Tanya Igeres Hateshuvah - Chapter 1 - Summary

00:08 Speaker 1 Tonight, we have already entered 20 Menachem Av. First of all, 20 Menachem Av is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the Rebbe’s father. So it is an auspicious time—the yahrzeit of a tzaddik. As the Rebbe explains in Tanya, on the day of a tzaddik’s passing, he “brings about salvation in the midst of the earth.” Especially here, where the tzaddik is the father of the leader of our generation. And beyond that, he has his own merit: all his self-sacrifice. It was not self-sacrifice in just one area; it had an impact. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak devoted himself to spreading Yiddishkeit and spreading the wellsprings of Chassidus. He suffered terribly, and he passed away—as the Rebbe wrote in a sicha long ago—because of all the suffering he endured, his imprisonment, everything he went through, and his exile. So that makes this day an even more auspicious time. Certainly, each and every person should use these twenty-four hours to connect through studying the teachings of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak or the Rebbe’s teachings—especially Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s teachings. There are many sichos; each year there are sichos from the Rebbe with explanations. In particular, we are studying Igeres Hateshuvah here. It is well known that the Rebbe built his entire explanation of Igeres Hateshuvah on a foundation laid by his father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak. The Rebbe’s father wrote seventeen letters about Igeres Hateshuvah, which can be found among Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s letters on Tanya—seventeen letters about Igeres Hateshuvah. Over the years, the Rebbe showed that all of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s letters are written in hints, and very often they deal with Kabbalah. Generally, the vast majority is Kabbalah. For an ordinary person who does not know much Kabbalah and Chassidus, it is hard to understand what he means. There is only

02:38 Speaker 1 a hint, a precise choice of words. And the Rebbe showed that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s seventeen letters on Igeres Hateshuvah form the foundation of the entire Igeres Hateshuvah. It is really the whole Igeres Hateshuvah. Through them, one can understand it. The Rebbe explained Igeres Hateshuvah in the deepest and most wonderful way, all based on Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s teachings. So this is one aspect of Divine Providence. What is the Divine Providence here? In addition to all this, 20 Menachem Av is forty days before Rosh Hashanah. The Rebbe also brings up in a sicha the idea of forty days before Rosh Hashanah, corresponding to the forty days before a child is formed. That is when the time of preparation for Elul and Tishrei already begins—those forty days the Rebbe speaks about. There is a custom among Sephardim to begin with Torah, tzedakah, and kindness on 20 Menachem Av. I know that here in Argentina, too, there are several Sephardic communities that begin with Torah, tzedakah, and kindness already on 20 Menachem Av. So, all right, not in your community, but in others, yes. At any rate, I have seen it, and the Rebbe cites this practice as a source. We see that there is an actual custom to begin all the preparations for Rosh Hashanah on 20 Menachem Av. What does that tell us? For chassidim, it is about the work of teshuvah. This last stretch of days is the time to prepare for the work of teshuvah. So from 20 Menachem Av, forty days before Rosh Hashanah, each and every person needs to start making an effort in teshuvah. That is why it is a wonderful, very good, very important thing that the shluchim organized this campaign to study Igeres Hateshuvah, so that people can learn it over this period. I hope the bochurim will really take advantage of it, not just for the gifts and prizes, but for

