The Double Homecoming

“The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and keep His commands and decrees…”

Deut. 30:8-9

The Sedra of Nitzavim is always read on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, when our thoughts are directed toward teshuvah - the great mitzvah of the ten days that begin with Rosh Hashanah and culminate on Yom Kippur. Where, though, in the Torah itself do we find the mitzvah of teshuvah? On this, two of the greatest sages of the Middle Ages, Maimonides and Nachmanides, differed fundamentally.

Here is Maimonides’ account:

With regard to all the precepts of the Torah, positive and negative, if a person transgressed any one of them, either wilfully or in error, and repents and turns away from his sin, he is under a duty to confess before God, blessed be he, as it is said, "When a man or a woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty, then they shall confess their sin which they have done" (Numbers 5: 6-7). This means confess in words, and this confession is a positive command. How does one confess? The penitent says, "I beseech you, O Lord, I have sinned, I have acted perversely, I have transgressed before you and have done such and such, and I repent and am ashamed of my deeds, and I will never do this again." This constitutes the essence of confession. The fuller and more detailed the confession one makes, the more praiseworthy he is.

According to Maimonides, teshuvah has its origin in the Temple and its sacrifices, specifically those brought for transgressions (sin offering, guilt offering etc.). Part of the rite for such offerings was a verbal confession - vidui - on the part of the wrongdoer. The conditions for the sincerity of such confessions were [a] an acknowledgement that one did wrong; [b] remorse or shame; and [c] a determination not to repeat the offence in future. These are the fundamental elements of teshuvah.

There are obvious questions. If teshuvah is linked to the sacrificial order, what happened to it once the Temple was destroyed and the sacrificial system came to an end? What of teshuvah outside Israel and outside the confines of the Temple? Maimonides answers these questions in his Sefer Hamitzvot (positive command 73) by reference to the Mechilta. The Mechilta uses various textual warrants to show that confession is in fact a separate command in its own right, and applies with or without a sacrifice, in and outside the land of Israel. Verbal confession, vidui, is the outer act, teshuvah its internal correlate.

Nachmanides locates teshuvah in a completely different source, namely in today's Sedra. Moses, having set out the terms of the covenant and its attendant blessings and curses, then says this:

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where He scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous then your fathers . . . You will again obey the Lord and follow all His commands I am giving you today. Then the Lord your God will make will you prosperous in all work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and keep His commands and decrees that are written in this book of the law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The next verse continues, ”For this command which I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.” Which command? Nachmanides says: the command of teshuvah. Why so?

The most striking feature of the passage above is that it is a set of variations on the Hebrew verb lashuv, the root of the noun teshuvah. This is almost entirely lost in English translation. All the underlined phrases - "take to heart", "restore your fortunes", "again" and "turn" - are, in the Hebrew text, forms of this verb. The Torah often repeats a word several times to emphasise its significance as a key-word: sometimes three or five times, but usually seven, as in the present instance (taking "restore your fortunes," ve-shav et shevutecha, as one composite phrase). Thus Nachmanides is quite right to see the subject of the passage as teshuvah. What, though, is teshuvah in this context?

In the Torah, sin is something more than a transaction in the soul, or even an act of wrongdoing narrowly conceived. It is an act in the wrong place. It disturbs the moral order of the world. The words for sin - chet and averah - both have this significance. Chet comes from the same verb as "to miss a target." Averah, like the English word "transgression," means "to cross a boundary, to enter forbidden territory, to be in a place one should not be." Only when we understand this does it become clear why the deepest punishment for sin in the Torah is exile. Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden. Cain was condemned to be an eternal wanderer. We say in our prayers, "Because of our sins we were exiled from our land." Because a sin is an act in the wrong place, its consequence is that the one who performs it finds himself in the wrong place - in exile, meaning, not at home. Sin alienates; it distances us from God, and the result is that we are distanced from where we ought to be, where we belong. We become aliens, strangers.

Hence the double meaning of teshuvah, most clearly expressed in our Sedra, but found throughout the entire prophetic literature. It has both a physical and spiritual dimension, and the two are inseparable as if bonded by superglue: it means the physical return to the land and the spiritual return to God. Teshuvah is a double homecoming.

