Shaarei Teshuva 1:11 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] shalom welcome again to the shari teshuva mainly for women of course that's just the live version which we have here on zoom and for those who are watching everyone can watch there is a in the description box below there is a address which you can write us and we will send you the link for zoom so we are in the character by robina yona oh this is the safer we're using and we are now on page 26. before we begin i want to mention that this tonight's class today's class is dedicated to the shalema our total learning should help heal pinto yoshiyahu yosef ben zakri that's the first person we have in mind as well as rabbi fraim sprecher his name is ephraim ben rifka so we pray for a speedily and complete recovery uh for both of them amongst all those who are sick amongst the children of israel we as i mentioned we're on page 26 so we are beginning what we call the the paragraph eleven okay paragraph good olive we had discussed and i suggest you look at the previous six classes the last class we discussed means regret and we discussed certain aspects that are very important as a prerequisite in many cases to azeeva the fate tonight we're going to talk about azeeva tahit which is foregoing the sin getting rid of the sin stopping ceasing moving on with our lives however the idea of herat is so important that roberto yona will come back to it in different levels different ways now just to um recap one idea important idea that everyone knows that in judaism there's three sometimes four but three main steps in chuva in repentance and that would be hara which we discussed previously that's regret the second thing we're going to discuss tonight is called azivat for going to sin or stopping the sin and the third is called confession now there was also a fourth idea of making sure that you actually did true the completely which we will not get into tonight but in terms of azeeva tahet even though it's number two on the list tonight we'll discuss the idea why it comes after kharata why comes after regret and in some cases which we will discuss the type of case where it actually has to come first before harata okay which is um [Music] right you always think of it in that way first regret then stopping the sin and then confession but we will discuss something that is necessary in terms of stopping the sin before a real deep kharatta can take place and here we start like i mentioned in this particular safer it's page 26 any other safer it doesn't matter it is the shah aleith the first gate in the 11th paragraph okay and he starts hashemi the second principle hashemi the second principle is is to what he calls it forsaking the sin ceasing stopping the sin the ignore behold what you do is you're going to forsake the ways the evil ways and conclude in your heart in your heart of hearts in your entire heart that you will not return you will not sin again to return to that particular way anymore that is what azeev is you think it's easy not so easy however if you had harata right it's easier it's the next it's the next step you feel bad you feel bad for what as we discussed you have to go back to see the previous uh the fact that you have removed yourself from hashem the fact that you got this gift you received this gift and you didn't take care of it properly that hashem has given you the opportunity to chuva and you delayed right all these different levels of regret that we discussed but in the meantime as we said this step of true requires that sinner forsake his evil ways and resolve with his entire heart that he will never again return to that path of sin of but if he does sin again or she lo yosef you won't do it again right you can you've already resolved you're not going to repeat it now there's there's two verses we're going to quote and we're going to quote them again later so let's become familiar in ezekiel that's yes 33 11 it says like this it's really only the latter part of the verse that he wants us to see but i think it's worth seeing the whole verse say to them as i live says the lord god i do not wish for the death of the wicked but for the wicked to repent of his way so that he may live these are the words he wants us to resonate in our head repent repent of your evil ways for why should you die o house of israel so the words he wanted us to see was it's a double language of repentance meet dark from your ways which are evil that's what god wants that's what ezekiel tells us the next verse he says right away to isaiah 55 7 and it says like this the wicked shall give up his way azov now imagine because we're talking about azir azivat is the word used in the second verse it but it's the first word of the verse so it's the first word of the verse implies we have a little bit of a problem here because we said that's the second step in the first verse we quoted says return return repent repent from the way from your way so the same word is used in both verses so we're going to have to understand what's going on here i just want to um fill you in on where we're going with this okay so the normal process which we discussed in the beginning we started is number one repent i'm sorry regret and then giving up your sin and then the third is confession now confession by the way we'll talk about later is hashem but this is what we call the normal process for a certain type of sinner hopefully if anybody sins it would be that type of sin a type of sinner because we're talking about a one-off where