Does God forgive? | Walking on the Road Questions and Answers on the Roads from the Genius Hinoka

3:13 So he buys it with his own money, not with public funds. So I am asking a very simple question. I asked it simply; I did not go into the depth of the matter, because in the past I did that in a shiur and spoke about it. I want to understand what is meant. Seemingly, if a person dwells in the Land of Israel without sin, then seemingly, if there are no sins, there is no need for offerings. And if I say that the offerings atone, and because the offerings atone, the person who lives in the Land of Israel dwells without sin, because there are offerings — then if it is the offerings that atone, seemingly all the fasts and all the teshuvah that people do — the teshuvah is not needed, for what does the teshuvah do?

3:54 After all, the offering atones. And we know that an offering without confession and without semichah, leaning the hands on it — what kind of offering is that? That is to say, there is a kind of single piece here, together with the teshuvah — that the Jew, the created being, who sinned against the Creator, does teshuvah; he prays to the Holy One, blessed be He, and he tears his heart — right? — which is the true teshuvah. The Yerushalmi in Taanis, chapter 2, halachah 1 — the Yerushalmi says: 'Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to Hashem your G-d, for He is gracious and merciful.'

4:25 In the name of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: that is, if you have torn your heart in teshuvah, then you will not tear your garments — not over your sons, not over your daughters. Heaven forbid. As if to say, it is like a rescue from all evil: teshuvah will save you from all the harsh decrees, or from all the troubles, or from all the misfortunes. On the contrary: when people do teshuvah, the Holy One, blessed be He, atones and pardons all the Jewish people. This is found in many, many sources, but the matter is this — I will sharpen the question again.

4:52 We say: 'All Israel have a share in the World to Come.' So really, seemingly everyone is destined for the life of the World to Come, but seemingly, afterward we see that one who, Heaven forbid, sinned, and one who has no shame, and one who humiliated his fellow in public, has no share in the World to Come, and not even Yom Kippur atones for him. So seemingly we see things that contradict what the Sages said. After all, if a person, now, does not appease his fellow on the eve of Yom Kippur, then even with the teshuvah he does before his Maker, he is not atoned for.

5:20 So what is being spoken of? What is meant by teshuvah? And I meant to say that there is no source. That the Holy One, blessed be He, pardons, and all the expressions the Sages use — that is like 'All Israel have a share in the World to Come': a person is destined for the palace of teshuvah; the Holy One, blessed be He, has accepted him; the Holy One, blessed be He — you have merit, you have merited, you have turned from evil; the King will not pour out His wrath upon you; the King will have mercy on you, the King will draw you near, the King will accept you, the King will guide you; the King has accepted you.

5:51 And it is like what we say, for example: 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly.' Every day we conclude a blessing: 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly.' Seemingly, if the Holy One, blessed be He, did not pardon and did not forgive, how can we make a blessing? After all, in the Responsa of the Rashba, part 1, siman 18, there the Rashba's responsa say that we do not make a blessing on tzedakah or on honoring father and mother — on something that depends on the will of one's fellow. And here, how can one make a blessing when, so to speak, we — that the Holy One, blessed be He, pardons — after all, it is Hashem's decision whether to pardon, or not to forgive — as the Rambam writes in Hilchos Teshuvah, chapter 2, that the testimony comes from the Creator Himself.

6:27 The Creator Himself testifies about the created being that he did teshuvah. If he sinned before Him, the Holy One, blessed be He, will accept his teshuvah. What emerges from here is that these words are, in fact, for the benefit of the community and the individual. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: I am speaking to all of you — return before Me, and I atone for you; return. And each one has an opening dug for him to come close to the Holy One, blessed be He, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, will pardon him and forgive him. And as in the Yerushalmi in Taanis, chapter 2, halachah 1, where it is also written explicitly that the Holy One, blessed be He, accepts their teshuvah. Another source for this: 'that if they anger Me, by the time I send for them' —

6:59 so the Holy One, blessed be He, says — 'Israel do teshuvah, and I accept their teshuvah.' That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be He, is merciful and gracious; He accepts the teshuvah of the Jewish people. But this is called 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly.' It comes from the side of Hashem's mercy: because the Holy One, blessed be He, is so merciful and gracious, because the Holy One, blessed be He, is slow to anger and abundant in kindness, by virtue of His attributes, He pardons the Jewish people. Every day He pardons us.

