Rambam Laws of Teshuvah - Chapter 5 / Halacha 2 - Rabbi Alon Anava | Atzmut.org

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so we are going to continue we are in the second halacha in chapter five in the laws of chuba and yesterday we started talking about the idea of free choice that the permission for us to do a sin is a hundred percent given to us we are not forced to do chuba and we are not forced to do a sin rather we are the only creature that has free choice that's briefly what we spoke about yesterday and today we're going to continue to explain what the here so he says as follows and if you want to follow we're in number two chapter 5. of the nations and the uh i don't know what would be a nice word of saying gilmay but another word of a fool of the nation of israel don't think for one second that kashmir decides who's going to be righteous who's going to be wicked and that's it it doesn't work like that and this is not how it is every person has the potential to be at sadiq like and on the other hand or wicked like was a wicked king that made tens of thousands of people failed to idolatry and many other sins so you have the choice you can be either as righteous as moshe roberto and many people in the past they worked on themselves and i don't have to compare them to moshe albano but they came to very high levels or it's your choice you can become as wicked as yoga not not only that it's decide that it's in your hands whether you're going to be a righteous individual wicked it's in your hands if you're going to be a fool or another fool me more like a ignorant or imbecile or something like that or a wise person or be very uh merciful on the other hand be very cruel or kill or show up let's have to stop here tell you the translation but for the ones of you know hebrew these are words that i've never heard in my life till i read this rambam he says kilai kilai for an israeli speaking or hebrew speaking and never heard that word in my life khilai means a cheap person or how do you say you have another word for it in english stingy but very cheap doesn't want to give anything i'm just stopping on that because it's funny for the ones who speak hebrew it's not a word that you use ever and so is a a very uh known not generous but that you spend with no control some people they're not just generous as being good but this is generous with no boundaries just stamp spending money because you can but nevertheless i would just stop to say about the translation because these two words are fun and not funny but they're not really so usable in the hebrew language vegeta and all rest of the opinions saying in other words it's totally up to you you can't come and say oh hashem created me very stingy no if hashem created you stingy is for you to flip it and to become generous and if a prayer hashem one can say oh you know my nature is to be cruel so change your nature and become a merciful the end you know more than that there's nobody that will stand on you and will force you to to do one or the other i mean unless you're in prison or in some type of uh i don't know a camp that they force you to do but we're talking about a normal individual nobody comes and puts a gun to your head and tells you today you should be cruel or today you should be nice you decide what to do so nobody stands and forces you the logos and nobody comes and rules you and again i'm excluding now a situation when a person is a slave or shalom a prisoner or in an army or i'm not talking about them talking about right now you and your day-to-day life nobody puts a gun to your head to do anything and nobody besides your own yet of your good inclination or your bad inclusion nobody pulls you to one direction but rather you are the only one that will pull you to any direction that you choose don't blame it on anybody don't blame anybody or definitely not ashamed by saying hashem created me like that russian didn't create you like that you have a hundred percent the choice don't throw the responsibility to anybody else how do we know that i mean everything has to be backed up so he quotes a verse from the book from the megillah that is called echa if you know meow the prophet wrote it and he says this can be found in the book of chapter 3 verse 38 by the command of the most high neither good nor evil come so hashem just gives you the options now you do whatever you want saying in other words doesn't force you or puts a decree on you to be good not to be bad sir your decision and because of that name we've seen it so what do we take from that that if you choose to sin you can only blame yourself you cannot blame anybody else just yourself i know a lot of people say they blame their parents oh my parents mistreated me and i'm not talking about a person now they grew up in some mountain in alaska and his parents send them to public school and he doesn't know he's jewish that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about you right now therefore if you sin you can only blame yourself therefore you should cry and weep for your own sins because a lot of people throw this in on somebody else you know now people when when you have this lockdown if you tell a person why didn't you pray ah because of the lockdown just gonna do the lockdown but now you're blaming the government that they lock you down you still can pray this is one example at a minute you have to weep and cry for your own sins and what you caused for your own soul you cause it it's you know i always give the same example for years already if you bang your head at the wall and you get a headache you can only blame yourself you can't blame the wall and you can't blame anybody you blame yourself you bang the head at the wall and in the same megillah in the same script it says again it says after that why should a living man complain a man for his sins you're complaining on your own sins you did them this is the next verse i told you in chapter 3 the first verse was 38 this is verse 39 why do you complain for your own sins you did them and now he continues and says desire from our own will you did that what did you do all those sins color therefore you have to do chuba and it's the right thing to do and leave your bad ways bad habits leave your sins why shall shoot atabiya no because you have the option can you imagine if the option of chival would be taken away from you how horrible would that be can you imagine you one day you wake up you want to do chuva and you don't have the option you know when i became observant then for about a year and a half i secluded myself i moved i lived at the time