We can now see how deeply different are the approaches of Maimonides and Nachmanides. For Maimonides sin-and-repentance are part of the world of the priest (torat cohanim). They belong initially to the Temple and its service. When an individual or group sinned in biblical times, they brought a sacrifice and, as a token of their contrition, confessed their wrong. The supreme example of this was the service of the High Priest on Yom Kippur, when he made atonement "for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel" (Lev. 16).

For Nachmanides, sin-and-repentance are part of the broader sweep of Jewish history. They belong to the world, not of the priest but of the prophet (torat nevi’im), the figure who heard the voice of God in history, warned the people that public wrongdoing would lead to defeat and exile and who, when the exile eventually occurred, summoned the people back to their vocation as a prelude to their return to the land. Every individual act of teshuvah recapitulates, in some way, this larger pattern of return. Teshuvah in this sense is less atonement than homecoming - a subtle difference, but a difference none the less. It has nothing to do with the Temple and everything to do with a sense of the divine call ("Where are you?") within the events that happen to us, whether individually as personal fate or collectively as Jewish history.

The primary feeling of sin in priestly consciousness is guilt; in prophetic consciousness it is a sense of alienation ("alienation" became a key word in both Marxism and existentialism: for the former as a symptom of the capitalist system in the industrial age, for the latter as the mark of "inauthentic" existence; Judaism, more ethically, links it with bad conscience, the knowledge that we have not acted as we should). For the priest, teshuvah is integrally linked with the idea of sacrifice and leads to atonement (kapparah). For the prophet, it is associated with behavioural change (teshuvah as "returning" to the right way) and leads to healing, mercy, forgiveness and restoration. For the priest, atonement relates primarily to individuals, whereas for the prophet (as in the words of Moses above) the reference is often to the people as a whole. It is individuals who sin and repent; it is the nation that undergoes exile and return.

How does Maimonides interpret the passage in this week's Sedra that Nachmanides takes as the source for the mitzvah of teshuvah? He reads it, simply, not as a command but as a prophecy and promise:

All the prophets charged the people concerning teshuvah. Only through teshuvah will Israel be redeemed, and the Torah has already given the assurance that Israel will, at the end of its exile, finally repent and then be immediately redeemed, as it is said, "When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where He scattered you . . ."

This difference of interpretation goes back to the Geonic period, three centuries earlier, when R. Hefetz read the passage as did Nachmanides, and R. Shmuel Gaon like Maimonides (Otzar haGeonim, Sanhedrin, 514).

There is no doubt whatsoever that Maimonides and Nachmanides were both right. Priest and prophet were not in conflict: they were two voices in a single conversation, two perspectives on a complex reality. When the Second Temple was destroyed and both the priesthood and prophecy came to an end as functioning institutions, both traditions merged into the institution of teshuvah as we have it today.

On the one hand Yom Kippur retains strong links with the service of the High Priest in Temple times. We read the details of that service during Musaf; we perform vidui, confession, in various ways; we make a point of giving tzedakah (financial sacrifice substituting for animal sacrifice). On the other, during the morning we read one of the greatest of all prophetic calls to repentance (Isaiah 57-58), with its insistence that fasting is nothing - a mere ritual - without ethical conduct:

Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen [says God]: To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, To set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?

We read another great example of a prophetic call to teshuvah, that of Jonah, just before Neilah. Neilah itself ends with the words, repeated seven times, "The Lord, He is God" 7 - the climax of one of the great prophetic confrontations, between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, when the people publicly abandoned idolatry and proclaimed the kingship of God. It is wondrous how these two strands, priestly and prophetic, have been woven together so seamlessly in our liturgy.

So teshuvah is two things: a religious-metaphysical experience of sin and atonement (Maimonides), and an ethical-historical drama of exile and return (Nachmanides). For nearly two thousand years, the former predominated while the latter was no more than a distant memory and a pious hope. The Temple was gone, and so too were the prophets. But whereas there was a substitute for the Temple (the synagogue as mikdash me’at, ”a temple-in-microcosm”) there was no real substitute for Israel as a nation-among-nations in the arena of history.

