Musar zu Jirmejahu 2:40

And King Solomon, peace be upon him, spoke about the matter of repentance and specified this topic. And he surely opened his words and said (Proverbs 28:12), "When the righteous exult there is great glory, but when the wicked rise up, men will be sought." The explanation [of this] is that the righteous will exalt and honor people about all the good traits that are found with them; but the wicked seek peoples' blemishes and their mistakes, to put them down - even when they have already left these actions and returned in repentance. Afterwards he said (Proverbs 28:13), "He who covers up his faults will not succeed; but he who confesses and gives them up will find mercy." For even though a penitent should not reveal his iniquities to people - as is to be understood from that which is stated, "but when the wicked rise up, men will be sought" - he is obligated to confess them [privately], like the matter that is stated (Psalms 32:5), "Then I acknowledged my sin to You; I did not cover up my guilt." And it is [also] stated (Jeremiah 2:35), "Lo, I will bring you to judgment for saying, 'I have not sinned.'" But the Sages of Israel, may their memory blessed, explained (Yoma 86b) [that] there are times when he who covers up his faults will not succeed - like with sins between a man and his fellow. As he does not attain atonement until he returns what was stolen, extorted or taken unjustly; and until he asks to be pardoned for that which he annoyed him, embarrassed him or spoke evil speech about him. [Likewise must he not cover up his] sins between a man and the Omnipresent that have become known to people. For one who sins publicly desecrates [God's] name (but Rashi, may his memory be blessed, in the Chapter [entitled] Yom HaKippurim, understands it in a different way. See there.) So he is obligated to grieve and mourn about it in front of people to sanctify [God's] name. And this is [the meaning of] that which is written (Jeremiah 31:19), "Now that I have turned back, I am filled with remorse; now that I am made aware, I strike my thigh." The meaning of, "I am filled with remorse," is regret and pain. For the essence of repentance is bitterness of the heart, as we have explained. And [the meaning of,] "now that I am made aware, I strike my thigh," is after people have been made aware and my iniquities have been publicized, I mourned with actions that were visible to people. [This is] like (Ezekiel 21:17), "strike the thigh"; and it is [also] stated (Job 33:27), "He declares to men, 'I have sinned; I have perverted what was right.'"

The thirteenth: "From days of yore" - behold [this is] the trait that the Holy One, blessed be He, has with Israel when their merit and similar [to it] ends. What shall He do - behold, they are not proper in their own right? It is written (Jeremiah 2:2), "I remembered for you the kindness of your youth, your love as a bride" - the Holy One, blessed be He, actually remembers the days of the early ones, the love that He had from before, and has mercy upon Israel. And through this, He remembers for them all the commandments that they did from the day they were born and all of the good traits with which the Holy One, blessed be He, runs His world. And from all of them, He produces a special quality to have mercy for them. And behold, this trait includes all of the traits entirely, as they explained in the Idra (Zohar, Nasso, p. 134b).

The twelfth principle is that one needs to examine, know and recognize the greatness of the punishment for each one of his iniquities - for which of them is there lashes, for which of them is there a liability for excision, for which of them is there a death penalty from the court - in order that he know the greatness of his iniquity when he confesses it, and cry bitterly about that which bitterly angered [God. This is also] in order that he will enhance his submission and in order that he will fear from his iniquities. For [with] weighty sins, repentance only suspends their atonement whereas afflictions absolve them. And so is it written, (Jeremiah 2:23), "Look at your deeds in the valley, consider what you have done!" And this principle will be explained in the third chapter.

