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Discover a joyful and uplifting path to Repentance!
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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 Primacy of Joy
Hope and Happiness – a Self-feeding Loop
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, the Ramchal writes (Otzros HaRamchal, Essay on Hope):
One who hopes in the Eternal is always joyous and free of distress; while one who is distressed is always in anguish and grief, for he thinks his problems have no remedy. [In contrast], the optimistic person doesn’t experience sorrow, since he always hopes for God’s redemption. And even if there is a delay, still he awaits.
It emerges that his very hope revitalizes him…. “Even though I sit in darkness, God is my Light” (Michah 7:8) — the Eternal specifically! For Your salvation do I hope, God!
What a profound thought the Ramchal presents us with: The state of feeling joy reflects a dynamic trust and irrepressible hope in Him. A person’s trust in the Eternal is his very safeguard and remedy! Even a person enduring a long-lasting life challenge, be it an issue regarding health, family, livelihood, and the like, will be happy and optimistic if he upholds his hope and trust in our Merciful Father!
Let the Heart Rejoice In HaShem
King David stated (Tehillim 105:3), “Let the heart rejoice of those who seek the Holy One.” The Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu from Vilna)asks a deep question. One who is actively searching for a physical object, like his car keys, and has not yet found it, is in a state of tension, the opposite of joy. So why does the verse state, “Let the heart rejoice of those who seek the Holy One?” He answers that in the spiritual realm, the opposite is true — the search itself awakens joy in his heart! The search for the Holy One is exalted, in and of itself, because it draws him close to the Holy One.
Rabbi Chaim Volozhin explains that when a person contemplates fulfilling a Commandment, even before he fulfills it, a Heavenly Light illuminates his soul. This imbues him with the Holiness of the Garden of Eden and grants him Divine Assistance to fulfill the Commandment. Thus, the Divine Holiness permeates his being and awakens joy in his heart. (Based on Rabbi Gershon Edelstein)
King David’s Joyful Dance
King David similarly expressed such joy when he exclaimed (Tehillim 30:12), “You transformed my mourning to dancing (machol); You loosened my sackcloth and girded me with happiness!” As Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valli comments:
King David’s dancing is the ’skipping’ of the righteous when they emerge from the midst of the Forces of Externality and Negativity to stand before the Divine light of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence.
King David characterized his joyful dancing as machol and not the more common used expression rikud. By using a word with the same root as mechila, i.e., forgiveness, he’s conveying to us that through his faith that the Holy One will forgive his transgressions, he burst into exuberant dance that sprang from the depths of his heart.
The Joy of the Arizal
In his introduction, the Sefer Charedim states that the Holy Arizal attested that all of his Divine wisdom and supreme holiness were due to his unbounded joy and happiness in his performance of the Commandments! The Holy Commandments are “precious gifts” that the King of the Universe sends to us. The reward for fulfilling the Commandments in the World to Come correlates to the level of joy and happiness that we have in our performance of His Commandments in this world! Indeed, we strive to rejoice over His Commandments — which grant us eternal life — with more happiness than acquiring all the temporal gold and silver in this world.
One Thing I Ask
We learn in the Mishnah (Ta’anis 26b) that “There are no days as good for the People of Israel as … the fifteenth of Av15 and Yom Kippur….” The Talmud (ibid 30b) explains that Yom Kippur is beneficial for us because it is a day of absolution and forgiveness. In this light, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter stated, “If they were to offer me one request when I go to the World to Come, I would ask to return to this world for one more Yom Kippur (Kadosh Yisrael)!”
The Primacy of Joy
This unique redemption is like the exuberance of a prince who’s been liberated from a dank and grimy dungeon and reunited with his father, the king. Accordingly, Teshuvah must be performed with joy
Summary: Joy opens the gates of Repentance.
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