you you messed up the second type of center which we're going to talk about atlanta tonight as well is a type of serial center a habitual center one who we discussed earlier who is like its heter as if it's permissible as if it's even a mitzvah and the person has a really hard time realizing any any any karate any any kind of regret we're going to discuss this but basically there's two types there's either the one-off circumstantial just happened and the other type which is a serial criminal a serial serial sinner and he's going to discuss in the latter part of this paragraph how it has to be switched the first thing he has to do is not have regret but he has to forgive forgo the sin and that's tonight's subject of forgoing the sin so we're going to start with the the first kind so although robano yonah listed regret as the first principle of truva and forsaking the sin as the second principle he will note that this order applies only in certain circumstances but there are times when it is reversed so vada you should know someone who sins in a chance circumstance it's a bamikra it wasn't well planned out it wasn't with the idea of repeating it it was a one-off his desire overcame him his he became so full of desire the khazek allah and his yate sahara did what it became very strong the it copped you and it even forced him it overcame him to the point that what lo neglitsu nav vipagobo he he lost his moral compass he just lost his senses he um he was not able to deliver himself with enough concentration and sensitivity we'll call that the moral compass and it basically attacked it it overcame it quite suddenly why i say suddenly because lo miharo ligure beyon because he didn't go quick enough on his own side to roar like the sea against the temptation to dry it up okay and you can look in the psalms 106 verse 9 just to get an idea of the flavor of the language because that's the language romero yon is using al kane you go reihoo hi yates there so what happened is the evil inclination and took over it drew the person into a net like a trap the knuckle becomer become become sorry into its trap okay so that's what happened it was you didn't act quick enough and it it acted quicker than you got around to it but this only happened at a specific time when the yeta hara was doing something muvata was expressing itself or was um trying to frighten him okay at a certain point in time it it ambushed you the loma not because your true inner desire was to uh find more sin and then repeat it again afterwards that was not your intent right it was a sneaky cunning and it can be so reishi so the prescription that we described already for that type of person and that type of sin that would be kharata that would be your normal circumstances of having regret yagon and of course at this point you would have grief yagon is grief or angry or anger in your heart on your sin that's that's what you would feel like now this is also very poetic from a verse you could find in michele proverbs 5 4 but it's talking about wormwood right bitter as wormwood now i don't know if we even know what worm would you know taste like right but you can imagine that cancer growing in the bark of a tree something that is going to destroy the tree i think that's what wormwood is it's got to be bitter and it's got to be a disgusting taste and that's how our soul should feel as if it is afflicted and bitter as wormwood is and that would be the normal sense of kharatta the acharyan and afterwards once having this true regret so then you say because hashem benavicho one should climb a ladder i'm using my own words should continuously add every single day more and more knowledge and insight into fear of hashem or of hashem of god into his heart constantly continuously that is only going to come through constant learning and prayer and hanging out with the right people right now until it's going to be so firm nahon is not just proper but sound and firm in your heart with trust or surety and confidence in hashem because you want you want your heart to be firm and confident to hashem to the point that the yetzer hara passes if he ever passes your way again and tries to attack you like you like it like attach itself to make a meet up with you or affect you as it had in the past and your temptation was just as strong as it was the first time your heart will not become seduced by it in other words you have gained enough protection from hashem and um closeness with hashem and knowledge of and all of hashem that you will not fall for his dirty tricks he's a trickster right he is mr clean remember that commercial mr clean that's like lavon you know the trickster our uh our great great great great grand uncle you know so he's there to tricks you trick you the azo darko so by doing that by being uh secure in your in your relationship with hashem and having this awe this unbelievable respect for hashem you will be able to fight off the itahara and you will not go back to sin you will yahazov darko you have forsaken your past and now we have a verse in michele proverbs 28 13. it says like this he he again he only wants us to look at the latter part i'll read the whole thing in english english he who conceals his sins will not succeed but he who confesses and abandons them will obtain mercy so the hebrew is um that means think about it mode what is mo de we say mode every morning mode does it mean i'm grateful no it means i acknowledge when someone is ign someone had let's say someone does someone a favor we say the word