The first path is [that] when a man encounters troubles, he will consult his heart and say [that] it is only his ways and his plots that have caused this to him, and that his sins have caused [the pain] to his soul. So he repents to God; and He has mercy upon him, like the matter that is stated (Deuteronomy 31:17), "and many evils and troubles shall befall them; and they shall say on that day, 'Surely it is because our God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.'" But note that the custom among men is [that] if one sins to someone, and [later] at a time of trouble for him regrets it and submits to him because he needs him; such regret will be inferior in the eyes of his fellow - like the matter that Jephthah said (Judges 11:7), "How can you come to me now when you are in trouble?" However it is one of the kindnesses of God, may He be blessed, that He accepts repentance [motivated by] trouble and it is desirable in front of Him. And He will generously love the sinner when he returns to Him on the day of his rebuke and from amidst trouble, as it is stated (Hosea 14:2-5), "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, etc. I will heal their affliction, generously will I take them back in love." And it is stated (Proverbs 3:12), "For whom the Lord loves, He rebukes, as a father the son whom he favors." But if the man does not repent from his evil on the day of evil, and the rebuked does not repent to the Rebuker, his iniquity grows and his punishment will be doubled. Do you not see that if a king rebukes someone who has sinned to him and he has not become chastised, [the king] will make his punishment harsher and be very hard on him. And it is written (Leviticus 26:18), "And if, for all that, you do not obey Me, I will go on to discipline you." And it is [also] stated (Job 36:13), "But the impious in heart become enraged; they do not cry for help when He afflicts them." And if he does not know and does not contemplate that the events have found him because of sins, but rather says like the Philistines (I Samuel 6:9), "it was not His hand that struck us; it just happened to us by chance" - there will be fury in front of Him for this, and his iniquity will grow. And the iniquity of this group will be greater than the sin of the first group. Therefore it is written about the first group (Leviticus 26:18), "I will go on to discipline you." And it is written afterwards about the other group [we] mentioned (Leviticus 26:21), "And if you remain hostile toward Me and refuse to obey Me, etc." For every group that is later in the section is more problematic than the one [above it]. So it is written afterwards (Leviticus 26:23-24), "And if these things fail to discipline you for Me, and you remain hostile to Me, I too will remain hostile to you." And afterwards, it is written (Leviticus 26:27-28), "But if, despite this, you disobey Me and remain hostile to Me, I will act against you in wrathful hostility." Its explanation is "you remain hostile to Me," because you will say, "It was just chance that [it] happened to us." But when a man does not recognize his deeds and does not know that he has the iniquity in his hands from his sinning, he must examine his actions and search his ways, as the matter is stated (Lamentations 3:40), "Let us search and examine our ways." But if he surely ignores his eyes and his ideas become foolish and deluded (from the expression in Scripture [Isaiah 19:13], "The nobles of Tanis have been foolish, the nobles of Memphis deluded"), and he does not investigate his ways and does not know the acts of his hands and that which his fingers have done and says, "I have not sinned" - his sin is very weighty, as it is stated (Jeremiah 2:35), "lo, I will bring you to judgment for saying, 'I have not sinned.'" And it is stated (Isaiah 42:25), "it blazed upon them all about, but they heeded not; it burned among them, but they gave it no thought." And it is stated (Proverbs 19:3), "A man’s folly subverts his way, and his heart rages against the Lord."

He who has the trait of impudence commits sins in great quantities and yet considers himself righteous. And it is in this vein that we confess our sins by declaring, "We are not impudent and stiff-necked to say before Thee O Lord our Lord 'We are altogether righteous and we have not sinned.' " And this is a very wretched and evil quality — one who is wicked and yet says "I have not sinned." And for this the Holy One, Blessed is He, judges him and has no mercy upon him, as it is written: "Behold I will enter into judgment with you because you say 'I have not sinned' " (Jer. 2:35). And He has said: "He that covers his transgressions shall not prosper, but who so confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy" (Prov. 28:13). And this path of the hard and impudent is far indeed from the paths of repentance. And of the harlot it is said in Proverbs 7:13: "With an impudent face she said to him…". This quality is very evil, for it brings man to shaming his companion and the poor, as it is said: "The poor pleads but the rich answer impudently" (Prov. 18:23). And how much more evil is it when he shames his teachers and acts impudently towards them, and hardens his neck to those who rebuke him because of his excessive rudeness — then this evil quality can remove him from the world. It is proper that a man should far remove any touch of impudence from his soul.

The in-depth study necessary in relation to them must be such that one escapes from them and all of their branches for they are one and all as "degenerate branches of a strange vine"(Yirmiyahu 2:21). Let us speak on each of them one at a time.

The Levites' cities absorbed those forced to go into exile because of their having committed involuntary manslaughter. When disaster struck the nation, the Levites too were sent into exile as we know from Psalm 137,3 which tells of the Levites being asked to sing the songs they used to sing in Zion. They responded by refusing, claiming they could not possibly do so on foreign soil. Our sages (Midrash Tehillim 137,5) say that they amputated the tops of their fingers so as to be unable to play their instruments. Israel without a rebuilt Temple is compared to כאדם עברו ברית, "just as Adam who had violated the covenant with G–d," in the words of Hoseah 6,7. Midrash Eichah Rabbah elaborates on this, Rabbi Abahu saying that G–d describes how he had placed Adam into Gan Eden, commanded him a single commandment, which he transgressed. G–d consequently punished him with expulsion and personally elegized him with the word איכ-ה, Ayekkoh, (Genesis 3,9), which can be read as Eychah, an expression of mourning as in Lamentations, and also as used by Moses in Deut. 1,12 in the same sense, until He was able to bring the Jewish people into the Holy Land. Jeremiah 2,7 describes this in the words ואביא אתכם אל ארץ הכרמל לאכול את פריה. "I have brought you to the land of the Carmel to eat its fruit." Proof that G–d commanded Israel to observe commandments in the Holy Land is derived from Numbers 34,2: "Command the children of Israel, say to them…when you enter the land of Canaan, etc." Israel transgressed these commandments as described in Daniel 9, 9-11. Daniel includes the whole people as having violated G–d's teachings, as a result of which the curses in the Torah were poured out over them. Our exile, too, was a result of such conduct as is stated in Hoseah 9,9: "I will expel them from My House." The expulsion was not only to a country adjoining their homeland, but also to far off places as is indicated by Jeremiah 15,1: שלח מעל פני ויצאו, "Dismiss them from My Presence; let them go forth!" In His elegy, G–d refers to the lonely and isolated situation Zion finds itself in as a result; cf. Lamentations 1,1. Thus the introduction of Midrash Eicha.

