Taanit #5: Insight into the teshuva framework

The source of the confusion regarding taanit derives from a lack of fundamental clarity regarding the framework of teshuva. In the absence of such clarity, we default into simplistic notions, utterly lacking lacking in explanatory power.

Specifically, it is our notion of teshuva, that is inadequate. How does a simplistic expression of guilt to God through a Vidui halachic instruments illuminate a framework in which the functions of trumpeting, taanit,zaaka and vidui make sense? This inadequacy of framework is the kind of problem Rambam refers to in the introduction to Chelek. Many groups attempted to explain Mitzvot based upon inadequate frameworks. In explaining the arising confusion Rambam says:

אבל זו הנקודה הנפלאה, רצוני לומר העולם הבא, מעט תמצא בשום פנים שיעלה על לבו הוא שיחשוב או שייקח זה העיקר, או שיאמר זה השם על איזה דבר הוא נופל: אם הוא תכלית הטובה, או אחת מן הדעות הקודמות הוא התכלית. או שיבדיל בין התכלית ובין הסיבה המביאה אל התכלית.

In the case of teshuva, our confusion also arises from confusing a means for an end. Guilt is a natural reaction to improper action, to be sure. In itself however, guilt is merely an animal intuition, a sense of direction of where to begin our search for the cause of our failure. It is a means to the end of seeking a better life strategy within the laws of creation, it is not a substitute for such seeking.

The immature Nefesh, dominated by animal psyche, acts on the basis of the feeling of guilt alone. This guilt is translated into a simplistic Vidui before God, a confession of wrongdoing. Such a confession involves no essential acts of mind- no deep reflection, no recognition of the theoretical basis of one's error, no transformation of categories or framework. The immature confession substitutes the means of arousing mind for the end of actual engaging of the reflective power of mind itself.

Let us take some examples. Both the American and Israeli publics suffer from disasters, both in the economy as well as National security. What is the result of these clear expressions of failure? Surely not an engagement of mind, deep reflection and seeking of a new understanding the causal basis of success.

Instead we find a simplistic expression of guilt, an endless shuffling shifting between the same tired old political platitudes we have been hearing for generations. The failures result from too much government, or too little. The failures result from too much diplomacy or too little. History tells us that the ancient Judeans were engaged in the exact same platitudes at the time of the temple. Will we ever look past the accepted human platitudes to seek principles manifest in Creation. Will we ever use our eyes and ears as instruments of mind, exploratory tools of Gods wisdom rather than as slaves to tired rhetoric? Will we react to disaster as animal psyches or minds?

If we read the section of Navi identified in Rambam Hilchot Taanit we will see this is indeed the question.

5:1 “Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks reality; and I will pardon her. 5:2 Though they say, ‘As Hashem lives;’ surely they swear falsely.”

5:3 O Hashem, don’t your eyes look on reality? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

5:4 Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Hashem, nor the law of their God. 5:5 I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Hashem, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. 5:6 Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased.
5:20 “Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, 5:21 ‘Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear: 5:22 Don’t you fear me?’ says Hashem ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet they can’t pass over it.’

5:23 “But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and gone. 5:24 Neither do they say in their heart, ‘Let us now fear Hashem our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’ 5:25 “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.