it's the same word i acknowledge right what's the difference it doesn't mean i'm grateful although on a certain level it is because the word hodayah it's all the same thing but it really means i acknowledge someone does some of you of it somebody does you a favor so you say thank you what are you really saying you're saying i recognize you did me a favor and i owe you how am i going to repay you back and that's why i say thank you right it's true i say thank you but i'm saying i am now indebted to you right i recognize that you gave me a gift and i'm saying thank you because i recognize that now i owe you at least respectfully with words thank you i acknowledge you gave me something so the word for vedoi is also it's confession it really means acknowledgement we're acknowledging right that um that what we did it's not it's just acknowledged it's right so here you're also saying so when the word was mode the word mode is used first which implies confession and then it says the o save and then he forget and then he forgoes he will be uh he will attain mercy so think about the verse again but he who confesses and abandons them that's what it means the azov will obtain mercy so we have a problem here because confession comes first in this verse so the way the uh the way robert jones is going to explain this is that if you're confessing your mode you're recognizing there had to have been kharata there had to have been what we call regret first so even though it says mode of the azov it has the mode is two parts to it it's going to be part one of our trilogy and it's part three of the trilogy meaning it's part of the regret and it's part of the confession but what comes second is yazov okay so go again let's go back to this idea since it says this approach to first focus on regret and then forsaking the sin is in accordance with which we said and that is in did i say it's michelle 28 13. okay um so basically what we're saying is this the verse first mentions hugh confesses um referring to regretting that's harata and then confessing that one word um includes both ideas okay the even though it sounds like it only means confessing included in confessing is the karate and then what second the second word the akhach o zav and only afterwards is the concept of forsaking now everything we just said is what we call the normal situation where you send perchance you're not a serial sinner however we're about to begin what does a serial sinner need what about a person who stands it says he's standing on his way which is not good continuously meaning he is a constant sinner he is i like the way he translates it however with regard to the person who constantly stands on a way that is not good the governor he shreds on his path of sinfulness he's doric he's in that possum in the the way of derek he derek means way doric means to tread upon he's doing the same sin every single day the son the shone be evil and he's repeating his foolishness i'd like to translate the word toe as evil it just sounds like evil evil avail however it's more it's foolish right we fall into this state of foolishness when we constantly sin and we repeat this foolishness and return the course many times the cold eighth oh and every time you're enjoying the word oh right you love or you think it's nice he used the word enamored by your bad deeds for some reason you don't look at it as negative for some reason there's enjoyment or some love some something pulling you avono yes um you're enamored with doing these bad deeds and you're constantly focused the word yasim no kak pannov it means that you're constantly focused it really means in the literal translation is you place presently to your face which he he translates at const being constantly focused it's somehow that's on the front of your front of your mind you know you wake up in the morning and you can't wait to sin right you finally finally finished work you can't wait to sit you whatever it is it's constantly on your mind right that is called that's part of this um habitual sinner and i'll just read his words again who is always enamored with doing bad deeds and constantly focus on the stumbling block of this sin that's what it means right he's he doesn't care retsony lomar so the the riberions robino yonah wants to say the yetzar regarding this i call it preoccupation right when it's constantly on your mind you're preoccupied with it with the temptation and the hr the setso your entire desire gamato and your trending your your in the constant movement expression ashore low you bother me menu you're not able to muster enough strength against it kolasher yazam lasso all your scheming to do it you just this is like any typical addict and it doesn't matter what you're addicted to whether it's food whether it's gambling whether it's drugs whether it's alcohol whether it's anger whether who knows right there's a million things that one can find um ego whatever it is right power money whatever it is this is what is on your mind and whose desire and ambition is not to be deprived of anything he seeks to do there's no strength that's going to come up against for this person when he awakens to recognize his evil a totally different approach is necessary so now we're going to talk about why it's important to forsake the sin first you must stop sinning the example we're going to give i don't remember how far okay it's next it's not this coming paragraph it's going to be the next paragraph but i think most of the people watching this are familiar with the