NITZAVIM – HAAZINU 5773
“YASHER KOACH”
Barry Waldman
(based on the writings and shiurim of Rav Matis Weinberg: www.thelivingtree.org)
‘Reuven returned to the pit’ – God said to him: ‘Never has a person sinned before Me and done teshuva; you are the first to introduce teshuva. By your life, one of your descendants will introduce his prophecy with teshuva.’ Who was this? This was Hoshea: ‘Return, O Israel, to the L-rd your G-d.’ (Bereishis Rabbah 84:13)
I say “surprisingly” because the midrash tells us that there were others who did teshuva well before Reuven:
Adam asked Kayin, "What has become of the judgment which Hashem cast upon you?" Kayin answered, "I did teshuva and I was pardoned."
Upon hearing this, Adam exclaimed, "So great is the power of teshuva, yet I did not know?!" And he, too, did teshuva. (Bereishis Rabbah 22:13)
This discrepancy is a hint that there are hierarchies within teshuva, and that Reuven was the “first” in the sense of achieving a level that others did not.
The midrash makes it clear that Kayin and Adam had an agenda – to be pardoned. In his Hilchot Teshuva, Rambam describes how even on one’s deathbed, such a teshuva can be effective in avoiding Divine punishment. But a teshuva that functions mainly to shield oneself from retribution is a very low level teshuva. It may prevent one from being “sent to hell,” but it is surely not a teshuva that allows one to experience Life with all of its power and creative potential. Let’s examine how Reuven’s teshuva was a step towards the latter.
In order to do so, we’ll work backwards. In Reuven’s merit, his descendant Hoshea became a prophet of teshuva. Next week is Shabbat Shuva and the haftorah is taken from the last chapter of his book, beginning with the words, “Return, O Israel, to Hashem your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.” It ends with the words, “for the paths of Hashem are straight (yesharim), and the righteous shall walk in them, and the rebellious shall stumble on them.” (Hoshea 14:10)
What exactly is meant here by “the rebellious shall stumble” on the paths of Hashem, as opposed to the righteous who “walk in them?” The simple sense of the pasuk is that for the righteous, the straight path is easy and natural. Not so for the rebellious, for whom the derech Hashem is strewn with obstacles.
By taking a closer look at the precise nature of Reuven’s sin, we may be able to arrive at an alternative explanation for this pasuk. So what exactly did Reuven do wrong?
Upon the death of Rachel, Yakov brought his bed into her maidservant, Bilhah’s, tent. Reuven reacted by moving the bed into Leah’s tent (Shabbos 55b). Such unseemly violation of another’s marital relationship is considered by the Torah to be equivalent to adultery. Hence,
“Reuven went and lay with Bilhah…” (Bereishis 35:22)
Rashi explains Reuven’s motivation:
Since he (Reuven) disarranged his (Yakov’s) bed, Scripture considers it as if he had lain with her. Now why did he disarrange and profane his bed? [It was] because when Rachel died, Yakov took his bed, which had been regularly placed in Rachel’s tent and not in the other tents, and moved it in to Bilhah’s tent. Reuven came and protested his mother’s humiliation. He said, “If my mother’s sister was a rival to my mother, should my mother’s sister’s handmaid [now also] be a rival to my mother?” For this reason, he disarranged it.
When Adam ate from the Tree, and Kayin killed his brother, they knew they were doing something wrong. But not for one minute did Reuven believe he was committing a sin by disarranging his father’s bed. Wasn’t he protecting his mother, defending her honor, righting an injustice?! Moreover, was he not also doing God’s work in living up to his name? Hashem saw that Leah was unloved, so He opened her womb; but Rachel remained barren. Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name, Reuven, as she had declared, “Because Hashem has seen my humiliation, for now my husband will love me.” (Bereishis 29:31-2)
In Reuven’s mind, not only was he not committing a sin – he was doing a great mitzvah!
And herein lies perhaps the real meaning of the pasuk from Hoshea,
“for the paths of the Lord are straight (yesharim), and the righteous shall walk in them, and the rebellious shall stumble on them.”
Stumbling vis-à-vis the derech Hashem does not mean being on the derech Hashem and tripping; it means being convinced you’re on the derech Hashem when you’re really not!
