He did teshuvah, so why is he still called a rasha? - Tanya Chapter 11 - Part Two

00:01 So in Tanya, we’re in the middle of chapter 11. The Alter Rebbe is discussing a rasha v’tov lo, a wicked person who has good within him. The Alter Rebbe explains that there are many levels of rasha v’tov lo. Since a rasha v’tov lo is the opposite of a tzaddik v’ra lo, a righteous person who has evil within him, just as we discussed many levels of tzaddik v’ra lo, there are also many levels of rasha v’tov lo, from one extreme to the other. The Alter Rebbe begins by explaining the highest levels of rasha v’tov lo: someone who fails only very slightly, on rare occasions, perhaps in just one area. Here he is in the middle of giving examples of subtle, minor matters in which a person might fail—and that alone means the person is no longer on the level of a beinoni, but is a rasha v’tov lo. The Alter Rebbe gives several examples. It’s very interesting. “Or in action alone”—how does it say above? Yes, the first line: “That is, in action alone, committing minor sins and not severe ones, G-d forbid.” Sometimes the yetzer hara takes hold of a person only through the garment of action. Action alone—and what sort of action? Here too, we’re talking about minor sins, not severe ones, G-d forbid. He fails in some matter of action, and specifically in sins that are called minor rather than severe. He doesn’t give an example, but these are transgressions considered minor. “Or in speech alone, speaking avak lashon hara, a trace of harmful speech, and mockery, and the like.” For speech, the Alter Rebbe does give examples. What kinds of things might be involved in speech? Avak lashon hara, mockery, and the like. We’re not talking about outright lashon hara. We’re talking about someone who fails in subtle matters. As we said, this is a rasha v’tov lo on a high level. So the Alter Rebbe

02:13 says: Where does he fail? In avak lashon hara and mockery. Regarding mockery, the Rebbe writes that the Alter Rebbe does not mean outright mockery, because that too is very severe. The Gemara says very harsh things about mockery, so he cannot be referring to outright mockery. That would be a severe transgression. He means a trace of mockery. Just as there is avak lashon hara, there is also a trace of mockery. I don’t know exactly what falls under that definition. Avak lashon hara is discussed in the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch gives examples: If you praise someone excessively, that is called avak lashon hara, because praising him may lead you to speak negatively about him as well. That’s what the halachah says. Or saying that they’re always cooking in someone’s house because they have so many guests—that too is called avak lashon hara. The Shulchan Aruch lists various things considered avak lashon hara. But what does a trace of mockery mean? The Rebbe says that this is how we must understand the Tanya: a trace of lashon hara and a trace of mockery. In other words, it isn’t outright mockery, but there is something mocking about it. “Or in thought alone”—here too, “thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself.” This concerns thought. So what is meant here by thoughts of sin being more serious than sin itself? The Rebbe wants to point out that we are speaking about a passing thought. Now, as a matter of halachah, an ordinary passing thought is not generally considered a sin at all. A person merely has a thought and does not commit a transgression; according to halachah, that is not counted as one. A person only thought about it—that is not counted as a sin. Yet here we want to say that he becomes a rasha v’tov lo. So what kind of thought makes him a rasha

04:15 v’tov lo? That is why the Alter Rebbe says we are speaking about “thoughts of sin that are more serious than sin itself.” The Alter Rebbe means thoughts connected with desire for women. It is about these that we say, “Thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself”—thoughts connected with sexual matters and desire for women. Rashi explains the Gemara’s statement, “Thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself,” as referring to such thoughts. Why does it say they are more serious than the sin itself? In halachah, that certainly is not the case. When a person commits a transgression in practice, there are halachos governing it, prohibitions concerning forbidden relationships, varying degrees of severity, and so on. If a person only had a thought, halachically it is not the same. So what does the Gemara mean when it says, “Thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself”? The Gemara says, “And your sign is a smell”—like an aroma. What does that mean? There are several explanations. The Rebbe cites the Maharal of Prague and the Maharsha. There are several explanations for why thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself. One explanation, for example, is given by the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah. The Rambam says it is because such thoughts are harder to leave behind. When a person does something wrong, he knows he is doing wrong, so he regrets it and does teshuvah. He won’t do it again. But once a person becomes accustomed to bad thoughts, it is harder for him to stop them. They pursue him. That is one explanation; it is what the Rambam writes. But the Maharal of Prague writes that the garment of thought is a higher garment. Why are thoughts of sin more serious than the sin itself? Not in terms of halachah, but in terms of their effect on the person. Among the soul’s faculties, thought is a higher faculty than action. As explained in the Siddur, action is a more external faculty, while thought is more internal. In particular,

