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Yom Kippur And Vezos Haberachah - Callous Confessions

Yom Kippur

And

Vezos Haberachah

Note: Vezos Haberachah is not read this Shabbos

Callous Confessions

By: Daniel Listhaus

יְחִי רְאוּבֵן וְאַל יָמֹת וִיהִי מְתָיו מִסְפָּר: וְזֹאת לִיהוּדָה וַיֹּאמַר שְׁמַע ה' קוֹל יְהוּדָה וְאֶל עַמּוֹ תְּבִיאֶנּוּ יָדָיו רָב לוֹ וְעֵזֶר מִצָּרָיו תִּהְיֶה

“May Reuvein live and not die, and may his men be in the count. And this to Yehuda, and he said: Listen Hashem, to the voice of Yehuda, and to his people shall You bring him; may his hands fight for him and may You be a Helper against his enemies.”

-Vezos Haberachah 33:6-7

The mishna¹ describes the process that the Beis Din HaGadol (The Supreme Court) would go through with a woman who is a sotah. Before having her drink the mei hamarim (literally- bitter waters), the beis din would try to convince the suspected sotah to just admit that she indeed was with the man that her husband warned her not to be with. After all, the mei hamarim itself as well as its potential effect was no laughing matter. The vital ingredient of the mei hamarim was that they would dissolve the parsha of sotah into it – which contains Hashem's name. A sotah who would not admit would have to drink this water as a test. If indeed she had done what we suspect her of doing, her insides would blow up and she would die.

The gemara² elaborates that one of the steps of the persuasion process was that beis din would tell her stories of people in Chumash who did improper things (similar to the sotah) but were not embarrassed to admit to them. So too, they try to tell her, she should learn from them and not let her embarrassment overpower her to stop her from admitting what she did. The two examples of stories that the gemara says that beis din would use to illustrate their point are the ones which involves Reuvein and Yehuda. Reuvein switched the beds in Yaakov's tent after Rachel died, deciding to take action when he saw that Yaakov had chosen Bilhah (Rachel's maidservant) to take her place instead of Leah. Beis din would relate this story to the sotah and then say that Reuvein stood up to his actions, did teshuva (repentance), and admitted to his father that it as he that switched the beds. Beis din would then mention the episode of Yehuda and Tamar. Yehuda was mezaneh (had marital relations) with Tamar without knowing who she was. When Yehuda was later informed that Tamar had zenus with someone, his reaction was that she should be put to death, However, when he realized that she had the items that Yehuda had used to pay for her services, he admitted “tzadkah me'meh'nee” - declaring that Tamar was righteous. Beis din would then again suggest to the sotah that she too should admit to her actions like Yehudah did.

The gemara continues to mention that we see from the juxtaposition of passukim (verses) in this week's parsha that it was Yehudah who actually caused Reuvein to admit what he did. Rashi³ elaborates that Moshe was davening that the shevet (tribe) of Reuvein should live in this world and “not die” in the next world – meaning that the incident of him switching the beds in Yaakov's tent should not be remembered to his detriment, because, as we see from the juxtaposition of the aforementioned passukim, when Reuvein saw that Yehuda stood up and admitted, he took the opportunity to do so as well.⁴

The important thing to keep in mind though is that admitting one's sins to people is not something that is so obvious that could be done. Unlike other religions, confessions to a Rabbi is not a part of our teshuva process. We must confess personally to Hashem. As a matter of fact it is not simple at all for someone to admit to his own sins in public. After all, one is not allowed to say lashon harah even about oneself unless it is serving a constructive purpose which falls within the guidelines of hilchos lashon harah or if he is speaking to someone he trusts who could help him conquer his nisyonos (moral tests). Furthermore, as the gemara itself points out, we are not permitted to go around announcing our aveiros – doing so would demonstrate that we do not take our aveiros seriously. The gemara therefore asks that granted Yehuda was allowed to admit what he did because in the absence of doing so, Tamar would have been killed. However, how was Reuvein able to admit? What he had done was long over with no such severe ramifications, so what purpose did Reuvein's admitting serve? The gemara answers that Reuvein admitted in order that Yaakov should not suspect his other brothers. In other words, until Reuvein publicly admitted there was a little thing that bothered Yaakov every time he spoke to one of his sons because in the back of his mind he would wonder if perhaps this was the son who had switched the beds. Therefore after Yehuda stood up to admit, Reuvein followed suit.

We could see from this whole gemara a fantastic concept. Here we have a sotah who will face a most unpleasant death by not admitting what she did, as well as be responsible for having the Name of Hashem be erased. The beis din, tries to convince her to admit and does so by bringing stories of people who admitted even in order to save someone else's life and even to save others from merely being suspect in their father's eyes. Indeed admitting publicly is an incredibly scary thing. Yet, during the y'mei slichos, aseres y'mei teshuva and especially on Yom Kippur itself, we find ourselves admitting to whole lists of things that we have done. How could it be that a sotah, who is already in all the headlines as a suspect having been warned by her husband and witnessed by eidim (witnesses), and who is now facing death, needs to be persuaded to admit in order not to have a Name of Hashem be erased but yet we are able to show up comfortably in Shul alongside our friends and spend all day asking forgiveness for aveiros we have done? The gemara had said that one who is able to just admit his sins is someone shameless and a mechatzef. So how could we come before Hashem in public and admit to the things we have done?

