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Shoftim 5762Volume 23 · Issue 1
Parallel Endings
How is it possible? Indeed, this is what the shofar comes for. As the Rambam famously writes, it declares, “Awake from your sleep, you who sleep, and arise from your slumber, you who slumber….” (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4).
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Toldos 5766Volume 2 · Issue 10
Focus of Action
The World to Come by its very name denotes the world that comes after This World; one cannot reach it without first passing through This World (cf. Rambam Teshuvah 8:8). Consequently, the division of the two worlds needs clarification. What is the meaning of Yaakov taking the World to Come as his portion? How can he reach it? If he reaches it immediately, it is not the World
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Vayechi 5766Volume 2 · Issue 16
From the Depths of Despair
…because He wants them to think that He favors them, and no thought of repentance will ever enter their minds. Truly, they believe that all is right with them, and they feel that their hearts are as strong as…
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Ki Seitzei 5765Volume 2 · Issue 2
Elul: A Time of Hope
Elul. Aside from the obscurity of the allusion, it reveals a new dimension to the familiar perception of Elul as a time of closeness to the Creator, a time of preparation for the Day of Judgment, a time of repentance.
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Tetzaveh-Zachor 5766Volume 2 · Issue 23
One Man One Heart
In our current predicament, nothing fazes us and it seems that nothing more will help; we appear to be a lost cause. What can bring us to repentance? What more needs to happen so that we might stir ever so slightly?
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Emor 5766Volume 2 · Issue 27
Crown of Splendor
only reward, and the reward is the crown of “We will listen.” Indeed, the Rambam defines the crown that rests upon the head of the righteous person in the World to Come as the knowledge he had attained (Hilchos Teshuvah 8:2).
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Ki Savo 5765Volume 2 · Issue 3
Forging the Bond of Life
In our prayers, we refer to the Creator as, “The King Who desires life,” for, as Rabbeinu Yonah writes (Gates of Repentance 4:8; see also 1:42), “His will is the life of the soul and the body…, as it says, “Life is in His Will (Tehillim 30:6).” His Will is to bestow life, but the life He wishes
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Korach 5766Volume 2 · Issue 31
Complement of Peace
From the words of Rabbeinu Yonah (Sha’arei Teshuvah 1:11) that describe the requirements of repentance, one of which is remorse, derives the following expression of remorse, “Why did I not hasten to scold the sea of lust and it would become dry? Why have I allowed myself to drown
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Balak 5766Volume 2 · Issue 33
Dimensions of the Future
…n was created does not exist here but in the future (cf. Rambam Hilchos Teshuvah 8:8). In This World, there is no reward for keeping the commandments, as the sages teach (Kiddushin 39b). Here, we cannot experience one…
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Vayechi 5767Volume 3 · Issue 17
Hope for Deliverance
This was what Yitzchak meant in his wish to bless Esau, and this was what Yitzchak meant in his wish to reveal to him the End of Days. Yitzchak held that he was yet opened to repentance—otherwise, Yitzchak would not have sought to bless him. Yitzchak wanted him to understand that either his end will bring about the End of Days or the end of his sins will bring it about. In this manner, Yitzchak sought to bring
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Ki Savo 5766Volume 3 · Issue 3
Year of My Redemption
Torah, as the Men of the Great Assembly instituted in our Shavuos prayers. Rosh Hashanah includes the entire beginning of the year and it joins Yom Kippur as a single entity. During the entire Ten Days of Repentance, the Creator was involved in giving the Tablets to Moshe Rabbeinu, as Rabbeinu Nissim writes (Rosh Hashanah 16a, s.v. BeRosh Hashanah), “On Rosh Hashanah God began to be appeased by Moshe Rabbeinu, ending in complete forgiveness on Yom Kippur.”
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Naso 5767Volume 3 · Issue 32
Focus of Life
The Rambam explains at length (Hilchos Teshuvah 9:1) that the blessings come to establish the state of This World as that which brings us to the life of the World to Come. When we fulfill the Torah, the goodness of This World that the Creator bestows
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Korach 5767Volume 3 · Issue 35
Interlacing Heaven and Earth
The Maharal (Derush LeShabbos Teshuvah 72b) finds an allusion to this in the letters of the Aleph Bais. Following the letters Aleph through Yud are the letters Chaf, Lamed, Mem, which spell melech, king, in reverse. In other words, the king faces the people
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Chukas 5767Volume 3 · Issue 36
Decree of the Torah
…the body of Israel. In the words of the Talmud (Tamid 32a; Sha’arei Teshuvah 2:17), “If you wish to live, die before you die.” Alternatively, “This is the Torah, a man who dies in a tent…,” “The words…
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Balak 5767Volume 3 · Issue 37
Balance of the Mind
The Rambam expresses this clearly (Hilchos Teshuvah 9:1). He defines the covenants of the Torah, which all relate only to This World, as the means to gain access to the World to Come. Clearly, the Torah was given to us so that we should live
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Vayeira 5767Volume 3 · Issue 9
A Healthy World
“Why did they fit to say the Blessing of Repentance after the Blessing of Understanding? for it says (Yeshayahu 6:10), “His heart will understand and repent….”
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Vayeishev 5768Volume 4 · Issue 12
The Menorah: Radiating Inner Beauty
…the same wording. Concerning the shofar of Rosh Hashanah, he writes (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4), “It contains an allusion, meaning, “Awake from your sleep you who sleep and arise from your slumber you who slumber, and search your…
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Miketz Chanukah 5768Volume 4 · Issue 13
Commandment of Light
Rabbeinu Yonah explains that the reason why a person who does not seek to fulfill a commandment deserves punishment is that he did not desire in his heart the beauty of the commandment (Sha’arei Teshuvah 3:22).
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Vaeira 5768Volume 4 · Issue 17
Kingdom of Kohanim
Indeed, the World to Come has no existence except through what we hew out of This World. The Rambam himself expresses this, and states (Hilchos Teshuvah 8:8), “This that the sages referred to it as the World To Come is… because life there only comes to man after life in This World….” Evidently, he was concerned with the term “to come,” which is not what normally
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Pinchas 5768Volume 4 · Issue 39
Fenced In
Of this, the Mishnah says (Avos 3:9), “Anyone whose deeds exceed his wisdom, his wisdom will endure.” Rabbeinu Yonah (Sha’arei Teshuvah 2:10) asks how such a thing is possible. How can one’s deeds exceed what one knows? He answers that this can only happen through accepting the yoke of Torah, and he quotes the sages (Avos D’Rebbi Nassan
