Video is also available – click to open Introduction By way of introduction to Iggeret HaTeshuvah it should be noted that the Alter Rebbe is known as1 “Master of the Tanya and Shulchan Aruch.” The Rebbe once remarked that “Master of the Tanya” means that the Alter Rebbe is2 an arbiter in the esoteric dimension […]
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Chapter 01 – Part 2
Video is also available – click to open תניא בסוף יומא: שלשה חלוקי כפרה הם It has been taught in a Beraita at the end of Tractate Yoma:1 There are three types of atonement, varying according to the different categories of transgression, ותשובה עם כל אחד and repentance [necessarily] accompanies each of them. עבר על […]
Chapter 01 – Part 3
Video is also available – click to open However, in light of the above, it would seem that the same reasoning should apply with regard to transgressions: a higher degree of repentance should be necessary for violating a positive command than for transgressing a negative command — yet according to the above quotation from the […]
Chapter 01 – Part 4
Video is also available – click to open The Beraita with which this chapter opened is now resumed: עבר על כריתות ומיתות בית דין, תשובה ויום הכפורים תולין, ויסורים ממרקין If one commits a sin [punishable by] excision or execution, repentance and Yom Kippur are tentative, so that the individual is not punished, and sufferings […]
Chapter 01 – Part 5
Video is also available – click to open (כדאיתא בגמרא ,פרק ג׳ דסנהדרין, ובחושן משפט, סוף סימן ל״ד, לענין עדות) (18cf. Sanhedrin, ch. 319; Choshen Mishpat, end of Sec. 34,20 regarding testimony21), where it is stated that if a potential witness simply abandons and does not repeat the transgression that had previously disqualified him, he […]
Chapter 01 – Part 6
Video is also available – click to open ולכן לא הזכירו הרמב״ם והסמ״ג שום תענית כלל במצות התשובה, אף בכריתות ומיתות בית דין It is for this reason that the Rambam and Sefer Mitzvot Gadol34 make no mention whatever of fasting as related to the mitzvah of repentance, even in the case of sins punishable […]
Chapter 02 – Part 1
Video is also available – click to open Repentance, as the Alter Rebbe explained in the opening chapter, is in no way synonymous with fasting for a sin that one has committed; repentance merely entails abandoning the sin for all time. This is so even with regard to transgressions — those punishable by excision or […]
Chapter 02 – Part 2
Video is also available – click to open ועכשיו שאין לנו קרבן להפיק רצון מה׳, התענית הוא במקום קרבן, כמו שכתוב בגמרא: שיהא מיעוט חלבי ודמי שנתמעט כאלו הקרבתי לפניך כו׳ Today, when we have no offerings to call forth G‑d’s pleasure, fasting replaces the offering. As the Talmud says, that the prayer of one […]
Chapter 03 – Part 1
Video is also available – click to open Though fasting is not at all necessary for attaining atonement, it was explained above that nevertheless it has a salutary effect as a substitute for the olah offering. In Temple times this sacrifice was offered (even) for transgressing a positive command, in order to make the former […]
Chapter 03 – Part 2
Video is also available – click to open אכן כל זה באדם חזק ובריא, שאין ריבוי הצומות מזיק לו כלל לבריאות גופו, וכמו בדורות הראשונים However, all this4 applies to the strong and robust, whose physical health would not be harmed at all by repeated fasts, as in the generations of yore. אבל מי שריבוי […]