concept of going to a mikvah to to make yourself pure while holding on to a sheriff a sheriff is one of eight i'll call them disgusting animals i don't know how disgusting they all are we'll when we get to it i'll read off what they are but it's a something that makes the person impure so imagine you're trying to go to a mikvah and you're going down to purify yourself but you're still holding on to the sheriffs so there's no effect on making yourself pure so imagine he's going to now compare that at some point in the next paragraph to while you sin if you didn't forget you didn't forsake the sin you're consistently sinning we have in mind to sin you didn't resolve not to do it again so the problem is it's like it's the same case like going to a mikvah holding your share it's but he's going to explain let's go into it one word one thing at a time so for the habitual sinner the very first step for this process for the person is lazar darko to change his ways to forsake his way um and his evil thoughts came the cayenne and to agree to resolve to fulfill ule cabela and to receive upon themselves not to sin anymore that's the first thing you need to do ah hurricane now i always thought how would you come to that point without regret isn't regret it always made sense it always made sense first you regret and then you give up the sin we're gonna see why this is so important that you have to give up the sin before a true regret it you will have some regret or you wouldn't want to give up the sin i get it but to regret is so important so why are you having this regret we'll talk about that shortly but it's a great question of yeshua what you can end up doing afterwards meaning after you have forsaken the sin then you can and you should regret your destructive deeds and confess so we basically made a big switch in the order right instead of regret first in this case for the virtual sinner he's first to give up his sin and we have a verse in isaiah 55 7 it says like this yazov russia darko we saw that we saw the words the wicked shall give up his way remember in the very beginning we said it's strange because yazov is the first word of the verse you know what let's just read the whole verse again the wicked shall give up his way and the man of iniquity his thoughts and he shall return to the lord who shall mercy upon him and to be our god for he will freely pardon no cost right okay so here let me just read what he says the process of true is in accordance with what was stated in and we just read the verse now there is a comment in our book and i do want to read it so this verse mentions forsaking sin before returning to hashem which refers to regretting confessing one sin so the first thing is god's oath and only later the regret and the confession so obviously a person will not forsake sin unless he regrets his actions to some extent like i said there has to be some regret thus a certain level of regret will always precede the forsaking of sin but it's a very low level and it's very inferior and it's superficial however it is sincere heartfelt regret of one's misdeeds that we described in the last paragraph that cleanses a person of the effects of sin and qualifies as a principle of true the called regret so the regret you have is not coming at this point with your serial a sinner it's not coming from the best of places we'll see why a habitual sinner cannot possibly achieve such a sincere regret until he abandons his sinful way and turns a new page we're going to discuss this we have uh another half hour right we have a little bit more time so now he begins as an analogy to this it's like someone holding a sheriff so let me explain what a sheriff is if you go to exodus sorry leviticus chapter 11 it's only two verses 29 and 30. again it's in vaikira okay chapter 11 verse 29-30 it says and this is unclean for you among the creeping creatures that creep on the ground a weasel a mouse and a toad after its species the hedgehog the chameleon the lizard the snail and the mole i don't know if these are all what we call these animals today but in the meanwhile just for those who know we don't practice uh the purity we don't eat impurity we we don't have the khaneem today to give the the holy uh food to bizrat hashem we should all pray together that very soon our days we should have elio and navi discover and help us who is the konim we should have a para duma we should be but have the service in the base of mikdoj we should be able to give our ties and purity to the levine and the khanim and and bring all the purity laws back as they are supposed to be but that's a whole nother for another class um but in the meantime that is the halacha that if you go to a mikvah holding your share it's you're not going to be clean you're still going to be in pure what you must do you have to let go yes you let it go put it down the ah hurricane and only after you have let go of the sheriff's will the mikvah assist you in becoming pure the khosamana o tu matobo so the whole time the sheriff's is in your hand your impurity is also within you the aina tavila ma'illah and the going into the mikvah will not help you at all now now you can imagine what we're going to be talking about in terms of azeeva takes if you didn't abandon your sin it's still in your hand hand in in in biblical language means in your ability right the ado it's mamish in your ability so if it's still in your hand you still consciously are thinking about doing it let's see what he says what we're going to do is compare the