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The Joy of Repentance\Guilt-Free
Based on Tomer Devorah by the Holy Ramak
Authored and Published by the Salant Foundation
Distributed by Feldheim
The Reality Is in Our Hands
וְלָזֶה הַפְּעֻלּוֹת עַצְמָן מֵטִיב הָאָדָם. וּזְדוֹנוֹת נַעֲשׂוּ לוֹ כִּזְכֻיּוֹת.
(16) Through this, Man transforms the past [negative] actions into Goodness, and the intentional transgressions become like merits to him!
The Reality is in Our Hands
The Ramak reveals that when a person desires to engage in Teshuvah Elyonah (Exalted Repentance), the Holy One, Blessed Be He grants him Divine powers: “Through this,” meaning, through the process of Teshuvah Elyonah that man himself performs, his misdeeds are miraculously transformed into good. Truly an exquisite ability bestowed upon us by the Almighty!
The investiture of such a wondrous capability is analogous to the Torah’s teaching that God revealed the entire Torah to Moshe, as the Mishnah teaches, “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai.” Moshe, in turn, conferred holiness and wisdom upon his student and successor, Yehoshuah (cf. Devarim 34:9); and the Almighty bequeathed extraordinary wisdom upon King Solomon.
So too, when a person engages in Teshuvah Elyonah, the Creator imbues him with such holiness that he acquires the ability to transform his past transgressions into merits. If only we could keep this staggering idea in mind: The Holy One, Blessed Be He has endowed us with the ability to alter reality! Just as God performs miracles through the actions of men, as when Avraham our Patriarch vanquished the four powerful kings (Beresheis 14), and Moshe caused the plagues to happen, so does God perform miracles through a person who engages in Teshuvah Elyonah.
State of Flux
Keeping in mind that the Ramak is very precise in his wording reveals a beautiful idea: He writes that a person transforms his previous actions into goodness. Why didn’t he state that the person transforms his previous misdeeds into goodness? The Ramak reveals a unique insight: when a person commits a sin, Heaven does not regard it as a completed action. Rather, as a work in progress, like clay on a potter’s wheel, which can be shaped and reshaped countless times before its final form is set by the heat of the kiln. So it is with our deeds. A negative action is always considered as being in formation and is never irrevocably stamped and sealed as “negative.”
Only in this world do we have the opportunity to rectify our misdeeds. Therefore, it is still possible — and highly recommended — to reverse it to goodness. Teshuvah Elyonah gives us the opportunity to rectify the “action” and ensure it’s not marked as a transgression.
The Deep Insight of the Ohr HaChaim
The Ohr HaChaim presents a beautiful concept regarding the phenomenal splendor of the Divine Light. The planets and stars are locked into a specific orbit pathway because they seek to delight in the ultimate pleasure of the Divine Light. Now, God has endowed the planets, which are inanimate objects, with a minimal level of consciousness. Nevertheless, they yearn for the great goodness and supreme pleasantness of the Divine Light. How much more so should man, whom God has endowed with a significantly higher intelligence, seek to draw close to the great pleasure and radiance of the Divine Light. Similarly, Man’s high level of intelligence gives him the power and potential to convert his gross physicality to pure spiritual goodness and holiness.
A Miracle You Can Rely On
שֶׁכָּל מַר עֶלְיוֹן שָׁרְשׁוֹ מָתוֹק, וְיָכוֹל לִכָּנֵס דֶּרֶךְ שָׁרְשׁוֹ וּלְהֵטִיב עַצְמוֹ.
(15) For all bitterness is sweet in its Exalted root, and one can enter through his root in order to unite with his intrinsic goodness.
Rotten Branches and Sweet Fruits
Feelings of bitterness or negativity within a person do not represent his true essence. Remarkably, the bitterness is like a rotten branch that stems from a sweet root. Through Teshuvah Elyonah (Exalted Repentance), one can access his sweet root and transform the “rotten branch” into a healthy bough laden with luscious fruits!
