HASHEM
The Source of Everything
Volume One of the New Yavneh Library
יְסוֹד הַיְסוֹדוֹת וְעַמּוּד הַחָכְמוֹת
Yesod ha-yesodot ve-amud ha-chokhmot.
“The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of all wisdom.”
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 1:1
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.1
Akiva Calka
Founder and Executive Director
New Yavneh Institute
HASHEM The Source of Everything
Volume One of the New Yavneh Library
לְתַקֵּן עוֹלָם בְּמַלְכוּת שַׁדַּי
Le-takein olam be-malkhut Shaddai.
“To set the world right under the sovereignty of HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Siddur_Edot_HaMizrach,_Weekday_Shacharit,_Alenu.3
Copyright © 2026 Akiva Calka / New Yavneh Institute
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced without permission, except for brief quotations in review or scholarly citation.
Transliteration follows Sephardic pronunciation. The note on citations explains the conventions used in this volume.
New Yavneh Institute
Contents
Preface................................................................................................................................................. 4
Before the First Word
A note on citations.............................................................................................................................. 6
Prologue.............................................................................................................................................. 7
I did not choose Torah
Part One............................................................................................................................................ 15
The Source
Chapter One...................................................................................................................................... 15
HASHEM the Source of Everything
Chapter Two...................................................................................................................................... 25
Sinai and the covenant
Chapter Three.................................................................................................................................... 35
Love of HASHEM and care for others
Part Two............................................................................................................................................ 46
The Structures
Chapter Four..................................................................................................................................... 46
Arevut and shared responsibility
Chapter Five...................................................................................................................................... 58
Anavah and the limits of authority
Chapter Six........................................................................................................................................ 69
Teshuvah and the work of return
Closing.............................................................................................................................................. 82
Tending the fire
Glossary of key terms....................................................................................................................... 87
Preface
Before the First Word
What does it mean to live with the knowledge that HASHEM created you and that you are answerable for how you live? That is the question behind this book.
Many books explain תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching.” They trace its arguments, defend it against misunderstanding or explain it to a modern reader. That work matters. Here I want to look at what the covenant asks of us in an ordinary life: what we have to give up, what we are responsible for and what we are trying to preserve.
I believe this is the most honest way to live. We are used to being told that we decide for ourselves what gives life meaning and what deserves our loyalty. This book begins with the claim that our lives come from HASHEM and that our obligations do too.
Who I am writing for
You may already pray, study and keep the commandments. You know the practices and much of the language. Even so, it is possible to do something for years without being able to explain why it matters. I hope these chapters help you say clearly what you have been living, and make you look again where familiarity has taken the place of thought.
You may be a learner who wants to check every claim. Where does it come from? Does the source say what the author says it does? Does the argument hold? Those are fair questions. Follow the citations and challenge the reasoning. This book needs to meet the same standards as any other argument about the tradition.
I am also writing for the בַּעַל תְּשׁוּבָה ~ ba’al teshuvah ~ “person returning to observance” and the גֵּר ~ geir ~ “convert.” If you came to this life as an adult, through a family or community that did not prepare you for it, you are among the people I most want to reach. The prologue explains why. I will try to be honest about what this life asks of you, including the difficult parts.
And if you have studied for years, led a community or built an institution, I hope you will still leave room to be questioned. Responsibility and experience do not put any of us beyond correction. There is always more to understand and more to put into practice.
How I use these words
I write HASHEM in capitals throughout. HASHEM is the uncreated Source of everything, the Source of creation and command. The name carries that meaning wherever it appears in these pages. The citation note below explains how names are handled in Hebrew, transliteration and English.
Torah means the Written and Oral teaching as a whole, received as binding. It includes wisdom and a people’s history, but its claim on us does not depend on whether we find it useful or culturally familiar. It gives us obligations.
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” means knowing your place before the command of HASHEM. You are responsible for the work entrusted to you. Refusing that work can be as mistaken as claiming authority that is not yours. You do not have to make yourself small. You do have to be honest about your responsibilities and limits.[ER1]
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” includes the covenantal principle that Jews are guarantors for one another. It carries legal consequences. Caring about one another is part of it, but the obligation does not disappear when the feeling does.
אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings” is how אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM” reaches the people and creatures around us.
תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return / Repentance” means turning from wrongdoing and changing how you live. The obligation has remained in force even when you violated it. Remorse matters, but feeling better about yourself does not complete the work. What you do when the same opportunity to go wrong comes again tells you something about whether you have changed.[ER2]
The glossary gives fuller definitions. The chapters explain why these terms matter and how I am using them.
What authority this book claims
This book does not issue פְּסַק ~ pesak ~ “a ruling in Jewish law.” It makes theological and moral arguments from classical sources. If you need a decision about your own practice, bring the question to a qualified rabbi. I ask you to examine the sources and reasoning here. I do not ask you to treat my conclusions as a ruling.
How the volume is arranged
There are six chapters, with a prologue before them and a closing after them. The prologue tells you how I came to this life. You should know something about the person making these arguments, including the path that brought me here.
The first three chapters begin with HASHEM as the uncreated Source. They then turn to Sinai as an event in which a people received teaching and responsibility from HASHEM, and to the connection between love of HASHEM and the way we treat others. The later chapters depend on those foundations.
Chapters Four through Six ask how we live with those obligations. Shared responsibility gives our care for one another a practical form. Humility keeps that responsibility from becoming a reason to control people. Return makes it possible to continue after we fail.
The closing returns to the priest who adds wood to the altar fire each morning. The image is simple: the fire needs tending every day. So does a life of commitment. The source is included in note 1.
You can read a chapter on its own. Reading them in order will make the connections easier to see. Some of the claims in Chapter One may become clearer after you have worked through the rest.
I intend this to be the first of four volumes. The second will address גְּאוּלָה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption” as work that concerns us now and remains contingent on human return. The third will examine the chain of transmission and New Yavneh’s place in it. The fourth will address daily covenantal practice. This first volume should give you a foundation even if you read no further.
The third volume will also name the teachers, institutions and authorities that have shaped my learning and to whom I remain accountable. Readers are entitled to ask who stands behind a book like this. I intend to answer that question fully there. For now, examine the arguments on their merits.
Before we begin
Whatever is true in this book comes from HASHEM, through Torah, the teachers and the encounters that made this work possible. I did not create that truth. My part is to receive it, understand it as carefully as I can and pass it on.
The mistakes are my responsibility. If you find one, examine it and correct it. Every attempt to transmit Torah remains answerable to Torah itself. This book is no exception.
A note on citations
Hebrew quotations in this volume have been checked against Sefaria. Vowel points are retained where present, while cantillation marks are omitted. Transliteration follows Sephardic pronunciation. Where the four-letter name appears in a quoted Hebrew passage, its transliteration follows the reading convention used in prayer. English translations use HASHEM and avoid gendered pronouns for HASHEM. These English renderings are adapted for this manuscript and are not presented as verbatim Sefaria translations.
The Hebrew sources retain their own grammatical forms. Their use of masculine grammar does not assign a body or a gender to HASHEM. Rambam explains that the teaching speaks in human language and uses מָשָׁל ~ mashal ~ “figurative comparison.” The relevant passage appears in note 2. Images of a blueprint, a circuit or a current in this book are comparisons too. They do not describe the substance or mechanics of HASHEM.
Prologue
I did not choose Torah
HASHEM chose me.
A Jew by birth is born with covenantal obligations. A convert enters those obligations through conversion and acceptance. A Jew returning to observance takes up obligations that were already there. In each case, Jewish status and living out the covenant are different questions. We still have to live what we have received.
I Childhood
I was born into an Italian Polish Catholic family and went to Catholic school. I started asking questions early. At school and at home, I was punished for them.
One plus one plus one did not equal one. I could not understand why the attention given to statues in church was different from what the catechism called idol worship elsewhere. And the claim that bread and wine became flesh and blood troubled me. Even as a child, I felt there was something forbidden in it. I did not have the language to explain my objections. I kept asking.
Eventually I stopped asking out loud. I learned how to be the good Catholic boy everyone expected while keeping the questions to myself. That teaches a child a difficult lesson: saying the right thing can matter more to the adults around you than telling the truth. I carried that lesson with me long after childhood.
Looking back, I understand those questions through Torah, which I had not yet encountered. HASHEM is One. We do not worship what human hands have made. We do not drink blood. Those were the objections I was trying to express before I could name their source. What looked like rebellion to the adults around me was, as I now understand it, the beginning of my response to HASHEM.
II The searching years
I searched for a long time. I read the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita. I spent time as a Southern Baptist. I studied horticulture, which in my case meant growing marijuana. I took a lot of acid and drank. The search was real, and so was the damage I was doing to myself. They were happening at the same time.
If you have lived something like that, you probably know what I mean. If you have not, I want you to understand that unhealthy choices do not make a person’s questions insincere. I was looking for the Source without knowing how to name what I was looking for. Much of the time, I looked in the wrong places.
I found things I could recognize in each tradition, but I could not stay. Something was always missing. After years of moving from one to another, I began to think I was looking for something none of them could give me.
III Finding the words
After my first marriage ended, I took a comparative religion class to give myself something to do. I wrote a paper on the Arab Israeli conflict from a religious perspective. That meant reading the texts behind the claims to the land. I had to study Torah and return to the Quran.
I started with Torah and kept reading.
Here were convictions I had carried for years without knowing where they belonged. The Source of everything is One. HASHEM cannot be reduced to an image. What HASHEM commands concerns how we live, down to what we actually do. The questions that had caused so much trouble in my childhood had a home in these pages.
I recognized what I had been looking for. That is why I say I did not choose Torah. It felt less like making a selection than finally understanding something that had been with me all along. I came to see that HASHEM had known me before I had begun to understand my own life.
IV The chapter that settled it
Later I reached the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy. Three verses made clear to me why I could not return to the beliefs I had left. I want to give them here before explaining what I took from the rest of the chapter.
אֵת כׇּל־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם אֹתוֹ תִשְׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת לֹא־תֹסֵף עָלָיו וְלֹא תִגְרַע מִמֶּנּוּ׃
Et kol ha-davar asher anokhi metzaveh etkhem, oto tishmeru la'asot. Lo tosef alav ve-lo tigra mimenu.
“Everything that I command you, take care to do. Do not add to it or take away from it.”
I understood this as a boundary. A theology that claims the right to replace Torah, or to complete it by changing its commands, has crossed that boundary. It asks us to accept an authority Torah itself does not grant.
אַחֲרֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֹתוֹ תִירָאוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתָיו תִּשְׁמֹרוּ וּבְקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ וְאֹתוֹ תַעֲבֹדוּ וּבוֹ תִדְבָּקוּן׃
Acharei ADONAI Eloheikhem telekhu, ve-oto tira'u, ve-et mitzvotav tishmoru, u-ve-kolo tishma'u, ve-oto ta'avodu, u-vo tidbakun.
“Follow HASHEM and revere HASHEM. Keep the commandments of HASHEM and heed the voice of HASHEM. Serve HASHEM and hold fast to HASHEM.”
The verse asks us to follow, revere, keep, listen, serve and hold fast. That last phrase asks for a commitment that stays with us. Affection alone cannot carry everything the verse requires. Acceptance has to reach the way we live.[ER3]
כִּי יְסִיתְךָ אָחִיךָ בֶן־אִמֶּךָ אוֹ־בִנְךָ אוֹ־בִתְּךָ אוֹ אֵשֶׁת חֵיקֶךָ אוֹ רֵעֲךָ אֲשֶׁר כְּנַפְשְׁךָ בַּסֵּתֶר לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה וְנַעַבְדָה אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדַעְתָּ אַתָּה וַאֲבֹתֶיךָ׃
Ki yesitekha achikha ven imekha, o vinkha o vitkha, o eshet cheikekha, o re'akha asher ke-nafshekha, ba-seter lemor: nelekhah ve-na'avdah elohim acherim asher lo yadata atah va-avotekha.
“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or the friend who is as dear to you as your own life secretly urges you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other objects of worship,’ which neither you nor your ancestors have known.”
These are the people closest to us. For someone who has converted, that can be a painful verse to read. You may have trusted their judgment since childhood. You may love them deeply. The verse says that even these relationships cannot authorize worship that Torah forbids.
אֵין עוֹד מִלְּבַדּוֹ
Ein od milvado.
“There is nothing beside HASHEM.”
That principle does not change according to who is asking us to set it aside.
The chapter goes on to address a prophet who produces signs, a person who privately incites another to forbidden worship and an entire community that has turned to it. It also contains commands for execution and the destruction of an idolatrous city. Those passages belong to a judicial setting. They do not authorize private action. Rambam describes the institutional conditions for capital cases. The rabbinic discussion also contains a disagreement about whether an idolatrous city ever existed: a teaching associated with Rabbi Eliezer says it did not, while Rabbi Yonatan says he saw one. Notes 4 and 5 give the sources. The point I draw here is that a miracle, a close relationship or a community’s agreement cannot replace the authority of HASHEM.[ER4]
By the time I read this chapter, I was no longer considering a return to the beliefs of my childhood. What moved me was that the chapter gave words to objections I had carried for years. As I read it, the refusal for which I had been punished was a refusal Torah itself required.
A rabbinic interpretation helped me understand why. It compares creation to a building made from an architect’s plans:
כָּךְ הָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַבִּיט בַּתּוֹרָה וּבוֹרֵא אֶת הָעוֹלָם
Kakh hayah ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu mabit ba-Torah u-vore et ha-olam.
“So HASHEM looked into Torah and created the world.”
sefaria.org/Bereshit_Rabbah.1.1
The image is an architect’s plan. It tells us that Torah precedes creation and that creation takes its form from it. I read this alongside the command against adding or subtracting. To claim the right to replace Torah is, in that comparison, to claim the right to change the plans on which the building depends.
That gave me a way to understand what had happened in the comparative religion class. I had spent years looking for a place to stand. I believed I had finally found it. The question then became which בֵּית דִּין ~ beit din ~ “rabbinical court” I would approach.
V Entering the covenant
My first conversion was through the movement available to me at the time. I lived in that community for four or five years. During those years I met Lori again. We had known each other earlier in life. We married under a חוּפָּה ~ chuppah ~ “wedding canopy,” following that community’s practice.
I learned Hebrew and תְּפִלָּה ~ tefillah ~ “prayer.” I kept שַׁבָּת ~ Shabbat ~ “the Sabbath” as the people around me kept it. I read and studied. Those years mattered. But eventually I understood that the life I had accepted did not carry the full obligation I had come to recognize in Torah. Sincerity had brought me that far. I needed to go further.
I underwent an Orthodox conversion. Lori and I married again, this time according to הֲלָכָה ~ halakhah ~ “Jewish law.” Our first wedding had meaning in our life together. I understood the second as the wedding our covenantal commitment required.
In 2006 or 2007, a blood clot broke off and traveled through my heart into my lungs. I survived when I was not expected to. The next day, three doctors told me separately that they did not understand why I was still alive. I understood my survival to mean that HASHEM still had work for me to do.
I worked for the State of New York for thirty-seven years. I did the work in front of me, learned when I could and kept what I could keep. I did not yet know what I had been kept alive to do. I believed there was a task, even though I could not see it clearly.
VI Getting home
I retired in 2021, during COVID. I was depressed and physically unwell. I spent more than a year confined to bed. Eventually an ambulance took me to a hospital, and from there I went to a nursing home for therapy. I overheard staff saying they did not expect me to live to the end of the year. That was July 2023.
Then October 7 happened. Something clicked. That is still the word that fits. I understood that my people needed me and that I had to use whatever life I had left. I could not stay in that bed.
I told the staff I was going home on March 1, 2024. Two young therapy aides worked with me for an hour each morning. They helped me learn to stand again. On March 1, I went home.
Since then I have put myself into study and writing. I also returned to physics, which I had set aside decades earlier. The work grew out of that recovery, in a place where people had expected me to die. That was the beginning of ETI. New Yavneh grew out of ETI.
Looking back, I see the guidance of HASHEM throughout the story. At the time, I thought I was making my way on my own. Now I understand my choices as responses to what I had been given.
I need to be clear about what I mean when I say HASHEM chose me. I am not claiming נְבוּאָה ~ nevuah ~ “prophecy.” I heard no voice and received no words. I am describing הַשְׁגָּחָה פְּרָטִית ~ hashgachah peratit ~ “particular providence” as I understand it in my own life.
Across forty years, I see a connection between the questions of my childhood, the years of searching, the conversions and the illnesses I survived. I attribute that connection to HASHEM. This is my reading of my life. You can weigh that reading. I am not asking you to receive me as a prophet.
VII Who this book is for
If you are becoming observant as an adult, this book is for you. If you have converted or are preparing to convert, it is for you too. And if you grew up with the practices but have begun to wonder how fully you have accepted what they ask of you, I hope it will help you look at that question honestly.
People who come to observance or convert are sometimes treated as permanent beginners. They may be welcomed and honored without being trusted to carry the responsibilities of a full adult in the covenant. I believe that is wrong. It misunderstands both the person and the obligation.
Being born Jewish brings covenantal status and obligation. It does not mean that the work of living the covenant has already been done. At Sinai, the people had to accept what was asked of them. Their answer included these words:[ER5]
נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע
Na'aseh ve-nishma.
“We will do and we will hear.”
Each of us has to put that acceptance into practice. It happens in the decisions we make every day. A person who has deliberately accepted the obligations has done something that inherited familiarity alone cannot do.
If you are beginning as an adult, the responsibilities you are taking up are real. You are doing deliberately what every Jew has to learn to do: live the covenant. You do not need to be treated as an exception to that work.
I will take your capacity for it seriously. I will give you the sources and explain the arguments, including the parts you may find difficult. Softening a demand until it no longer says what the source says would do you no service.
When I say that Torah has chosen you, I mean that Torah and its claim come before your response. Your acceptance is real. You did not create the Source to which you respond. HASHEM is the Source, and you have work to do with the life you have been given.