situation forsaking any thought of further sinning is like casting away the sheriffs imagine this that the regret that we talked about the highest level of regret in this case for the serial center or even for the the the not serial center the harata the the the regret and the vetoing that's like going to a mikvah it's going to purify you it's the process of purification it's just like going to mikvah 40 saw and this is what he says how he translates it regretting one specific misdeeds and confessing them in vedoi as well as prayer and praying to hashem forgive him are equivalent to immersing in a mikvah as these processes serve to purge a person of his sins it's in other words the regret and the confession is part of the purging process the azeev is an absolute necessity and in this case for the serial sinner just try to imagine it's like holding the shards and once he lets go once they let go then you can have proper harata and you get proper karate clean clean mind you know what you're doing the karate is on a much higher level now because you're not stuck in your tumor and the vidoy is on a much higher level so he concludes here that until a person forsakes his evil ways the regret that he has and the confession have no value as long as you're still sinning then it's like that you're not going to the mikvah you're not being purged you're not being cleansed the regret and confession have no value since he continues to hold on to his sinfulness thus he must take a step of forsaking the sin before trying to experience regret and saying now there's a very nice comment here and we'll read it so we talked about the occasional sinner however is able to begin his trueva with regret since he's not grasping the sheriffs of sin so his regret of the wrongful deed is sincere and it will cleanse him granted to complete the truth process he still must resolve not to repeat the misdeed but that can stop that can follow after the the karate after the regret now this gamora which i'm going to quote now it's in 16 a so i'll just read it similarly said a person who has a transgression in his hand and he confesses but does not repent for his sin to what has he compared to a person who holds in his hand a dead creeping animal which renders one ritually impure by contact as in this situation even if he emerged immerses in all the waters of the world he goes to the pacific ocean and goes deep three thousand feet under he's obviously surround doesn't matter his immersion will be ineffective for him as long as the source the source of the ritual impurity remains in his hand however if he has thrown the animal from his hand once he has immersed in the ritual bath before he saw the immersion is immediately affected for him as it says and says in proverbs 28 13 whoever confesses and forsakes them shall turn mercy which we read this is confession confession alone is futile in other words confession alone won't help you but one who also abandons his transgressions will receive mercy and it also sells says elsewhere that's in lamentations i believe that's ecclesiastes 3 41 let us lift up our heart and our hands to our god in heaven you have to understand that prayer is also and one of the most important parts of teshuva which likewise indicates that it's not enough to lift one's hands in prayer but one also must raise his heart and return to hashem it's all about because prayer is of all the shively it's service of the heart and it's all i told you in the beginning to do true properly it requires sensitivity and the heart okay so now we're in the the final part of this paragraph now i just want to say the rebellion is not out of focus when another situation when which forsaking sin clearly comes before regret so far we said in the normal circumstances the migraine we can do regret first and we should do regret first but if we're a serial sinner we must get rid of the sin first so now he's going to discuss another a we call it an exact um exception to the rule when you must stop the sin before regret the the evil person experiences many troubles and afflictions this is what's happening to this person and he must be thinking he must or she must be thinking maybe it's coming because of my sin okay what's happening is he is constantly preoccupied with in order to follow this path of his sin in other words we're talking about maybe he's not actually following through but it's in his mind he is or she is drowning in these thoughts right fantasizing maybe they're not maybe the opportunities not in your hand but it's it's there in your head it's there in your heart you haven't let go of it the first the first thing is that you're accepting this disciplining of god it's happening things are happening to you as a way of god disciplining you the ashiv and you should return from your evil thoughts what's happening you immediately retract your evil plans and cease the your improper actions thus then heaven forsaken having forsaken the sin out of what out of recognizing that the sinful way is what brought the troubles upon you that's all that you had recognized you you don't have the full regret remember getting rid of the sin in this case is going to be the first step so you don't necessarily have the regret but you're tired you're painful it's enough of the pain enough already right that is enough to wake you up hopefully in order for you to decide you're no longer going to sin and then you can proceed to develop a proper regret as we discussed already in the previous paragraph what happens you have