In the course of the twentieth century, that changed. Jews returned. The state of Israel was reborn. The promise of the prophets, millennia ago, came true. Yet the word teshuvah - in the sense meant by Moses in this week's Sedra, and by Nachmanides in his construal of the command - has not yet been fully realised. There has been a physical homecoming to the land, but not yet a spiritual homecoming to the faith. Among a section of the population, yes; among the people as a whole, no. That challenge rests with us, our contemporaries, and our children.

The words of the prophets, never less than inspiring, have acquired a new salience. How it will happen, we do not know, but that it will happen, we do know, for we have God's promise: that the faith of Israel will be reborn just as its land and state have been. May we live to see it, and work to be part of it.

מקורות - Sources

רמב"ם הלכות תשובה פרק א
הלכה א

כל מצות שבתורה בין עשה בין לא תעשה אם עבר
אדם על אחת מהן בין בזדון בין בשגגה כשיעשה
תשובה וישוב מחטאו חייב להתודות לפני האל ברוך
הוא שנאמר איש או אשה כי יעשו וגו' והתודו את
חטאתם אשר עשו זה וידוי דברים, וידוי זה מצות
עשה, כיצד מתודין אומר אנא השם חטאתי עויתי
פשעתי לפניך ועשיתי כך וכך והרי נחמתי ובושתי
במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר לדבר זה, וזהו עיקרו של
וידוי, וכל המרבה להתודות ומאריך בענין זה הרי זה
משובח . . .

[1] Rambam Hilchot Teshuva
Chapter 1 Halacha 1

With regard to all the precepts of the Torah, positive and
negative, if a person transgressed any one of them, either
wilfully or in error, and repents and turns away from his
sin, he is under a duty to confess before God, blessed be
he, as it is said, “When a man or a woman shall commit
any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the
Lord, and that person be guilty, then they shall confess
their sin which they have done” (Numbers 5: 6-7). This
means confess in words, and this confession is a positive
command. How does one confess? The penitent says, “I
beseech you, O Lord, I have sinned, I have acted
perversely, I have transgressed before you and have
done such and such, and I repent and am ashamed of my
deeds, and I will never do this again.” This constitutes the
essence of confession. The fuller and more detailed the
confession one makes, the more praiseworthy he is.

דברים פרק ל

א) והיה כי יבאו עליך כל הדברים האלה הברכה
והקללה אשר נתתי לפניך והשבת אל לבבך בכל
הגוים אשר הדיחך ה‘ אלהיך שמה:
(ב) ושבת עד ה‘ אלהיך ושמעת בקלו ככל אשר
אנכי מצוך היום אתה ובניך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך:
(ג) ושב ה‘ אלהיך את שבותך ורחמך ושב וקבצך
מכל העמים אשר הפיצך ה‘ אלהיך שמה:
(ד) אם יהיה נדחך בקצה השמים משם יקבצך ה‘
אלהיך ומשם יקחך:
(ה) והביאך ה‘ אלהיך אל הארץ אשר ירשו
אבתיך וירשתה והיטבך והרבך מאבתיך:
(ח) ואתה תשוב ושמעת בקול ה‘ ועשית את כל
מצותיו אשר אנכי מצוך היום:
(ט) והותירך ה‘ אלהיך בכל מעשה ידך בפרי
בטנך ובפרי בהמתך ובפרי אדמתך לטבה כי ישוב ה‘
לשוש עליך לטוב כאשר שש על אבתיך:
(י) כי תשמע בקול ה‘ אלהיך לשמר מצותיו
וחקתיו הכתובה בספר התורה הזה כי תשוב אל ה‘
אלהיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך:

[2] Devarim Chapter 30 Verses 1-10

There shall come a time when you shall experience all the
words of blessing and curse that I have presented to you.
There, among the nations where God will have banished
you, you will reflect on the situation. You will then return to
God your Lord, and you will obey Him, doing everything
that I am commanding you today. You and your children
[will repent] with all your heart and with all your soul.
God will then bring back your remnants and have mercy
on you. God your Lord will once again gather you from
among all the nations where He scattered you. Even if
your diaspora is at the ends of the heavens, God your
Lord will gather you up from there and He will take you
back. God your Lord will then bring you to the land that
your ancestors occupied, and you too will occupy it. God
will be good to you and make you flourish even more than
your ancestors. God will remove the barriers from your
hearts and from the hearts of your descendants, so that
you will love God your Lord with all your heart and soul.
Thus will you survive. God will then direct all these curses
against your enemies and against the foes who pursued
you.