A Miracle You Can Rely On
God alone works the miraculous wonder that is Teshuvah Elyonah. When He created the Universe, He established the root of everything in holiness. A seed rots in the ground before producing a sweet fruit because the Creator so decreed. So too, the negativity and bitterness within us are transformed to sweetness, for they are rooted in goodness. The Ramak cites two examples of “evil” rooted in goodness, one spiritual, the other material. The spiritual example is the flaring of the Divine Wrath, the harshest of Judgments, discussed above in Day Twenty- Four. The material one is Kayin, who was born as an “Entity of Evil.” Nevertheless, the Ramak categorically asserts that “all bitterness is sweet in its Exalted root.”
If the nature of Kayin, the paradigm of negativity and bitterness, is rooted in sweetness; how much more so must our own negativity be rooted in sweetness. Again, the Ramak encourages us to engage in Teshuvah Elyonah, with success guaranteed!
Engineered Encouragement
Despite all this, it is an undeniably difficult challenge to overcome our negative outlook and view ourselves as truly sweet. Therefore, the Holy One provided numerous instances of the greatest amongst us who stumbled in the worst way and still rose up out of the dust. Could there be a more inspiring message that we too can engage in Teshuvah (Repentance)!? For example, Our Sages tell us (Avodah Zarah 4b) that if “left to his own devices,” King David never would have stumbled with Bas Sheva. He was far too refined and holy to have been involved in such base indiscretions. Similarly, the Generation of the Exodus, which received the Torah and experienced the most sublime level of existence, yet almost immediately thereafter fell prey to the sin of the Golden Calf. That such bizarre things could occur boggles the mind! Under normal circumstances they never could have happened!
However, God desired to encourage potential penitents to not fall prey to despair. Therefore, He orchestrated these events as an objective lesson for future generations. If our holy ancestors fell from their unimaginably exalted levels; surely, we, who are as far from them as a donkey is from an angel, are certainly capable of slipping! Yet even if we fall to the depths of shamelessness, still there is hope that we can pick ourselves up and mend our ways.
The Ohr Ein Sof, the Holy One’s Infinite Light, is the source of an unlimited supply of Sanctity that powers the Sefirot (System of Divine Lights). Binah (Divine Enlightenment) channels it’s refreshing waters from this ever-flowing wellspring of goodness to man’s soul, with an abundance that suffices to “rectify every flaw.”
The Holy Soul and the Earthly Body
The Almighty created man as a compound of two dynamically opposed components: a holy soul and an earthly body. The soul, which emanates from Binah, is a spiritual creation, while the body is a product of the physical realm. Just as the magnitude of the sun’s light decreases as it descends towards the earth, so does the soul’s emanation diminish as it descends into the body.
What’s more, the “vessel” of the soul is the material body, which craves every physical pleasure. As a result, the coarse earthliness of human nature eclipses the ephemeral splendor of the soul and dominates it with overwhelming force. Sadly, a person can pass an entire lifetime sunken in the intoxicating allures and attractions of this world with absolutely zero awareness of his holy essence. Nevertheless, in His great compassion, the Holy One always leaves open the possibility for us to escape the entrapments of this world and ascend to our inherent holiness.
Perpetual Renewal
The Holy One, Blessed Be He constantly renews the root of our soul. As we recite in the Morning Prayer Service: “He renews in His goodness every day, constantly, the work of Creation.” If so, the Sanctity of our holy root is perpetually preserved in its pristine state, in Binah! King David prayed to God (Tehillim 51:12): “Create for me a pure heart, Elokim, and renew a becoming spirit within me.”
The Creator grants a person the free-will to access his sweet root and transform to goodness at every moment. Attaining clarity regarding his holy essence, he transforms into a new creation, detached from the material world and infused with the radiance of the Sefirot. He emerges in his true state and eternal reality, perfectly pure and holy. In this light, the Ramak writes: “and one can enter through his root in order to unite with his intrinsic goodness.”
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