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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
Trust in the Holy One Is the Key to Successful Repentance
Chavakuk Condensed the Entire Torah Into One Principle
Chavakuk the Prophet expresses the primacy of Trust, and condensed the entire Torah into one principle, exclaiming (Chavakuk 2:4): “The righteous person shall live by his trust”. In this light, our steadfast Trust in Heaven and His supreme compassion is truly a gift of life, for through Teshuvah (Repentance) we are renewed as if we’d been freshly born!
The Sefer Charedim
The Sefer Charedim (Chapter Sixty-One) states:
Even though a person is required to be scrupulously careful to observe all of the Commandments, nevertheless, it is appropriate for him to seize one of the Commandments with great determination and diligence, intending that he shall never transgress this injunction all the days of his life. Since the Torah is comprised of 613 Commandments, it is referred to as the “Tree of Life,” as the verse writes (Mishlei 3:18), “It is a Tree of Life to those who grasp it.” One who firmly grasps one branch of the tree, effectively grasps the entire tree because all of the other branches extend from that one branch, for all the branches form one united body. Whereas, if he attempts to grasp all of the branches together, he simply cannot grasp all of them together.
This insight is based on the Talmud and the early commentators.
Seize the Commandment to Trust In Hashem
The Sefer Charedim leaves the selection of “the Commandment to seize” up to our free-choice decision. However, as we learned above, Chavakuk the Prophet condensed the entire Torah into one principle, The righteous person shall live by his trust. Therefore, it would be logical to choose “Trust in God” as the one particular Commandment to seize! It is imperative to remember that our living awareness of the Creator — andHis boundless compassion — rests exclusively upon our Trust in Him!
As Chavakuk exclaimed, The righteous person shall live by his Trust! When we seize the branch of Trust in God, we grasp the very essence and core of the Torah — the “Tree of Life.” As we do so, we electrify our hearts and souls with a connection to the Creator. The branch of Trust in God opens the world of spirituality for us by granting us access to the Source of Life.
The Primacy of Trust
The key to successful Teshuvah springs from Man’s pure and robust Trust in the irrefutable truth of Heaven’s absolute and unbounded compassion.
Although the Holy One shows infinite compassion in general to all of His creations, He reveals new dimensions of compassion and forgiveness to those souls who hope in Him and engage in Repentance. The level of Trust in the Creator and His compassion to accept our Teshuvah is the highest level of Trust in the Holy One.
The concept of Repentance defies human logic. Yet, this counterintuitiveness is precisely why the idea of Repentance requires the highest level of Trust in the Creator and His infinite levels of compassion. Indeed, the Divine Truth reveals that God mercifully accepts our Repentance! The reality of the Creator mercifully accepting our Repentance revitalizes Man’s perspective of himself and inspires him with optimism, hope, and joy.
Trust Beyond the Human Intellect
Trust in the Holy One and His Sefirot (The Divine Lights) requires a level of Trust that goes beyond the human intellect, as Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer explained in Ohr Yisrael.
The hallmark of true “Masters of Trust” lies in their unwavering belief that trust in the Holy One and His Prophets transcends all human understanding and logic. In contrast, those with “little trust” only believe in things they can logically comprehend. However, if their belief goes against human understanding, their faith crumbles.
This is especially true regarding Teshuvah Elyonah (Exalted Repentance) because achieving it requires trust that goes beyond our sense of logic and intuition.
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