Now's the time to act -- forget the fig leaf!

One of my favourite reads for the month of Elul and the onset of the New Year and Yom Kippur is Rabbi Shalom Schwadron’s Kol Dodi Dofek. It has everything a good book on a tough subject (preparing oneself to repent and be judged by God) could ask for: small pages, large print, lots of short paragraphs and a text that is written in simple straightforward Hebrew.

In this book, under the heading ‘Don’t vacillate about repenting’, Rabbi Schwadron brings a short devar Torah in the name of Reb Elya Lopian, who said it in the name of the Chafetz Chaim who cites the mishnah from Avot 2:5 where Hillel teaches:

אַל תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפְנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה, שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה

Don’t say: "When I have free time, I will study”, for perhaps you will never have any free time.

Says the Chafetz Chaim, Hillel is being kind to us when he inserts the word שֶׁמָּא (shema, “perhaps”) because the truth is that, when a person says “I’ll do it when I have the time”, he for sure isn’t going to get round to doing it. In this vein he invokes the support of Rambam (Mishneh Torah, hilchot Talmud Torah 3:7):

שֶׁמָּא תֹּאמַר עַד שֶׁאֲקַבֵּץ מָמוֹן אֶחֱזֹר וְאֶקְרָא. עַד שֶׁאֶקְנֶה מַה שֶּׁאֲנִי צָרִיךְ וְאֶפָּנֶה מֵעֲסָקַי וְאֶחֱזֹר וְאֶקְרָא. אִם תַּעֲלֶה מַחֲשָׁבָה זוֹ עַל לִבְּךָ אֵין אַתָּה זוֹכֶה לְכִתְרָהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה לְעוֹלָם. אֶלָּא עֲשֵׂה תּוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע וּמְלַאכְתְּךָ עַרְאַי (משנה אבות ב ד) "וְלֹא תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפָּנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִּפָּנֶה

Perhaps a person will say: "[I will interrupt my studies] until after I obtain funds, and then I will return and study, [I will interrupt my studies] until after I buy what I need and then, when I can divert my attention from my business, I will return and study." If you harbour such thoughts, you will never merit the crown of Torah. Rather, make your work secondary, and your Torah study a fixed matter. Do not say: "When I have free time, I will study," for perhaps you will never have free time.

The ”perhaps” in each case is not included because there is any uncertainty as to whether there will be time to study (or in our case, repent) or not. “Perhaps” is there as a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of the person who knows he is not really to do the thing in question but who is ashamed to admit it—whether to others or to himself.

The moral of the story is that we should not make our good deeds and our fulfilment of important tasks contingent on some external factor. Nor should we delay them if we can do them now.  “If not now, when?” asks Hillel (Avot 1:14). Regarding teshuvah, repentance, Rabbi Eliezer gives him an answer: “Repent one day before the day of your death” (Avot 2:15).

So let’s not delay. Repent today! And let me not delay any further in wishing all the readers of Avot Today and its contributors a ketivah vechatimah tovah: Happy New Year! May our names be inscribed and sealed in the book of life, happiness and fulfilment for the year to come—now and not at some unspecified later time!

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