7:25 'And He removes our guilt each and every year.' But seemingly, why is Yom Kippur needed? After all, if on Yom Kippur we fast and it pardons all the sins, why is Yom Kippur needed another year? Why is it needed? It would be good like the Yovel, the Jubilee: once in fifty years there is a Yom Kippur, and it atones for fifty years. And here people do teshuvah — everyone does — from year to year. If a person is passing away — we have the final meal before the fast — if a person is passing away: Yoreh De'ah, siman 338, se'if 2, the confession of one who is gravely ill — a person is passing away, about to die; he makes confession, he does teshuvah.

7:54 He is already doing teshuvah at midday; yesterday was Yom Kippur; he fasted on Yom Kippur, so seemingly he was pardoned — so what did he already manage to sin in these two days? What does he need to make a confession for? Teshuvah is, in fact, something that needs to be explained — what it is. Within teshuvah itself there are levels: there is forgiveness, pardon and atonement — which in a moment I will try to explain. But seemingly, as with the blessing 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly' — seemingly one needs to look into 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly': in Responsa Rav Pe'alim, part 2, siman 32, where Rabbi Yosef Chaim discusses a blessing in vain or an unnecessary blessing.

8:24 If there is a difference in wording here — there is a difference between a blessing in vain and an unnecessary blessing. A blessing in vain is when a person makes up a blessing, a blessing that does not exist; and an unnecessary blessing is a blessing that does exist but is said in a place where it should not be said. And seemingly, if I make the blessing '...the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly,' if I did not do teshuvah, then how do I bless 'the Gracious One Who forgives abundantly'? After all, the person did not do teshuvah.

8:49 Or perhaps the Holy One, blessed be He, does not pardon me. And then how do I make this blessing — as we said about what the Rashba writes, that we do not make a blessing on something that depends on the will of one's fellow, like on tzedakah and so on, on honoring father and mother. So there are things here that need to be explained, for certainly, if we look into the root of the matter, we will understand that the words are not as they appear on the surface. And first of all, one must also always judge favorably and understand my question. I spoke about this at the time, and one needs to understand the words, and not always fail to judge favorably or fail to understand the words. Perhaps I was not clear enough in the question, but

9:26 whoever remembers the question knows the question, and I want to explain things in a simpler way. We have forgiveness, pardon and atonement. For example, I will give you an illustration. A person walks into a glassware shop; he walks into a place that has expensive vases and beautiful, fine glassware, and he goes into that glassware shop and he damages them.

9:54 He did damage: he knocked over those vessels and smashed the vases and caused very great financial damage to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper penalizes him and says to him: You have to pay me for the financial damage, and I also want a penalty from you, for having harmed me and caused me many more damages. And he argued it out with him, and they quarreled, a dispute between them, and so on and so on.

10:23 The next day that person comes, comes before the shopkeeper and gives him a large sum. He says to him: The vessels I damaged come to twenty thousand; take fifty thousand. He gave him double and more, and said to him: Take it, this is for you, sir; this sum I am giving you. The shopkeeper — the question arises: did the shopkeeper forgive him, pardon him, or grant him atonement?

10:48 Here we will better understand the meaning of forgiveness, pardon and atonement. Forgiveness, selichah: the shopkeeper forgave him. He said to him: Yes, sir, I have forgiven you; you are permitted to enter the shop, you are permitted to choose other vessels for yourself. What was — I do not remember. Have a look, sir; buy whichever vessel you want. And he repaired all the damage that was caused to him; he forgave — the shopkeeper forgave him.

11:15 Then there is pardon, mechilah — something higher. Pardon already means that this person came to the shopkeeper and gave him the sum of the damage he had caused, and the shopkeeper says to him: It is all for the good, everything is fine; come, sit with me. Would you even like — certainly, you may help yourself. He does not even mention to him what happened yesterday; he remembers nothing. Rather, there is truly fondness between them, and a greater closeness, and love between them, and a very great nearness.