Elsewhere in this book I compare that response to closing a circuit. The comparison has a limit: HASHEM is not electricity, and you are not a machine. I mean that what you receive has to become action. The question is what you will do with it.
VIII Across the generations
Near the end of Deuteronomy, Moshe renews the covenant on the plains of Moav. He tells the people that it reaches beyond those standing in front of him:
וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת׃ כִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם׃
Ve-lo itkhem levadkhem anokhi koret et ha-berit ha-zot ve-et ha-alah ha-zot. Ki et asher yeshno poh imanu omed ha-yom lifnei ADONAI Eloheinu, ve-et asher einenu poh imanu ha-yom.
“I make this covenant and this oath with more than you alone: with those standing here with us today before HASHEM and with those who are not here with us today.”
sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.29.13-14
Rashi explains that this includes future generations. The discussion in Shevuot expressly includes future converts as well. Notes 6 and 7 give those passages. The covenant’s claim reaches people who had not yet been born, including people who would enter it through conversion.[ER6]
That is how I understand your place in this story. You are addressed by a covenant that began before you and still asks something of you. If you are preparing to enter it, there is a real process ahead. If you are already bound by it, there is a life to be lived.
That is where this book begins.
A first step
Choose one responsibility you have been avoiding. Write down one action you can take this week to begin putting it right. If you need a ruling about what that action should be, take the question to a qualified rabbi. Begin with something you can actually do, then return to it and ask honestly whether you have done it.
Source notes
The following excerpts support the passages identified above. Hebrew and Aramaic have been checked against the linked Sefaria segments. English translations are adapted for this manuscript. The personal account remains the author’s account.
1 Tending the fire
וּבִעֵר עָלֶיהָ הַכֹּהֵן עֵצִים בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר
U-vi'er aleha ha-kohen etzim ba-boker ba-boker.
“The priest shall add wood to it every morning.”
2 Human language and figurative comparison
וְדִבְּרָה תּוֹרָה כִּלְשׁוֹן בְּנֵי אָדָם
Ve-diberah Torah ki-leshon benei adam.
“Torah speaks in human language.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.9
אֶלָּא מָשָׁל וְהַכֹּל מָשָׁל
Ella mashal ve-ha-kol mashal.
“Rather, it is figurative comparison, and all of it is figurative comparison.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.9
Rambam is discussing the bodily descriptions cited in that passage. These lines do not classify every statement in Torah as figurative.
3 Redemption and return
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through repentance.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
4 The judicial setting
אֵין דָּנִין דִּינֵי נְפָשׁוֹת אֶלָּא בִּפְנֵי הַבַּיִת וְהוּא שֶׁיִּהְיֶה בֵּית דִּין הַגָּדוֹל שָׁם בַּלִּשְׁכָּה שֶׁבַּמִּקְדָּשׁ
Ein danin dinei nefashot ella bifnei ha-bayit, ve-hu she-yihyeh beit din ha-gadol sham ba-lishkah she-ba-mikdash.
“Capital cases are adjudicated only while the Temple stands and the Great Court is there in the chamber within the Temple.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_The_Sanhedrin_and_the_Penalties_within_their_Jurisdiction.14.11
5 A recorded disagreement
The first excerpt is from a teaching the discussion associates with Rabbi Eliezer. The second gives Rabbi Yonatan’s response. The disagreement concerns the idolatrous city.
עִיר הַנִּדַּחַת לֹא הָיְתָה וְלֹא עֲתִידָה לִהְיוֹת
Ir ha-nidachat lo hayetah ve-lo atidah lihyot.
“An idolatrous city never existed and will never exist.”
אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן: אֲנִי רְאִיתִיהָ וְיָשַׁבְתִּי עַל תִּילָּהּ
Amar Rabbi Yonatan: ani re'itiha ve-yashavti al tillah.
“Rabbi Yonatan said: I saw it and sat on its ruins.”
6 Future generations
וְאַף עִם דּוֹרוֹת הָעֲתִידִים לִהְיוֹת
Ve-af im dorot ha-atidim lihyot.
“And also with the generations that are yet to come.”
sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Deuteronomy.29.14.1
7 Future converts
דּוֹרוֹת הַבָּאִים וְגֵרִים הָעֲתִידִין לְהִתְגַּיֵּיר מִנַּיִן? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ
Dorot ha-ba'im ve-geirim ha-atidin le-hitgayyer minayin? Talmud lomar: ve-et asher einenu.
“From where do we learn that future generations and future converts are included? The text says: ‘And those who are not here.’”
Part One The Source
Chapter One
HASHEM the Source of Everything
Everything that exists depends on HASHEM. This chapter asks what that means for what we know, what we owe and how we live.
I The foundation
Rambam begins the Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law, with the knowledge on which the rest depends. Later in the same chapter, he identifies this knowledge as a commandment in its own right. His opening words are:[ER7]
יְסוֹד הַיְסוֹדוֹת וְעַמּוּד הַחָכְמוֹת לֵידַע שֶׁיֵּשׁ שָׁם מָצוּי רִאשׁוֹן. וְהוּא מַמְצִיא כָּל נִמְצָא.
Yesod ha-yesodot ve-amud ha-chokhmot leida she-yesh sham matzui rishon. Ve-hu mamtzi kol nimtza.
“The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a First Being, the Source of everything that exists.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.1
The word is לֵידַע ~ leida ~ “to know.” Rambam asks for knowledge of the Source of existence. A vague religious feeling will not do. The question is whether we understand that the world does not account for its own existence.
Nothing within the world can take the place of HASHEM. Power, public agreement, intelligence and institutions all have their uses and limits. None is the Source of the reality in which it operates. Even our best account of the world belongs to the world we are trying to understand.
Calling HASHEM the Source means more than saying that HASHEM came first. Everything depends on HASHEM for its existence now. Rambam continues:[ER8]
וְאִם יַעֲלֶה עַל הַדַּעַת שֶׁהוּא אֵינוֹ מָצוּי אֵין דָּבָר אַחֵר יָכוֹל לְהִמָּצְאוֹת:
Ve-im ya'aleh al ha-da'at she-hu eino matzui, ein davar acher yakhol le-himmatze'ot.
“If one were to suppose that HASHEM did not exist, nothing else could exist.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.2
Rav Chaim of Volozhin develops the point in Nefesh HaChayim. A builder can walk away from a house and leave it standing. Creation does not have that independence. Its existence depends at every moment on HASHEM. Source note 2 gives the passage.
That changes how I understand the life I have been given. I depend on HASHEM as I work, speak and make decisions. Gratitude belongs in those decisions. So does responsibility. In this book, the Source of existence is also the Source of meaning and obligation, made known to us through תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching.”
II What science can tell us
Science has taught us a great deal about the world, from the movement of galaxies to the workings of a cell. Those discoveries matter. They help us understand creation and act more responsibly within it.
But describing how something works does not, by itself, tell us what we owe. A scientific account of human behavior can help explain a decision. It cannot, on its own, establish why a person is obliged to act justly. Nor does a description of the universe’s regularities settle why there is a reality with those regularities at all.
That is the distinction I am making here. Scientific inquiry studies the created order. HASHEM is the Source of that order, including the conditions that make inquiry possible. However much we learn, our knowledge does not become the source of its own authority.
We should use what science can teach us. We should also be clear about the kind of question we are asking. Knowing what we can do and knowing what we are required to do are different kinds of knowledge. The second cannot simply be read off the first.
III What HASHEM is not
We have to be careful with the pictures we carry in our minds. Any picture has a shape and a limit. It cannot show us HASHEM.
Rambam addresses this when he explains the bodily language used in Torah. He says that HASHEM has no likeness or form, and explains why such language appears:[ER9]
וְדִבְּרָה תּוֹרָה כִּלְשׁוֹן בְּנֵי אָדָם
Ve-diberah Torah ki-leshon benei adam.
“Torah speaks in human language.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.9
The descriptions he discusses are figurative. They help human beings understand something without giving HASHEM a body. For the same reason, this book avoids gendered English pronouns for HASHEM. That is a discipline of language I have chosen to keep physical images from doing our thinking for us.
Some of those images are familiar: an old man with a beard, a distant maker who has left the world alone, a tribal warrior or a scorekeeper watching for mistakes. We may have picked them up as children and never examined them. None gives an adequate account of the Source of everything.
Rambam teaches us to recognize what cannot be attributed to HASHEM. He also discusses what we can understand through the actions of HASHEM in creation. Neither gives us possession of the essence of HASHEM. Torah makes the will of HASHEM known to us and gives us a way to respond. Source note 3 explains the distinction.[ER10]
HASHEM is not a force, a field or a property that emerges when matter becomes complicated enough. HASHEM is not another name for the universe. All of those descriptions would place the Source among the things that depend on the Source.
This matters in practice. A force can be used to get what we want. The covenant asks us to listen to what HASHEM requires and answer through our lives. Our desires do not set the terms.
IV What we say in the Shema
Twice a day, the Jewish people recite the שְׁמַע ~ Shema ~ “Hear.” Its opening declaration is familiar enough that we can say it without stopping to consider the claim:
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהֹוָה אֶחָד׃
Shema Yisrael, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad.
“Hear, Israel: HASHEM is our HASHEM, HASHEM is One.”
אֶחָד ~ Echad ~ “One” is doing more than counting. Rambam describes a unity unlike any other unity. HASHEM has no parts and no rival Source. There is no second authority over existence standing alongside HASHEM. Source note 4 gives Rambam’s wording.
If we take that seriously, we cannot divide life into the hours when we answer to HASHEM and the hours when we answer only to ourselves. Torah distinguishes between sacred and ordinary things. But ordinary life is still lived before HASHEM. Money, speech, meals, work and the technology we build all carry responsibilities.[ER11]
Reciting the Shema brings us back to that fact. It is easy to forget it while making a living, arguing a point or trying to get through the day. We repeat the declaration because we need to remember what our lives depend on.
Sforno’s comment on the opening words at Sinai helps make the point personal. He describes HASHEM as the giver of existence and explains that our worship is directed to HASHEM without an intermediary. The passage is in source note 5. I read that address as a demand to listen: the Source of existence is addressing us, and something is being asked of us.[ER12]
V Love takes work
The next verse commands אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM”:
וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכׇל־מְאֹדֶךָ׃
Ve-ahavta et ADONAI Elohekha be-khol levavkha u-ve-khol nafshekha u-ve-khol me'odekha.
“You shall love HASHEM with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.”
How can love be commanded? We know what it means to require an action. We also know that a person cannot simply decide to feel something and make it happen.
Rambam takes the command seriously as love, with all the attention and longing the word implies. He describes a person so absorbed in love of HASHEM that the comparison is to someone who is lovesick:
שֶׁיֹּאהַב אֶת ה' אַהֲבָה גְּדוֹלָה יְתֵרָה עַזָּה מְאֹד עַד שֶׁתְּהֵא נַפְשׁוֹ קְשׁוּרָה בְּאַהֲבַת ה' וְנִמְצָא שׁוֹגֶה בָּהּ תָּמִיד כְּאִלּוּ חוֹלֶה חֳלִי הָאַהֲבָה
She-yohav et ADONAI ahavah gedolah yeterah azzah me'od, ad she-tehei nafsho keshurah be-ahavat ADONAI, ve-nimtza shogeh bah tamid ke-ilu choleh choli ha-ahavah.
“A person should love HASHEM with a great and intensely strong love, until the soul is bound up in love of HASHEM and constantly absorbed in it, as though lovesick.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.10.3
That may feel far from our own experience, even when our observance is steady. Rambam gives us a direction for the work. Later in the chapter, he connects the depth of love to the depth of knowledge. Source note 6 gives his words.
We cannot manufacture love on demand. We can study, pay attention and keep returning to the question of what our lives depend on. The command asks us to cultivate that love, including when the feeling comes slowly. Chapter Three will ask what happens when love of HASHEM reaches the people around us.
VI Uprightness and the way we treat people
The Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, begins his introduction to Genesis by asking why the patriarchs were called upright. His answer brings us to יֹשֶׁר ~ yosher ~ “uprightness,” and to a danger that religious achievement does not remove.[ER13]
He describes people in the Second Temple period who were learned, observant and devoted, yet treated one another with suspicion and hatred. When someone served HASHEM differently, they suspected that person of heresy. The Netziv sees that failure of uprightness as part of what brought destruction.
שהיו צדיקים וחסידים ועמלי תורה. אך לא היו ישרים בהליכות עולמים.
She-hayu tzaddikim va-chasidim va-amelei Torah, akh lo hayu yesharim ba-halikhot olamim.
“They were righteous, devout and diligent in Torah, but they were not upright in their dealings with the world.”
sefaria.org/Haamek_Davar_on_Genesis,_Introduction_to_Genesis.3
The patriarchs, by contrast, cared about the welfare even of people whose conduct they opposed. The Netziv points to Avraham pleading for Sodom. Uprightness required concern for people beyond his own circle.
מ״מ היו עמם באהבה וחשו לטובתם
Mikkol makom hayu immam be-ahavah ve-chashu le-tovatam.
“Even so, they treated them with love and cared for their welfare.”
sefaria.org/Haamek_Davar_on_Genesis,_Introduction_to_Genesis.4
I take a plain lesson from this: learning and observance must make us more honest about how we treat others. Otherwise, we can use religious language to defend our pride, suspicion or cruelty. We may know a great deal and still refuse the correction we need.
That is why uprightness matters throughout this book. The chapters on responsibility, humility and love ask something of the person doing the learning. They cannot be fulfilled by being able to explain them.
VII Where wisdom begins
Proverbs connects wisdom to יִרְאַת הַשֵּׁם ~ yirat HASHEM ~ “fear and awe of HASHEM”:[ER14]
תְּחִלַּת חׇכְמָה יִרְאַת יְהֹוָה וְדַעַת קְדֹשִׁים בִּינָה׃
Techillat chokhmah yirat ADONAI, ve-da'at kedoshim binah.
“The beginning of wisdom is fear of HASHEM, and knowledge of the holy ones is understanding.”
A person can know a great deal and still lack wisdom. In the Guide for the Perplexed, Rambam pictures people at different distances from a palace. Among those walking around it are scholars who accept true beliefs and study religious practice but have not examined the foundations of those beliefs. His comparison asks something more of the learner than mastery of details. The Hebrew translation of the passage is in source note 7.
Malbim distinguishes fear of punishment from the higher awe that belongs to wisdom itself. Even fear of consequences can begin to bring a person toward wisdom. Reverence should take us further. It should change the way we understand our place before HASHEM. Source note 8 gives his distinction.[ER15]
In daily life, I understand that as a habit of remembering. My conclusions matter, but they are not final because they are mine. I can be corrected. I am learning within a reality I did not create and under obligations I did not invent.
Study should gradually change what we notice and what we do. Intellectual pleasure is a good reason to keep learning. If we stop there, though, we have left much of what Torah asks of us untouched.
VIII Nothing exists independently of HASHEM
Deuteronomy gives us the words אֵין עוֹד מִלְּבַדּוֹ ~ ein od milvado ~ “there is none besides HASHEM”:
אֵין עוֹד מִלְבַדּוֹ
Ein od milvado.
“There is none besides HASHEM.”
The world can look self-sufficient. Natural processes continue, institutions make decisions and people act as though their power belongs to them outright. This verse makes us question that appearance of independence.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi develops the point in Tanya. Creation continually depends on the word of HASHEM that brings it into being. What looks independent to us has no existence of its own apart from that sustaining Source. Source note 9 gives a passage from the opening chapter.[ER16]
Tanya develops this in its own language and through its own comparisons. We should read it carefully on those terms. Calling HASHEM the Source does not turn an object in the world into HASHEM, and it does not make the world a physical form of HASHEM.
The practical claim remains demanding. I cannot declare my business, politics or use of technology exempt from responsibility. These are all parts of the life I have received. The question is what Torah requires of me there, including when the answer interferes with what I want.
IX Our part in the covenant
Receiving a covenant gives us real work to do. We have to think, interpret, build and take responsibility. Our initiative matters. So does the fact that we did not create the obligations to which we are responding.
The discussion of the Oven of Akhnai in Bava Metzia makes that tension concrete. Rabbi Eliezer appeals to extraordinary signs in a dispute about Jewish law. When a heavenly voice supports his position, Rabbi Yehoshua answers:
עָמַד רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ עַל רַגְלָיו וְאָמַר: ״לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִיא!״
Amad Rabbi Yehoshua al raglav ve-amar: lo ba-shamayim hi.
“Rabbi Yehoshua stood and said: ‘It is not in heaven.’”
Rabbi Yirmeya explains the response: Torah has already been given at Sinai, including the rule of following the majority in this dispute. The sages are exercising the responsibility Torah entrusted to them. They are applying a received rule, not claiming that human preference can replace it.
This is the unequal relationship at the heart of the covenant. HASHEM commands, and we answer. We bring judgment, effort and creativity to that answer. We do not acquire the authority to rewrite the covenant whenever its demands become difficult.
Chapter Two turns to Sinai, where the people received those demands and accepted the responsibility of living them.
X What changes in an ordinary life
These claims have to reach the decisions we actually make. Otherwise, we can agree with every word and carry on as before.
They change how we work. A career still takes planning and effort, but our abilities are also something entrusted to us. We have to ask what we are doing with them and whom our work serves. Ambition does not disappear. It becomes answerable to something beyond our wish to succeed.
They change how we fail. A failure creates work to do. It does not free us from the covenant or make further effort pointless. תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return or repentance” calls us to acknowledge what we did and change our conduct. It gives us a way to continue without pretending that failure is harmless. Chapter Six will take up that work in detail.
They also change how we see other people. Genesis says:
וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ
Va-yivra Elohim et ha-adam be-tzalmo, be-tzelem Elohim bara oto.
“HASHEM created the human in the image of HASHEM. In the image of HASHEM the human was created.”
צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים ~ Tzelem Elohim ~ “The image of HASHEM” does not mean a bodily resemblance. It speaks to the standing of the human being. That includes the neighbor who annoys you, the stranger whose choices you do not understand and the person from a community that has never felt close to yours.
אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings” begins there. We do not get to decide that another person’s standing disappears because we dislike them. We can oppose what someone does while still being responsible for how we treat that person.
Chapter Three follows the connection between love of HASHEM and love of created beings. Chapter Four turns to עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility,” including the particular covenantal obligations that Jews carry for one another. Those obligations give responsibility a practical form that cannot depend on affection alone.
XI What the rest of the book rests on
The later chapters keep returning to the claim we began with. HASHEM is the Source of everything, including the lives for which we are responsible.
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” means recognizing what is ours to do and where our authority ends. Love of HASHEM asks for knowledge, attention and devotion. Love of created beings asks us to recognize the standing of people we might otherwise dismiss. Mutual responsibility asks us to act on obligations we share.
Later volumes will address גְּאוּלָה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption” more directly. That work remains bound to human return. Rambam states that Israel is redeemed only through repentance. Source note 10 gives the passage. We cannot use hope for redemption as a reason to leave our own conduct unchanged.
Isaiah gives us an image to carry into the rest of the book:
מְלֹא כׇל־הָאָרֶץ כְּבוֹדוֹ
Melo khol ha-aretz kevodo.
“The whole earth is full of HASHEM’s glory.”
The whole earth includes the places where we work, eat, disagree and get tired. We do not leave the claim of HASHEM behind when we leave a place of prayer. Learning to remember that, and then acting on it, is part of the work of a Torah life.
So the question I want to leave you with is personal: what would change in the way you live if you took seriously that HASHEM is the Source of the life you are living now?
A first step
Choose one decision you are facing at work, at home or in your community. Write down what you want from it and what responsibility it places on you. Name one action you can take this week to meet that responsibility. If the decision requires a ruling in Jewish law, bring the question to a qualified rabbi. Then take the step you have identified.
Source notes
Hebrew excerpts have been checked against the linked Sefaria passages. The Guide for the Perplexed is quoted from Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of the original Arabic. English translations are adapted for this manuscript, including its use of HASHEM. Transliterations use Sephardic pronunciation. The original chapter’s remaining source corrections and changes in attribution are recorded in Word comments for review.
1 Knowledge as a commandment
וִידִיעַת דָּבָר זֶה מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה
Vi-yediat davar zeh mitzvat aseh.
“Knowledge of this matter is a positive commandment.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.6
2 Continual dependence
ואלו היה הוא ית' מסלק מהם כח השפעתו אף רגע אחת כרגע היו כולם לאפס ותהו.
Ve-illu hayah hu yitbarakh mesallek meihem koach hashpa'ato af rega achat, ke-rega hayu kullam le-efes va-tohu.
“If HASHEM were to withdraw the sustaining power from them for even one moment, they would at once become nothingness and emptiness.”
sefaria.org/Nefesh_HaChayim,_Gate_I.2.3
3 What attributes can describe
Rambam distinguishes attributes of action from statements that deny a deficiency. This excerpt is from Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Guide I:58. Guide I:54 develops the account of actions in more detail.
הנה כבר התבאר לך, כי כל תואר שנתארהו בו הוא – אם תואר פעולה או יהיה ענינו – שלילת העדרו
Hineh kevar hitba'er lekha, ki kol to'ar she-neto'arehu vo hu im to'ar pe'ullah o yihyeh inyano shelilat he'edero.
“It is now clear that every attribute we use of HASHEM is either an attribute of action or has the meaning of denying a deficiency.”
sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed,_Part_1.58.7
4 Unity
אֶלָּא יִחוּד שֶׁאֵין יִחוּד אַחֵר כְּמוֹתוֹ בָּעוֹלָם
Ella yichud she-ein yichud acher kemoto ba-olam.
“Rather, a unity unlike any other unity in the world.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Foundations_of_the_Torah.1.7
5 Sforno on the address at Sinai
הַנּוֹתֵן מְצִיאוּת
Ha-noten metziut.
“The giver of existence.”
sefaria.org/Sforno_on_Exodus.20.2.1
וְלָכֵן לִי לְבַדִּי תִּתְפַּלֵּל וְאוֹתִי תַּעֲבוֹד, בִּלְתִּי שׁוּם אֶמְצָעִי
Ve-lakhen li levaddi titpallel ve-oti taavod, bilti shum emtzai.
“Therefore, pray to HASHEM alone and serve HASHEM without any intermediary.”
sefaria.org/Sforno_on_Exodus.20.2.2
6 Knowledge and love
וְעַל פִּי הַדֵּעָה תִּהְיֶה הָאַהֲבָה אִם מְעַט מְעַט וְאִם הַרְבֵּה הַרְבֵּה
Ve-al pi ha-de'ah tihyeh ha-ahavah, im me'at me'at ve-im harbeh harbeh.
“Love will be according to knowledge: little when knowledge is little and much when knowledge is much.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.10.6
7 Learning and its foundations
This is the relevant part of Rambam’s palace comparison, in Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation. The palace is a comparison for degrees of understanding and approach. It does not place HASHEM inside a physical building.
והמגיעים אל הבית ההולכים סביבו – הם התלמודיים אשר הם מאמינים דעות אמיתיות מצד הקבלה, ולומדים מעשי העבודות, ולא הרגילו בעיון שרשי התורה ולא חקרו כלל לאמת אמונה.
Ve-ha-maggi'im el ha-bayit ha-holekhim sevivo hem ha-talmudiyyim asher hem maaminim de'ot amittiyyot mi-tzad ha-kabbalah, ve-lomedim maasei ha-avodot, ve-lo hirgilu be-iyyun shorshei ha-Torah ve-lo chakeru kelal le-ammet emunah.
“Those who reach the house and walk around it are scholars of Talmud who accept true beliefs through tradition and study the practices of worship, but have not accustomed themselves to examining the foundations of Torah or investigated how to establish belief.”
sefaria.org/Guide_for_the_Perplexed,_Part_3.51.6
8 Fear and awe in Malbim
ויש יראת ה' שאינה מחקי החכמה, והיא יראת העונש
Ve-yesh yirat ADONAI she-einah me-chukkei ha-chokhmah, ve-hi yirat ha-onesh.
“There is a fear of HASHEM that is not among the principles of wisdom: fear of punishment.”
sefaria.org/Malbim_on_Proverbs.9.10.1
שראוי לירא את ה' יראת הרוממות
She-raui lira et ADONAI yirat ha-romemut.
“It is fitting to stand in reverential awe of HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Malbim_on_Proverbs.9.10.1
Malbim explains that fear of punishment can start a person toward wisdom even though it is not the higher awe he describes. The chapter’s language about attentiveness is a practical application of this distinction.
9 Creation in Tanya
כִּי אִילּוּ הָיוּ הָאוֹתִיּוֹת מִסְתַּלְּקוֹת כְּרֶגַע חַס וְשָׁלוֹם וְחוֹזְרוֹת לִמְקוֹרָן, הָיוּ כָּל הַשָּׁמַיִם אַיִן וָאֶפֶס מַמָּשׁ
Ki illu hayu ha-otiyyot mistallekot ke-rega chas ve-shalom ve-chozrot li-mekoran, hayu kol ha-shamayim ayin va-efes mammash.
“If those letters were to depart for a moment, heaven forbid, and return to their source, all the heavens would become utter nothingness.”
sefaria.org/Tanya,_Part_II%3B_Shaar_HaYichud_VehaEmunah.1.3
The “letters” are those of the utterance that brings the heavens into being. Tanya’s account concerns continual creation. Its language of speech does not give HASHEM a physical voice or body. Chapter 3 develops a comparison with sunlight and explicitly discusses the comparison’s limits.
10 Redemption and return
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through repentance.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
Chapter Two
Sinai and the covenant
At Sinai, HASHEM addressed a people and gave them obligations to carry across generations. This chapter asks how that covenant reaches us, and what it requires of us now.
I What happened at the mountain
Chapter One began with HASHEM as the uncreated Source of everything. Our lives depend on HASHEM, and we are responsible for what we do with them. Sinai brings that responsibility into the history of a particular people.
This book takes Sinai as an event. In the account given by תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching,” Israel receives a command from HASHEM. The people do not arrive at it by refining their own ideas or discovering a feeling they already carried. They are addressed, and they have to answer.
Exodus describes what the people encountered:
וַיְהִי קֹלֹת וּבְרָקִים וְעָנָן כָּבֵד עַל־הָהָר וְקֹל שֹׁפָר חָזָק מְאֹד וַיֶּחֱרַד כׇּל־הָעָם אֲשֶׁר בַּמַּחֲנֶה
Va-yehi kolot u-verakim ve-anan kaved al ha-har, ve-kol shofar chazak me'od, va-yecherad kol ha-am asher ba-machaneh.
“There was thunder and lightning, a heavy cloud over the mountain and a very powerful sound of the ram’s horn. All the people in the camp trembled.”
The people are also told to keep their distance from the mountain. Receiving the command does not give them possession of its Source. The scene gives us something to remember when religious language becomes too familiar: we are being asked to listen to a demand we did not invent.
The people tremble. I understand the account as calling us toward יִרְאַת הָרוֹמְמוּת ~ yirat ha-romemut ~ “reverential awe,” an awareness of the difference between HASHEM and the person receiving the command. Awe should make us attentive to what is asked of us, including when it unsettles our habits.
Familiarity can make that difficult. We can inherit the words, customs and stories and assume that we already know what they require. Sinai asks for an answer from us. Knowing the story is the beginning of that work.
II Why a whole people matters
Torah presents Sinai as a public revelation. The people do not have to rely only on one person’s account of a private encounter. In Deuteronomy, Moshe recalls the event this way:
פָּנִים בְּפָנִים דִּבֶּר יְהֹוָה עִמָּכֶם בָּהָר מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ׃
Panim be-fanim diber ADONAI immakhem ba-har mi-tokh ha-esh.
“Face to face HASHEM spoke with you on the mountain, from within the fire.”
“Face to face” describes the directness of the address. It does not give HASHEM a face or a body. The people are addressed together. That matters because the covenant will be carried by a people, not sustained only by the private experience of an individual.
Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi develops this argument in the Kuzari. He describes the public revelation as removing the people’s doubt that Moshe’s teaching might have begun as a human idea. The people themselves hear the commandments. They are not being asked merely to trust Moshe’s report. Source note 1 gives the passage.[ER17]
This is also why I cannot make my private religious experience the measure of what binds me. A feeling may deepen my commitment. It may also fade. The covenant’s claim does not come and go with it. I belong to a people that received obligations, and my own response takes place within that history.
Later, when Moshe renews the covenant on the plains of Moav, he makes its reach across generations explicit:[ER18]
וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת׃ כִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם׃
Ve-lo itkhem levadkhem anokhi koret et ha-berit ha-zot ve-et ha-alah ha-zot. Ki et asher yeshno poh immanu omed ha-yom lifnei ADONAI Eloheinu, ve-et asher einennu poh immanu ha-yom.
“I make this covenant and this oath with more than you alone: with those standing here with us today before HASHEM and with those who are not here with us today.”
sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.29.13-14
The discussion in Shevuot includes future generations and גֵּרִים ~ geirim ~ “converts” who will enter the people in the future. Source note 2 gives its words. The obligation reaches people who were not physically present when the covenant began.
Remembering Sinai therefore involves more than remembering what happened long ago. It means recognizing that the responsibility has reached this generation. I do not have to recreate the feelings of those who stood at the mountain. I have to ask what faithfulness requires in the life I have now.
III We will do and we will hear
Israel’s answer to the covenant is one of the best-known passages in Exodus. The full verse also tells us what comes immediately before that answer:
וַיִּקַּח סֵפֶר הַבְּרִית וַיִּקְרָא בְּאׇזְנֵי הָעָם וַיֹּאמְרוּ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּר יְהֹוָה נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע׃
Va-yikkach sefer ha-berit va-yikra be-oznei ha-am, va-yomeru: kol asher dibber ADONAI na'aseh ve-nishma.
“Moshe took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. They said: ‘All that HASHEM has spoken, we will do and we will hear.’”
נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע ~ Na’aseh ve-nishma ~ “We will do and we will hear.” The order matters to the sages. But we should be precise about the claim we draw from it. The verse says that Moshe first read the book of the covenant to the people. Their answer does not mean they had been told nothing.[ER19]
Rashi places this episode before the Ten Commandments. Ramban places the covenant ceremony after them. They disagree about the sequence, and source note 3 gives both readings. The point I am pursuing is the willingness to accept the obligation without making complete understanding a condition of obedience.
Rabbi Simai describes the honor attached to that response:
בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהִקְדִּימוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל ״נַעֲשֶׂה״ לְ״נִשְׁמָע״ בָּאוּ שִׁשִּׁים רִיבּוֹא שֶׁל מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת, לְכׇל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל קָשְׁרוּ לוֹ שְׁנֵי כְתָרִים
Be-shaah she-hikdimu Yisrael na'aseh le-nishma, ba'u shishim ribbo shel malakhei ha-sharet. Le-khol echad ve-echad mi-Yisrael kasheru lo shenei khetarim.
“When Israel placed ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear,’ six hundred thousand ministering angels came. They tied two crowns to each person of Israel.”
The passage goes on to identify one crown with doing and the other with hearing. Both belong in the response. Trust does not end the work of understanding. It lets that work begin without requiring us to approve every obligation on our own terms first.
There is a practical consequence. Sefer HaChinukh explains that repeated actions shape the person who performs them:
כִּי אַחֲרֵי הַפְּעֻלּוֹת נִמְשָׁכִים הַלְּבָבוֹת
Ki acharei ha-peullot nimshakhim ha-levavot.
“For the hearts are drawn after the actions.”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaChinukh.16.2
We know how easy it is to wait until we feel ready. We can put off תְּפִלָּה ~ tefillah ~ “prayer” until inspiration arrives, or צְדָקָה ~ tzedakah ~ “obligatory giving” until we feel generous. But the action itself helps form the attention and generosity we need.
That does not make study or feeling unimportant. It means we keep learning while we act. We practice an obligation, examine what it asks of us and let the practice correct us. A life of commitment cannot depend on being in the right mood before every step.
IV Responsibility after revelation
Receiving Torah gives us work that cannot be handed back. Deuteronomy says:
לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲלֶה־לָּנוּ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה׃
Lo ba-shamayim hi leimor: mi ya'aleh lanu ha-shamaymah ve-yikkacheha lanu, ve-yashmienu otah ve-naasenna.
“It is not in heaven, that you should say: ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so we may hear it and do it?’”
The verse says that the command is within reach. In the discussion of the Oven of Akhnai, the sages also use it to explain who must take responsibility for deciding a question of Jewish law.
Rabbi Eliezer and the other sages disagree about the ritual status of an oven. In the account, a carob tree moves, a stream reverses direction and the walls of the house of study begin to lean. Rabbi Eliezer appeals to each sign in support of his position. The sages do not accept them as proof. When a heavenly voice supports him, Rabbi Yehoshua responds:
עָמַד רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ עַל רַגְלָיו וְאָמַר: ״לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִיא!״
Amad Rabbi Yehoshua al raglav ve-amar: lo ba-shamayim hi.
“Rabbi Yehoshua stood and said: ‘It is not in heaven.’”
Rabbi Yirmeya explains that Torah has already been given at Sinai, including the rule of following the majority in this dispute. The sages are carrying out a responsibility they received. Their decision does not make them independent of HASHEM.
The account then uses human language to describe the response of HASHEM. Eliyahu reports a smile and the words “My children have prevailed over Me.” Source note 4 gives the phrase. This is figurative language. It does not describe a physical expression or a defeat of HASHEM. I read it as approval of the sages’ faithfulness to the responsibility entrusted to them.[ER20]
That is what I mean by becoming an adult in the covenant. We have to learn enough to act, bring difficult questions to those qualified to decide them and accept responsibility for what we do. Waiting for a sign can become a way to avoid work already placed in our hands.
HASHEM remains the Source of authority. Human beings must do the work of faithful interpretation and application. Those responsibilities belong together.
V Choosing life
Later in the same chapter of Deuteronomy, Moshe addresses the people’s choice:
הַעִדֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת־הָאָרֶץ הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ׃
Ha'idoti vakhem ha-yom et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aretz. Ha-chayyim ve-ha-mavet natatti lefanekha, ha-berakhah ve-ha-kelalah. U-vacharta ba-chayyim, lemaan tichyeh attah ve-zarekha.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. I have set life and death before you, blessing and curse. Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.”
וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים ~ U-vacharta ba-chayyim ~ “Choose life” is a demand placed on people who must answer for their choices. Moshe has explained the covenant and its consequences. The people cannot treat their response as a matter of indifference.
Circumstances matter. People differ in what they know, what they can do and what stands in their way. The command still asks each of us to consider the choices that are ours to make. What responsibility am I avoiding? What can I put right? Where have I become used to postponing an answer?[ER21]
This bears directly on גְּאוּלָה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption,” which the next volume will examine. Rambam makes redemption contingent on human תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return or repentance.” Source note 5 gives his statement. My concern is that we can speak about waiting for redemption while refusing the work of return already required of us. That refusal is a choice, even when we call it waiting.[ER22]
We cannot produce redemption by treating HASHEM as subject to our efforts. We are responsible for the response HASHEM requires. Hope has to include that work.
VI How the teaching reaches us
If Sinai was a particular event, how does its authority reach people living thousands of years later? Through people who receive the teaching, study it, put it into practice and pass it on. That work continues through displacement, disagreement and changing circumstances.
Rambam describes the place of the Great Court in Jerusalem in the transmission of תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה ~ Torah she-beal peh ~ “Oral Torah”:
בֵּית דִּין הַגָּדוֹל שֶׁבִּירוּשָׁלַיִם הֵם עִקַּר תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה. וְהֵם עַמּוּדֵי הַהוֹרָאָה
Beit din ha-gadol she-bi-Yerushalayim hem ikkar Torah she-beal peh, ve-hem ammudei ha-horaah.
