Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses the moral obligation to be absolutely scrupulous when it comes to honest weights and measures. This obligation and prohibition extends to the degree that one is not even allowed to have an accurate measures around the house, despite using them for other purposes, with no intention to defraud anybody:
A person may not keep in his house a measure that is too small or too large, even if it is used as a chamber pot for urine.
Bas Ayin (Teztaveh) understands this prohibition metaphorically; the house is his internal chambers of the heart. His actions on the outside should mirror his beliefs on the inside. This is related to the principle of “speaking truth in one’s heart” that we saw in yesterday's blog post, daf 88.
On the topic of being true to one’s heart, and we are in the month of Elul, I thought it would be good to discuss the common and difficult psychological sugya of repentance even when one knows he will sin again.
The three key components of repentance are (Rambam Laws of Repentance 1:1):
- Confession
- Expressing Regret
- Resolve to not repeat the sin
Items one and two are generally possible, even when feeling conflicted, because most people regret their sins to an extent that they can be sincere in serious moments. However, how sincere can number three be, as when in regard to many sins of modern life, there is a strong likelihood that it will be willfully repeated, and not just by accident or under unusual temptation.
At first glance, the news is not good. Here is what the Rambam says about incomplete repentence (ibid 2:2-3):
וּמַה הִיא הַתְּשׁוּבָה. הוּא שֶׁיַּעֲזֹב הַחוֹטֵא חֶטְאוֹ וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ וְיִגְמֹר בְּלִבּוֹ שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲשֵׂהוּ עוֹד .וְצָרִיךְ לְהִתְוַדּוֹת בִּשְׂפָתָיו וְלוֹמַר עִנְיָנוֹת אֵלּוּ שֶׁגָּמַר בְּלִבּוֹ:
What constitutes Teshuvah? That a sinner should abandon his sins and remove them from his thoughts, resolving in his heart, never to commit them again. Similarly, he must regret the past as [Jeremiah 31:18] states: "After I returned, I regretted." … He must verbally confess and state these matters which he resolved in his heart.
כָּל הַמִּתְוַדֶּה בִּדְבָרִים וְלֹא גָּמַר בְּלִבּוֹ לַעֲזֹב הֲרֵי זֶה דּוֹמֶה לְטוֹבֵל וְשֶׁרֶץ בְּיָדוֹ שֶׁאֵין הַטְּבִילָה מוֹעֶלֶת לוֹ עַד שֶׁיַּשְׁלִיךְ הַשֶּׁרֶץ
Anyone who verbalizes his confession without resolving in his heart to abandon [sin] can be compared to [a person] who immerses himself [in a mikvah] while [holding the carcass of] a lizard in his hand. His immersion will not be of avail until he casts away the carcass.
However, there is an intriguing dispute in the Gemara (Shavuous 13a) regarding whether Yom Kippur can effect forgiveness even without repentance:
דתניא רבי אומר על כל עבירות שבתורה בין עשה תשובה בין לא עשה תשובה יום הכפורים מכפר חוץ מפורק עול ומגלה פנים בתורה ומפר ברית בבשר שאם עשה תשובה יום הכפורים מכפר ואם לאו אין יום הכפורים מכפר
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says: For all transgressions that are stated in the Torah, whether one repented, or whether one did not repent, Yom Kippur atones, except for one who divests himself of the yoke of Heaven, by denying God’s existence, and one who reveals facets of the Torah that differ from its true meaning, and one who nullifies the covenant of circumcision of the flesh. For these, if one repented, Yom Kippur atones, and if not, Yom Kippur does not atone.
However, the Gemara (ibid) records the opinion of the Rabbis, that Yom Kippur does not bring about forgiveness without repentance. The halacha is in accordance with the majority, and so Yom Kippur does not provide forgiveness without repentance (see Rambam , ibid, 1:3 and Shulchan Aruch, OC, Ramah 607:6.)
And yet, this is not an open and shut case. To begin with, Ramah is verbose, perhaps hinting at another possibility, but not saying it outright so as not to encourage moral laziness. He states (ibid):
יוה"כ אינו מכפר אלא על השבים המאמינים בכפרתו אבל המבעט בו ומחשב בלבו מה מועיל לי יו"כ זה אינו מכפר לו: (רמב"ם פ"ג מהלכות שגגות):
Yom Kippur only atones for the repenters who believe in its (Yom Kippur’s) atonement. However, one who is contemptuous toward it and thinks to himself, “how can this Yom Kippur help me,” for such a person, Yom Kippur does not atone.
Ramah adds a number of clauses that Rambam did not say (even though he refers to him as the source of his ruling). He did not merely describe the person as not repenting, but added a specific disparaging attitude toward Yom Kippur in his description.
We might wonder, is the Ramah suggesting that ordinarily Yom Kippur has the power to effect forgiveness even without repentance, so long as the person at least believes in Yom Kippur. This might include a person who enters Yom Kippur in a penitent state of mind and attitude, even without doing proper repentance for each and every sin, because he is validating and activating the power of Yom Kippur, which brings about forgiveness broadly. The only person then who does not get the Yom Kippur amnesty is one who completely disregards and disrespects the day.
Rav Shlomo Kluger, in his sefer on the Days of Awe (Kehillas Yaakov) goes further, offering a number of creative ideas to argue that we can nowadays follow Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi’s position, that Yom Kippur achieves forgiveness without full repentance. Why is this so? We have a general rule of psak that in a situation of great duress we may follow the minority opinion (Mishna Eduyos 1:5 and Shu”t Ginas Veradim EH:Klall 2, Siman 1.) Since our generation is weak and unable to resolve fully not to sin, without the blanket forgiveness of Yom Kippur, all might be lost. Rav Kluger argues, what could be a greater duress than that?
I will conclude with a final argument from Rav Kluger (Kehillas Yaakov, Yom Hakippurim, Derush 34), a tour de force in creative halachic and legal gymnastics. We have a principle that if one prays for his friend and he is suffering from the same difficulty, God answers one’s own prayers first (Bava Kamma 92a). Therefore, if you pray on Yom Kippur for God to forgive the Jewish people, even if you have not made complete repentance, if God answers your prayers for your fellow Jews, then He will answer your request first, and so you will receive pardon.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation 
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