06:09 as explained regarding [unclear], the garment of thought is united with the soul. That is the difference between thought and speech: thought is a garment united with the soul. The soul unites with thought. Consequently, when a person thinks about a sin, it blemishes the soul. It is a deeper blemish, because thought is more closely united with the soul, so it also blemishes the soul more deeply. These are various reasons why thoughts of sin are more serious than sin itself. The Rebbe’s point is that although a person may think it is merely a passing thought, it nevertheless has all these effects. Therefore, a person who has such thoughts of sin is, for that reason too, considered a rasha v’tov lo. That is what he means by “thoughts of sin that are more serious than sin itself.” The Rebbe adds a further point about this very matter: “Even if he does not think about committing the sin.” The Alter Rebbe says that even if a person has such thoughts, he is not necessarily thinking that he wants to commit a sin. That would already be a worse, coarser level. Thinking that he wants to commit the sin is certainly very serious. But sometimes he is merely thinking about the subject, not that he wants to do it. He thinks about it. That is what it means that he is not thinking of committing it, but, as the Alter Rebbe says, he thinks “about the union of male and female in the world,” thereby transgressing a Torah prohibition. What exactly is prohibited here? Again, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain why this person is considered a rasha v’tov lo. Why—are you allowed to listen?—why is he called a rasha? So the Alter Rebbe says it is because, although it’s true that he isn’t

07:59 He thinks about doing it. But the very thought about matters of forbidden relations—thinking about the union of a man and woman—means he transgresses the Torah’s warning, “You shall guard yourself from every evil thing,” that one should not have such thoughts during the day, etc. There is a verse in Parshas Ki Seitzei that says, “You shall guard yourself from every evil thing.” The Gemara, in Kesubos and in several other places, asks: What do we learn from this verse? What is it telling us? The Gemara says it teaches that a person should not dwell during the day on matters of forbidden relations, because that can lead to a nocturnal emission at night. If he thought about it during the day and that led to a nocturnal emission, the thought itself is the sin. Or he has an opportunity to study Torah and turns his mind to idle things. So the prohibition is not the nocturnal emission; the prohibition is the thought during the day that can lead to it. “Or he has an opportunity to study Torah and turns his mind to idle things.” Now the Alter Rebbe gives another example, also involving thought. The first example was a thought about something forbidden. Now he gives another example involving thought: neglecting Torah study. “Or he has an opportunity to study Torah and turns his mind to idle things.” A person has time when he should be studying—an opportunity to sit and learn—and instead, he does nothing. He turns his mind to idle things. That too is a matter of thought, and it too is an evil thought. Instead of thinking thoughts of Torah and engaging his mind

10:00 in Torah, his mind is empty and he thinks about worldly matters. So turning his mind to idle things is also considered a sin in thought. “As we learned in Avos: One who stays awake at night, etc., and turns his mind, etc.” There is a Mishnah in Pirkei Avos that says, “One who stays awake at night and turns his mind to idle things.” In other words, he is awake at night, when he has an opportunity to study. Nighttime is a time when a person should sit and learn. As is known, the Rambam writes that nighttime in particular is when a person can sit and learn better. But instead of learning, he turns his mind to idle things. That is a sin. Pirkei Avos goes on to state the consequence, and so on. So these are the examples the Alter Rebbe gives regarding thought. There are two examples: one is that thoughts of sin are more severe than sin, and the second is turning one’s mind to idle things. Instead of learning, he wastes his mental energy thinking about all kinds of foolish things—neglecting Torah study in thought. The Rebbe raises an interesting question here: Pirkei Avos is not talking about neglecting Torah study. It says that such a person “endangers his life.” There, it is not discussing this as the sin of neglecting Torah study, but as a matter of protection from harmful forces. As the commentators explain, there are harmful forces at night, and when you study Torah, the Torah protects you. But when a person turns his mind to idle things instead of studying Torah, he exposes himself to those harmful forces. That is the plain meaning of “endangers his life” in Pirkei Avos. So Pirkei Avos is not talking about neglecting Torah study. The Alter Rebbe cites that Mishnah, but applies it to our discussion, where he is speaking about neglecting Torah study. So the Rebbe asks: this requires