Rashi explains why Reuven was not present when Yosef was lifted out of the pit and sold into slavery:
“And Reuven returned (vayashav) to the pit” - But when he (Yosef) was sold, he (Reuven) was not there, for his day to go and serve his father had arrived (Gen. Rabbah 84:15). Another explanation: He was busy with his sackcloth and his fasting for disarranging his father’s bed (Peskikta d’Rav Kahana ch. 25).
Reuven’s teshuva was a long process of shattering tightly held convictions, reassessing assumptions, and viewing events from alternative perspectives. It culminated in his attempt to rescue Yosef, the son of his mother’s rival, from the pit. Reuven was eventually able to put aside his righteous indignation over his mother, and enter a different contextual space – his relationship with Yakov, in which he came to understand and care for that which his father loved. Paradigm shifts of this nature are the stuff of teshuvah.
This is perhaps most significant when it comes to our relationship with Torah itself. Asked to identify Moshe Rabbeinu’s greatest accomplishment, many would say “ascending Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.” Ironically, Hashem views Moshe’s highest achievement as descending the mountain and smashing them. In fact, only when Moshe shattered the tablets, does God give him a “Yasher Koach!” As Rashi comments on the last pasuk of the Chumash:
“…and for all the strong hand and for all the great awesomeness that Moshe performed before the eyes of all Israel.”
“Before the eyes of all Israel” – That his heart inspired him to break the Tablets before their eyes, as it says, “And I smashed them before your eyes.” The mind of the Holy One, Blessed be He, was in accord with the mind of Moshe about this, as it says, “Asher shibartah (which you shattered) which implies, “Yishar kochacha” (May your strength be well directed) sheshibarta – “for having shattered the Tablets.”
Why was God so pleased with the shattering of His Torah? Very simply – after the incident with the Golden Calf, it was no longer His Torah. A Torah that is based on self-projections and artificial realities, that is manipulated for personal agendas and internecine competition – is a Torah that is severed from Other and exists only in the windmills of one’s mind. The only hope is for its complete destruction and the rebuilding of a new Torah that exists within the context of real relationship.
But when things in the moment seem so clear and so right – as it did for Reuven when he disarranged his father’s bed, and as it did for bnei Yisrael when they danced around the Golden Calf – how do you know if you’re following the path of truth, or merely deceiving yourself? What is the external referent? It can’t be the Torah itself, because you can’t use something you’ve potentially corrupted as the gauge to determine if you’ve remained uncorrupted!
Rav Matis Weinberg suggests that we look to two archetypes: Avraham – the seeker of truth, and Bilaam – the master of deception.
Whoever has the following three characteristics is a disciple of Avraham Avinu; but [whoever has] three opposite characteristics is a disciple of Bilaam haRasha:
Someone with an eye for good, unpretentious, with limited needs is a disciple of Avraham Avinu. Someone with an eye for evil, arrogant, with extensive needs is a disciple of Bilaam haRasha. (Avot 5:19)
Their differences become our reality check:
“A path may seem yashar to a man, but in the end, it is a path of death.” (Mishlei 14:12). How to know? No matter the Torah or the scholarship, tzizit length or alma mater, piety or liberalism, the initial criterion is more primal and seminal… Whose disciple? How much joy in others…how driven by ego…how demanding the needs…how blinding the desires…how desperate the projections…how indulgent of inner ugliness....Such a
reality check is made possible through the demands of living with a backdrop of significance, the urgency of discovering the view and response that matches not imagination but facts: a reality check that ultimately checks openness to reality…(Rav Matis Weinberg: FrameWorks – Balak)
When teshuva is driven by even the most kosher of agendas, by the need to attain forgiveness, it remains caught within the ongoing Bilaam-like “windmills of your mind.” Only the search for reality, driven by the sheer belief in and love of Life that characterized the life of Avraham – a quest that may even lead you to convict yourself – can lead to the teshuva of a Reuven.This Yom Kippur, as we beat our chest with every al chet, reflecting on what we know we’ve done wrong – we ought to honestly evaluate what our deepest drives are. And then we can try to do as Reuven did: to think about what we’re convinced we’ve done right, and re-evaluate that. That’s a teshuva “first” worthy of Hashem’s “Yasher Koach”!
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