The book of Numbers, which we finished this morning, closes with a discussion on how the tribes will divide the Land and what areas will be under the control of the Levites, who do not have a portion in the Land like the other tribes. As a part of this discussion, the issue of the manslayer and cities of refuge arises. The 6 cities of refuge exist under the authority of the Levites and are cities in which a slayer can run to for protection from the family members of the slain who might take justice into their own hands to revenge the killing.
These cities were an interesting feature of ancient Jewish jurisprudence. If a person killed another intentionally the cities provided no refuge. But if one killed someone by accident or by negligence there was a concern that tribal loyalties would demand that the killer or his family be slaughtered in return. The cities protected the manslayer until justice could be done. If the killer was found to have acted without malice and only through negligence the punishment would be exile in these cities until the High Priest died and then he would be freed. The family of the dead would have to relinquish their right to avenge their member. However if the manslayer tried to escape his exile before his time, he was no longer protected and if avenged, the avenger would have no blood guilt upon him.
Jacob Milgrom explains that “It is a basic theological postulate that the divine Presence cannot abide in a land polluted by murder; the offense leads to the pollution of earth and the abandonment by God of His sanctuary and people … (and thus) the blood of one slain even accidentally must be redeemed.” And yet our passage makes clear that intentionality is crucial in determining guilt and atonement.
A transgression, a sin, a wrongful act, all these must be corrected or fixed but intentionality in doing the wrong affects how the problem is to be fixed. This is essential to the role of teshuvah in our lives today. To paraphrase Jacob Milgrom, even accidental wrongs must be redeemed but the intent when doing wrong impacts on how and what the response should be. Whether I accidentally trip someone or do so with malicious intent I have to do teshuvah but clearly my level of responsibility will be different in each case and the inner transformation to effect penitence will be different. If I eat a piece of pork, atonement is required, but the ways and means by which I achieve kaparah, atonement, will be affected by my original intention.
This understanding helps explain a very odd statement by Resh Lakish in the Talmud. According to him, “Great is Teshuvah: for it turns premeditated sins into errors.” But did he not also say “Great is Teshuvah: for it turns premeditated sins into merits?” The Talmud responds, “There is no contradiction for the latter statement refers to penitence out of love, and the former to penitence out of fear.”
Repentance in general is a tough concept. If I have done something wrong, how can I change it? If I punch someone in the nose, saying I am sorry and promising not to do it again does not make the broken nose go away. I can make sure not to do it again but the wrong, whether it is ben adam l’haveiro – an ethical lapse towards another person– or ben adam laMakom — between myself and God — will always be there. That is how Milgrom understands the biblical approach to sin – it is a stain that must be cleansed.
So what does Resh Lakish mean when he says that if one commits a sin and then seeks repentance, it changes the sin from in one case a premeditated and malicious act to a mistake or in other cases from a premeditated and malicious act to a merit? How can that be?
Joseph Albo, a Jewish medieval philosopher, notes that the Talmud resolves the two seemingly contradictory teachings by Resh Lakish by suggesting that in the case of one who repents out of fear, he repents because he fears God’s wrath and the pain to be afflicted. Repentance is an act of grace for Albo and the kindness on God’s part, if he sees the penitent is sincere, is to downgrade the severity of the sin to an error and his penalty is thus lessened. The Maharsha, Rabbi Solomon Eidels, compares it to the case of David and Bat Sheva in which David confessed and did teshuvah and asks God in psalm 25 to consider his sins as youthful indiscretions. Teshuvah moves the sin from willful to accidental and like our case of the manslayer, the punishment is much less severe.
Louis Newman, professor at Carleton College, writes that this is understandable. To repent is in part to come to regret having committed a particular transgression and to intend to never do it again. We disown our former evil intention and replace it with the intention to do good. The deed itself can’t be undone but the misguided intent can be repudiated.
But how does repentance turn the sin into a merit? Sages have wrestled with Resh Lakish’s teaching to make sense of it. Rabbi Eidels writes, “that these sinful acts, even if corrected, should be considered merits is very strange! Looks like the sinner is rewarded for having sinned!”
Eidels’ own answer is that the act of repentance is not only about correcting one’s transgression but increasing the acts of goodness that one does. Therefore the increased goodness performed was motivated by the sin. Albo suggests it is about the motivation of the sinner. Unlike the one who repents out of fear, Resh Lakish’s assessment about some acts of repentance that turn sins into merits refers to those who repent out of love. They are motivated to change because they want to please God and to love God. This is the whole point of Torah to help us reach this level of love of God, so if a wrongful act brought the sinner to reorient and focus on doing God’s will out of Love than truly, the sin becomes the impetus for merit.
But the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague suggests something else. A person who is a penitent is one whose material natures drew him away from God, Who is all spiritual. So the penitent is far away and through repentance has drawn closer to God. This new situation is very powerful because the energy required to draw close to God from his distant, materialistic ways adds to the special closeness the penitent has now assumed in the shadow of the Divine. This is the meaning of the verse “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, says the Lord” (Isaiah 57:19). Why is the distant one first? Because the distance caused by sin is overcome by the greater energy to draw closer.
This notion is seconded by Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik: “The years of sin are transformed into powerful impulsive force which propel the sinner toward God. Sin is not to be forgotten, blotted out or cast into the depths of the sea. On the contrary, sin has to be remembered. It is the memory of sin that released the power within the inner depths of the soul of the penitent to do greater things than ever before. The energy of sin can be used to bring one to new heights.”
This is very different than the biblical notion, as described by Jacob Milgrom, of sin as a blot that has to be cleansed. It is a recognition that sins and transgressions and deficiencies are part of our human nature. But not in a despairing sense, that is, ‘Woe is us, we are all doomed to sin because we are human’; rather God has given us the opportunity to learn from our faults, to correct our wrongs even though it seems impossible to retroactively fix them. And more than that, if corrected properly, the energy with which we transform our wrongs into goodness is even more powerful than the energy for hurting and causing harm.
This week we will observe the new month of Av and on the ninth of Av we mourn the destruction of the Temple as well as other acts of Exile and destruction in our history. The tradition is that the Messiah is born on Tisha B’Av and the symbolism of that tradition is readily apparent: Out of the ashes of destruction comes redemption. Perhaps this is why after Tisha B’Av comes Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. So that the message about national redemption out of destruction, is assimilated in the individual breast – just as I cause my personal spiritual destruction through hurtful, sinful actions, my penitence can bring about a personal transformation that leads to redemption.
As we enter this dark period in our calendar let’s remember that out ability to make choices for good can lead us from darkness to light.