Teshuvah—repentance—is a core objective of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and of Pirkei Avot itself, where the concept is mentioned on several occasions. We are told, for example, to repent one day before we die, in other words daily (Avot 2:15); we see the value of repentance as a means of warding off divine retribution (Avot 4:13) and of spending our time on Earth before we pass on to another world (Avot 4:22). We even discover that the avenue of repentance may be barred to us if we have led others astray (Avot 5:21).
Curiously, while the mishnayot promote the importance of teshuvah,
they do not discuss what sort of repentance they have in mind.
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, one of the great Amoraim of the
Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 86b), identifies two types of repentance: teshuvah
me’yirah (repentance based on fear) and teshuvah me’ahavah (repentance
based on love). The passage reads like this:
אָמַר רֵישׁ
לָקִישׁ: גְּדוֹלָה תְּשׁוּבָה שֶׁזְּדוֹנוֹת נַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ כִּשְׁגָגוֹת,
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֹנֶךָ״,
הָא ״עָוֹן״ — מֵזִיד הוּא, וְקָא קָרֵי לֵיהּ מִכְשׁוֹל. אִינִי?! וְהָאָמַר
רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ: גְּדוֹלָה תְּשׁוּבָה שֶׁזְּדוֹנוֹת נַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ כִּזְכִיּוֹת,
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּבְשׁוּב רָשָׁע מֵרִשְׁעָתוֹ וְעָשָׂה מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה
עֲלֵיהֶם (חָיֹה) יִחְיֶה״! לָא קַשְׁיָא: כָּאן מֵאַהֲבָה, כָּאן מִיִּרְאָה.
Resh Lakish said: “Great is
repentance since, on account of it, deliberate sins are accounted as inadvertent
ones, as it is said: ‘Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have
stumbled in your iniquity’”. ‘Iniquity’
is deliberate, and yet the text calls it ‘stumbling’—but that is not so! For
Resh Lakish said that repentance is so great that deliberate sins are accounted
as though they were merits, as it is said: ‘And when the wicked person turns
from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live on
account of it’. That is no contradiction: one verse refers to a case [of
repentance] derived from love, the other to one due to fear.
The mishnayot in Pirkei Avot do not overtly distinguish
between these two species of repentance. However, repentance the day before one
dies sounds like a fear-response: if you don’t do it now, tomorrow may be too
late and you will have to face the eternal and negative consequences of not
having done so. Repentance in order to ward off retribution is likewise
fear-related. But what of the other two teachings?
Now for a word about repentance on Yom Kippur.
Any assessment of the prayers that comprise the main content
of the day’s five services would likely point to Yom Kippur being a day for
repentance through fear. In particular, repenting in order to avert the dread
decree dominates the early part of the mussaf service—and the aggadic image of
the books of life and death being open in front of God the great judge is vivid
in the minds of many, if not most, of us. But does that mean there is no scope
for teshuvah me’ahavah?
Many years ago I was privy to a conversation involving Dayan
Gershon Lopian, who had stepped back from the role of Dayan of the Beit Din of London’s
Federation of Synagogues in order to take responsibility for a relatively small
orthodox but not especially religious community in North West London. Someone
asked him about the ‘Al Chet’ section of the vidui, the lengthy
confession that followed each of the day’s main prayers. What did he think of
the fact that many of his congregants were cheerfully singing along to the ‘Al
Chets’ with great gusto, even though they probably had little understanding
of what it was that they were supposed to be confessing.
The Dayan responded that that the cheerful singing of these
congregants was a perfect example of teshuvah me’ahavah: they were not
repenting because they loved God, but because they loved the ritual and the
routine of repentance—the tunes, the occasion, the intensity of the moment. And
that, said the Dayan, was good enough for him.
