12 Sep ROSH HASHANAH: A SMALL STEP FOR MAN; A GIANT STEP FOR G-D IT’S NEVER ALL OR NOTHING

What’s the Novelty?
Teshuvah, or
repentance, one of the
greatest gifts that
Judaism and the Torah
have given humanity,
is the idea that G-d gives
second chances. This is a
fundamental part of the Jewish experience and
is written in innumerable places in Torah —
and it is the focus during this time of the year,
as we welcome Rosh Hashana and Yom
Kippur.
Which is why it comes as a surprise that Rabbi
Akiva, the famed Jewish leader and Talmudic
scholar living in the second century CE, some
1500 years after Sinai and the writing of the
Torah, seems to have been surprised, inspired,
and even astounded by the idea that G-d gives
a second chance to the sinner who repents.
I refer to a statement Rabbi Akiva made which
has since gained fame in Jewish songs, chants,
and liturgy, and it is recorded in the Mishna.
Rabbi Akiva said: How lucky are you, O
Israel! Before whom are you purifying
yourself, and who purifies you? Our father in
Heaven! As it is written (Ezekiel 36), “I will
sprinkle upon you purifying waters, and you
will become purified,” and it is said (Jeremiah
17), “Hashem is the mikva of Israel,” just as
the Mikvah purifies the impure, so too does
G-d purify Israel.
What innovation, what revolutionary idea is
Rabbi Akiva teaching that has not been taught
for over a thousand years? That G-d purifies
the impure, forgives the penitents, and
absolves the sinner? This is an axiom of
Jewish thought dating back to Abraham! This
idea is fundamental to Judaism itself. It is as
old as Moshe and the Jews of the Golden Calf,
as Yoseph forgiving his brothers, as G-d giving
Adam a second chance after eating from the
tree of knowledge. The entire concept and
institution of Yom Kippur—discussed at
length in the Sefer Vayikra—is that G-d
cleanses the people of Israel!
Comes Rabbi Akiva 1500 years after Yom
Kippur was created, and declares a novelty!
How fortunate are you Israel. Why? Because
your father in heaven cleanses you from your
blemishes. It seems that Rabbi Akiva has
suddenly “discovered America,” when in
essence he is repeating an ancient axiom of all
of Tanach!
The question is stronger: To support this
thought, Rabbi Akiva quotes verses that were
transcribed some 500 years earlier which
clearly state this very truth! Yet even the verses
he quotes are from Ezekiel and Jeremiah,
rather than from the Five Books of Moshe,
which clearly state the same truth.
Even if you can find some reason why Rabbi
Akiva repeated this ancient idea, why did the
Mishna have to record it? The Mishna is a
collection of original Jewish Law, and not the
place to record inspirational sentiments that do
not teach us anything new and innovative.
Two Extra Words

Many times, when studying Torah we will
find, that if there are two questions on the
same text, one question will be answered by
resolving the other. Here too, there is another
problem on the concluding words of Rabbi
Akiva:
“Just as the Mikvah purifies the impure, so too
does G-d purify Israel.”
Every word in Mishna is precise. There is not
an extra word used, not even for esthetical
beauty. Every word of the Mishna was
carefully edited by Yehudah HaNasi and is
exact and necessary. Yehudah HaNasi chose
from thousands of collected records of
teachings and manuscripts and redacted in the
Mishna only the best and most exact wordings.
In this statement of Rabbi Akiva, it seems, we
have two superfluous words. It should have
written simply, “Just as a Mikvah purifies, so
too does G-d purify Israel.” Why add the extra
words, “purify the impure”? We all know that
a mikvah is designated to purify someone who
is impure! Who else would be going to the
Mikvah but someone who is impure? Why
state the obvious?
Yet, in these seemingly superfluous two words
lies a wondrous secret. But first, we have to
understand a little about the functioning of a
Mikvah.
Two Types of Impurity
There are different degrees of impurity, and
there are different methods of purification
from these various states of impurity.
[These were mostly relevant in biblical times
and during the days of the Beis Hamikdash,
when people had to be very careful to maintain
their ritual purity in order to enter the Beis
Hamikdash, or eat the sacred food of sacrifices.
Today, we don’t pay much attention to these
ritual patterns; which is why most Jews would
not tour Har HaBayit, since you may not enter
the space of the Beis Hamikdash if ritually
impure.]
For example, if one touches a dead rodent, he
becomes impure for a day and can become
pure simply by immersing in a mikva and
waiting for nightfall. On the other hand, if he
touches a human corpse he becomes impure
for a week and needs a lengthy process of
immersing in a mikvah, as well as being
sprinkled with a mixture of water and ashes of
the red heifer.
Now imagine if someone has become impure,
on both accounts, he both touched a rodent,
and a human corpse. He is inevitably impure
due to the corpse for a week regardless of
whether he goes to the mikva or not for the
rodent-tumah. The mikvah, usually potent for
purification from rodent-impurity, seems now
meaningless and impotent due to the stricter
corpse–impurity that remains inevitably for a
week. Is there any benefit of him going to the
mikvah? It would seem not. He will anyway
remain impure because he has also touched a
corpse.
However, that is not the case. And here we
discover something fascinating. The law is
that a mikvah will purify and remove the lesser

