Excuse: I am posting this because I want it available to the people who come here looking for a good drasha. As you will see, it is just roshei prokim, and needs to be improved a lot. I do not have time to fix it, I have shiurim to prepare that need to be done right now,, but I took half an hour off to get it in writing. It is good material, it is a new perspective, and I think my olam was moved and inspired by it.
We see a lot of improvement in Tefilla, we see tzedaka, we see less talking in shul, we truly see that people are taking the yemei hadin seriously. We do not see the one most important idea of AYT, and that is teshuva. I do not see that there is a spirit of teshuva. Why don't we sense an urgency to do teshuva? That is the most important aspect of the yamim noraim.
Because Teshuva usually means that the person makes a hachlata to do teshuva, and פתחו לי כפתחו של מחט and Hashem will open the way of Teshuva כפתחו של אולם. But, and this is a very very big problem, the Rambam in the beginning of perek 4, people who are guilty of four categories of aveiros lose the siyata dishmaya that if they decide to do teshuva Hashem helps them. Hashem does not help these people. (See Avodas Hamelech on Rambam, written by son in law of Eliah Pruzhiner, Reb Moshe's uncle, - of all the twenty four aveiros that make teshuva harder, these create the biggest problem, the loss of siyata dishmaya.) I think that explains it. We don't see any urgency to do teshuva because the RBSO is not giving us that important siyata dishmaya. Why? Because we fall under one of the four categories of aveiros. So yes, of course we all resolve to do teshuva. But it goes nowhere, because we are in those four categories.
If so, what the eitza? See Reb Yaakov in Lech Lecha where Avram negotiated that if there were fifty tzadikim. What is the hava amina? In rotten Sedom there would be fifty tzadikim, when Lot could barely survive there?? Because Hashem had come down with middas hadin, and the neshamos of the wicked people of Sdom felt something impending, and after that, it was takkeh possible there would be fifty baalei teshuva. They definitely did not have siyata dishmaya. But standing in front of the melech yosheiv al kisei din, 'Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.' (Samuel Johnson ) Or as Flannery O'Connor said about a selfish and miserable old woman who experiences a moment of decency before getting killed, 'She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life' And that is where we stand here today. Such a matzav makes teshuva possible even for this group of people.
But there is a bigger problem. Yes, the Rambam says "echteh v'ashuv ein maspikin" but the Mishna actually says "echteh v'ashuv echteh v'ashuv ein maspikin." The Gemara asks, why the repetition? Answers like Rav Huna amar Rav.
Rav Bergman in Vol II page 269-270 says that the Rambam got the one "echteh v'ashuv ein maspikin" from the Rif's braisa, and it's separate from the Mishna. Pshat in the Gemara's question is, if one "echteh v'ashuv" is enough for ein maspikin, why does the Mishna say two? And the Gemara's answer is that it might happen that a person will say it two times, but he will never say it three, because by the third time, he doesn't even think of teshuva. Point is, one time, ein maspikin. Two times, he thinks it's muttar.
That means that not only doesn't he have siyata dishmaya, he won't even have siyata of himself. He won't think of teshuva at all. Now that is a very very serious problem.
But the Gaon by Dovid HaMelech's chatasi, see Avi Ezri first piece in Hilchos Teshuva dh והנה on the ס after חטאתי לה' in Shmuel II:12:13. Once you say Chatasi, you are in a completely different parsha.
The truth is that it is not that simple. Just saying Chatasi doesn't accomplish a lot.
Rav Shimshon Pinkus on why Moshe davened 515 times and wasn't forgiven. Because he didn't say chatasi. Why? Because he could only say chatasi if he realized the chomer hachet, and it was such a dakus, he could not honestly say chatasi. Rashi calls it an "עלילה" to make sure he did not enter Eretz Yisroel. It was a perfect Catch 22.
(Devarim 33:8)
וללוי אמר תמיך ואוריך לאיש חסידך אשר נסיתו במסה תריבהו על מי מריבה.
Rashi:
תריבהו וגו': כתרגומו. דבר אחר תריבהו על מי מריבה נסתקפת לו לבוא בעלילה, אם משה אמר (במדבר כ, י) שמעו נא המורים, אהרן ומרים מה עשו:)
But I said it's even better. Davka because Moshe Rabbeinu was such an anav he could not appreciate the seriousness of the aveira. Yes, for a malach, or for a perfect man, it would be a sin. But Moshe said, I am just a man, and for a man, it is impossible to say that this is a sin. So he could not say chatasi with the necessary regret and contrition.
We have the same problem. Imagine the person you consider the holiest man of our generation, or someone you knew from a previous generation. Imagine that you look into his window, you see him coming home at night, and he proceeds to spend the rest of his night doing exactly what you do at home. You would be shocked. Yes, that's how I behave, but that is because I am just a simple person, I am far from being a tzadik. but he? He's a tzadik gamur, and it is a disgrace that he acts that way.
And I say to you, you are sabotaging yourselves with low expectations. You are better than you think you are. You are capable of being great, and considering what you're capable of being, living respectable lives of perfect adequacy, lives of "I am what I am", is a shame and a disgrace. Yom Kippur requires that you do two things. Make a cheshbon hanefesh of what you are capable of being, and THEN make a cheshbon hanefesh of how short you have fallen and how far you have to go to reach that madreiga.
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