04:35 Speaker 1 the thing itself: to study Igeres Hateshuvah personally, so that it leads to genuine teshuvah. What we learn should not remain just a memory; it should also find expression in practice, bringing about complete teshuvah, as the Rebbe teaches us teshuvah should be. It is all here. Since time is short, we need to speak in brief points, so today we will discuss the main points, based on the sicha the bochurim are studying here, the sicha on the three categories of atonement. The Alter Rebbe begins Igeres Hateshuvah with a braisa. Yes, “It was taught at the end of Yoma,” and he quotes the braisa: “There are three categories of atonement, and teshuvah accompanies each one.” He quotes a braisa, and it says there are three categories of atonement, with teshuvah accompanying each one. For a positive commandment, a person does teshuvah and is forgiven immediately. For a negative commandment, teshuvah suspends judgment and Yom Kippur atones. Then there is the matter of suffering for sins punishable by kareis or death at the hands of the court: teshuvah and Yom Kippur suspend judgment, and suffering cleanses. That is the braisa. Afterward he writes, “Here ends the wording of the braisa.” He has not said anything else. He does not ask a question or introduce an argument. He quotes a braisa. That is all. Look, for example, at Likkutei Amarim. The Alter Rebbe quotes a braisa and asks many questions about it. He examines it from this angle and that. Likkutei Amarim begins, “It was taught at the end of chapter three of Niddah,” and the Alter Rebbe asks questions. Here, the Alter Rebbe asks no questions. He quotes the braisa, copies it out, explains a few details in parentheses along the way, and then: “Here ends the wording of the braisa.” Then he begins, “Now, the mitzvah of teshuvah...” What is the purpose of the braisa? Why does he quote it? What do we learn from it? The Alter Rebbe could have begun differently: “Now, the mitzvah of teshuvah...” There would have been no need for the braisa. What? What does he want from this braisa here? He could simply have begun. The Alter Rebbe wants to

06:37 Speaker 1 teach them Igeres Hateshuvah? What is teshuvah? He could begin with the mitzvah of teshuvah according to the Torah. You could start right there. So we see that the braisa leads into what the Alter Rebbe is introducing here in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe is about to bring about a revolution, yes, in the whole subject of the work of teshuvah. And the braisa is the basis, the foundation, for the entire revolution the Alter Rebbe is building on it. What, in fact, is the Alter Rebbe’s innovation? We know that there are already many books on teshuvah. There is the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah, which we will be studying around this time. In the coming days, those who learn three chapters a day will begin the Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah. There are books on teshuvah by Rabbeinu Yonah, the Meiri, and many, many others who wrote about teshuvah in various books and pamphlets. The Alter Rebbe wrote Igeres Hateshuvah to explain teshuvah according to Chassidus. But as we know, and as we can clearly see, the Alter Rebbe did not only explain Igeres Hateshuvah according to Chassidus. He also explained teshuvah according to the revealed dimension of Torah, particularly in the first three chapters. The Alter Rebbe explains fundamental matters concerning teshuvah straightforwardly, according to the revealed dimension of Torah. Now, what do we see here in Tanya? What is the central point the Alter Rebbe is explaining to us? The Alter Rebbe puts things in order. We can look, for example, at other books. In the sicha, the Rebbe quotes Rabbeinu Yonah and others, who discuss what teshuvah is. There are many teachings of our Sages about teshuvah, and many laws and Midrashim. What exactly is the work of teshuvah? Some books, for example, show that teshuvah includes three things. It is not just one thing; there are several components to teshuvah. Sometimes it says it is unconditional love. The Rebbe even cites a book by one of the early authorities saying that teshuvah includes twenty components. There are twenty aspects to teshuvah. Teshuvah has several aspects.

08:40 Speaker 1 There is regret over the past, a resolution for the future, confession, asking forgiveness, fasting, tzedakah, and ways of making amends. There are so many elements, and all of them are part of teshuvah. So which elements of teshuvah are essential? Which are details? What exactly is the order of things in teshuvah? When you look at the Rambam, or at the works of the Rishonim and Acharonim, you can get confused. You don’t know exactly what the mitzvah is, what its details are, and what things are additional. It isn’t so clear. And here in Igeres Hateshuvah, the Alter Rebbe does something tremendous: he gives a very powerful explanation. What is the point we see here in Igeres Hateshuvah? First, the Alter Rebbe tells us a fundamental principle: there is a Torah mitzvah of teshuvah, and it has one point. Not two details, not three details, and certainly not twenty. There is one point, and that is what the Alter Rebbe writes at the beginning: “The mitzvah of teshuvah according to the Torah is simply abandoning sin.” The Alter Rebbe makes this so clear for us: there is a central point to teshuvah. A person wants to know the essence of teshuvah, not all ten chapters. Tell me teshuvah in one point. And the one point of the Torah mitzvah is simply abandoning sin. That is the entire mitzvah. All the other things are not the mitzvah of teshuvah. The mitzvah of teshuvah is one point: simply abandoning sin. What does “simply abandoning sin” mean? What does it mean to abandon sin? What do those words mean? So the Alter Rebbe says that abandoning sin means the decision a person makes that from today onward, he will no longer do that thing, or