11:46 That is pardon; there is already a much greater bond here. And we have atonement, kapparah. Atonement is the very highest standing. That is why it is called Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement; it is not called the Day of Selichos, of forgiveness; it is not called the Day of Mechilos, of pardon; it is called Yom HaKippurim. The days of Selichos are the days said beforehand, because we go up little by little. We have a day of forgiveness, and of course, in the Ten Days of Teshuvah we are in days of pardon — that is a greater closeness to the Holy One, blessed be He — and Yom Kippur is the days of atonement.

12:20 That is why we say: Selichos, days of pardon, and Kippurim. They are not really called 'days of pardon'; I am simply explaining it, because between forgiveness and atonement, what stands in the middle is pardon. So the Ten Days of Teshuvah are called pardon — and of course that is according to my own interpretation; one does not have to accept it. But we want to explain the matter in a very simple way, because I want to truly understand what teshuvah is.

12:45 When we say the word atonement, kapparah, it means that this person comes to the shopkeeper; the shopkeeper receives him with warmth and with love, as if he sees before him the person most precious to him. Come, Moshe, come in — and certainly, not only does he not mention to him the damage that happened yesterday, not only does he not hold him to account for what happened yesterday, not only does he tell him, 'Come, sit and eat' - he gives him love and affection, and hugs him, and kisses him, and says to him, 'You are my son, my dear one, my beloved,' and he honors him and praises him and draws him close with the greatest closeness. And that, in fact, is what is called kapparah, atonement.

13:27 Kapparah, in fact, brings us, the Jewish people - when we speak of Yom Kippur and the days of selichah, mechilah and kapparah - kapparah brings us to the highest place. That is why we are so beloved, that is why we are so joyful before the Holy One, blessed be He. That is why our stature and our closeness are so great, and the affection of the Holy One, blessed be He, for us - that we also have the addition of the Ne'ilah prayer, with affection - that the gates which are locked all year... what fondness the Holy One, blessed be He, has for us, that even those gates are opened for us on high, before the One who dwells in heaven, and the Jewish people merit kapparah from Him, blessed be He.

14:05 That is why it is called Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonement, and that is why 'the day itself atones.' 'The day itself' - its standing is that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the possibility that the day itself, Yom Kippur - of course through the affliction of the fast, for the main thing on Yom Kippur is the fast and not the prayer - the importance is in this day: 'For on this day He shall atone for you, to purify you; from all your sins before Hashem you shall be purified.'

14:31 And so we see that the teshuvah itself, the very fact that a person fasts and suffers, and every moment on Yom Kippur that he has pain and affliction - on the contrary, there is a greater merit - 'and you shall afflict your souls' - in every moment that he is in pain, he is uncomfortable, and the standing and the long prayer are hard for him, and the affliction and the pain, and his mouth is dry and he cannot manage.

14:55 This pain that he suffers - this pain atones. That is 'the day itself atones.' When we speak of kapparah - kapparah is the highest level. And truly, every one of us does teshuvah before the Holy One, blessed be He. The very turning, that we turn to the Holy One, blessed be He, at all - that is truly what the Sages said in all those expressions: that He forgives us, that He pardons, He accepts us in teshuvah, He loves us.

15:20 But what we are speaking of, what I explained, is to find a source like the one and only verse, which is the source - what Hashem, blessed be He, said to Moshe: 'And Hashem said: Salachti kidvarecha - I have forgiven, as you have said.' Pay attention: the verse does not say 'And Hashem said to Moshe: Machalti, I have pardoned, as you have said,' or 'Kiparti, I have atoned, as you have said' - 'Salachti kidvarecha' - 'I have forgiven, as you have said.' To that level of teshuvah, truly, if we merit to reach it, perhaps we will reach a Tikkun in selichah.

15:49 Perhaps we will reach a Tikkun in mechilah. Perhaps we will reach a Tikkun in kapparah. A person needs to reach such closeness to Hashem that he wants to uproot the sin from his very being. Not just that he regrets the sin but still holds on to it in some way. Not that he does teshuvah for sins that are still in his hand. He wants to be so clean that he has no connection to any sin or transgression. He is so pure and clean that he has atoned - atoned completely, and the Holy One, blessed be He, has testified about him that he merited that kapparah, the highest level.