11:55 further examination—why exactly does the Alter Rebbe cite it here? That is the question. Now, what he says here is that “with any one of these, or the like, he is called a rasha at that time.” What is the Alter Rebbe saying? Even if a person slips up—as we said, these are minor transgressions, and it is only one of them, and it may happen only rarely—nevertheless, that alone already makes him a rasha v’tov lo. He is no longer a beinoni. He certainly is not a tzaddik, but he is not even considered a beinoni; he is a rasha v’tov lo. “With any one of these, or the like, he is called a rasha at that time.” A person is called a rasha at that time “because the evil in his soul prevails within him.” Why is he called a rasha at that time? The Alter Rebbe says it is because the evil has prevailed “and clothes itself in his body, causing him to sin and defiling him.” The evil has prevailed within him and has brought him to actually commit a transgression. That is called a rasha v’tov lo. But why “v’tov lo”—why is he called a rasha v’tov lo? The Alter Rebbe continues. The Alter Rebbe says that afterward—no, sorry—“And afterward, the good in his G-dly soul prevails within him.” After he commits the transgression, immediately after he slips up, his G-dly soul prevails. “And he regrets it and asks Hashem for pardon and forgiveness.” He asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive him. “And Hashem will forgive him.” Once he asks for forgiveness, Hashem forgives him, as the Alter Rebbe will explain in Igeres Hateshuvah, “if he repents properly, following the counsel of our Sages, of blessed memory, concerning the three categories of atonement that Rabbi Yishmael expounded, etc., as explained elsewhere.” If afterward a person regrets it, asks Hashem for forgiveness, and does the teshuvah

13:59 that the Gemara describes at the end of Yoma: for a positive commandment, teshuvah brings atonement immediately; for a negative commandment, Yom Kippur is also needed; and for transgressions punishable by kares or death by a beis din, suffering is also needed. When a person does all of that, then, as explained elsewhere, he atones for the sin and becomes a baal teshuvah. Now, interestingly, the Alter Rebbe does not say that he becomes a beinoni. We need to understand what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. The moment a person slips up, he is a rasha v’tov lo. Afterward he regrets it and does teshuvah. So when he does teshuvah, what happens? He becomes a baal teshuvah. Is he now a tzaddik? Is he now a beinoni? Or does he remain a rasha v’tov lo? The Alter Rebbe’s wording here indicates that this has not yet made him a beinoni, and certainly not a tzaddik, even though he has done teshuvah. This is what the Alter Rebbe is teaching us here in chapter 11: even a person who does teshuvah, if his teshuvah leaves him in a state where he can slip up again, has not yet done genuine teshuvah. If he is in a state where he can keep slipping up again—even if it happens only once in a while, and even if the transgressions are minor—the very fact that he can fall again means that even after doing teshuvah, he is not truly in the state of one who “has not committed a transgression and will not commit one.” This is one of the major insights through which the Rebbe explains the meaning of Tanya for us, because it is not so clear when you learn the Tanya. Rasha v’tov lo involves levels; rasha v’tov lo is a state of the soul. A person may, right now, in actual practice,

15:48 not be committing any transgression. Not only that, he may also have done teshuvah for his past transgressions. Nevertheless, he is still not on the level of a tzaddik, or even on the level of a beinoni. He is on the level of a rasha v’tov lo. Because the defining characteristic of a rasha v’tov lo is that committing a transgression is not unthinkable for him. In other words, what is the essence of it? What is the definition? What is the point? According to Tanya, the point of rasha v’tov lo is that a person is presently in a state of soul in which he can commit a transgression, even if in practice he has not done so. The fact that it remains a possibility for him, that it is not unthinkable to him, means he is called a rasha v’tov lo. So when the Alter Rebbe says that afterward he regrets it and does teshuvah, he still is not called a beinoni. All of that is still part of the state of a rasha v’tov lo. Later, the Alter Rebbe will explain further levels within rasha v’tov lo, as we will see. But