a calf a young cow and you have a farm so none of us have farms and none of us have calves but if there are anybody watching this that does i'd love to hear from you basically the farmer wants the calf to go in a straight path because that's going to make it easier for seating and later for harvesting today we have machines but the way it used to be now when you are the owner and you want to go straight you use this goad you use some kind of either whip or a stick or some something to make him go straight now you're not trying to punish him you're not trying to punish him and you're not even going to teach him how to go straight you just want him to go straight right now he's young and you just want to go straight now and that's what hashem is doing to us if we are in the category of uh serial sinners and we don't yet have the full knowledge of regret hashem at least wants us to stop and he'll send us signals you can call whatever you want troubles and um afflictions right different things that will hopefully wake us up to go where on the straight path and abandon the evil way the learning can come later like for this calf who will later learn to always go straight but in the meantime this is his first time plowing and you just need him to go straight so i'll read his words this person and his affliction can be compared to an untrained calf that one strikes with a cattle goat so that it will plow straight pharaohs the purpose of the goading is not to make the calf regret having plowed a crooked pharaoh but to make sure that it plows a straight one kane hamid yatsev alderich loto so too when someone is standing on a way which is not proper which is not good he should accept he will take he will take upon himself the proper ethical teachings first or how does he say here he should first accept the heavenly disciplining so as to forsake the way of death that he had been following and go in the upright way only then should he contemplate the severity of his sins and strive to sincerely regret them so the first thing is to stop sinning then with a clear head you could follow the proper path you were talking about we were going in the way of death right sin is the way of death and not sinning is the way of life like it says in jeremiah chapter 31 17. now we're going to read both 17 and 18 so have this in mind i have indeed heard of frying it's jeremiah 31 17. i have indeed heard from complaining saying you have chastised me and i was chastised as an ungoded cath this is this this is the symbology we've been using that we were the ungoded cath meaning we didn't we were not trained right and he was going to goad us but in the meantime he's going to chastise me as i was chastised as an ungoded calf it's beautiful the rest of the verse lead me back and i will return if you are the lord my god and we might as well read the next verse it's 18 jeremiah 31 18. for after my return i have completely changed my mind and after i had been brought to know myself i smote upon my thigh i was ashamed yeah i stood confounded for i bore the reproach of my youth now let's look at what the romanian has to say about this okay so we've read the first verse and he says furthermore then it says in the second for after we meet after my returning i became remorseful again in the second verse he he translates a different over here for after my return which goes like this kia shuvi nikhanti means i had regret so after i did chuva or after i returned after i let go of my sin that's when i had my regret and that's what he wanted to point out to us meaning to say i share you sartani the iva after i experience this discipline i'm going to call it afflictions and pains that's called the discipline that i became disciplined and returned from my wrongful way to the way of uprightness i regretted afterwards afterwards so afterwards only afterwards i became remorseful by contemplating my actions that brought about the disciplining and i came to regret my past transgressions okay so this takes a lot of thought i hope that this spoke to the heart everyone knows themselves you can only you this all will only help you right life the word of god can only help you if you're honest with yourself if you are incapable of being honest with yourself all the moosa all the signs from god are not going to be very helpful until hashem really lands it into you and wakes you up so bazrat hashem we could pray to hashem that we should be awoken i like that word i know it's being used a lot but i mean truly awoken not like they're using on the streets to be woken up to the real relationship the potential that we can have with hashem if only we would get out of the way right if we could be honest with ourselves and figure out what is it that is holding us back in our in our the potential relationship right so we have to be honest with ourselves and with hashem we will all do our own fish right we'll do our own we don't do anybody else's we have enough right on our own plate and we will move in the right direction so so far we're only on the 11th paragraph we're only on page 25 30 what page are we on we ended on page 31. there are 650 pages we will continue this for the next few weeks i think we will take a break from rosh hashanah until after sukkot i'm not sure yet i have a feeling that's what's going to happen but in the meantime hang in there we're going to talk about amazing things next week and we expect to see you back with us once again and announce any questions if there's any questions now's the time [Music] a