16:24 So that truly was the question, and this truly is the answer. And so - why is there truly no source for it, for what I am saying? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, wants that we, the Jewish people, should always strive and try to do teshuvah from the depth of the heart, because a person still does not know whether the Holy One, blessed be He, truly accepted his teshuvah or did not accept his teshuvah.

16:52 So may we all merit that the Holy One, blessed be He, accept our teshuvah, and that we always be beloved and dear to all of the Jewish people, because this bond - that we always need one another - we need... 'And I shall be sanctified' - that we all be together. For a Jew to say Kaddish, you need a minyan, and you need it for a matter of holiness, and we all need one another, because we are one people, and unity is the closeness to the Holy One, blessed be He. And that is why the Holy One, blessed be He, does not pardon until one appeases his fellow - because the whole essence, our true unity - the Holy One, blessed be He, brought us into a world where we are among other created beings, and brought us into a world where there are so

17:33 many different people, with all kinds of different opinions. We are not obligated to accept everyone's opinion, but we are forbidden to hate anyone. We are forbidden to speak badly of anyone. Here we need to love everyone, to respect everyone and to behave with humanity, with kedushah, with derech eretz, like our Sages. Look at the Sages - look at the story of King Talmai (Ptolemy).

17:58 When they all went in, they had to translate the Torah. And each person would think to himself and say: 'He says to translate the Torah - how is it possible to translate the Torah?' How is it possible to come and translate the holy Torah, to bring it down from such a high place to such a low place, to King Talmai - as the Gemara in Tractate Megillah, page 9, side a, says, regarding Rabbi Shimon - the opinion of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel that is brought in the Mishnah - whether it is possible at all to come and bring it down.

18:33 After all, to come and take the Torah and bring it down to King Talmai - who took seventy-two elders, put each one of them into a room, and said to them: 'The translation of the Torah of Moshe your teacher - bring it. I want to understand what is written there, I want...' He gathered them. And to take - let anyone try to picture it in his mind - seventy-two wise elders, to seat each one in his own place, in a room of his own, in a place of his own, with no contact between one and another.

19:02 You can take two, three, ten, twenty - seventy-two is a very large number to come and say to them: 'Translate for me, write the Torah for me, I want it - write the Torah for me, explain to me what the Torah says, interpret it for me, I want to understand it.' He wants to receive Torah. Here comes King Talmai. And why do the Sages tell us this story?

19:29 There is a depth here, so great, of the Sages, that one must pay such close attention and be precise: why did the Sages really tell us this, and also how was there really such courage, and also why did the Holy One, blessed be He, perform such a miracle - a miracle greater than simply killing King Talmai? Why did He need to perform a miracle - to put into the hearts of seventy-two elders that they would know to write 'G-d created in the beginning,' instead of 'In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth,' so that he would not err and think that 'Bereishis'...

19:57 he might think that the Torah is supposed to - that the Torah needs to open with the Name of Hashem. So what - how can there be such a thing? I mean, it is a greater miracle than Talmai being killed in some way - and all the seventy-two elders - a greater miracle, to let seventy-two elders know exactly, each one alike, what to write, and to write the Torah for him in this way - that is a far greater miracle. Why does the Holy One, blessed be He, need to do it in such a way, and also to put His Torah at risk?

20:26 This is putting the Torah at risk. And that each and every one of them... it is a miracle that cannot be understood at all, that they all agreed to one mind - I mean, it was such a great miracle. Seventy-two translators, all sitting, translating, writing, and every translation is the same. That is to say, this is not a normal thing. Anyone who can think - it is an awe-striking thing; it is fear of Hashem, blessed be He.

20:52 The idea is awe-striking - to change it in fifteen places. Fear - great fear. Who can contain the idea and the logic that Hashem, blessed be He, acts this way in the world? I don't really know if we have paid attention at all to this reflection - to understand how awesome Hashem is, that this is what He did. And then one can really think - I said, why, really, what happened here?

21:18 Rather, Hashem, blessed be He, said - even though there is danger here to the Torah too, and everything - and this is what the Sages discuss in Megillah, page 9a - the depth that is here, in all this danger to the Torah, and in all the great miracle that He gives to seventy-two elders - when, after all, Talmai could be done away with in a single moment. Rather, Hashem, blessed be He, says to them: 'Here - someone will come.' There is someone who, even the Torah - even when he sees it coming down from heaven - he is not willing to accept it, he is not willing to understand it - only if they change it for him, and 'Bereishis' will not be at the beginning.