10:38 Speaker 1 that from today onward, he will no longer rebel against the King. As the Alter Rebbe says, he must resolve in his heart, wholeheartedly, never to return to his folly. The decision a person makes must be a firm decision that he will not be foolish again; he will not rebel against the King. The main mitzvah of teshuvah concerns what happens from now on: the decision that from today onward, I will not do it. That is teshuvah. The Alter Rebbe does not write here that teshuvah means one must feel regret. Abandoning sin does not mean feeling regret. In Castilian, teshuvah is translated—as the Rebbe mentions in a well-known sicha—as “arrepentimiento”; this sense also comes across in English, Portuguese, and other languages. What does “arrepentimiento” mean? Regret. That is the opposite of the central point. It isn’t right. That isn’t teshuvah. Regret is a detail—not just any detail, but an important one. We’ll discuss it shortly, but it is not the mitzvah of teshuvah. The mitzvah of teshuvah is not “arrepentimiento.” It is a decision about what happens from today onward. Regret is about the past. I regret it. I’m sorry. I’m disgusted by it. I apologize. I’m trying to clean up the past. The mitzvah of teshuvah is not about the past; it is about the future: from now on, I will not do it again. That is the first principle the Alter Rebbe tells us in Tanya. And he brings verses and proofs for this—four verses showing that this is the point of the mitzvah of teshuvah. To return: that is, after all, the plain meaning of the word teshuvah. To return to Hashem, to come back. To return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to come back, to begin again, to make a new start. Full stop. On the other hand, when you look further on in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe brings several additional matters. He goes on to discuss confession. Confession, too, is from the Torah. Our Sages and the Alter Rebbe—and according to the Rambam, the mitzvah of teshuvah

12:47 Speaker 1 is confession. There is a whole detailed discussion of that. We won’t get to it in the discussion we’re studying now. But confession is also an element. There is the matter of asking forgiveness. Then he brings additional matters: fasting, and afterward tzedakah. The Alter Rebbe discusses all these at length, explaining that all this is needed for a person to become pleasing and beloved. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, one had to bring an offering. Now that there is no offering, there are fasts, and in place of fasts there is tzedakah. All sorts of things. So what is going on here? You just said that teshuvah is simply abandoning sin. Why are you now bringing in all these other things? The explanation is that there are two matters: teshuvah and atonement. There is one matter called teshuvah, and another called atonement. Atonement is part of the broader matter of teshuvah, but it is secondary; it is something additional. They are two different things. But explain the distinction between them. What do these two things mean? What is the source for this idea that teshuvah is divided into two parts? There is teshuvah itself, the very mitzvah of teshuvah, and there is the atonement that teshuvah brings about. What is the source for that? It is the baraisa. That is why the Alter Rebbe began with the baraisa: “It was taught at the end of Yoma.” When you look at the baraisa, you see explicitly that it makes a distinction. There is teshuvah, and there is atonement: “There are three categories of atonement, and teshuvah accompanies each one.” From here we see that there are two concepts, teshuvah and atonement. What is the difference between them? What does each accomplish? What exactly does teshuvah do, and what does atonement do? How do they complement each other? What is the difference between them? To answer that, we need to go into the Gemara that the Alter Rebbe cites

14:50 Speaker 1 and understand it a little. Here the Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation, taking the Gemara and explaining it according to Chassidus, according to Tanya. It takes on a very deep and interesting meaning. When you look at the Gemara in Yoma, it begins with Rabbi Masya ben Charash asking Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah: “Have you heard the four categories of atonement that Rabbi Yishmael expounded?” Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah told him: “No, they are three.” He had said he heard four, and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah told him: “No, they aren’t four; there are three categories of atonement.” He then sets them out: For a positive mitzvah, teshuvah brings forgiveness immediately; for a prohibition, teshuvah suspends punishment and Yom Kippur atones; for sins punishable by kareis or death by the court, teshuvah and Yom Kippur suspend punishment, and suffering cleanses. The fourth is desecration of Hashem’s name. With all of these, death, too, cleanses at the time of death. That is what the Gemara says in Yoma. Now what does the Alter Rebbe do? He does not quote the entire Gemara. From the outset, he cites three categories of atonement—only three. He does not include the exchange about there being four, and so on. But the Rebbe explains that in the wording the Alter Rebbe chose, he answers a question raised by the commentators. The Alter Rebbe changed the wording of the Gemara. He does not quote it verbatim; he presents it in a different form. And in that wording, he answers the commentators’ question. They ask: Rabbi Masya ben Charash heard of four categories of atonement, and Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah tells him, “No, there aren’t four; there are three.” Yet he himself lists four: a positive mitzvah, a prohibition, sins punishable by kareis, and desecration of Hashem’s name. So what does he mean by telling him, “No, they aren’t four; they’re three”?

