Halakhah sa Mga Panaghoy 3:38: Mishneh Torah, Repentance & Sefer Chasidim

Permit not your thought to dwell upon that which ridiculous fools of other peoples and a majority of asinine individuals among the children of Israel say, that the Holy One, blessed is He! decrees at the very embryonic state of every man whether he should be just or wicked. The matter is not so. Every man is capable of being as just as Moses our Master or as wicked as Jeroboam, wise or incony, merciful or human, miser or philanthropist, and so in all other tendencies. There is none to either force things upon him or to decree things against him; either to pull him one way or draw him another way, but he alone, of his own free will, with the consent of his mind, bends to any path he may desire to follow. It is concerning this that Jeremiah said: "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not the evil and the good" (Lam. 3. 38),²I am amazed that the English version of the American Jewish Publication Society, too, makes this sentence interrogatory. G. which is as if saying, the Creator decrees not that man should be either good or bad. Now, this being so, the consequence hereof is that the sinner alone brought harm upon himself. It is, therefore, meet that he should lament and shed tears because he sinned, and because of what he did to his soul and rewarded it with evil. Even this is the meaning of the succeeding Verse: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, or a strong man? Because of his sins" (Ibid.)³The English version in all existing translations is entirely opposed to what was an accepted doctorine by all medieval and modern Hebrew scholars. I corrected it to harmonize the texts. G. Again, he continues, in the succeeding Verse seeing that it all is in our power, and we did all the evil of our own free will and accord, it is, indeed meet for us to turn in repentance and abandon our wickedness, for our free will is in our hands now as well as at the time we committed the sins saying: "Let us search and try our ways, and return to the Lord" (Ibid.–40).⁴See Niddah, 16b; but the Maimoni doctorine does not contradict that text; you can not teach a brainless idiot wisdom, but a man with brains is often a charlatan; the choice is his. C. G.

“Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?” (Lam. 3:38). The Holy One, blessed be He, does not decree that a man be either good or bad.¹Maimonides, Hilkhoth Teshuvah, 5:12 And so the scholars have said, “All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven”²Berakoth 33b. as it is has been said, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God, require of thee but to fear…” (Deut. 10:12). In the hour that a person is born, it is decreed whether he will be strong or weak, rich or poor, handsome or ugly, tall or short, but not whether he will be righteous or wicked,³Niddah 16b. they merely place before him two paths and he chooses one. And since this sinner injures himself when he turns from the good path, eschewing the good and choosing evil, he therefore needs to cry and wail for that which he has done to his soul. His reward is evil, and this is as it has been written after it, “Wherefore doth living man complain, a strong man because of his sins” (Lam. 3:39). Come and see how numerous are the afflictions, the fasts and the supplications entreated when his son or one of his loved ones is sick, for then his heart is bitter. So much the more must he afflict himself and mourn when he commits a transgression. Repentance returns his soul to two worlds.⁴This world and the next.