Musar for Malachi 2:11

Let us now return to our subject. Anyone who sleeps with a Gentile woman has desecrated the holy covenant through introducing forces of impurity. This is the deeper meaning of ובעל בת אל נכר, "who has slept with the daughter of an [adherent] of an alien religion" (Malachi 2,11). In practice this means, that the sinner has put his own G–d and other deities on the same footing. The same applies concerning sins committed with other organs. Repentance needs to commence with confession, remorse, etc. We must appreciate the statement in Sanhedrin 37 that גלות מכפרת עון, "exile achieves atonement for sins committed." This means that the sinner should move to a place where he is not known. By cutting himself off from his home, he is considered as having imposed upon himself the penalty of כרת הנפש, a penalty which fits the crime of his נפש having attached himself to someone totally alien. We understand then why exile can cure the disease for which it has been decreed. By imposing upon his body the kind of penalty that really should have been inflicted on his soul, he demonstrates that his repentance is based on love for G–d. Such repentance is accepted far more readily than the repentance of a person who has to be disciplined by G–d against his will. This is what our sages meant when they said: "hail to the person who suffers afflictions, and suppresses his strength, and does not complain against the attribute of Justice at the time of suffering afflictions." If Job had done so at the time he was subjected to his afflictions he would have risen to a higher moral level. If Job had not challenged the ways of G–d when he suffered his afflictions we would have included his righteousness alongside that of the patriarchs in our daily prayers, i.e. אלוקי אברהם … אלוקי איוב (Torat Kohanim 18). Taanit 8a, interprets Isaiah 64,4, בהם עולם ונושע, "through them the world can be saved," to mean that those who enjoy their afflictions help bring redemption to the world.