“The Great Court in Jerusalem is the foundation of the Oral Torah. Its members are the pillars of instruction.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Rebels.1.1
The court’s authority belongs to an office and a body of responsibilities established by Torah. Personal brilliance matters to the work, but brilliance alone does not grant that authority. Nor does describing ourselves as part of a tradition give us every power held by the Great Court.[ER23]
We also need to be precise about what later courts may reconsider. Rambam distinguishes a decision reached through interpretation from an enactment or decree that has spread through Israel. In the first case, he allows a later Great Court to reach a different conclusion. In the second, he sets conditions involving greater wisdom and numbers. For widely accepted protective prohibitions, he gives a stricter rule. Source note 6 sets out the distinctions.[ER24]
The lesson is that the tradition has rules for reconsideration as well as rules for continuity. Faithfulness requires knowing which kind of teaching or decision is in front of us. We cannot replace that work with either “nothing can change” or “we are free to change anything.”
The Oral Torah includes explanations received with the commandments, teachings preserved through transmission, interpretation and enactments made within the authority Torah grants. It is more than an attempt to apply a written text to new circumstances. Rambam makes the received explanations part of his account from the beginning. Source note 7 gives the passage.[ER25]
Disagreement belongs within that work. The schools of Shammai and Hillel argued about what the obligations required. A dispute over the right answer need not be a rejection of the teaching that binds the people arguing. Receiving a tradition does not relieve us of the need to think carefully.
The opening of Pirkei Avot places its teaching within a chain of transmission:
משֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי, וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ, וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ לִזְקֵנִים, וּזְקֵנִים לִנְבִיאִים, וּנְבִיאִים מְסָרוּהָ לְאַנְשֵׁי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה
Moshe kibbel Torah mi-Sinai, u-mesarah li-Yehoshua, vi-Yehoshua li-zekenim, u-zekenim li-neviim, u-neviim mesaruha le-anshei Kheneset ha-gedolah.
“Moshe received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Yehoshua. Yehoshua transmitted it to the elders, the elders to the prophets and the prophets to the members of the Great Assembly.”
The passage names people and groups responsible for carrying what they received. The teachings that follow belong to that responsibility. Their authority is not simply the appeal of a wise saying or the reputation of a persuasive teacher.
Each generation has to make the teaching available to the next without making itself the source of the teaching. That means explaining it clearly, answering questions honestly and remaining accountable to what has been received. Volume Three will examine the institutions and teachers through whom that work reaches this generation.
VII Ways we can avoid the claim of Sinai
There are several ways to admire Sinai while keeping its demands at a distance.
One is to make it entirely about spiritual experience. A moment of clarity or a sense of closeness to HASHEM can matter deeply. But an experience belongs to the person who has it. It can change, fade or never arrive. In Torah’s account, the authority of Sinai comes from the address of HASHEM to Israel. It does not depend on each person feeling that address with the same intensity.
Another is to treat revelation as a name for the moral ideas a society develops. That would give us a different account of where Torah comes from. This book begins with Torah received from HASHEM, with authority to judge human conduct and understanding. Its claim cannot be reduced to what a generation already considers reasonable or useful.
A third is to make a private relationship with HASHEM a reason to step outside the obligations shared by the people. Personal devotion matters. It does not give me permission to set aside a command because I feel that my own relationship is enough.
For someone beginning observance as an adult, this can take time to understand. The questions and experiences that brought you here are part of your life. Entering the covenant through conversion, or taking up obligations you had neglected, also means learning to live within a responsibility that was here before you.
We can ask questions, examine sources and bring difficulties into the study and decision-making processes the tradition provides. That is part of receiving Torah seriously. What we cannot do is treat our willingness to accept a demand as the source of its authority.
Sinai asks for a response from the whole person. Admiration alone leaves the work undone.
VIII The covenant in the life we have now
The question is where the covenant has reached your own life. Has it changed what you think you owe, or has it remained a story you respect?
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” cannot depend only on whether we feel close to other Jews. The covenant gives us responsibilities for one another. עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” asks us to recognize both those responsibilities and the limits of our authority. The chapters ahead will examine what this requires in practice.
There is no part of life outside the claim of HASHEM. Our work, private decisions and treatment of others all take place within the life we have received. The obligation is to bring that life into greater faithfulness through return.
Isaiah looks toward a future in which peoples seek the teaching of HASHEM:[ER26]
כִּי מִצִּיּוֹן תֵּצֵא תוֹרָה וּדְבַר־יְהֹוָה מִירוּשָׁלִָם
Ki mi-Tziyyon tetze Torah u-devar ADONAI mi-Yerushalayim.
“For Torah shall go forth from Zion, and the word of HASHEM from Jerusalem.”
The verse speaks toward that future. It also gives direction to the work of teaching now. Each time we study carefully, carry an obligation into practice or help another person receive the teaching, we take responsibility for what has reached us.
That is what I mean when I say the mountain reaches here. The mountain is a way of speaking about the event and the obligation that continues from it. Sinai is in our history. The covenant made there is part of the life we are responsible for today.
A step of return
Choose one obligation you have been postponing because you do not feel ready. Name one concrete step you can take this week. If the delay has harmed another person, begin with the repair you owe that person. If you are unsure what is required, bring the question to a qualified rabbi. Act on what you establish, then return to the source and study the obligation more carefully.
Source notes
Hebrew and Aramaic excerpts follow the linked Sefaria segments. English translations are adapted for this manuscript and its sacred language conventions. The Kuzari excerpt is from the Hebrew translation displayed in Sefaria’s Project Ben-Yehuda edition.
1 Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi on public revelation
The displayed passage is numbered 87 in the edition. Sefaria’s segment address is 1:93. Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi distinguishes what the people heard from teaching reported only by individuals.
וְאֵלֶּה עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים לֹא קִבְּלָם הֶהָמוֹן מֵאֲנָשִׁים יְחִידִים וְלּא מִנָּבִיא, כִּי אִם מֵאֵת הָאֱלֹהִים נִתָּנוּ
Ve-elleh aseret ha-devarim lo kibbelam he-hamon me-anashim yechidim ve-lo mi-navi, ki im me-et ha-Elohim nittanu.
“The people did not receive these Ten Commandments from individual people or from a prophet. They were given by HASHEM.”
2 Future generations and converts
דּוֹרוֹת הַבָּאִים וְגֵרִים הָעֲתִידִין לְהִתְגַּיֵּיר – מִנַּיִן? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ״
Dorot ha-baim ve-geirim ha-atidin le-hitgayyer minayin? Talmud lomar: ve-et asher einennu.
“From where do we learn that future generations and future converts are included? The text says: ‘And those who are not here.’”
3 Two readings of the sequence at Sinai
Rashi places the episode before the Ten Commandments:
פָּרָשָׁה זוֹ נֶאֶמְרָה קֹדֶם עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת
Parashah zo neemrah kodem aseret ha-dibberot.
“This passage was stated before the Ten Commandments.”
sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Exodus.24.1.1
Ramban places the covenant ceremony on the following day:
וְהִנֵּה מַעֲשֵׂה הַבְּרִית בְּיוֹם הַמָּחֳרָת לְמַתַּן תּוֹרָה
Ve-hinneh maaseh ha-berit be-yom ha-mochorat le-mattan Torah.
“The covenant ceremony took place on the day after the giving of Torah.”
sefaria.org/Ramban_on_Exodus.24.1.1
These are distinct readings of the order of events. The chapter’s practical point is that commitment need not wait for complete understanding.
4 The response in the Oven of Akhnai account
נִצְּחוּנִי בָּנַי! נִצְּחוּנִי בָּנַי!
Nitzchuni vanai, nitzchuni vanai.
“My children have prevailed over Me. My children have prevailed over Me.”
These words are attributed to HASHEM within the account. The chapter treats them as figurative speech expressing approval of the sages’ fidelity to the received rules. The story does not give HASHEM a body or make human authority independent of HASHEM.
5 Redemption requires return
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through repentance.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
6 What a later court may reconsider
Rambam first discusses a decision reached by the Great Court through one of the methods of interpretation. A later Great Court may reach a different conclusion:
וְעָמַד אַחֲרֵיהֶם בֵּית דִּין אַחֵר וְנִרְאֶה לוֹ טַעַם אַחֵר לִסְתֹּר אוֹתוֹ. הֲרֵי זֶה סוֹתֵר וְדָן כְּפִי מַה שֶּׁנִּרְאֶה בְּעֵינָיו
Ve-amad achareihem beit din acher ve-nirah lo taam acher listor oto. Harei zeh soter ve-dan kefi mah she-nirah be-einav.
“If another court arises after them and sees a different reason for overturning the decision, it may overturn it and decide according to its own understanding.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Rebels.2.1
For the enactments, decrees and customs discussed in the next passage, which have spread throughout Israel, the condition is different:
אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל עַד שֶׁיִּהְיֶה גָּדוֹל מִן הָרִאשׁוֹנִים בְּחָכְמָה וּבְמִנְיָן
Eino yakhol ad she-yihyeh gadol min ha-rishonim be-chokhmah u-ve-minyan.
“It cannot do so unless it is greater than the earlier court in wisdom and in number.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Rebels.2.2
Rambam then gives a stricter rule for protective prohibitions accepted throughout Israel:
אֵין בֵּית דִּין גָּדוֹל אַחֵר יָכוֹל לְעָקְרָן וּלְהַתִּירָן אֲפִלּוּ הָיָה גָּדוֹל מִן הָרִאשׁוֹנִים
Ein beit din gadol acher yakhol le-okran u-le-hattiran, afillu hayah gadol min ha-rishonim.
“Another Great Court cannot uproot them and permit them, even if it is greater than the earlier court.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Rebels.2.3
These excerpts explain why the chapter cannot use one rule for every kind of decision. Applying these categories to a particular case requires qualified judgment.
7 The received explanations
Rambam opens his account of the transmission of the Oral Torah with this statement:
כָּל הַמִּצְווֹת שֶׁנִּתְּנוּ לוֹ לְמֹשֶׁה בְּסִינַי – בְּפֵרוּשָׁן נִתְּנוּ
Kol ha-mitzvot she-nittenu lo le-Moshe be-Sinai, be-feirushan nittenu.
“All the commandments given to Moshe at Sinai were given with their explanations.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Transmission_of_the_Oral_Law.1
Chapter Three
Love of HASHEM and care for others
Love of HASHEM has to reach the people we live among. We cannot separate our devotion from the way we treat them. This chapter asks what that connection requires when care is difficult, inconvenient or slow to produce a result.
I Living the covenant
Chapter One began with HASHEM as the uncreated Source of all existence. Chapter Two followed the covenant from Sinai into the responsibilities we carry now. Here the question becomes more personal. What kind of person is this covenant asking us to become?
Two expressions will guide the discussion: אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM” and אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings.” In this chapter, the second expression concerns our care for other people. They belong together in the life commanded by תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching.”
I think of the connection as a circuit. Love of HASHEM should change how we treat people, and caring for people should deepen our awareness of the Source of their lives. The image describes human devotion and conduct. HASHEM is not an electrical current, and people are not parts of HASHEM. Nor does the image turn distinct commandments into one legal category.[ER27]
The connection can be neglected in either direction. A person can take study and prayer seriously while overlooking someone who needs help. A person can also care deeply for others while leaving the Source of obligation out of the account. This book asks us to hold devotion and care together.
The second point is a claim about the ground of responsibility. It is not a judgment that people without an explicit commitment to HASHEM are incapable of lasting kindness. The covenant asks us to recognize that our obligations come from HASHEM and remain in force when sympathy fails. There is no part of life outside that claim.[ER28]
II Loving HASHEM with the whole life
Deuteronomy gives the command in words many readers will know:
וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכׇל־מְאֹדֶךָ׃
Ve-ahavta et ADONAI Elohekha be-khol levavkha u-ve-khol nafshekha u-ve-khol me'odekha.
“You shall love HASHEM with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.”
The repeated word “all” leaves little room for keeping devotion in one compartment. Love involves what we desire and what we resist, what we own and how we spend our days.
The Mishnah reads “all your heart” as including both the good and the evil inclination. It reads “all your soul” as extending even to the loss of life. “All your might” includes possessions and, in another reading, every measure a person receives. Source note 1 gives the passage. These are demanding readings of love, not descriptions of a passing mood.
Rambam brings this into ordinary bodily life. He writes that a person should seek health and strength so that the mind can attend to knowing HASHEM. Work and even sleep can belong to that purpose. His formulation includes:
נִמְצָא הַמְהַלֵּךְ בְּדֶרֶךְ זוֹ כָּל יָמָיו עוֹבֵד אֶת ה' תָּמִיד
Nimtza ha-mehalekh be-derekh zo kol yamav oved et HASHEM tamid.
“A person who follows this path throughout life is continually serving HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.3.3
Eating, resting and earning a living do not take us out of our responsibility to HASHEM. They are part of the life we have been given. The same is true of our dealings with other people. If love concerns the whole person, it has to affect those dealings too.
III When devotion leaves someone out
A person may pray carefully, study every day and observe consistently, yet remain indifferent to a neighbor’s distress. The devotion may be sincere. The indifference still needs to be faced.
It is easy to miss this in ourselves. Religious activity gives us things we can count: hours spent learning, obligations performed and services attended. Someone else’s loneliness may make no demand that appears on a schedule. A request for help may arrive just when we feel we have already done enough.
Isaiah makes the connection difficult to avoid. In a passage challenging a fast accompanied by injustice, the prophet asks:
הֲלוֹא פָרֹס לָרָעֵב לַחְמֶךָ וַעֲנִיִּים מְרוּדִים תָּבִיא בָיִת כִּי־תִרְאֶה עָרֹם וְכִסִּיתוֹ וּמִבְּשָׂרְךָ לֹא תִתְעַלָּם׃
Halo faros la-raev lachmekha, va-aniyyim merudim tavi vayit. Ki tir’eh arom ve-khissito, u-mi-besarekha lo titallam.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see someone without clothing, clothe them, and do not turn away from your own flesh.”
Amos calls for justice, and Mikhah joins justice with love of kindness and modest conduct before HASHEM. Their words appear in source note 2. The prophets do not let religious observance excuse mistreatment or neglect.
The question is therefore practical. Has my devotion made me more attentive to the people around me? If I am becoming more exact in observance and less willing to notice another person’s need, I have something to put right.
IV Rabbi Akiva and love of the neighbor
The Jerusalem Talmud records Rabbi Akiva’s teaching:
וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ. רִבִּי עֲקִיבָה אוֹמֵר. זֶהוּ כְּלָל גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה.
Ve-ahavta le-re’akha kamokha. Rabbi Akiva omer: zehu kelal gadol ba-Torah.
“‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Rabbi Akiva says: ‘This is a great principle in Torah.’”
sefaria.org/Jerusalem_Talmud_Nedarim.9.4.3
A כְּלָל גָּדוֹל ~ kelal gadol ~ “great principle” helps us understand the obligations that follow from it. Returning lost property and paying someone on time involve particular acts. They also ask us to take another person’s needs seriously. The principle gives us a reason to attend carefully to the details.
Rambam makes the connection concrete. In his discussion of love for each person of Israel, he speaks about praising another person and protecting their property and dignity. Source note 3 gives the wording. Love has consequences for what we say when the person is absent and what we do when their interests depend on us.
Someone who keeps a particular rule while cultivating contempt for the people it protects still has work to do. We should not confuse completing an act with becoming the person Torah asks us to become. Whether a particular obligation has been legally fulfilled is a separate question.[ER29]
The account of Rabbi Akiva’s own beginning gives this discussion a human setting. Avot DeRabbi Natan describes him at forty, not yet learned, asking how water had worn away a stone. He reasoned that steady learning could change him too. He began with the letters beside his son, then went on to study with Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. Source note 4 gives the passage behind this account.[ER30]
We cannot use that story to claim knowledge of everything Rabbi Akiva felt. We can let it correct our treatment of a beginner. The person struggling with the first letters should not have to earn our respect by showing us what they might someday become.
V Ben Azzai and the human family
Ben Azzai names a different starting point. The same passage continues:
בֶּן עַזַּאי אוֹמֵר. זֶה סֵפֶר תּוֹלְדוֹת אָדָם זֶה כְּלָל גָּדוֹל מִזֶּה.
Ben Azzai omer: zeh sefer toledot adam, zeh kelal gadol mi-zeh.
“Ben Azzai says: ‘This is the book of the generations of the human being.’ This is a greater principle than that.”
sefaria.org/Jerusalem_Talmud_Nedarim.9.4.3
He points to the beginning of the human genealogy in Genesis. The verse speaks of humanity’s creation in the likeness of HASHEM. Source note 5 gives the verse and a related teaching in Bereshit Rabbah.
Rabbi Akiva begins with the command to love the neighbor. Ben Azzai gives priority to our common human origin. I read these teachings together as a reminder that covenantal responsibility and care for the wider human family must both be taken seriously. That is the reading I am developing here. The text itself records a disagreement about which principle is greater.[ER31]
We should also remember that Rabbi Akiva himself speaks about the human being in the teaching preserved in Avot:
חָבִיב אָדָם שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְצֶלֶם. חִבָּה יְתֵרָה נוֹדַעַת לוֹ שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְצֶלֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (בראשית ט) כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם.
Chaviv adam she-nivra ve-tzelem. Chibbah yeterah noda’at lo she-nivra ve-tzelem, she-ne’emar: ki be-tzelem Elohim asah et ha-adam.
“Beloved is the human being, created in the image. An added love is shown in making this known, as it is said: ‘For in the image of HASHEM the human being was made.’”
צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים ~ tzelem Elohim ~ “the image of HASHEM” does not mean a bodily resemblance. HASHEM has no body. Nor does it mean that a human being is a piece of HASHEM. Here the phrase reminds us that a person’s worth does not begin with our approval of them.
At New Yavneh, this belongs with our commitment to the covenant. The neighbor whose language, background or convictions differ from ours remains a human being created by HASHEM. We can recognize distinct obligations without using those distinctions to excuse contempt.