21:53 Why? Because He knew that King Talmai is not willing to accept the Torah. There are those who want to accept the other, or to accept one who is different from them, the way they are used to, the way they understand and know how the truth ought to look. There are people who have built themselves a truth, there are people who have built themselves a da'as; there are people who learned the Torah in one approach, and they think: whatever is not according to my opinion, whatever is not according to my understanding, whatever is not wise the way I understand it, whatever is not holy the way I understand it, whatever is not the way I understand it - is invalid.

22:32 And here the Holy One, blessed be He, taught us: No. No one shall be invalid in your eyes. No one shall be blemished in your eyes. You shall know to respect everything that I created. They are all the work of My hands. I feed and sustain them all. I give life and being to them all. I created, I formed, I made. All these are Mine, all these are the work of My hands. Even - 'The work of My hands is drowning in the sea' - Tractate Megillah, page 10b - 'and you are saying song?'

22:58 The Holy One, blessed be He - the army of Egypt is drowning in the sea, for all that it did to us - the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want to accept those words of praise and acclaim. It pained Him greatly. He said: 'The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are saying song?' And right away someone will say to Hashem: 'What - these are the Egyptians, who drowned us, and all the suffering they caused us!' The Holy One, blessed be He - 'His mercy is upon all His works.' He loves the created beings, He loves everything He created, all the work of His hands. We need to see the good that is in each one, to judge favorably, and to know that those people who, no matter what,

23:29 cannot accept the truth, cannot see the truth - one needs to judge them favorably. And this is truly among the things that hold back teshuvah. Because the Holy One, blessed be He - if He had wanted a person to be facing Him alone, He would have created - just as there are galaxies and stars - He would have created - just as there are seven billion human beings - He would have created seven billion planet Earths, put each person on a different Earth of his own, and let him live on the face of the Earth alone.

23:54 Hashem, blessed be He, made it that everyone be together, that everyone live together, dwell together, love one another, hate, take offense, be jealous. All of human interaction today, between created beings, one with another, between a non-Jew and a Jew - where there is the prohibition of drinking yayin nesech, all the fear of marrying and forming a bond with him - everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, and everything that the Sages instituted for us, so that we guard our kedushah, our Jewishness, so that we always remember how to guard the people, and the unity within the Jewish people.

24:31 The Sages were very concerned about division within the Jewish people. Already in the Megillah we see this: 'There is one people, scattered and dispersed among the nations... and their laws are different.' Each one has a division, from his own place. Each one - if each one would say... Mordechai the Jew, 'accepted by most of his brothers' - everyone would think... Mordechai the Jew - when it says he was accepted by most of his brothers, not by all his brothers; he was accepted by most of his brothers.

24:57 Most of his brothers were kind, pleasant, wise, understanding; they all said, 'Mordechai the Jew - we love him.' Mordechai the Jew, accepted by most of his brothers - everyone loves him, everyone respects Mordechai the Jew, everything - but 'accepted by most of his brothers.' It is not written that Mordechai was accepted by all his brothers; he was accepted by most of his brothers, because there are always those who look at things and regard them in a way that is not correct, not in a true way, not with a straight and clean da'as.

25:35 And so we must always judge favorably. And before we enter Yom Kippur, the great day on which everything is pardoned, on which everything is atoned, and we merit kapparah, the highest level - what holds a person back from kapparah? What is between a person and his fellow. You cannot reach the closest place to Hashem, the greatest kapparah with Hashem, if you have not yet made peace with your fellow and appeased him.

26:05 And all the teshuvah, and everything a person does, is not answered - he has done nothing. And so we must always truly ask Hashem, blessed be He, to pardon us and to dig an opening beneath His Throne of Glory, to lead us on the holy path, and may we merit the complete geulah speedily in our days, and may our Master, the Creator, blessed be He, redeem us, our King at our head. And this, with Hashem's help, will be the answer to the question I asked.

26:31 May you have good tidings, a good life, a good year, all the blessings and good abundance. May we merit the geulah and be redeemed with an upraised hand - good tidings, miracles and wonders, a good life, and may we merit teshuvah at the highest level, all of us.