshuvah isn’t out of love, but is teshuvah out of fear. So by fasting, he wants to bring about teshuvah out of love. But I don’t understand what the Alter Rebbe is answering here. Before, the Alter Rebbe said no, and now he says yes. What happened? What suddenly changed? The Alter Rebbe said earlier that one doesn’t need to undertake fasts and forms of self-affliction, not even for prohibitions punishable by kareis or by a court-imposed death penalty. Why? Because it says that He visits it upon him from Above. Suddenly the Alter Rebbe allows it: yes, the works of mussar say there should be fasts and forms of self-affliction, and he gives three reasons. What does that mean? Did he change his mind about what he wrote earlier? The Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation here. The Rebbe explains the plain meaning, the simple meaning of the Tanya—but without the Rebbe, you can’t understand the plain meaning of the Tanya. So the Rebbe says no, there’s a simple explanation. The Alter Rebbe didn’t change his mind about what he said earlier. Fasting as teshuvah—that, no. The Alter Rebbe wants to rule out the idea that fasting is part of teshuvah. But there is a place for fasting. The main distinction is this: teshuvah concerns correcting the past, abandoning the sin. To abandon the sin, you don’t need a fast, and that isn’t what fasting is about. There is also something done for the future, not for the past. That’s an entirely different matter, along the lines of what we said earlier.

22:54 And we’ll come to fasting in response to a decree. That fast isn’t for teshuvah; it’s for the future. A person doesn’t want a decree to come upon him, so he fasts. The Alter Rebbe says that a person can likewise undertake fasts and forms of self-affliction for the future. That’s one explanation. But the deeper point is not merely that it concerns the future. The Rebbe says this defines what the fast is. The Rebbe’s explanation is very interesting: it falls into the category of prayer. When a person prays, he asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu to give him something in the future, to bestow something on him, to help him, and so on. Prayer is asking for something you want to happen. The same applies to an offering: prayer takes the place of offerings. A fast has that same aspect. A fast is a kind of prayer. Just as a person makes a request when he prays, a fast has a power like prayer. After all, a fast takes the place of an offering, just as prayer takes the place of an offering. The Alter Rebbe explains this in the Tanya, and that is the explanation of fasting: it’s a kind of prayer for the future. And what is the prayer for? The Alter Rebbe gives three things. Through the fast, a person is, as it were, making requests of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. First, that he should not suffer from Above. Second, to hasten and speed the completion of his soul’s atonement, so that the atonement comes quickly. And third, this too is a kind of prayer and request: because he fears that his teshuvah is only out of fear and lacks love, he fasts to ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to help him make his teshuvah complete—teshuvah out of love. That’s how the Rebbe reads the plain meaning here. So the three explanations are really one point: fasting falls into the category of prayer and preparation for the future, with three specific aspects of that preparation. Therefore, there’s no contradiction. For example, look.

24:50 What did he say earlier? That fasting in relation to teshuvah, which deals with the past, is not—not—not relevant. Fasting in connection with correcting the past: to correct the past through teshuvah out of fear and abandoning the sin, all that’s needed is abandoning the sin, along with confession and asking forgiveness. Fasting, by contrast, if it helps, is for matters concerning the future, not the past.