To come back to the words: ראה נתתיך in 7,1, which we questioned on page 413. We must compare it to Deut. 2,24: ראה נתתי בידך את סיחון מלך חשבון האמורי, "See I have given into your hand Sichon the king of Cheshbon the Emorite." G–d humbled the spiritual שר of that king before the feet of Moses. The adversaries of the Jewish people are first defeated in the Celestial Regions, before the Israelites on earth execute a similar judgment on their proteges on earth. The words: ראה נתתיך, refer to what had transpired already in the Celestial Regions. The Zohar (Sullam edition Shemot page 26), commenting on Exodus 1,8: ויקם מלךם חדש על מצרים, "A new king ascended the throne in Egypt," explains that Egypt's predominance in the world only began after the Jewish people had been exiled there. In fact, the stability of any kingdom on earth is only due to Israel. This is why Moses ascended to G–d in order to humble that nation. Simultaneously, the people of Israel ascended to a loftier position to become the "armies" of G–d and to receive the Torah. Bereshit Rabbah 1,1 explains that the universe was only created for the sake of Israel and the Torah, and that the Torah is called ראשית דרכו, based on Proverbs 8,22: השם קנני ראשית דרכו, "The Lord created me at the beginning of His way." Israel is called ראשית תבואה, "first harvest," based on Proverbs 8,19. The Midrash there also mentions that Moses is called ראשית, based on Deut. 33,21.

The issue raised in Ketuvot 111 is raised by the Zohar (Sullam edition Vayechi page 106) in an even more drastic manner. To those who have died in חוצה לארץ and whose body is being transferred to ארץ ישראל, Rabbi Yuda wants to apply the verse from Jeremiah 2,7: ותבאו ותטמאו את ארצי ונחלתי שמתם לתועבה, "You have come and have defiled My land and made My inheritance an abomination!" Rabbi Yuda answered that Jacob was an exception to this rule; the שכינה had accompanied him on his descent to Egypt and had never left him. This is the reason G–d had said to him in 46,4: אנכי ארד עמך מצרימה, ואנכי אעלך גם עלה, "I shall go down with you to Egypt and I shall also go up with you." The message to Jacob was that, in spite of the fact that his soul would depart on foreign soil, it would remain close to G–d, whereas his body would be buried with those of his ancestors.

I have already mentioned that the essential part of repentance is performed by the heart. If someone repents without a total involvement of his heart, it is as if he had not repented at all. Even remorse in his heart accompanied by a confession as well as by a resolution not to sin again, but inspired by fear of retribution, is not a perfect repentance. How much more inferior is the kind of repentance in which the heart does not fully concur? Such a person is apt to relapse into sin as soon as the afflictions which prompted his contrition have stopped. This is not repentance but deception! Such repentance has no moral value. The prophet Jeremiah already referred to this kind of "repentance" sarcastically when he said (Jeremiah 2,27): "They say to the tree 'You are my father,' and to the stone: 'You have given birth to me;' for all the time they turn their necks towards Me and not their faces. But in their hour of calamity they cry: 'Where is our Lord? Arise and save us!"'

I have already mentioned that the essential part of repentance is performed by the heart. If someone repents without a total involvement of his heart, it is as if he had not repented at all. Even remorse in his heart accompanied by a confession as well as by a resolution not to sin again, but inspired by fear of retribution, is not a perfect repentance. How much more inferior is the kind of repentance in which the heart does not fully concur? Such a person is apt to relapse into sin as soon as the afflictions which prompted his contrition have stopped. This is not repentance but deception! Such repentance has no moral value. The prophet Jeremiah already referred to this kind of "repentance" sarcastically when he said (Jeremiah 2,27): "They say to the tree 'You are my father,' and to the stone: 'You have given birth to me;' for all the time they turn their necks towards Me and not their faces. But in their hour of calamity they cry: 'Where is our Lord? Arise and save us!"'

Midrash Kohelet, quoting Rabbi Yehudah bar Simon, is of the opinion that the seven days of impurity a woman experiences in connection with menstruation correspond to the seven times Solomon referred to הבלים, futilities, in Kohelet 1,2. [When the word הבל appears in the singular it refers to a single "futility," whereas when it appears in the plural it refers to two "futilities." Ed.] This means that in view of the sin committed by Adam and Eve everything which was created during the seven days of Creation is futile. Creation experienced another damaging blow when Cain murdered his brother הבל. Man indulged in the pursuit of futile objectives, וילכו אחרי ההבל ויהבלו, "They went after delusion and were deluded" (Jeremiah 2,5).