16:56 Speaker 1 Categories of atonement. That’s straightforward, but why does the Gemara itself say this? What’s the answer? The commentators offer two answers. Some explain that the “three categories of atonement” exclude positive commandments. For a positive commandment, there is no atonement; there is only teshuvah. Atonement means Yom Kippur, suffering, and death. With a positive commandment, there is only teshuvah. It doesn’t say “atonement.” That is why there are three categories of atonement. That’s one answer. The second answer is that when Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says “three categories of atonement,” he means to exclude desecration of Hashem’s name. Desecration of Hashem’s name is not counted because its atonement comes after death. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah wanted to say that there are three during a person’s lifetime: positive commandments, negative commandments, and offenses punishable by kares, with suffering. These involve teshuvah that you do while alive. Desecration of Hashem’s name cannot be remedied during one’s lifetime. Only after death—and that is not counted. So those are the two approaches. How do we resolve this? The Alter Rebbe does not mention desecration of Hashem’s name. The Alter Rebbe mentions only positive commandments, negative commandments, and suffering. We see that the Alter Rebbe agrees with those commentators who do not count desecration of Hashem’s name. Why does the Alter Rebbe hold that way? Why does the Alter Rebbe hold that way? Because the Alter Rebbe holds that the whole matter of teshuvah and atonement must be something that happens during life. It is part of a Jew’s avodah. The whole matter of teshuvah, including the atonement within teshuvah, is part of serving Hashem. A person is a soul in a body; that is the whole context of mitzvos. Mitzvos are for a soul in a body. A soul without a body, in a certain sense, also cannot perform mitzvos. You can fulfill a mitzvah only while you are here. Why? Because you are a soul in a body. With desecration of Hashem’s name, the atonement comes after death; that is another matter. So although it is certainly very important for the soul—and that is why Rabbi Masya ben Charash, who also mentions desecration

19:12 Speaker 1 of Hashem’s name, [unclear] also includes it—certainly it is a very profound matter for the soul that even desecration of Hashem’s name can ultimately be rectified after death. That concerns the soul. But when we speak about a person’s avodah, the point is that a person’s avodah takes place as a soul in a body, in this physical world. In a person’s avodah, atonement too is part of that avodah. And that is what the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe is discussing teshuvah and atonement as they relate to a person’s avodah. So he presents three categories of atonement: positive commandments, negative commandments, and offenses punishable by kares and by court-imposed death, where both teshuvah and atonement depend on a person’s avodah as a soul in a body. Desecration of Hashem’s name, by contrast, does not belong here. Now, what really is the distinction—what are these two matters? So far, all this has been an explanation of how the Alter Rebbe understands the Gemara. But what are we saying here? In other words, what conclusion emerges? That the avodah of teshuvah has two aspects: the mitzvah of teshuvah itself and atonement. What are these two aspects? And why do I say that the mitzvah of teshuvah itself exists even without atonement? There is a Torah mitzvah to do teshuvah, and there is a further matter: atonement. What exactly are these two things, teshuvah and atonement? So the Rebbe says the following. The mitzvah of teshuvah is a mitzvah incumbent on a person. It obligates a person to act from now on. The mitzvah of teshuvah means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands a person to stop—to stop transgressing and become a new person. You committed a sin. Yes, so you rebelled against the King. Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands you to do teshuvah. What does that mean? You have to stop committing