VI Hillel and the way we teach
When a prospective convert asks Hillel to teach the whole Torah while the questioner stands on one foot, Hillel answers:
דַּעֲלָךְ סְנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַּעֲבֵיד. זוֹ הִיא כׇּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ, וְאִידַּךְ פֵּירוּשָׁהּ הוּא, זִיל גְּמוֹר.
Da-alakh seni le-chavrakh la ta’aveid. Zo hi kol ha-Torah kullah, ve-idakh peirushah hu, zil gemor.
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah. The rest is its explanation. Go and learn.”
Hillel begins with restraint. Before asking how much good we can do for someone, we can ask what harm we are causing. His final instruction also matters. “Go and learn” sends the questioner into the work of understanding the details. The short answer opens that work.
Elsewhere Hillel names Aharon as the model:
הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה
Hevei mi-talmidav shel Aharon, ohev shalom ve-rodef shalom, ohev et ha-beriyyot u-mekarevan la-Torah.
“Be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving created beings and bringing them near to Torah.”
I take the order seriously as a guide to teaching. Care for the person should be present from the beginning. Someone should not have to pass a test of knowledge or observance before being treated with warmth. And care must not disappear if the person does not respond as we hoped.[ER32]
A teacher can explain an obligation firmly and still listen carefully. Contempt makes that harder. A person who expects to be embarrassed may stop asking questions, leaving the teacher unaware of what has not been understood.
Avot DeRabbi Natan tells of Aharon greeting someone who had done wrong. Later, when tempted to repeat the wrong, the person remembers that greeting and feels ashamed to face Aharon after betraying it. Source note 6 gives the account. Aharon’s regard gives the person a reason to reconsider.
The story does not promise that kindness will always bring an immediate response. It shows one way a relationship can help someone return. We should care enough to teach clearly and be patient enough to let another person’s response remain their own.
VII Why the word created matters
בְּרִיּוֹת ~ briyot ~ “created beings” names something easy to forget. We did not bring ourselves into existence. Neither did the people we find difficult. We share dependence on HASHEM before we agree about anything.
In speaking about human beings here, the word keeps our attention on the person rather than on their usefulness to us. Their dignity does not depend on achievement, social standing or membership in our circle. Disagreement can be serious without becoming permission to humiliate.
This asks something of us when sympathy is uneven. We notice the suffering of people we understand more readily than the suffering of people whose choices trouble us. Remembering that both were created by HASHEM challenges that habit.
The responsibilities will not always be identical. Torah distinguishes relationships and circumstances. But it also gives concrete duties of care beyond the Jewish community. Rambam records the sages’ instruction to visit the sick among the nations and support their poor together with the poor of Israel for the sake of peace. Source note 7 gives the passage.
Recognizing a person’s worth also does not require approving every action. Care may include an honest disagreement. What it cannot become is a way of deciding that someone’s suffering no longer matters because we disapprove of them.
VIII The neighbor who needs help
New Yavneh speaks of a person who cannot stand to see a neighbor in darkness. The image means that another person’s need should disturb our complacency enough for us to respond. That need may be food, company or help finding a way into learning.
Torah precedes creation and gives the measure by which we judge our conduct. Our warmth does not make Torah true or give it authority. It can make a difference in whether another person encounters its teaching through patient attention or through our indifference.[ER33]
In Chapter One we considered Rambam’s image of the person absorbed in love of HASHEM. Source note 8 recalls his wording. I am asking what that seriousness should mean in our treatment of others. Rambam’s image concerns devotion. The outward application here is the argument of this chapter.
Care should become reliable enough that we act without waiting to feel especially generous. צְדָקָה ~ tzedakah ~ “obligatory giving” already makes this point. Rambam describes giving to the poor as a command, with attention to the recipient’s need and the giver’s means. It would be a mistake to dismiss it as merely voluntary generosity. Source note 8 gives that passage too.[ER34]
We still have choices to make. Feeling unable to ignore a need does not mean that we literally lose the ability to choose, or that every need can be met by one person. It means we stop using inconvenience as an automatic reason to look away. We ask what help is needed and what we can responsibly do.
IX Helping others come to know HASHEM
Rambam connects love of HASHEM with wanting others to know and serve HASHEM. He makes this argument in his Book of the Commandments, in the third positive commandment:[ER35]
זאת המצוה גם כן כוללת שנהיה קוראים לבני האדם כולם לעבודתו יתעלה ולהאמין בו
Zot ha-mitzva gam ken kolelet she-nihyeh kore’im livnei ha-adam kullam la-avodato yit’aleh u-leha’amin bo.
“This commandment also includes calling all human beings to serve HASHEM and to believe in HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaMitzvot,_Positive_Commandments.3.1
The desire to teach grows out of valuing what we have received. If knowing HASHEM matters to us, we will want others to have the opportunity to learn. דַּעַת הַשֵּׁם ~ da’at HASHEM ~ “knowledge of HASHEM” is not something we should be content to keep private.
That desire needs humility. A neighbor is a person with questions, memories and responsibilities, not a project whose progress proves our success. We can offer learning and explain why it matters. We cannot make the other person’s response a condition of our care.
Isaiah looks toward a world in which knowledge of HASHEM reaches far beyond one circle of learners:
כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת־יְהֹוָה כַּמַּיִם לַיָּם מְכַסִּים
Ki male’ah ha-aretz de’ah et ADONAI ka-mayim la-yam mekhasim.
“For the earth will be full of knowledge of HASHEM as the waters cover the sea.”
We work toward that future through what we teach and how we live. גְּאוּלָה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption” remains contingent on תְּשׁוּבָה ~ teshuvah ~ “return and repentance.” Rambam states that Israel is redeemed through return. Source note 9 gives his words. Warmth toward others belongs within that work. It does not replace the need to change our conduct.
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility,” the subject of Chapter Five, helps keep the desire to teach accountable. We need to remember the limits of our knowledge and authority, especially when we feel certain that we know what another person needs.
X Responsibility when feeling is absent
The difficulty is familiar. We can care about people in general and still feel impatient with the particular person who needs us today. An obligation has to survive that change in feeling.
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” gives this concern a distinct covenantal form within Israel. The Talmud teaches:
כׇּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה
Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh.
“All of Israel are guarantors for one another.”
The discussion continues with a condition:
הָתָם שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדָם לְמַחוֹת, וְלֹא מִיחוּ.
Hatam she-yesh be-yadam limchot, ve-lo michu.
“There, the case is one in which they could protest but did not protest.”
The language of guarantorship tells us that another person’s conduct can concern us even when we were not the one who acted. The condition matters too. This passage discusses accountability where people could have protested and failed to do so. It does not make every Jew automatically liable for every other Jew’s debts or every act beyond their influence.[ER36]
Chapter Four will examine the sources and applications more closely. Here the connection is enough: care needs obligations that remain when affection is weak. Arevut is one expression of that responsibility within the covenant. It does not exhaust the care owed to other human beings.
The point for this chapter is that a neighbor’s claim cannot be measured only by how moved I happen to feel. Torah asks me to learn what is required and to act on it.
XI What another person receives from us
People learn something about Torah from the way its teachers treat them. A patient explanation and the same explanation delivered with contempt leave different memories. The words may be accurate in both cases. The person receiving them may find it much harder to trust the second teacher.
This gives teachers a responsibility to examine their conduct alongside their teaching. Do people feel able to ask a basic question? Do we listen when they describe a difficulty? Does our concern continue when their progress is slower than we expected?
The same questions belong in ordinary relationships. Love of HASHEM should make us attentive to a person we have overlooked. Care for that person should remind us that both lives come from HASHEM. Neither devotion nor kindness gives us permission to neglect the other.
Begin with one neglected responsibility. Identify someone you owe an answer, an apology or help you promised. Decide what you can do, set a time within the next day and follow through. If the repair requires their input, ask what they need before deciding for them. This is a concrete step of return, and its value does not depend on whether anyone sees it.
Then ask whether your regular habits make room for that kind of attention. A single gesture matters. The work is to become someone on whom another person can rely.
Source notes
The Hebrew and Aramaic excerpts below were checked against the listed Sefaria segments. Cantillation and some punctuation are omitted. English renderings are adapted for this manuscript and follow its sacred language conventions. Transliterations use Sephardic pronunciation. The notes distinguish the source’s wording from the chapter’s interpretation.
1 The whole heart and the whole life
בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ, בִּשְׁנֵי יְצָרֶיךָ, בְּיֵצֶר טוֹב וּבְיֵצֶר רָע. וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ, אֲפִלּוּ הוּא נוֹטֵל אֶת נַפְשֶׁךָ. וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ, בְּכָל מָמוֹנֶךָ. דָּבָר אַחֵר בְּכָל מְאֹדֶךָ, בְּכָל מִדָּה וּמִדָּה שֶׁהוּא מוֹדֵד לְךָ הֱוֵי מוֹדֶה לוֹ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד.
Be-khol levavkha, bi-shnei yetzarekha, be-yetzer tov u-ve-yetzer ra. U-ve-khol nafshekha, afillu hu notel et nafshekha. U-ve-khol me’odekha, be-khol mamonekha. Davar acher, be-khol me’odekha, be-khol middah u-middah she-hu moded lekha, hevei modeh lo bi-me’od me’od.
“‘With all your heart’ means with both your inclinations, the good inclination and the evil inclination. ‘With all your soul’ means even if HASHEM takes your life. ‘With all your might’ means with all your possessions. Another reading: for every measure that HASHEM measures out to you, give abundant thanks to HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Mishnah_Berakhot.9.5
This is the Mishnah also printed in the discussion at Berakhot 54a. The chapter follows its account of wholehearted love. Particular questions about the obligations involved require qualified judgment.
2 The prophetic demand for care
Amos says:
וְיִגַּל כַּמַּיִם מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה כְּנַחַל אֵיתָן׃
Ve-yiggal ka-mayim mishpat, u-tzedakah ke-nachal eitan.
“Let justice flow like water and righteousness like a lasting stream.”
Mikhah places justice, kindness and modest conduct together:
וּמָה־יְהֹוָה דּוֹרֵשׁ מִמְּךָ כִּי אִם־עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶיךָ
U-mah ADONAI doresh mimmekha, ki im asot mishpat ve-ahavat chesed, ve-hatznea lekhet im Elohekha.
“What does HASHEM ask of you? To do justice, love kindness and walk modestly with HASHEM.”
3 Love in speech and conduct
לְפִיכָךְ צָרִיךְ לְסַפֵּר בְּשִׁבְחוֹ וְלָחוּס עַל מָמוֹנוֹ כַּאֲשֶׁר הוּא חָס עַל מָמוֹן עַצְמוֹ וְרוֹצֶה בִּכְבוֹד עַצְמוֹ.
Lefikhakh tzarikh lesapper be-shivcho ve-lachus al mamono, ka-asher hu chas al mamon atzmo ve-rotzeh bi-khvod atzmo.
“Therefore a person should speak in the other’s praise and care for the other’s property as for their own property and dignity.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.6.3
Rambam places this within his account of the command to love each person of Israel. Its scope should be stated accurately alongside the wider duties discussed elsewhere in this chapter.
4 Rabbi Akiva begins to learn
מה היה תחלתו של רבי עקיבא. אמרו בן ארבעים שנה היה ולא שנה כלום.
Mah hayah techillato shel Rabbi Akiva? Ameru: ben arba’im shanah hayah ve-lo shanah kelum.
“How did Rabbi Akiva begin? They said: he was forty years old and had not yet learned anything.”
sefaria.org/Avot_DeRabbi_Natan.6.2
The same segment tells of the water wearing the stone, his first lessons beside his son and his later study with Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua. The chapter presents this as a rabbinic account of his beginning, without claiming that it explains the private origin of his teaching about love.
5 Shared human origin
זֶה סֵפֶר תּוֹלְדֹת אָדָם בְּיוֹם בְּרֹא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם בִּדְמוּת אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֹתוֹ
Zeh sefer toledot adam. Be-yom bero Elohim adam, bi-demut Elohim asah oto.
“This is the book of the generations of the human being. When HASHEM created the human being, the human being was made in the likeness of HASHEM.”
Bereshit Rabbah brings the principles associated with Ben Azzai and Rabbi Akiva into a discussion of humiliation:
שֶׁלֹא תֹאמַר הוֹאִיל וְנִתְבַּזֵּיתִי יִתְבַּזֶה חֲבֵרִי עִמִּי, הוֹאִיל וְנִתְקַלַּלְתִּי יִתְקַלֵּל חֲבֵרִי עִמִּי.
She-lo tomar: ho’il ve-nitbazzeti, yitbazzeh chaveri immi. Ho’il ve-nitkallalti, yitkallel chaveri immi.
“Do not say: ‘Since I was humiliated, let my fellow be humiliated with me. Since I was cursed, let my fellow be cursed with me.’”
sefaria.org/Bereshit_Rabbah.24.7
The passage continues with Rabbi Tanchuma’s reminder that humanity was made in the likeness of HASHEM. It supports the chapter’s concern with dignity without erasing the disagreement recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud.
6 Aharon greets a person who has done wrong
כשהיה אהרן מהלך בדרך פגע בו באדם רשע ונתן לו שלום
Ke-she-hayah Aharon mehalekh ba-derekh, paga vo be-adam rasha ve-natan lo shalom.
“When Aharon was walking along the road, he encountered a person who had acted wickedly and greeted that person with peace.”
sefaria.org/Avot_DeRabbi_Natan.12.3
The person later refrains from a transgression, remembering the greeting and feeling ashamed to face Aharon afterward. The source describes a greeting. It does not say that Aharon first established an extended friendship with every person in this account.
7 Care beyond the Jewish community
אֲפִלּוּ הָעַכּוּ"ם צִוּוּ חֲכָמִים לְבַקֵּר חוֹלֵיהֶם וְלִקְבֹּר מֵתֵיהֶם עִם מֵתֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּלְפַרְנֵס עֲנִיֵּיהֶם בִּכְלַל עֲנִיֵּי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִפְּנֵי דַּרְכֵי שָׁלוֹם.
Afillu ha-akkum, tzivvu chakhamim levakker choleihem ve-likbor meteihem im metei Yisrael, u-lefarnes aniyyeihem bi-khlal aniyyei Yisrael, mi-penei darkhei shalom.
“Even concerning idolaters, the sages commanded visiting their sick, burying their dead together with the dead of Israel and supporting their poor together with the poor of Israel, for the sake of the ways of peace.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Kings_and_Wars.10.12
This is the terminology of the cited edition. The chapter draws attention to its concrete requirements of care. It does not use the passage to assign a legal religious status to any present-day person or community.
8 Devotion and obligatory giving
Rambam describes the person whose attention remains absorbed in love of HASHEM:
עַד שֶׁתְּהֵא נַפְשׁוֹ קְשׁוּרָה בְּאַהֲבַת ה' וְנִמְצָא שׁוֹגֶה בָּהּ תָּמִיד כְּאִלּוּ חוֹלֶה חֳלִי הָאַהֲבָה
Ad she-tehei nafsho keshurah be-ahavat HASHEM, ve-nimtza shogeh bah tamid, ke-illu choleh choli ha-ahavah.
“Until the person’s soul is bound to love of HASHEM and remains continually absorbed in it, as though lovesick.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.10.3
The image concerns the person’s devotion. It gives HASHEM no body or human emotional condition. On giving to the poor, Rambam writes:
מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה לִתֵּן צְדָקָה לָעֲנִיִּים כְּפִי מַה שֶּׁרָאוּי לֶעָנִי. אִם הָיְתָה יַד הַנּוֹתֵן מַשֶּׂגֶת.
Mitzvat aseh litten tzedakah la-aniyyim ke-fi mah she-ra’ui le-ani, im hayetah yad ha-noten masseget.
“It is a positive commandment to give to the poor according to the poor person’s need, if the giver has the means.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Gifts_to_the_Poor.7.1
9 Redemption and return
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
The chapter’s practical step asks the reader to begin repairing a neglected responsibility. It does not treat kindness alone as a substitute for the full work of return.
Part Two The Structures
Chapter Four
Arevut and shared responsibility
Other people need to be able to rely on us when we are busy, tired or unmoved by their situation. The covenant gives that responsibility a place in ordinary life, including how we pay a worker, respond to danger and organize help that will still be there next week.
I Care that people can rely on
Chapter Three connected אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM” with אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings.” Devotion should affect how we treat people. The next question is how to make that care dependable.
Our feelings change. We can be generous toward someone whose story moves us and impatient with someone whose needs keep returning. A community cannot make its provision depend on which response happens to prevail.
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” concerns the obligations Jews carry for one another within the covenant. In this chapter I also use it to consider how a community takes responsibility for recurring needs. The laws of rescue, wages and provision for the poor have their own sources and conditions. They are brought together here because they make care an obligation that people can rely on.[ER37]
תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching” does not wait for us to feel generous before making a claim on our conduct. HASHEM is the Source of the lives involved and of the obligations between them. Affection matters, but the duty does not disappear when affection is absent.
II What guarantorship means
The Talmud uses the language of a guarantor:
כׇּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה
Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh.
“All of Israel are guarantors for one another.”
An עָרֵב ~ arev ~ “guarantor” bears a responsibility for another person. The word asks more of us than sympathy. It tells us that belonging to the covenant carries consequences for how we respond to one another’s conduct.
The discussion immediately adds a condition:
הָתָם שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדָם לְמַחוֹת, וְלֹא מִיחוּ.
Hatam she-yesh be-yadam limchot, ve-lo michu.
“There, the case is one in which they could protest but did not protest.”
The passage is concerned with accountability for wrongdoing that people could have opposed. It does not make every Jew automatically responsible for every other Jew’s financial debts. The comparison with a guarantor helps us take responsibility seriously. It cannot supply the conditions of a legal rule on its own.[ER38]
Earlier on the page, the Talmud includes future generations and future converts within the covenant’s reach. Source note 1 gives the passage. Personal acquaintance is not what creates the bond. We inherit responsibilities within a people, including toward people we have never met.
