יום כיפור התשפ"ז | הרב מאיר פינקלשטיין

There is a basic question that the first ones ask regarding the answer. After all, we know that through repentance we receive atonement for the offenses we have committed. But the first ones ask how this can be? After all, we can't go back in time. What has been done is already done, for example, someone who desecrated the Sabbath can go back or observe that Sabbath. Not all the days of the Sabbath are obligatory. That Sabbath remains desecrated. He can say that from here he accepts that he will not desecrate the Sabbath again. But going back in time to correct what was is impossible. So how do we talk about repentance and atonement for what was in the past? This question appears in the book Mesilat Yesharim Ramchal and also in the book HaEchirami and Rishonim, which discuss this, and give some answers. But Rabbi Solwichek suggests and this is a very interesting idea. Rabbi Solwich says there is a Gemara at the end of Tractate Yoma that says that there is a difference between repentance from fear and repentance from love. Repentance from fear says that whoever repents from fear, evil deeds are made to him as mistakes, and whoever repents from love, evil deeds are made to him as rights. And here too we must ask how it is possible that evil deeds are made to him as rights. It is already difficult to understand how evil deeds are made to him as mistakes. He did it intentionally. Whatever it may be, it is considered an error. But to say that evil deeds are made to him as rights, that a transgression is made like a mitzvah, how is that possible? Then the Rabbi says Solevichik is a wonderful idea. He says that sometimes it is possible that by a needle, when a person is needle-stricken, he becomes better toward God because of the needle. It can sometimes be that a person sins and at the same time that he sins, it is true that it is not good, but because of the needle, when a person makes repentance for the needle, he builds himself up because of the needle to be more than he was before. It could be in several ways. One way a person knows is sin. He knows what life without mitzvot is and that's why he thinks to himself what it is to live a life of Torah and mitzvot. He didn't know it so much before. He didn't know it so strongly. What it is to keep the mitzvot seriously. He needs it for his life. But after he sinned and saw the other sorrow, he saw what life without Torah and mitzvot is and now he repented and he repented and he came back strongly. He put himself in the realm of keeping the mitzvot. So because of the sin, he became more than he was before. And Soloveitchik says that in this sense, this is the intention of the Gemara that evil sins are done as rights. There can be a case where it is true that at that time, as long as he sinned, it was not good. But after he sinned, he built on the grain and the grain made him a better servant of God than he was before. So it is net as a right. And Rabbi Soloveitchik says that this is also the simplification of how we receive atonement for what was in the past because it's really not that we go back in time when someone desecrated the Sabbath. He doesn't go back in time. He keeps it. Shabbat is impossible, the same Shabbat remains milked throughout his life, right? But a person desecrated Shabbat, and it made him think, what is Shabbat? How is it? How did it happen that I desecrated Shabbat? What did I not know correctly about the Shabbat issue that caused me to desecrate Shabbat? And how will I fix it? And when I do fix it, how will the next Shabbat be different? Will the observance of Shabbat be different from what it was before? And because of the sin, he focuses on this issue. He ponders what Shabbat is, what is Shabbat in my life, what is the value of Shabbat? And then because of this thinking and this contemplation, Shabbat becomes something completely different for him. If he had not sinned, he would not have reached this point, but because of my sister, he reached this point. So says Rabbi Slivisch, this is the simple answer . We don't go back in time, we build on the sister from here to the flame, and because of the sister, we become better than ever. And that's a bit of a complicated idea. We say that slaughter can be a good natured person. Of course, when we are before a human being before a slaughter, of course it is forbidden to cut [as a slaughter]. Of course it is better for a human being not to cut, not to cut. Of course this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants from us, but there are cases when a human being cuts, so what does he do with it, what does he do after he cuts, what And that's a real answer. This is a response that can be made if the response is made out of love, it can even turn the offenses into rights. And that is why a beneficial answer, atonement, is possible even though we cannot go back in time.