21:31 Speaker 1 sins. Stopping sin is a decision a person makes from now on. That is the commandment. In other words, the mitzvah of teshuvah is a concrete action, like all mitzvos. There is a mitzvah to put on tefillin, a mitzvah of tzitzis, a mitzvah of prayer—to recite the prayers. There are mitzvos. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave a commandment, and a commandment calls for concrete action. What is the mitzvah of teshuvah? Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands a person to stop committing sins and to resolve that from today onward he will not do so again. That is teshuvah. That is one thing: the mitzvah itself, the fulfillment of teshuvah. After that, there is another matter: that the person should become clean. This is what the Rebbe calls the desired outcome, the intended goal. We want more than for you simply to stop committing sins in practice. We want the person to be clean, to be a new person, to renew himself. We want the person to be acceptable and dear to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is something further. It is the intended goal, the result. There is the act of teshuvah, through which, from today onward, you no longer rebel against the King. And then there is the person becoming clean, whole, pure, acceptable and dear to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So we say these are two things. The latter is atonement. The mitzvah of teshuvah itself is what you do from now on. But for the person to achieve the goal of teshuvah, its intended purpose—for teshuvah to bring about a change in him, so that he becomes a new, clean person—more is needed beyond teshuvah itself. That requires regret for the past. It requires confession. It requires asking forgiveness. All these details belong to what is called atonement. That is the matter of atonement. So these are

23:38 Speaker 1 the two matters he speaks of here in the braisa: “There are three categories of atonement, and teshuvah accompanies each one.” In the avodah of teshuvah there are two aspects. There is teshuvah itself, of which we say, “The essence of the mitzvah of teshuvah according to the Torah is simply abandoning the sin.” That is one aspect. And there is atonement, which means becoming clean and whole, and becoming a person who is acceptable and dear. That is atonement. So because both aspects matter—teshuvah itself and its result, its intended goal—the Alter Rebbe discusses both in his note on teshuvah. The Alter Rebbe explains what the Torah mitzvah of teshuvah is: simply abandoning the sin. He explains that, and he also explains the atonement within teshuvah, because atonement too is relevant to the completeness of teshuvah. But what aspect of atonement? As we said earlier, the aspect that applies to a soul in a body down here in this world. In other words, atonement as part of teshuvah. Just as teshuvah is a mitzvah that a person must fulfill as a soul in a body—that is the whole point of a mitzvah a person fulfills down here—so too the result of teshuvah, which is atonement, through which the person becomes dear, must be an atonement that takes effect for a soul in a body. And there are only three such categories. Desecration of Hashem’s name is different: its atonement is not connected to teshuvah in this sense, because it does not take place for a soul in a body. It concerns the soul after death, in Gan Eden. So it is not connected to a person’s avodah down here, and that is why the Alter Rebbe does not discuss it in Tanya. This is also a fundamental point in understanding the Alter Rebbe’s approach in Tanya. First of all, it gives us the whole introduction to the avodah of teshuvah. But it also relates to the Alter Rebbe’s entire approach in Tanya. As the Rebbe says several times, the book of Tanya is a book of

25:34 Speaker 1 avodah. The whole of Tanya is founded on the principle, “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” The Alter Rebbe wants to teach us how to serve Hashem and explain how it is very close to us. So Igeres Hateshuvah, too, addresses teshuvah by clarifying what the avodah of teshuvah means in practice. That is what the Alter Rebbe comes to explain here in Tanya: the avodah of teshuvah—how every Jew can do teshuvah, how every Jew must do teshuvah, and what he does in that avodah. That is what the Alter Rebbe explains here, and that is why he cites the braisa. From this braisa we see the two principal aspects of teshuvah. There is teshuvah itself, and there is the completeness of teshuvah, its result. We can call that the goal of teshuvah. Teshuvah itself is the concrete action: a person resolves to abandon the sin, so that from today onward there will be no more rebellion against the King. That is the mitzvah of teshuvah itself. Then there is the desired outcome of teshuvah: it seeks to make the person into someone different. For that, the other elements are also needed. So the Alter Rebbe goes on to discuss the need for fasts, and how today, when one should not fast, there is a need to give tzedakah. Similarly, there are other elements, such as confession and asking forgiveness. All of this is so that you will truly be accepted. That is the foundation of the discussion here in Igeres Hateshuvah.

27:01 Speaker 2 Also in.