III Responsibility and the ability to act
The Jerusalem Talmud uses an image of someone cutting meat and injuring one hand with the other. Would the injured hand strike back? The image challenges revenge by asking us to see how closely our lives belong together. Source note 1 gives its wording.
The image of one body can also help us understand shared responsibility. Harm in one part of a community affects other people. This is an analogy for the bond between people, not a physiological description of a nation. It asks us to notice suffering and wrongdoing we would prefer to regard as someone else’s concern.[ER39]
Shabbat states the responsibility in terms of a person’s ability to protest:
כׇּל מִי שֶׁאֶפְשָׁר לִמְחוֹת לְאַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ וְלֹא מִיחָה. נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ. בְּאַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ. נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ. בְּכָל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ. נִתְפָּס עַל כָּל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ.
Kol mi she-efshar limchot le-anshei veito ve-lo michah, nitpas al anshei veito. Be-anshei iro, nitpas al anshei iro. Be-khol ha-olam kullo, nitpas al kol ha-olam kullo.
“Anyone who can protest the wrongdoing of their household and does not is held accountable for the household. If they can protest the wrongdoing of their city, they are held accountable for the city. If their reach extends to the whole world, they are held accountable for the whole world.”
The repeated condition is ability. A person’s responsibility grows with their reach. Someone who can affect a household and someone who can affect a city do not stand in the same position. We should examine our actual influence honestly, including the times when we have more of it than we would like to admit.[ER40]
This can be uncomfortable. Silence may spare us a difficult conversation while leaving another person exposed to harm. But concern alone does not tell us what to say, when to say it or what authority we have. Those questions require attention too.
IV When a life is in danger
Leviticus gives the command:
לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל דַּם רֵעֶךָ
Lo ta’amod al dam re’ekha.
“Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
Rashi explains the verse through situations in which a person can save someone facing death: drowning, an animal attack or an attack by robbers. The Talmud discusses the same cases and asks what rescue requires. Source note 2 gives the passages.
Sanhedrin includes the effort of obtaining help and hiring rescuers. A person cannot assume that the duty ends merely because they cannot carry out the rescue alone. The discussion moves concern toward whatever effective help can be obtained.
These sources ask us to take another person’s danger seriously enough to act. They do not give one simple rule for every degree of risk or expense. A real rescue requires attention to what will help and to the dangers involved. The chapter’s point is that feeling sorry for someone cannot take the place of help we are able and required to provide.[ER41]
V The fast Isaiah describes
Isaiah confronts people who fast while allowing oppression to continue. Through the prophet, HASHEM asks:
הֲלוֹא זֶה צוֹם אֶבְחָרֵהוּ פַּתֵּחַ חַרְצֻבּוֹת רֶשַׁע הַתֵּר אֲגֻדּוֹת מוֹטָה וְשַׁלַּח רְצוּצִים חׇפְשִׁים וְכׇל־מוֹטָה תְּנַתֵּקוּ׃
Halo zeh tzom evcharehu, patte’ach chartzubbot resha, hatter aguddot motah, ve-shallach retzutzim chofshim, ve-khol motah tenatteku.
“Is this not the fast I choose: to loosen the bonds of wickedness, undo the straps of the yoke, set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”
The next verse brings the demand into the home:
הֲלוֹא פָרֹס לָרָעֵב לַחְמֶךָ וַעֲנִיִּים מְרוּדִים תָּבִיא בָיִת כִּי־תִרְאֶה עָרֹם וְכִסִּיתוֹ וּמִבְּשָׂרְךָ לֹא תִתְעַלָּם׃
Halo faros la-raev lachmekha, va-aniyyim merudim tavi vayit. Ki tir’eh arom ve-khissito, u-mi-besarekha lo titallam.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see someone without clothing, clothe them, and do not turn away from your own flesh.”
The prophet does not permit the discipline of fasting to cover over the way people are treated. Feeding someone and releasing someone from oppression belong to the service the fast is meant to express. Religious practice cannot excuse the wrong being done alongside it.
The passage then speaks of restoration:
אָז יִבָּקַע כַּשַּׁחַר אוֹרֶךָ וַאֲרֻכָתְךָ מְהֵרָה תִצְמָח
Az yibbaka ka-shachar orekha, va-arukhatkha meherah titzmach.
“Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will spring up quickly.”
In the prophet’s account, the promised restoration follows a change in conduct. We cannot separate the hope for renewal from the work of putting wrongs right. This is a call to return, not a timetable by which we can predict a particular person’s healing or relief from suffering.
VI Paying the worker on time
Responsibility also reaches the ordinary transaction. Deuteronomy says:
לֹא־תַעֲשֹׁק שָׂכִיר עָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן מֵאַחֶיךָ אוֹ מִגֵּרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בְּאַרְצְךָ בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ׃
Lo ta’ashok sakhir ani ve-evyon, me-achekha o mi-gerkha asher be-artzekha bi-she’arekha.
“Do not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether from your own people or from the stranger in your land, within your gates.”
בְּיוֹמוֹ תִתֵּן שְׂכָרוֹ וְלֹא־תָבוֹא עָלָיו הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ כִּי עָנִי הוּא וְאֵלָיו הוּא נֹשֵׂא אֶת־נַפְשׁוֹ
Be-yomo titten sekharo, ve-lo tavo alav ha-shemesh, ki ani hu ve-elav hu nose et nafsho.
“Give the worker the wages that day, before the sun sets, for the worker is poor and depends on them for life.”
The reason is close to daily experience. The worker needs the money to live. What looks like a short delay to the person holding the funds can mean going without food or failing to meet an expense for the person waiting.
Sefer HaChinukh explains the command through the worker’s need for sustenance. It also distinguishes the deadlines and conditions that apply to different kinds of employment. Source note 3 gives its explanation and an example of those distinctions. The lesson about prompt payment must be carried into the details of the law, not used to replace them.[ER42]
The wider point is that control of money does not put our conduct outside Torah. A worker should not have to depend on an employer’s mood to receive what is due. Before hiring, the employer needs to consider how the obligation will be met. Concern for the person doing the work should be evident in the arrangements for payment.[ER43]
VII Care organized by the community
Some needs recur too often to be met by occasional gestures. A community needs people who know what must be collected, when it will be distributed and who is depending on it.
Bava Batra describes a תַּמְחוּי ~ tamchui ~ “communal food provision” and a קֻפָּה ~ kupah ~ “communal fund”:
תַּמְחוּי בְּכׇל יוֹם, קוּפָּה מֵעֶרֶב שַׁבָּת לְעֶרֶב שַׁבָּת.
Tamchui be-khol yom, kupah me-erev Shabbat le-erev Shabbat.
“Food provision is daily. The communal fund operates from one eve of Shabbat to the next.”
Rambam requires a Jewish community to appoint known, trustworthy collectors for its fund. He describes regular collection and distribution sufficient for a poor person’s needs over seven days. He also records that the daily food provision was practiced in some places and not in others. Source note 4 gives both statements.[ER44]
These arrangements make responsibility visible in a schedule and in people entrusted with the work. Someone who needs food should not have to wait until their situation produces a fresh wave of sympathy. A recurring need calls for a way of responding that can recur too.
For a community now, the practical questions are straightforward. Who knows about the need? Who is responsible for following up? What happens if the usual volunteer is unavailable? Asking these questions does not settle every policy. It reveals whether the help is dependable.
צְדָקָה ~ tzedakah ~ “obligatory giving” also belongs to the work of return. Rambam connects it with Israel’s redemption. His teaching that גְּאוּלָה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption” requires תְּשׁוּבָה ~ teshuvah ~ “return and repentance” remains in force. Source note 7 places the two statements together. Giving is part of changing our conduct, not a way to bypass that change.
VIII Provision within the harvest
The agricultural commandments include provision for people in need within the work of harvesting. Leviticus says:
וּבְקֻצְרְכֶם אֶת־קְצִיר אַרְצְכֶם לֹא־תְכַלֶּה פְּאַת שָׂדְךָ בְּקֻצְרֶךָ וְלֶקֶט קְצִירְךָ לֹא תְלַקֵּט לֶעָנִי וְלַגֵּר תַּעֲזֹב אֹתָם
U-ve-kutzrekhem et ketzir artzekhem, lo tekhalleh pe’at sadekha be-kutzrekha, ve-leket ketzirkha lo telakket. Le-ani ve-la-ger ta’azov otam.
“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not finish reaping the edge of your field and do not gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the stranger.”
פֵּאָה ~ pe’ah ~ “the field’s edge” and לֶקֶט ~ leket ~ “gleanings” limit what the farmer may take. שִׁכְחָה ~ shikhchah ~ “forgotten produce” includes the forgotten sheaf described in Deuteronomy. The farmer is told not to return for it. Source note 5 gives that verse.
בִּעוּר מַעַשְׂרוֹת ~ biur ma’asrot ~ “clearing out tithes” sets a further limit on retaining designated produce. The Mishnah distinguishes gifts that must reach their recipients from produce subject to other forms of removal. It is not a rule that every kind of tithe is distributed in the same way. Source note 5 gives the relevant distinction.[ER45]
The farmer’s labor is real, and the farmer’s claims are limited by the command of HASHEM. Provision for the poor is part of the harvest’s obligations. It does not wait until the owner has taken everything and decided whether anything can be spared.[ER46]
Leviticus states the wider ground in its account of the land:
כִּי־לִי הָאָרֶץ
Ki li ha-aretz.
“For the land is Mine.”
HASHEM is the speaker. Ownership does not make the field a place outside Torah. The command reaches the work while it is being done and tells the owner to leave room for someone else’s need.
IX Correction and its limits
Responsibility for another person can be misused. We may begin by wanting to help and end by treating our own judgment as authority over their life. Concern does not give us that authority.
תּוֹכֵחָה ~ tokhahah ~ “correction or rebuke” is itself commanded:
הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא
Hokhe’ach tokhi’ach et amitekha, ve-lo tissa alav chet.
“You shall surely correct your fellow and not bear sin on their account.”
The sources require more care than a slogan about speaking up. Bava Metzia speaks of correction “even a hundred times.” Rambam begins with private conversation, a gentle manner and an explanation that the words are intended for the other person’s good. Yevamot also teaches the importance of refraining from words that will not be heard. Source note 6 gives these teachings.[ER47]
Sefer HaChinukh discusses the likely benefit of correction and the dangers involved. Its discussion of humiliating another person is a separate entry. Rambam also distinguishes circumstances in which public reproach is contemplated. These sources cannot be reduced to “always speak” or “never speak publicly.” Applying them to a particular person requires knowledge of the law and of the situation.[ER48]
This is where Arevut needs עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility.” We may be mistaken about what happened. We may be right about the wrong and still choose a harmful way to address it. We need to ask whether our intervention is serving the person and the command, or satisfying our desire to be the one who corrects.
Chapter Five will take up that discipline. For now, shared responsibility asks us to answer for our conduct. It does not make us the source of another person’s obligations.
X Personal conduct and communal failure
A person can do much that is right while living in a community that neglects people or tolerates injustice. The good they do remains real. It does not answer every question about what they could have done for others.
Jeremiah addresses a people that has turned away from HASHEM:
כִּי־שְׁתַּיִם רָעוֹת עָשָׂה עַמִּי אֹתִי עָזְבוּ מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים לַחְצֹב לָהֶם בֹּארוֹת בֹּארֹת נִשְׁבָּרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָכִלוּ הַמָּיִם׃
Ki shetayim ra’ot asah ammi. Oti azevu, mekor mayim chayyim, lachtzov lahem borot, borot nishbarim asher lo yakhilu ha-mayim.
“For My people have done two wrongs. They have abandoned Me, the source of living waters, to dig cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
The prophet names both the abandonment of the Source and the attempt to rely on something that cannot sustain the people. Living water is the prophetic image. It does not describe HASHEM as a material substance.
The address is communal, but that does not make every person equally guilty. Individual conduct and capacity still matter. The question for each of us is whether we have used the influence we actually have, or treated personal observance as permission to withdraw from everyone else.
Chapter Six will consider personal return more fully. Here it is enough to recognize that taking responsibility for ourselves includes examining how our choices affect the people among whom we live.
XI Obligation that outlasts generosity
Voluntary generosity and covenantal obligation can lead to similar acts. The difference matters when willingness fades. A duty remains a duty even when we would rather spend our time or money elsewhere.
Fulfilling an obligation can still involve care, effort and merit. The fact that something is required does not make it worthless. Bava Batra praises the person who brings others into the work of giving:[ER49]
גָּדוֹל הַמְעַשֶּׂה יוֹתֵר מִן הָעוֹשֶׂה
Gadol ha-me’asseh yoter min ha-oseh.
“Greater is the one who brings others to act than the one who acts.”
The context is giving to the poor. The teaching recognizes the work of helping others give. I draw from it a reason to value the patient work of organizing care, alongside the immediate act of helping someone.
A dependable arrangement may attract little attention. Money is collected, a payment arrives on time and someone checks that a need has been met. Other people can plan their lives because the promised help is there.
Begin with one recurring responsibility you have been meeting irregularly. It might be a promised contribution or a commitment to check on someone. Ask the person or the responsible organizer what is needed, agree on a manageable schedule and put the next action in your calendar. Then keep it. This is a practical step of return from good intention toward dependable conduct.
The question is whether another person can rely on what we have promised when the feeling that first moved us has passed.
Source notes
The Hebrew and Aramaic excerpts were checked against the listed Sefaria segments. Cantillation and some punctuation are omitted. English renderings are adapted for this manuscript and follow its sacred language conventions. Transliterations use Sephardic pronunciation. These notes give the sources for the chapter’s argument and retain qualifications that affect their meaning.
1 The covenant and the image of one body
Shevuot includes generations not present at the original covenant and people who will later enter it:
דּוֹרוֹת הַבָּאִים וְגֵרִים הָעֲתִידִין לְהִתְגַּיֵּיר מִנַּיִן? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ״.
Dorot ha-ba’im ve-geirim ha-atidin lehitgayyer minayin? Talmud lomar: ve-et asher einennu.
“From where do we include future generations and future converts? The text says: ‘And those who are not here.’”
The Jerusalem Talmud illustrates the prohibition of revenge through the relationship between two hands:
הֲוָה מְקַטֵּעַ קוֹפָּד וּמְחַת סַכִּינָא לְיָדוֹי. תַּחֲזוֹר וְתִמְחֵי לְיָדֵיהּ.
Havah mekatte’a koppad u-mechat sakkina li-yedoi. Tachazor ve-timchei li-yedeh.
“A person was cutting meat and the knife struck a hand. Would that hand turn and strike the other?”
sefaria.org/Jerusalem_Talmud_Nedarim.9.4.2
The original setting concerns revenge. The chapter draws on the image to explain the bond within a community without treating a people as a literal biological body.
2 Rescue includes obtaining help
Rashi explains the prohibition against standing by another person’s blood:
לִרְאוֹת בְּמִיתָתוֹ וְאַתָּה יָכוֹל לְהַצִּילוֹ, כְּגוֹן טוֹבֵעַ בַּנָּהָר וְחַיָּה אוֹ לִיסְטִים בָּאִים עָלָיו
Lir’ot be-mitato ve-attah yakhol lehatzilo, ke-gon tove’a ba-nahar ve-chayyah o listim ba’im alav.
“To see the person facing death when you can save them, as when someone is drowning in a river or an animal or robbers are attacking.”
sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Leviticus.19.16.2
Sanhedrin explains why the command includes more than rescue performed personally:
אִי מֵהָתָם, הֲוָה אָמֵינָא: הָנֵי מִילֵּי בְּנַפְשֵׁיהּ, אֲבָל מִיטְרַח וּמֵיגַר אָגוֹרֵי , אֵימָא לָא. קָא מַשְׁמַע לַן.
I me-hatam, hava amina: hanei millei be-nafsheh, aval mitrach u-meigar agurei, eima la. Ka mashma lan.
“From that source alone, I might have said that the duty concerns personal action, but not the effort of hiring others. This teaches us otherwise.”
The preceding discussion names drowning, an animal attack and robbers. This excerpt establishes that obtaining help belongs within the discussion of rescue. It does not settle every question of permissible risk or required expenditure.
3 Wages and the needs of the worker
Sefer HaChinukh explains why delay matters:
כִּי כָּל שָׂכִיר בָּרֹב צָרִיךְ לִשְׂכָרוֹ לִמְזוֹנוֹתָיו, עַל כֵּן אֵין רָאוּי לְאַחֵר לוֹ מְזוֹנוֹתָיו
Ki kol sakhir ba-rov tzarikh li-sekharo li-mezonotav, al ken ein ra’ui le’acher lo mezonotav.
“A hired worker generally needs the wages for sustenance. It is therefore wrong to delay that sustenance.”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaChinukh.588.2
Its discussion of the law gives a particular payment period for daytime work:
שְׂכִיר יוֹם גּוֹבֶה כָּל הַלַּיְלָה
Sekhir yom goveh kol ha-laylah.
“A daytime worker may collect throughout the night.”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaChinukh.588.3
The same segment distinguishes nighttime work and other arrangements. It also discusses a demand for payment, the employer’s means and further conditions. Near the end it advises having the money ready before hiring. The chapter therefore preserves the concern for timely payment without assigning one deadline to every case.
4 The communal fund
Rambam begins his account of organized provision:
כָּל עִיר שֶׁיֵּשׁ בָּהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל חַיָּבִין לְהַעֲמִיד מֵהֶם גַּבָּאֵי צְדָקָה אֲנָשִׁים יְדוּעִים וְנֶאֱמָנִים
Kol ir she-yesh bah Yisrael, chayyavin leha’amid mehem gabba’ei tzedakah, anashim yedu’im ve-ne’emanim.