in new york i moved to chicago i lived by myself you know i was the only jew in the 50 kilometer radius i was just myself in the body for a year and a half didn't talk to anybody and you know just working on myself i had to psychologically start changing myself and it wasn't about putting feeling learning torah it was about starting to refine myself and and some some time along the way about a year and a half after i told you the whole story i'm not going to repeat it now but i got arrested and i went to jail and i was in jail for about a year in a few months and uh and in jail i really did shiva like we say now in the seventh year hashem from the depths i've called you that's when i really started doing chuva when i got the smack to my head that's when hashem decided to wake me up now how do you do chuba in jail there's no meaning in him there's no kosher food there's no thrilling there's no nothing so for three weeks i did a hunger strike i'm like no you're giving me only kosher food and then hashem it wasn't turkey or iran it was america so they got me kosher food then i did another strike for another month they finally after a month and a half they brought me fill in and a prayer book and i would walk with it fellaine in the court like you can't pray in the room there's a toilet in the room i would walk 300 killer inmates drug dealers rapists mafia terrorists and i'm walking with the talit and celine in the court and praying so and i'm telling you it's not so easy to do chuva in a in jail because you don't have you don't have a guide i didn't have a rabbi to explain to me i didn't have anything you know how long it took me to get to fill in and then when they transferred me to a different jail again two months without my feeling what are you gonna do so and i wanted i asked for books they couldn't get me books because you know how to have hardcover books in jail only soft cover and also it's a lot of nonsense i couldn't observe anything not hanukkah not pesach and you know what that's what i really teach you about because then you feel that you don't have how to do well that's really when i got my and my action into gear and when i was released from jail it was like a spring that you let loose within three months i was like fully loaded from morning to night 14 hours a day to fasting not talking eating yeshiva beard the whole thing you know because i was like a spring press for like 13 14 months in jail and then it was released so that's when you really do chew up so here he says can you imagine the shoot the permission or the of the the option of doing shiva would be taken away from you how am i going to do so he says here get your act together and do chuwa because now you have the option can you imagine if shalom you lose that option what are we saying now we were praying in qaddish i don't know if you notice that we're asking hashem to open all the gates and one of the gates the last one by the way if you remember there was the gates of paranasal gates of happiness gates of iraq god fearing but the last one was gates of shuba and imagine if the gates of chuva close like you're running to catch the last train and the door closes and the train takes off and you stand there on the platform how am i going to get there now so you gotta realize wait a minute what a kindness hashem is giving you that the gates of chuvas still open duchuba you know interestingly what he says here every word that rambam says is calculated a hundred times just understand that rambam was a genius he's taking the most loftiest thought from kabbalah he was a great mikubal even though he never spoke about kabbalah he announced and was talking out loud there's no such a thing and he he you're not going to find any books of kabul but he was a great mikubal and he took the most loftiest thoughts and put it in very simple way to understand every word that he says is calculated and he says the permission atta right now it's a tides down now is the time biadeno in your hand and i know many people that that option was taken either they lost their life either they were put in jail i mean i have a few friends when we got arrested we were 127 god people got arrested i told you the story maybe 50 times already some of them are still in jail how do you do chiva in jail you cannot really do full chuva in jail even though in america they give you almost anything you need but anyways let's conclude in the next verse in the book it says let us search and examine our ways let us return to the lord so it's all in your hands don't put responsibility on anybody else don't throw the ball to somebody else's court hashem made me like this hashem made me like that hashemity lazy i can't get up hashem didn't do anything hashem gave you all the options that you have all the ability to do a hundred percent and it's a hundred percent in your hands you choose if you're going to be righteous or if you're going to be wicked you choose if you're going to be smart or dumb where people say listen you know i'm not so smart nonsense rabbi akiva in the age of 40 didn't even know how to read the letters i'm sure you know the story he goes with his kid one day and the kid is asking him about what is that letter he didn't even know what was the letter he was he was he didn't know what he would do with himself he didn't even know how what's what's a letter aleph bet whatever it was and look what he became he he went at 40 years old studying with kids years took him out became one of the greatest sages in history no such a thing that a person says oh he's he's dumb he's full he doesn't know no that's such a thing sit down and and break yourself you will be able to i've seen people going into yeshiva after two three months giving up and leaving and i saw people that came into yeshiva don't even even know one word in hebrew i felt so bad when i was the first regive i went to i it was all americans nobody knew hebrew i came in like a genius plus i know hebrew i already had three generations advantage because i knew the hebrew i saw people there didn't even want to know one word in hebrew after a year the new hebrew remake knew how long sit work hard what do you think you're going to get it in a week we'll take you three four years to to to crack this uh shell nobody learns torah within a month or two and sometimes you need to spend five years ten years till you start opening you know your gates of wisdom so the canon gives you all the options it's all in your hands now you listen to what the prophet says and what did you say let us search and examine our ways let us return to the lord [Music] you