impurity even if the stricter degree of impurity
remains!
This then is the profound innovation of Rabbi
Akiva. “Just as a Mikvah will purify the
impure person” who is destined to remain
impure, even after going to the mikvah, so too
does G-d purify the penitent who still remains,
in some ways, distant and separate from G-d!
A person who is not prepared to repent and to
return to G-d fully, he is not ready to take the
plunge and surrender away all of his sins and
pet peeves, this person might think that G-d
accepts all or nothing. He might think: Either I
truly repent for everything, or I do nothing.
Either I entirely change my life, or not bother
at all. Since I know that I cannot make so
many changes in my life, let me not even
begin.
Imagine if someone—a borrower, an investor,
a partner—owes you $50,000, but really has
neither the desire nor intention to pay you
now. It’s not that he denies that he borrowed
the money, it’s just that he cannot be bothered,
and maybe does not have the money.
Then one fine morning, perhaps the day before
Yom Kippur, your dear ungrateful and
audacious borrower or partner shows up at
your door announcing proudly: “I want to pay
you $5,000!”
“$5,000?? What’s that for? You owe me
50,000!!”
“I know, but seriously, I only feel like paying
you back 5,000. For now, let’s forget about the
rest. We will deal with that another time. Ok?
Deal, or no deal?”
How would you react? Chances are you would
throw this man out head first, with his measly
$5,000. And rightfully so. The sheer chutzpah!
What is he thinking?
How Lucky!
This is what Rabbi Akiva is talking about. As
Jews we turn to G-d each year, and all of us, to
some degree or another, feel some sense of
remorse or regret for one or two or three things
in our life that need to be mended. Not that we
are ready to turn over a new leaf, not that we
are ready to make the serious changes in our
life, not that we are ready for a complete
transformation, but there is that one little
aveira, that one little sin, that one little lie or
cheat, that is nagging me. And I really want to
get it off my chest.
I may have hurt someone in a dramatic way
and it sits on me; I may have done something
wrong that is really perturbing me; I may have
insulted someone in a nasty way and I am
upset at myself; I may have been involved in
something that is eating up on my conscience.
So I repent for just that one thing. I ask G-d, or
whoever it was that I wronged, to forgive me
for that one act. What is going to be with the
rest of my issues I cannot be bothered, and I
neither know nor care too much at the moment.
I don’t have time or energy to deal with all my
sins. But this one thing I am ready to deal with.
Is this worth anything? Does G-d care for this
type of repentance?
Comes Rabbi Akiva and says:

Just as a Mikvah purifies the impure, the one
who will remain impure even after the mikvah,
the one who either way has contracted a much
more severe and serious impurity which he is
not dealing with right now, yet, the mikva
works and will purify him at that moment for
the lesser impurity, exactly so does G-d purify
Israel!
Why? Why doesn’t G-d act as any normal
person would, and throw our measly attempt
at reconciliation back in our faces?
To this Rabbi Akiva tells us:
Because G-d is our “Father in heaven,” father
who is anxiously waiting for the merest sign of
positive movement from, us, his child. A good
father will embrace and appreciate the tiniest
effort his son makes to connect with him,
regardless and oblivious to the fact that the son
has done wrong in so many more areas.
Today, all psychologists and educators agree
that the way to educate is by focusing and
drawing attention to even the smallest positive
successes of our children and building on
them. Education through criticism has been
debunked and proven to be futile at best, and
destructive at worst.
But Rabbi Akiva said this almost 2000 years
ago. G-d is the ultimate loving parent. When
he sees that a Jew makes even the slightest
movement of Teshuva, regardless of how
much he has left to go, G-d immediately
embraces this movement with the deepest
love, and purifies him just as the mikvah does.
Fix One Thing
How many of us have not attempted something
because we are afraid of failure? How many of
us give up on our dreams because we know we
will never fulfill them perfectly? How many of
us remain paralyzed by perfectionism? How
many of us look at things as all or nothing, and
therefore do not begin jobs that we know we
can never fully complete?
How many of us deprive ourselves of this gift
of a mitzvah that is so dear to us, just because
we are scared to become “completely
religious?” We feel that if we do not get it all
right, we will get nothing right, and it is not
worth the effort?
Rabbi Akiva is telling us that a Jew must
know, that G-d values and cherishes every
single mitzvah a Jew does. G-d embraced and
cherished every act of change. Even if I regret
one mistake in my life and change that, G-d
accepts it fully and purifies me. Whatever you
manage to accomplish, any step you manage
to take forward, towards a better more
inspired, G-dly life, is infinitely treasured by
G-d who can purify even the one who still
remains impure. It may be one small step for
man; but a giant step for G-d.