“Every city with a Jewish community must appoint collectors for obligatory giving from among its members, people who are known and trustworthy.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Gifts_to_the_Poor.9.1
The segment continues with collection and distribution from one eve of Shabbat to the next, providing each poor person with sustenance for seven days. Rambam then records a difference in communal practice:
אֲבָל תַּמְחוּי יֵשׁ מְקוֹמוֹת שֶׁנָּהֲגוּ בּוֹ וְיֵשׁ מְקוֹמוֹת שֶׁלֹּא נָהֲגוּ בּוֹ
Aval tamchui, yesh mekomot she-nahagu vo ve-yesh mekomot she-lo nahagu vo.
“As for the communal food provision, some places practiced it and some did not.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Gifts_to_the_Poor.9.3
The chapter’s argument concerns reliable provision. It does not claim that every community in every period used an identical daily arrangement.
5 The forgotten sheaf and retained tithes
כִּי תִקְצֹר קְצִירְךָ בְשָׂדֶךָ וְשָׁכַחְתָּ עֹמֶר בַּשָּׂדֶה לֹא תָשׁוּב לְקַחְתּוֹ לַגֵּר לַיָּתוֹם וְלָאַלְמָנָה יִהְיֶה
Ki tiktzor ketzirkha ve-sadekha ve-shakhachta omer ba-sadeh, lo tashuv lekachto. La-ger, la-yatom ve-la-almanah yihyeh.
“When you reap your harvest in the field and forget a sheaf there, do not return to take it. It shall be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow.”
In its discussion of clearing out designated produce, the Mishnah identifies gifts that must be delivered to their recipients:
נוֹתְנִין תְּרוּמָה וּתְרוּמַת מַעֲשֵׂר לַבְּעָלִים, וּמַעֲשֵׂר רִאשׁוֹן לִבְעָלָיו, וּמַעֲשַׂר עָנִי לִבְעָלָיו.
Notenin terumah u-terumat ma’aser la-be’alim, u-ma’aser rishon li-ve’alav, u-ma’asar ani li-ve’alav.
“The priestly contribution and the contribution from the tithe are given to those entitled to them, the first tithe to its recipient and the poor tithe to its recipient.”
sefaria.org/Mishnah_Maaser_Sheni.5.6
The segment separately discusses removal of other produce and disagreements concerning first fruits and cooked food. Its categories should not be collapsed into a single instruction to distribute every tithe in the same way. The agricultural laws also have conditions of application that this overview does not attempt to decide.
6 Correction requires judgment
Bava Metzia records Rava’s explanation of the repeated wording in the command:
״הוֹכֵחַ״ אֲפִילּוּ מֵאָה פְּעָמִים מַשְׁמַע
Hokhe’ach, afillu me’ah pe’amim mashma.
“‘Correct’ implies even a hundred times.”
sefaria.org/Bava_Metzia.31a.18
Rambam states the manner of the initial approach:
צָרִיךְ לְהוֹכִיחוֹ בֵּינוֹ לְבֵין עַצְמוֹ. וִידַבֵּר לוֹ בְּנַחַת וּבְלָשׁוֹן רַכָּה וְיוֹדִיעוֹ שֶׁאֵינוֹ אוֹמֵר לוֹ אֶלָּא לְטוֹבָתוֹ
Tzarikh lehokhicho beino le-vein atzmo. Vi-dabber lo be-nachat u-vi-leshon rakkah, ve-yodi’o she-eino omer lo ella le-tovato.
“The correction should be offered privately, calmly and in gentle language, making clear that it is being offered for the other person’s good.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.6.7
Rabbi Ile’a, in the name of Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon, teaches in Yevamot:
כְּשֵׁם שֶׁמִּצְוָה עַל אָדָם לוֹמַר דָּבָר הַנִּשְׁמָע, כָּךְ מִצְוָה עַל אָדָם שֶׁלֹּא לוֹמַר דָּבָר שֶׁאֵינוֹ נִשְׁמָע.
Ke-shem she-mitzva al adam lomar davar ha-nishma, kakh mitzva al adam she-lo lomar davar she-eino nishma.
“Just as a person is commanded to say what will be heard, a person is commanded not to say what will not be heard.”
Rabbi Abba, in the same segment, calls this an obligation. Sefer HaChinukh urges careful consideration of the likely benefit:
וְלַחְשֹׁב וְלִרְאוֹת אִם יִהְיֶה תּוֹעֶלֶת בִּדְבָרָיו אֶל הַחוֹטֵא
Ve-lachshov ve-lir’ot im yihyeh to’elet bi-devarav el ha-chote.
“To consider and examine whether the words will benefit the person who has sinned.”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaChinukh.239.3
Its next entry addresses humiliation and asks whether correction may proceed even when the recipient’s face changes with shame:
יָכוֹל אֲפִלּוּ פָּנָיו מִשְׁתַּנּוֹת? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר וְלֹא תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא.
Yakhol afillu panav mishtannot? Talmud lomar: ve-lo tissa alav chet.
“Could this apply even when the person’s face changes? The text says: ‘Do not bear sin on their account.’”
sefaria.org/Sefer_HaChinukh.240.1
Rambam nevertheless distinguishes a category of public correction after private correction has failed:
אֲבָל בְּדִבְרֵי שָׁמַיִם אִם לֹא חָזַר בּוֹ בַּסֵּתֶר מַכְלִימִין אוֹתוֹ בָּרַבִּים
Aval be-divrei shamayim, im lo chazar bo ba-seter, makhlimin oto ba-rabbim.
“But in matters concerning HASHEM, if the person has not returned after private correction, the person is put to shame publicly.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.6.8
These teachings address different aspects of correction. Their relationship and application cannot be settled by selecting one sentence. The chapter does not authorize readers to shame a particular person or community. It preserves both the duty to take wrongdoing seriously and the need for qualified judgment about how to respond.
7 Giving and return
Rambam writes about obligatory giving:
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּצְדָקָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-tzedakah.
“Israel is redeemed only through obligatory giving.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Gifts_to_the_Poor.10.1
In his account of repentance, he also writes:
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
Both statements remain part of the chapter’s account. The call to dependable giving does not remove the necessity of return.
Chapter Five
Anavah and the limits of authority
Taking responsibility for someone gives us influence in their life. It also brings a temptation to take over. Humility asks us to be honest about what we can do, what is ours to do and where our authority ends.
I When helping becomes taking over
Chapter Four argued that עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” makes demands on us. Care needs to become dependable. That includes building arrangements that other people can rely on and acting when we have the ability and obligation to help.[ER50]
But taking responsibility can change how we see the person we are helping. We may begin to assume that we know what is best, that our plan should settle the matter or that their choices need our approval. It can happen without a conscious decision to control anyone.
This is where עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” matters. We need to recognize the abilities HASHEM has given us and use them well. We also need to remember that having the ability to help does not make another person’s life our possession.
Humility is sometimes mistaken for making ourselves small. A person may decline a task they could do, keep quiet when someone needs them to speak or dismiss a real ability as though admitting it would be boastful. That can leave necessary work undone. The question is whether we are answering the responsibility before us honestly.
The image I will use in this chapter is that of taking our proper place. It asks us to accept the work entrusted to us while leaving room for other people to act, speak and be heard.
II Knowing our place
To know our place, we have to look at more than our feelings about ourselves. What can we actually do? What do we still need to learn? What authority do we have in this situation? What does תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching” require of us? A confident answer can be wrong, and a hesitant answer can be an excuse.
Rambam’s account of character helps us examine these questions, though it needs to be read carefully. In Human Dispositions 1:4 he describes the middle path. In 1:5 he distinguishes ordinary humility from a further movement away from pride. Then, in 2:3, he says that pride requires an especially strong response. Here he does not recommend settling at the midpoint. He calls for deep lowliness of spirit. Source note 1 gives the relevant passages.[ER51]
So the image of taking our proper place is a way of discussing responsibility. It should not turn Rambam’s praise of lowliness into a criticism of it. A person can be deeply humble and still have decisions to make, skills to use and duties to fulfill.
We can overstate our importance, but we can also refuse the work that is ours. Anavah calls us to notice both tendencies. It asks us to use what HASHEM has given us without treating those gifts as evidence that we stand above the people around us.[ER52]
That is also what I mean by responding to a command. We do not create the obligation by deciding that our own project matters. We bring our judgment and effort to an obligation received from HASHEM. Our part is active, and we remain answerable for it.[ER53]
III Moshe and the use of authority
The Torah describes Moshe this way:
וְהָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה עָנָו מְאֹד מִכֹּל הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר עַל־פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה׃
Ve-ha-ish Moshe anav me’od mi-kol ha-adam asher al penei ha-adamah.
“The man Moshe was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.”
Moshe confronted Pharaoh, taught Torah and led Israel through the wilderness. His humility did not remove him from public responsibility. The description asks us to consider how a person can hold authority without becoming consumed by personal standing.
The verse appears after Miriam and Aharon speak against him. The account does not record Moshe defending his own position. Later in the chapter, when Miriam is afflicted, he pleads for her healing:
אֵל נָא רְפָא נָא לָהּ
El na, refa na lah.
“HASHEM, please heal her.”
That concern for Miriam matters. So does the fact that Moshe exercised judgment. Shabbat 87a describes three decisions he made on his own initiative that HASHEM approved, including breaking the tablets. Source note 2 gives the passage. His humility cannot mean that he never acted without a separate instruction.[ER54]
The distinction is between exercising judgment and treating our judgment as beyond correction. A responsibility may require courage and a decision. Humility keeps us accountable for how we make that decision and for what follows from it.
IV Remembering where our strength comes from
Deuteronomy describes a thought that can follow success:
וְאָמַרְתָּ בִּלְבָבֶךָ כֹּחִי וְעֹצֶם יָדִי עָשָׂה לִי אֶת־הַחַיִל הַזֶּה׃
Ve-amarta bi-lvavekha, kochi ve-otzem yadi asah li et ha-chayil ha-zeh.
“You may say in your heart, ‘My strength and the power of my hand have made this wealth for me.’”
The thought need not be spoken aloud. We may simply grow used to seeing our achievements as proof that our judgment is right. The people who helped us become less visible. So do the abilities and circumstances we did not create.
The next verse tells us what to remember:
וְזָכַרְתָּ אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי הוּא הַנֹּתֵן לְךָ כֹּחַ לַעֲשׂוֹת חָיִל
Ve-zakharta et ADONAI Elohekha, ki hu ha-noten lekha ko’ach la’asot chayil.
“Remember HASHEM, for HASHEM gives you the strength to make wealth.”
The work is real. So is the ability to do it. The correction is that our strength is received. HASHEM is its Source. Remembering this changes how we hold an achievement, including how readily we listen when someone tells us that our successful approach is causing harm.
It can also help us face failure more honestly. When we believe that everything rests on us, a setback can become unbearable. But humility does not guarantee that we will avoid exhaustion or distress. People carrying real responsibilities may need rest, help and changes in the demands placed on them.[ER55]
We are responsible for the work we undertake and for the consequences we can reasonably affect. We cannot make every result obey our intentions. Remembering HASHEM should make us more honest about both parts of that sentence.
V When caution leaves the work undone
There is a danger in the other direction. We can be so concerned about making a mistake that we fail to respond to what is happening in front of us.
Gittin tells of Bar Kamtza bringing an offering from the Roman emperor after deliberately giving it a blemish. The sages considered offering it to avoid hostility from the authorities. Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas objected that people would conclude that blemished offerings were permitted. When another response was proposed to prevent Bar Kamtza from reporting back, he objected to that as well. Source note 3 gives the passages.
Rabbi Yochanan’s judgment is severe. He says that Rabbi Zekharyah’s forbearance brought about the destruction of the Temple and exile from the land. This is the Talmud’s account of a failure of judgment in a crisis. Rabbi Zekharyah did express judgments. The criticism is that his concern about what people might infer left the wider danger unanswered.[ER56]
The story prevents us from assuming that restraint is always the humble choice. Sometimes restraint protects other people. Sometimes it protects us from having to decide. We have to examine which is happening, with attention to the circumstances and the judgment the situation requires.
The lesson here is that fear of overstepping does not remove a responsibility to act. Anavah has to accompany the decision, including the willingness to seek guidance and accept correction.
VI Authority that remains answerable
A person may have real authority as a teacher, a parent or a communal leader. That authority has a basis and a purpose. Holding it does not make every preference an obligation for someone else.
Sincere conviction is not enough to establish that HASHEM has assigned us a particular role. We still need to ask what authorizes our action, what its limits are and how it is answerable to Torah. Otherwise, the language of service can become a way of defending whatever we already wanted to do.[ER57]
Success can make that examination harder. People begin to trust us, and we may start to mistake their trust for permission to decide more and more. Humility requires us to keep asking the questions even when no one else is asking them.
The letter attributed to Ramban gives a practical place to begin:
תִּתְנַהֵג תָּמִיד לְדַבֵּר כָּל דְּבָרֶיךָ בְּנַחַת, לְכָל אָדָם וּבְכָל עֵת
Titnaheg tamid le-dabber kol devarekha be-nachat, le-khol adam u-ve-khol et.
“Make a habit of speaking all your words calmly, to every person and at every time.”
sefaria.org/Iggeret_HaRamban.2
The letter connects calm speech with freedom from anger, then humility with reverence for HASHEM. Source note 4 gives that sequence. It begins with something we can practice in an ordinary conversation. We do not have to wait until we feel humble before changing how we speak.[ER58]
This can be tested most clearly with someone who cannot easily challenge us. Do we allow them to finish? Can they disagree without being made to feel ungrateful? The way we answer may tell us more than our general opinion of our own humility.
VII Helping without possessing
Arevut asks us to take another person’s need seriously. Anavah asks us to examine what happens to that person when we help. Both questions belong in the same conversation.
It is possible to grow attached to being needed. We may continue making decisions that the other person could now make, or dismiss a solution because someone else thought of it. The help may still do some good, while also keeping us at the center of the relationship.
The other person remains a bearer of צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים ~ Tzelem Elohim ~ “The image of HASHEM.” Their dignity does not depend on our usefulness to them. It should affect how we listen, how we offer help and how willingly we acknowledge their abilities.
Rabbi Tarfon teaches:
לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה.
Lo alekha ha-melakhah ligmor, ve-lo attah ven chorin libbatel mimmennah.
“It is not upon you to complete the work, and you are not free to withdraw from it.”
The first clause limits the burden of having to complete the whole work. The second prevents that limit from becoming an excuse to abandon it. This does not mean that results are irrelevant or that no task can be finished. We still have to follow through on what we can and should complete.[ER59]
Applied to helping a neighbor, the teaching asks for persistence without a claim to control their whole life. We can take care over our actions, learn from their effects and accept help ourselves. We can also recognize when another person is better placed to carry part of the work.
VIII The institution and the Source
Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk addresses a related mistake in Meshekh Chokhmah, in his commentary on the breaking of the tablets. The people had come to depend on Moshe’s presence. When they thought he would not return, they sought a visible substitute in the calf.
His account does not excuse the calf as something other than idolatry. It examines how that error arose. The people had confused what served HASHEM with a power they could rely on in its own right. Moshe’s absence exposed how much they had attached to the person who brought them Torah.[ER60]
Meshekh Chokhmah insists that Torah does not depend on Moshe. He extends the warning to the sanctuary and the tablets themselves. Their sanctity is not an independent power that people can possess while abandoning the covenant. Source note 5 gives his words.
In this reading, breaking the tablets confronts the people with their mistake. Had Moshe simply handed them over, the people might have exchanged their attachment to the calf for the same mistaken attachment to the tablets. The visible object would have changed while the misunderstanding remained.
The commentary also discusses the loss of the sanctuary’s sanctity when Israel violates the covenant. Its warning is that even the most revered place cannot be treated as a substitute for fidelity to HASHEM. It gives us reason to examine what we expect an institution to do for us merely by continuing to exist.[ER61]
I apply that warning to institutions we build now, including New Yavneh. A teaching framework, a community or an organization exists to serve a purpose received from Torah. Its history and the effort invested in it do not put it beyond correction. We should be willing to change its practices and, if necessary, its structure when they fail that purpose.[ER62]
An institution can be useful and worth sustaining without being indispensable. HASHEM is the Source. Our arrangements remain accountable to the work they are meant to serve.
IX Keeping an honest account
It is easy to agree with these ideas and miss the moment when they apply to us. We usually have an explanation for why we interrupted, insisted or took charge. Regular attention to specific incidents can show us what those explanations leave out.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ ~ Cheshbon HaNefesh ~ “Accounting of the soul” gives that attention a practice. We look back over what we did and ask where correction is needed. Writing it down helps us stay with an actual event instead of a flattering or condemning account of our character.
In his book of that name, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lefin lays out a method involving thirteen traits. One receives special attention each week, while the evening account still includes failures in the others. A written record allows a person to notice patterns over time. Source note 6 gives the passages.[ER63]
For this chapter, begin with one situation from today in which you had influence over someone else. Write down what you did, what the other person said and what you were trying to accomplish. Then ask whether you listened, whether you claimed more authority than you had or whether you avoided a responsibility you could have met.
Choose one correction you can make. It might be acknowledging someone’s contribution, asking a question you should have asked earlier or following through on a promise. If you owe someone an apology or a repair, the written account should lead toward it.
This is a step of תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return.” The purpose is to change our conduct before HASHEM. Calling ourselves humble does not do that work, and neither does repeatedly telling ourselves that we are worthless.
X Knowing when to be quiet
Speech is one place where this practice becomes immediate. We may interrupt because we want recognition, because we are impatient or simply because we have developed a habit. The motive needs examination. We should not assume we know it in every case.
שְׁתִיקָה ~ Shetikah ~ “Silence” gives us a way to pause before the habit takes over. Another person may need time to finish a thought. We may need time to understand it. Having something to say does not always mean that saying it now will help.
