Maimonides on Teshuvah: the Ways of Repentance
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Touro Scholar Lander College of Arts and Sciences Books Lander College of Arts and Sciences 2017 Maimonides on Teshuvah: The Ways of Repentance Henry M. Abramson Touro College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://touroscholar.touro.edu/lcas_books Part of the Jewish Studies Commons Recommended Citation Abramson, H. M. (2017). Maimonides on Teshuvah: The Ways of Repentance. Retrieved from https://touroscholar.touro.edu/lcas_books/1 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Lander College of Arts and Sciences at Touro Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Lander College of Arts and Sciences Books by an authorized administrator of Touro Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maimonides on Teshuvah The Ways of Repentance Henry Abramson Fifth Edition 2017 תשע׳׳ז CreateSpace Edition License Notes Educational institutions may reproduce, copy and distribute portions of this book for non-commercial purposes without charge, provided appropriate citation of the source, in accordance with the Talmudic dictum of Rabbi Elazar in the name of Rabbi Hanina (Megilah 15a): “anyone who cites a teaching in the name of its author brings redemption to the world.” Copyright 2017 Henry Abramson Version 5.0 Av 5777 (August 2017) Cover design by Bentsion Janashvili בס׳׳ד לאבי מורי יעקב דוד בן אליהו ע’’ה איש חסד ואמת To my father and teacher Jack David Abramson A Man of Compassion and Integrity 1928-2014 Other Works by Henry Abramson Jewish History A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920 The Art of Hatred: Images of Intolerance in Florida Culture Torah from the Years of Wrath, 1939-1943: The Historical Context of the Hasidic Holocaust Writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapiro (forthcoming) Jewish Thought Reading the Talmud: Developing Independence in Gemara Learning The Sea of Talmud: A Brief and Personal Introduction The Kabbalah of Forgiveness: The Thirteen Levels of Mercy in Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s Date Palm of Devorah (Tomer Devorah) Contents Preface in Lieu of Approbation 3 Introduction 5 The Ways of Repentance 13 Chapter One: Confession 17 Chapter Two: Forgiveness 37 Chapter Three: Change 69 Chapter Four: Impediments 111 Chapter Five: Freedom 135 Chapter Six: Privilege 155 Chapter Seven: Teshuvah 173 Chapter Eight: Future 197 Chapter Nine: Present 217 Chapter Ten: Love 227 My Father: A Tribute 243 Acknowledgments 247 !2 Preface in Lieu of Approbation This book, like its author, is in a state of becoming. I first wrote Maimonides on Teshuvah in 2012 as a personal experiment, elevating a yearly habit of reviewing The Ways of Repentance before the High Holidays by translating it into English. There was no need for a new translation as Rabbi Eliyahu Touger’s fine work was already available, but I had been interested in the developing technologies of web-based publishing and thought it would be a fun thing to do. Surprisingly, a fair number of readers enjoyed my translation, perhaps because I offered it as a free download during the period immediately prior to Rosh Hashanah. In subsequent years I refreshed the translation and expanded the commentary. I came to view the evolving manuscript as an expression of my personal teshuvah, measuring change that was sometimes incremental, sometimes tectonic. The text became something of a spiritual journal that I shared with stranger-friends who received free yearly updates of the ebook. I am grateful for the comments they have shared, which have enriched my understanding of both the text and my self. By long-standing Jewish literary convention, a Rabbinic approbation called a haskamah would appear at this point, assuring would-be readers of the scholarship and piety of the author. I’m not certain of either attribute, and feel uncomfortable asking my Rabbinic friends for such a seal of approval. Who am I, after all, to write a commentary on the eternal words of Maimonides? Furthermore, even if the thoughts I record this year have some value, it would be unfair to request an approbation to cover future years. !3 Readers should therefore approach this book with appropriate caution. My credentials to write a book of this nature are minimal. My commentary is not a learned work with deep Rabbinic insights, nor is it a thoroughly modern, low-calorie approach to teshuvah. It is written in the spirit of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook’s perceptive insight that “it is impossible to fulfill the obligations of the heart unless one assembles a book for one’s self...that contains the teachings that inspire one’s soul” (Musar Avikha). I have tried to express myself in the sterile language of third-person academic scholarship. The syntax and vocabulary of this style helped me obscure the profound regret and heartache