We need to undo the damage we have done to ourselves and return our neshamos to their previously pristine state

IT

was the beginning of a new Elul zeman in the Yeshiva of Philadelphia. As usual, almost every talmid was assigned a new room in the dormitory, and I was no exception. To my delight, I was given a room in “6055” — the newer dorm building, not one slated for recognition as a National Historic Site, as some of the other buildings seemed to be.

As I entered my new stantzia, I took note of a fishbowl that had apparently been left there over summer bein hazmanim by the room’s previous occupants, facing the window looking onto Drexel Road. To my utter surprise, there was actually a live fish swimming around in the filthy, green-tinged water, his environment for the previous four weeks.

My new roommate Avi, a tzaddik of a guy, was appalled at the sight of this poor fish living in total shmutz, and immediately sprang into action, asking me to find temporary quarters for our guest while he cleaned out the bowl and changed the water. I secured a large baggie, filled it with water, and carefully transplanted the fish inside, holding on tightly until Avi was done sanitizing the bowl and refilling it. We gently put the fish back in his old home, proud of our first chesed of the new Elul zeman.

Very shortly thereafter, the unthinkable happened. Our fish was suddenly no longer among the living. What could have possibly gone wrong? Weren’t we giving him a five-star bowl with all the clean water he could ever want ?

We theorized that since the fish had been living in such putrid squalor for so long, he had become acclimated to that habitat. Eventually, a steady diet of bacteria and dirt became his only source of sustenance. He simply could not live without filthy water to drink and breathe from. Our magnanimous chesed was nothing more than a ruthless death sentence. He was addicted to filth, and that was what sustained him. In his world, nothing else would do.

Since it was Elul zeman, after all, I couldn’t help but draw a mussar lesson from the experience. Elul and the Yamim Noraim season are a unique time when we have the opportunity to breathe in rarified and pristine spiritual air. If our ruchniyusdige lungs were healthy, we would embrace the moment and grab every opportunity for more spirituality in our lives; a better tefillah, another learning seder, along with a heightened awareness of our friends’ needs.

If, however, the avodah of the season makes us choke, and feels to us like one inconvenience after another, it is a warning sign that we have gotten too used to breathing unhealthy air, and we need at least a checkup, if not a dose of medicine, to restore us to good health. For many of us, that is the sad reality, and now is the time to make it better.

Rosh Hashanah provided us with concrete steps to begin the treatment as we renewed our commitment to Hashem Melech and strengthened our relationship with Him going forward. Yom Kippur will now clean out the spiritual dirt that has accumulated from the year that has passed. We will have mercifully returned to our former healthy state. This is called teshuvah.

By the time Succos arrives, we will be ready to breathe yet again, in a true zeman simchaseinu, complete with Hallel, to express our thanks all the way until celebrating and dancing on Simchas Torah. If it feels good and we are breathing well, we know we have succeeded in doing our part. The rest is, of course, up to Hashem.

One area of our avodas hateshuvah that perhaps doesn’t receive the attention it deserves is what the Rambam points out in the seventh perek of his Hilchos Teshuvah. The Rambam tells us that teshuvah is not limited to “action sins” such as stealing and the like; one must also change course and repent for middos ra’os, indiscretions in our moral and ethical behavior. The Rambam provides a long but hardly complete list of such middos, including anger, hatred, haughtiness, lust for money (redifas hamamon), lust for food (redifas ma’acholos), and competitiveness (tacharus) for no reason other than to feel “mine is better than yours.”

The Rambam goes so far as to term these shortcomings genuine sins (avonos) and to attribute the need to improve to the pasuk, “Ya’azov rasha darko — a wicked man should abandon his ways,” the same pasuk used to direct the classical sinner to leave his corrupt lifestyle.

A number of commentaries ask why the Rambam felt it necessary to even mention all of this. After all, we have a genuine mitzvah of v’halachta b’drachav, which teaches us to follow in the ways and middos of Hashem. Any violation of that is automatically a sin and obligates one in teshuvah. Why did the Rambam feel that the violation of proper middos deserves special mention on its own?

There is, however, a seemingly significant difference in the teshuvah process between other aveiros and the one of middos ra’os. The Rambam himself writes earlier on that if one succumbs to sin, he can achieve teshuvah by finding himself in the same exact predicament at a later time and suppressing his desire to sin again. This is deemed teshuvah gemurah, absolute and complete teshuvah.

Understandably, the other components of the teshuvah process, such as vidui and kabbalah for the future, must be carried out as well. When it comes to a bad middah, however, the Rambam writes elsewhere (Hilchos Dei’os) that the only method for breaking it is to first go in the extreme opposite direction until eventually settling back into the middle of the road. This is hardly a one-shot deal and can take a lifetime to accomplish. Simply passing the challenge of one incident will hardly cure him.

Someone who is mired in a middah ra’ah has a very high mountain to climb before conquering it. A baal ka’as, as opposed to the occasional overreactor, is enslaved to an impulse that can make life miserable for himself and certainly those around him. A baal gaavah is deemed “abominable” in the words of Shlomo Hamelech. Lustful behavior is the underpinning middah of the ben sorer u’ moreh, who in the eyes of the Torah cannot be rehabilitated.

How are we possibly expected to do teshuvah on these things by simply apologizing for our untoward behavior? That is hardly enough. We need to undo the damage we have done to ourselves and return our neshamos to their previously pristine state. Teshuvah on middos would seem to occupy a place of its own, if it is possible at all — and apparently the Rambam did just that, placing it apart from the standard aveiros and mandating that we change course despite the insurmountable challenges involved. Work we must if we are to be serious baalei teshuvah.