You will repent and obey God, keeping all His
commandments, as I prescribe them to you today. God
will then grant you a good surplus in all the work of your
hands, in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock,
and the fruit of your land. God will once again rejoice in
you for good, just as He rejoiced in your fathers. All this
will happen when you obey God your Lord, keeping all His
commandments and decrees, as they are written in this
book of the Torah, and when you return to God your Lord
with all your heart and soul.

דברים פרק ל
(יא) כי המצוה הזאת אשר אנכי מצוך היום לא
נפלאת הוא ממך ולא רחקה הוא:

[3]Devarim Chapter 30 Verse 11
For this command which I am commanding you today is
not too difficult for you or beyond your reach

רמב"ן דברים פרק ל
(יא) וטעם כי המצוה הזאת - על כל התורה כולה.
והנכון, כי על כל התורה יאמר (לעיל ח א) "כל
המצוה אשר אנכי מצוך היום", אבל "המצוה הזאת"
על התשובה הנזכרת, כי והשבות אל לבבך (בפסוק
א) ושבת עד ה' אלהיך (בפסוק ב) מצוה שיצוה
אותנו לעשות כן.

[4] Ramban on Devarim Chapter 30

Verse 11

"This mitzva" refers to the whole Torah. However it
would have been more accurate to refer to the whole
Torah as, "the whole mitzva which I command you today
(as in Devarim 8:1)" (and not "this mitzva").
Rather, "this mitzva" refers to repentance, that was
mentioned above. The earlier statements, "You will
return to your heart (30:1)," and "You will return to
Hashem your G-d (30:2)," are actually commands to
repent.

רמב"ם הלכות תשובה פרק ז

הלכה ה

כל הנביאים כולן צוו על התשובה ואין ישראל נגאלין
אלא בתשובה, וכבר הבטיחה תורה שסוף ישראל
לעשות תשובה בסוף גלותן ומיד הן נגאלין שנאמר
והיה כי יבאו עליך כל הדברים וגו' ושבת עד ה'
אלהיך ושב ה' אלהיך וגו'.

[5] Rambam Hilchot Teshuva

Chapter 7 Halacha 5

All the prophets charged the people concerning
Teshuvah. Only through Teshuvah will Israel be
redeemed, and the Torah has already given the
assurance that Israel will, at the end of its exile, finally
repent and then be immediately redeemed, as it is said,
“When all these blessings and curses I have set before
you come upon you and you take them to heart
wherever the Lord your G-d disperses you among the
nations, and when you and your children return to the
Lord your G-d and obey him with all your heart and with
all your soul according to everything I command you
today, then the Lord your G-d will restore your fortunes
and have compassion on you and gather you again from
all the nations where He scattered you”

ישעיהו פרק נח

(ו) הלוא זה צום אבחרהו פתח חרצבות רשע התר
אגדות מוטה ושלח רצוצים חפשים וכל מוטה תנתקו:
(ז) הלוא פרס לרעב לחמך ועניים מרודים תביא
בית כי תראה ערם וכסיתו ומבשרך לא תתעלם:

[6] Isaiah Chapter 58 Verses 6-7

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the
fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke,
and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every
yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that
thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou
hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

מלכים א פרק יח

(לט) וירא כל העם ויפלו על פניהם ויאמרו ה‘ הוא
האלקים ה‘ הוא האלקים :

[7] Kings 1 Chapter 18 verse 39
And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces;
and they said: 'The Lord He is God; the Lord, He is
God.'