that drives much of my personal teshuvah. It is my hope that sensitive readers will recognize themselves in my questions on Maimonides, and we may strengthen each other thereby. The fifth edition (5777/2017) includes some significant changes. In connection with a learning project at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, the text is divided into forty units from Rosh Hodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. I have added a brief tribute to my father, to whom this work is dedicated. י''א אב תשע''ז שלוש שנים אחר פטירת אבי מורי יעקב דוד בן אליהו ע''ה August 3, 2017 Three years after the passing of my father and teacher Jack David Abramson, of blessed memory HMA Cedarhurst, NY !4 Introduction The railroad tracks ran parallel to Ambridge Drive, literally across the street from my father’s clothing store and the small apartment that was my childhood home. The locomotive crawled by several times a day, sounding its ear-splitting horn as it approached the unprotected intersection with the street. Even without boxcars, the train was so heavy that its passage shook the dishes in my mother’s china cabinet, a basso profondo roar that reverberated up and down my spine. The sheer mass and power of the locomotive inspired respect, even fear. As a child, I often spent summer mornings placing pennies on the track, carefully noting the exact location of the coins by counting railroad ties from the street or marking the spot with a spray of purple fireweed. After the locomotive made its thunderous passing, I would hunt down the coins, now flattened almost beyond recognition, just a hint of Queen Elizabeth’s crown or a bit of the Canadian maple leaf testifying to their original status as currency. Imponderable though it was, the train was no match for the switches. Located about half a kilometer away, across from the IGA store, two parallel half-rails gracefully curved off the tracks, waiting patiently for the engineer to throw a lever and bring them into contact with the westward rails. Separated from the main line by tiny gaps no bigger than a finger, these tapered rails had the power to lead the massive beast away from its initial trajectory and cast it into the distant railway yards. Sometimes, when I am not in a particularly charitable mood, I see myself as that locomotive, carrying an !5 unimaginable weight of inertia through my quotidian life, mindlessly reacting to others around me according to long- established maladapted patterns. Attempts to alter my behavior often feel quixotic and powerless, like pennies on the track, all efforts crushed and destroyed by their very first encounter with the weight of habit. Encouragement comes when I remind myself of those switches along the way, discreetly placed at key intervals, waiting for the signal from the engineer to connect them to the iron path and forever alter the train’s trajectory to a bold, unanticipated destination. Maimonides’ The Ways of Repentance was one of the switches in my life. Reading it, and reviewing it, has helped me become the driver of my own locomotive, orienting my path whenever I found myself wandering away from my desired destination. Moses Maimonides is one of the towering figures of Jewish intellectual history. Among observant Jews he is known as “the Rambam,” an acronym for his Hebrew name, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Moses son of Maimon). In this work I will use the name “Maimonides,” Greek for “son of Maimon,” a term more familiar to secular audiences. His reputation is encapsulated in the phrase inscribed on his tombstone in Tiberias, Israel: “from Moses to Moses, there was no one like Moses.” Born in Cordoba, Spain in 1135 or 1138, his family fled persecution and settled in Egypt, where he rose to prominence as a physician. He was an indefatigable advocate for Jewish causes around the world, working to rescue Jews taken captive during the Crusades and writing letters offering guidance and support to far-flung communities. His most famous works include The Guide for the Perplexed, a philosophical treatise explaining the !6 foundations of Judaism, and the Mishneh Torah, a massive compendium of Jewish law, based on Biblical and Talmudic sources. The Ways of Repentance (Hilkhot Teshuvah) is taken from that multi-volume work. The title Mishneh Torah may be translated as “the repetition of Torah,” in the sense that it represents an ambitious restatement of the entirety of Jewish law, derived from both the Written Torah (the Five Books of Moses) and the Oral Torah (essentially, the Talmud). Maimonides’ stated goal was to collate and organize the thousands of details related to Jewish practice and thought scattered throughout these ancient sources and present them in a clear, straightforward fashion in a single work. In a massive effort of prodigious scholarship, he organized all Jewish law into a single code, one of the first in Jewish history.