Perhaps the Rambam is teaching us precisely this chiddush. That is, despite the difficulty in changing a middah ra’ah, we must resolve to try our best, no matter how long it takes or the effort it requires. We must be remorseful that we have sunk this low and sincerely resolve to chart a new path. Much easier said than done, but that doesn’t let us off the hook.

Life experience has shown us that for some, their middah ra’ah is their filthy water. They need to blow up at every single thing that doesn’t go their way (anger). They must brag about their latest purchase or business deal (redifas hamamon). They must always out-vacation their neighbor just to feel they did (unwarranted competitiveness). They can’t stop talking about food and their favorite restaurants (redifas ma’acholos). Asking them to go a month without any such conversation could be emotionally fatal. They are addicted and don’t necessarily know or even desire a way out.

We must hope that this does not describe us. If it does, we probably don’t even know it. The fish didn’t think much about his green water either. It tasted good at the moment and became his life and his nutrition, for better or for worse. We are better than fish, and we can switch course if we choose to.

Ammon and Moav were blacklisted from joining Klal Yisrael due to a lack of middos, either for their stinginess in not providing us with food on our way through their territory; or, as the Ramban maintains, for a lack of gratitude toward our ancestor Avraham coming to the rescue of their ancestor Lot. The fact that Bilaam and Balak wanted to wipe us off the map was of no consequence. It all began with the middos ra’os and their lack of decency toward other members of the world community. It began a slippery slope that eventually drove them to the desire to take our very lives.

Rav Yaakov Neiman ztz”l, rosh yeshivah of Yeshivas Ohr Yisrael in Petach Tikvah and author of Darchei Mussar, shared an anecdote to bring this point home very vividly.

Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer ztz”l sent a group of his disciples to the legendary Alter of Slabodka. His objective was to have the Alter size up the young men and get an impression of their mettle and their potential. The Alter served them all tea with some sugar, and one of the young men accidentally spilled some on the table. He then proceeded to lick the sweet delicacy off of his finger, something the Alter felt was a sign of a deep flaw in his spiritual makeup. He warned Rav Isser Zalman about his concerns for this boy’s future.

Sure enough, after first serving as a rav, the young man became a lawyer and eventually led a dishonest life, finding himself in jail for passing bad checks and similar crimes. Perhaps the Alter saw that this gentleman had no regard for how others perceived him, which could be the best protection against criminal behavior. We will never know. But the flawed middah in the perceptive mind of the Alter was a dead giveaway of only worse things to come. This young man enjoyed the dirty waters of his particular middah ra’ah, and he couldn’t stop drinking it until it completely consumed him. An ingrained middah ra’ah is very unforgiving.

But Hashem, in His great kindness, is not. The highlight of our Selichos is, of course, the recitation of the Thirteen Middos of Hashem. We are fed a steady diet of what we can aspire to, as we make our way back onto the road to teshuvah and good grace in Hashem’s eyes. The beginning of the classic sefer Tomer Devorah expounds on the idea that the list of Hashem’s middos is not meant to merely illustrate what middos He possesses, but to obligate us in emulating those very same middos. Their effectiveness lies not in the recitation of the words, but in our commitment to be as similar to Him as a human being can be.

Their constant repetition over the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah and Ne’ilah should serve well in driving this point home, making us more Hashem-like in the process. He is very forgiving, and He is giving us every opportunity to be the beneficiaries of that middah of forgiveness. That should serve as a lesson of its own in our pursuit to forgive others, and not merely to be the forgiven ones. We will not simply declare Hashem as a Rachum. We will adopt a higher level of rachmanus ourselves. And the list goes on to all of the other middos as well.

The family of the late Ponevezher Mashgiach, Rav Chaim Friedlander ztz”l (author of the renowned Sifsei Chaim series) shared a most incredible anecdote that should serve as a great lesson for us all. Toward the very end of Rav Chaim’s sojourn on this earth, he asked Rav Shach what he should do to prepare himself for what he knew was about to transpire. Rav Shach suggested he work on his middos.

My first reaction was one of utter disbelief, as Rav Chaim was the paradigm of a mushlam in middos tovos, as any of his thousands of talmidim could attest. What was the gadol hador implying? Perhaps his message was that Rav Chaim was about to enter Hashem’s world, the Olam HaEmes. If he wants a seat at the table, he must perfect himself as much as possible to belong there, for Hashem’s world is middos. This must be Rav Chaim’s as well.

As we conclude our special ten days of heightened awareness in Hashem’s world down here, we too must live in accordance with His middos. Let’s give one last push to eradicate the middos ra’os within us and replace them with the middos tovos Hashem possesses and expects from us. Instead of hate and jealousy, we can become the epitome of love and acceptance. Instead of desiring all things Olam Hazeh, we can use that very same middah to pursue and acquire many things Olam Haba.

Let us immerse ourselves in the purifying waters of Yom Kippur and breathe in its refreshing qualities as we make our way toward teshuvah sheleimah, together with all of Acheinu Kol Beis Yisrael. Gemar chasimah tovah.

Rabbi Plotnik, a talmid of the yeshivos of Philadelphia and Ponevezh, has been active in rabbanus and chinuch for 25 years and currently serves as ra"m in Yeshivas Me’or HaTorah in Chicago.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1080)