There is no question that indeed this is the method that must be used, we have so little of our own zechusim and depend so heavily on Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov and the 13 Middos of Rachamim (attributes of mercy), which Hashem promises He will never return empty⁵, as well as the power of coming as a tzibbur (community) to ask Hashem to help us do teshuva. However, the big question is on us who when we admit to the things we have done, it is with such callousness. Such an absence of feeling while admitting to such horrible things could only be because of one of three reasons: One reason could be that we look around us and see that everyone is saying the same words. Yom Kippur is part of our yearly calendar. It is not like we were caught “red handed”, rather we are doing this on our own, just part of the routine of being a Jew. Therefore, perhaps it does not seem as personal to us. A second possible explanation is that we do not feel that the things we are saying are relevant to us. After all, some of the things we admit to seem a bit extreme and we may think to ourselves, “well, I may have done 'x', and given the opportunity I would probably be willing to do 'y', but 'z' I would never go so far to do.” The distance we may feel to the aveiros we are admitting to may make us feel more relaxed and think that the tefillos and viduy are not so relevant to us. A third possible explanation is that perhaps we have given up. We stand in Shul and do a drum-roll on our chest by “ashamnu” and the “al-cheit's” as we think to ourselves – I am who I am and there is no way for me to change now.

However, these three fatal diseases – for that is precisely what they are – as causes for our callous teshuva, could not be further from the truth. First, the Chovos Halevavos⁶ writes that beyond what we could term as “chovas ha'eivarim” - the responsibilities we have in using our bodies to do mitzvos, there is another area of avodas Hashem which is chovas ha'leiv – what we are expected to feel inside us constantly. The Chovos Halevavos offers the following parable: The personal servant of a king is expected to take care of every single need in the kings house at all times. It happens to be that sometimes he is required to take care of the gardening, mowing the lawn, raking leaves, etc. but those are not chores which are constantly present, but rather tasks which are seasonal. So too we have mitzvos we do once a year, we have mitzvos we do once a month, we have mitzvos we do once a week, we have mitzvos we do once a day, and we have mitzvos we do multiple times a day. However, there is also a category of mitzvos in the heart which must be active every second. This is the realization that Hashem exists and is the Ruler of the world, and that he knows our thoughts. So as much as we could convince ourselves that we were not caught “red-handed” and that we are just joining together in Shul for our yearly ritual, we are dead wrong. Hashem knows what we did and what our intentions were. Therefore when we admit to having done aveiros, it should feel real to us and we should try to get at least a small feeling that we were really caught red-handed, but are now given the chance to repent.

Second, although it may be true that some of the parts of viduy sound extreme, it was intentionally designed this way to include any aveirah we may have done. Every aveirah fits into one of the categories in the al cheit's. Additionally, the Orchos Tzadikkim⁷ writes that when we say “ashamnu...” and go through the aleph-beis, we have the ability to personalize the viduy and insert our own aveiros according to the aleph-beis, that we are aware of and want to do specific teshuva for.

In response to the third cause of callous confession, there is no such thing as giving up. As a Jew there is no option to stay at a stagnant level. A person who stops growing hurts himself exponentially because not only does he stop growing, but he starts falling. So the one who convinces himself that he cannot change is lying because either way he is changing – just for the worse and not for the better. What he really means to say is that he is not capable of improving as a person according to the Torah. However, such a despair is completely false. In Netzavim the Torah⁸ states, “ For this commandment that I command you today, it is not hidden from you and is not distant. It is not in the heavens...nor is it across the sea....Rather, the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to perform it.” The Ramban⁹ learns that these passukim refer to the mitzva of teshuva. It is very near to us. We just have to make sure that we are doing it with more than our mouth alone, but rather as the passuk describes, “with your mouth and with your heart”.

Hashem has given us the opportunity to join together as a tzibbur and do teshuva. Let us utilize the opportunity to also make it more personal, even if it means taking just one thing that we have done and think about it, regret it, admit to it, and to wok hard on not doing it again. Perhaps in this way we will have a productive and real Yom Kippur.

May Hashem help us not fall into the traps of thinking that it is part of the routine, that it is not relevant, or that it is too late. With this new focus may k'lal yisroel be zocheh to do teshuva sh'leimah this Yom Kippur and may Hashem respond by bringing Mashiach as we blow the shofar after Ne'ilah.

1Sotah 1:4, Gemara Sotah 7a

2Sotah 7b

3Devarim 33:6 and 33:7 as well as in the Gemara Sotah 7b

4See Chizkuni - Devarim33:6

5Gemara Rosh Hashanah 17b

6In the introduction

7Orchos Tzadikkim:Sha'ar HaTeshuva

8Devarim 30:11-14

9Ibid.