Shimon, the son of Rabban Gamliel, teaches:
שִׁמְעוֹן בְּנוֹ אוֹמֵר, כָּל יָמַי גָּדַלְתִּי בֵין הַחֲכָמִים, וְלֹא מָצָאתִי לַגּוּף טוֹב אֶלָּא שְׁתִיקָה. וְלֹא הַמִּדְרָשׁ הוּא הָעִקָּר, אֶלָּא הַמַּעֲשֶׂה. וְכָל הַמַּרְבֶּה דְבָרִים, מֵבִיא חֵטְא:
Shimon beno omer, kol yamai gadalti vein ha-chakhamim, ve-lo matzati la-guf tov ella shetikah. Ve-lo ha-midrash hu ha-ikkar, ella ha-ma’aseh. Ve-khol ha-marbeh devarim, mevi chet.
“Shimon his son says: All my days I grew up among the sages, and I found nothing better for the body than silence. Study is not the main thing, but action. Whoever multiplies words brings sin.”
The teaching joins restraint in speech to the importance of action. It asks us to examine what our words are doing. We can speak at length about care while failing to carry out the small thing another person needs from us.[ER64]
Silence also has limits. There are times to ask a question, correct a mistake or speak for someone who is being ignored. The cautionary account in Gittin should keep us from using quietness as proof that we have acted well.
In the next conversation where you feel a need to establish your importance, let the other person finish. Listen long enough to be able to say what they meant. Then decide what needs to be said. That is a modest practice, but it can change the exchange.
XI Humility in the commitments we carry
The earlier chapters considered אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM,” אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings” and Arevut. Anavah matters within each of these commitments.
In devotion to HASHEM, it asks whether we have begun to treat our intensity as proof that our judgments deserve special authority. In care for other people, it asks whether we are listening to the person or defending our preferred solution. In shared responsibility, it asks whether our intervention answers a real duty or extends our control.
These questions do not make commitment weaker. They help us see where our conduct has drifted from what we claim to serve. Love and responsibility need that examination, especially when other people depend on us.
Iggeret HaRamban connects humility and reverence with שְׁכִינָה ~ Shekhinah ~ “The presence of HASHEM.” The same letter says that even the heavens cannot contain HASHEM. Source note 4 places those passages together. Its language of presence cannot mean that HASHEM occupies a physical space inside a person.[ER65]
HASHEM is the uncreated Source, and Torah judges the use we make of our abilities. A method of self-examination can help us notice our conduct. It cannot create the obligation or make our own judgment final.
The work of return is also part of the hope for גְּאֻלָּה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption.” Rambam teaches that Israel is redeemed only through return. Source note 7 gives the passage. Humility should lead us toward that return in what we actually do.
Tonight, begin with the situation you wrote down. Where did you take more authority than you had? Where did you leave necessary work undone? Make the correction that is yours to make.
Source notes
The Hebrew passages below and in the chapter were checked against the linked Sefaria texts. Cantillation and paragraph markers are omitted. Transliteration follows Sephardic pronunciation. English renderings are adapted for this manuscript’s naming conventions. These notes distinguish the sources from the chapter’s applications.
1 Rambam on the middle path and humility
Human Dispositions 1:4 gives the general account of the middle path:
הַדֶּרֶךְ הַיְשָׁרָה הִיא מִדָּה בֵּינוֹנִית שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה מִכָּל הַדֵּעוֹת שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ לָאָדָם.
Ha-derekh ha-yesharah hi middah beinonit she-be-khol de’ah ve-de’ah mi-kol ha-de’ot she-yesh lo la-adam.
“The straight path is the middle measure in each of a person’s character traits.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.1.4
In 1:5 he distinguishes a further movement away from pride from ordinary humility:
מִי שֶׁיִּתְרַחֵק מִגֹּבַהּ הַלֵּב עַד הַקָּצֶה הָאַחֲרוֹן וְיִהְיֶה שְׁפַל רוּחַ בְּיוֹתֵר נִקְרָא חָסִיד וְזוֹ הִיא מִדַּת חֲסִידוּת. וְאִם נִתְרַחֵק עַד הָאֶמְצַע בִּלְבַד וְיִהְיֶה עָנָו נִקְרָא חָכָם וְזוֹ הִיא מִדַּת חָכְמָה.
Mi she-yitrachek mi-govah ha-lev ad ha-katzeh ha-acharon ve-yihyeh shefal ru’ach be-yoter nikra chasid, ve-zo hi middat chasidut. Ve-im nitrachek ad ha-emtza bilvad ve-yihyeh anav, nikra chakham, ve-zo hi middat chokhmah.
“One who moves from pride to the farthest extreme and is very lowly in spirit is called devout, and this is the measure of devotion. One who moves only to the middle and is humble is called wise, and this is the measure of wisdom.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.1.5
In 2:3 he gives a stronger instruction concerning pride:
וְיֵשׁ דֵּעוֹת שֶׁאָסוּר לוֹ לָאָדָם לִנְהֹג בָּהֶן בְּבֵינוֹנִית אֶלָּא יִתְרַחֵק מִן הַקָּצֶה הָאֶחָד עַד הַקָּצֶה הָאַחֵר. וְהוּא גֹּבַהּ לֵב.
Ve-yesh de’ot she-asur lo la-adam linhog bahen be-veinonit, ella yitrachek min ha-katzeh ha-echad ad ha-katzeh ha-acher. Ve-hu govah lev.
“There are traits in which a person must not follow the middle path, but must move from one extreme to the other. Pride is one of them.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.2.3
He then calls for deep lowliness of spirit and cites Moshe’s exceptional humility. These passages cannot support calling lowliness itself a defective opposite of Anavah.
2 Moshe’s initiative
Shabbat records:
שְׁלֹשָׁה דְּבָרִים עָשָׂה מֹשֶׁה מִדַּעְתּוֹ, וְהִסְכִּים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עִמּוֹ.
Sheloshah devarim asah Moshe mi-da’to, ve-hiskim Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu immo.
“Moshe did three things on his own judgment, and HASHEM agreed with him.”
The segment names adding a day of preparation, separating from his wife and breaking the tablets. The discussion of the tablets in 87a:5 explains his reasoning and the approval of his act. This is a source for Moshe’s initiative, not a general authorization for readers to act without regard to established obligations.
3 Rabbi Zekharyah’s objections
The sages considered offering the blemished animal because of the relationship with the authorities:
סְבוּר רַבָּנַן לְקָרוֹבֵיהּ מִשּׁוּם שְׁלוֹם מַלְכוּת. אֲמַר לְהוּ רַבִּי זְכַרְיָה בֶּן אַבְקוּלָס: יֹאמְרוּ בַּעֲלֵי מוּמִין קְרֵיבִין לְגַבֵּי מִזְבֵּחַ!
Sevur rabbanan le-karoveh mishum shelom malkhut. Amar lehu Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas: Yomeru ba’alei mumin kerevin le-gabbei mizbe’ach.
“The sages considered offering it for the sake of peace with the government. Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas said to them: People will say that blemished animals may be offered on the altar.”
The same segment records a proposal to kill Bar Kamtza to prevent his report and Rabbi Zekharyah’s objection to that proposal. Rabbi Yochanan then says:
עִנְוְותָנוּתוֹ שֶׁל רַבִּי זְכַרְיָה בֶּן אַבְקוּלָס, הֶחְרִיבָה אֶת בֵּיתֵנוּ, וְשָׂרְפָה אֶת הֵיכָלֵנוּ, וְהִגְלְתָנוּ מֵאַרְצֵנוּ.
Invetanuto shel Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas, hecherivah et beitenu, ve-sarefah et heikhalenu, ve-higletanu me-artzenu.
“The forbearance of Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas destroyed our House, burned our Sanctuary and exiled us from our land.”
Rashi glosses the opening term:
ענותנותו - סבלנותו
Invetanuto, savlanuto.
“His humility: his forbearance.”
sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Gittin.56a.5.1
The chapter reads the episode as a warning about judgment in a crisis. It does not derive a practical ruling about either proposed response.
4 Calm speech and the letter attributed to Ramban
After the instruction about calm speech in section 2, the letter continues:
וְכַאֲשֶׁר תִּנָּצֵל מִן הַכַּעַס, תַּעֲלֶה עַל לִבְּךָ מִדַּת הָעֲנָוָה
Ve-kha’asher tinnatzel min ha-ka’as, ta’aleh al libbekha middat ha-anavah.
“When you are free of anger, the trait of humility will arise in your heart.”
sefaria.org/Iggeret_HaRamban.3
Section 4 connects humility with reverence:
וּבַעֲבוּר הָעֲנָוָה, תַּעֲלֶה עַל לִבְּךָ מִדַּת הַיִּרְאָה
U-va’avur ha-anavah, ta’aleh al libbekha middat ha-yir’ah.
“Through humility, the trait of reverence will arise in your heart.”
sefaria.org/Iggeret_HaRamban.4
In that same section, the letter cites the words of II Chronicles 6:18:
הִנֵּה שָׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לֹא יְכַלְכְּלוּךָ
Hinneh shamayim u-shemei ha-shamayim lo yekhalkelukha.
“Even the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain You.”
sefaria.org/Iggeret_HaRamban.4
Section 5 connects humility, reverence and care to avoid sin with the presence of HASHEM:
אָז תִּשְׁרֶה עָלֶיךָ רוּחַ הַשְּׁכִינָה, וְזִיו כְּבוֹדָהּ, וְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם הַבָּא.
Az tishreh alekha ru’ach ha-Shekhinah, ve-ziv kevodah, ve-chayyei olam ha-ba.
“Then the spirit of the presence of HASHEM, the radiance of that glory and the life of the world to come will rest upon you.”
sefaria.org/Iggeret_HaRamban.5
These passages belong together. The language of resting upon a person does not override the letter’s rejection of containment.
5 Meshekh Chokhmah on the tablets
Sefaria places the relevant commentary on Exodus 32:19 in Ki Tisa 21–23. In section 22, the commentator presents Moshe’s warning:
חלילה גם אני איש כמוכם, והתורה אינה תלויה בי
Chalilah, gam ani ish kemokhem, ve-ha-Torah einah teluyah bi.
“Far from it. I too am a person like you, and Torah does not depend on me.”
sefaria.org/Meshekh_Chokhmah,_Ki_Tisa.22
The same section grounds the sanctity of the sanctuary in the command to build it:
וכל הקדושות המה מצד צווי שצוה הבורא לבנות משכן
Ve-khol ha-kedushot hemmah mi-tzad tzivvui she-tzivvah ha-Bore livnot Mishkan.
“All these sanctities derive from the command HASHEM gave to build a sanctuary.”
sefaria.org/Meshekh_Chokhmah,_Ki_Tisa.22
Section 23 explains the danger of handing over the tablets while the error remained:
ואם הביא הלוחות היו כמחלפים עגל בלוח ולא סרו מטעותן
Ve-im hevi ha-luchot, hayu ki-mechallefim egel be-lu’ach, ve-lo saru mi-ta’utan.
“Had he brought the tablets, they would have been exchanging a calf for a tablet without departing from their error.”
sefaria.org/Meshekh_Chokhmah,_Ki_Tisa.23
The commentary supplies the warning against treating a person, place or object as independently sacred. The discussion of contemporary institutions is this chapter’s application of that warning.
6 Lefin’s practice of daily accounting
Cheshbon HaNefesh 21:2 describes a set of thirteen traits, with a weekly focus:
כל רמז משמש משך שבוע שלם
Kol remez meshamesh meshekh shavu’a shalem.
“Each reminder serves for a full week.”
sefaria.org/Cheshbon_HaNefesh.21.2
The following section keeps the other twelve traits within the evening account:
אכן כל שאר י"ב רמזים, יהיו צפונים בלבך למשמרת בלבד אלא שבכל ערב צריך אתה לקבל חשבון אם לא עברת עליהם ביום
Akhen kol she’ar sheneim asar remazim, yihyu tzefunim be-libbekha le-mishmeret bilvad, ella she-be-khol erev tzarikh attah lekabbel cheshbon im lo avarta aleihem ba-yom.
“The other twelve reminders remain in your heart for safekeeping, but every evening you must take account of whether you violated them during the day.”
sefaria.org/Cheshbon_HaNefesh.22.1
Section 24:3 describes marking each failure in the written record. The practice offered in this chapter is a limited exercise inspired by that attention to conduct, rather than a reproduction of Lefin’s whole method.
sefaria.org/Cheshbon_HaNefesh.24.3
7 Return and redemption
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
Chapter Six
Teshuvah and the work of return
After we have done something wrong, feeling sorry can be the beginning of a change. What follows matters. We have to stop, acknowledge what we did and face whatever repair is required. The person we harmed should not have to settle for our account of how much we have learned.
I Failure does not end the obligation
The previous chapters asked us to take responsibility, care for other people and examine how we use our influence. We will also have to face the times when we fail to do these things. Some failures come from carelessness. Others are choices we knew were wrong when we made them.
תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching” provides a way to return. תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return / Repentance” addresses what happens after wrongdoing. The obligation has not disappeared because we violated it. We are called to stop the violation and change how we live before HASHEM.[ER66]
This can involve sorrow, embarrassment and relief. Those feelings matter, but they cannot tell us by themselves whether we have done what is required. We may feel better while the person we hurt is still waiting for an answer. We may also begin to act differently while regret remains painful.
The question is what our acknowledgment leads us to do. Return gives that question a form we can work with.
II What Rambam asks of us
Rambam begins his account with the obligation to confess:
כְּשֶׁיַּעֲשֶׂה תְּשׁוּבָה וְיָשׁוּב מֵחֶטְאוֹ חַיָּב לְהִתְוַדּוֹת לִפְנֵי הָאֵל בָּרוּךְ הוּא
Ke-she-ya’aseh teshuvah ve-yashuv me-chet’o, chayyav lehitvaddot lifnei ha-El Barukh Hu.
“When a person returns from wrongdoing, that person is obligated to confess before HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.1.1
The obligation stated here is to confess when returning from the sin. Rambam’s fuller description in Repentance 2:2 includes abandoning the wrongdoing, regretting it and resolving not to repeat it. These commitments must also be spoken. Source note 1 gives his wording.[ER67]
עֲזִיבַת הַחֵטְא ~ Azivat Ha-Chet ~ “Abandoning the sin” means that the wrongdoing must stop. An apology for conduct we intend to continue leaves the central problem in place.[ER68]
חֲרָטָה ~ Charatah ~ “Regret” concerns the wrong itself. Being upset at getting caught is not the same as recognizing what we did to someone else. But regret need not be performed for an audience. It has to be honest before HASHEM.
קַבָּלָה לֶעָתִיד ~ Kabbalah Le-Atid ~ “Commitment for the future” means resolving not to repeat the wrongdoing. That resolution should affect the next decision. It may require changing an arrangement that keeps making the same failure easy.
וִדּוּי ~ Vidui ~ “Confession” gives words to this return. We name what we did and acknowledge it without making another person responsible for our choice. Rambam includes the words:
חָטָאתִי עָוִיתִי פָּשַׁעְתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ
Chatati, aviti, pasha’ti lefanekha.
“I have sinned, acted wrongly and rebelled before You.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.1.1
In Yoma, the sages distinguish inadvertent wrongdoing, deliberate wrongdoing and rebellion when discussing the language of confession. Deliberate wrongdoing is not limited there to acts driven by appetite. Source note 1 gives the discussion. The point is to acknowledge the wrong accurately, rather than choose the description that makes us most comfortable.[ER69]
Rambam calls return complete when a person again has the opportunity and ability to commit the same wrong but refrains because of the return itself. Fear of the consequences or the loss of the ability to act is not the same test.
He also says that return later in life, when the old opportunity is no longer available, still has value and can bring forgiveness. The earlier test describes complete return. It does not make a repeated opportunity the only way any return can count. Source note 2 gives both parts of his account.[ER70]
III The person we wronged
When another person has been harmed, private remorse cannot do all the work. The Mishnah states:
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר, עַד שֶׁיְּרַצֶּה אֶת חֲבֵרוֹ.
Averot she-bein adam la-chavero, ein Yom Ha-Kippurim mekhapper, ad she-yeratzzeh et chavero.
“For wrongs between a person and another person, the Day of Atonement does not atone until the person wronged has been appeased.”
Rambam makes the responsibility concrete. The person who caused harm must give the other person what is owed and seek forgiveness. Repayment alone does not settle the matter. Nor does a verbal apology replace repayment. Harm done through words also requires a response. Source note 3 gives the passage.
פִּיּוּס ~ Piyyus ~ “Appeasement / Seeking reconciliation” requires us to attend to the person we hurt. We have to hear what happened to them, including what does not fit our preferred version of the incident. The apology is not complete merely because we have delivered a speech.
Rambam also describes what to do when forgiveness is refused. His account includes successive groups of three people who help seek reconciliation, and it makes a separate provision when the person wronged is one’s teacher. It is more specific than a rule that three apologies transfer the blame. Source note 3 sets out those conditions.[ER71]
A difficult case may need qualified guidance about restitution and the way to seek forgiveness. We should not use a paragraph in a book to decide that another person now owes us closure. The work begins with the harm we caused and what remains for us to address.
IV When an explanation becomes an excuse
We can learn from a failure and still leave it unresolved. A person may become more articulate about why they acted badly without returning what they took, correcting what they said or changing the conduct. Understanding can help. It becomes an excuse when it replaces those steps.
Rambam’s confession includes regret and shame over one’s actions. The problem is not that a person has feelings. The problem is asking the feelings to stand in for the work. We need to ask what has changed for the person who was harmed, as well as what has changed in our account of ourselves.[ER72]
Isaiah’s description of a people who no longer see, hear or understand is a warning here. But the passage has to be read carefully. Rashi describes the people resisting the prophets because they do not want to be persuaded to return. Rambam cites the same verse in his discussion of a severe judgment in which return is withheld after chosen wrongdoing. Source note 4 presents the verse and the two readings.
We should not flatten these accounts into one explanation about habit. Rashi draws attention to refusal to listen. Rambam insists that repeated wrongdoing can have consequences beyond what a person assumes is still under their control. Both deserve to be heard without using either to declare a particular person beyond return.[ER73]
For the reader, the immediate question is whether there is a correction we already understand and keep postponing. We do not need another explanation before beginning it.
V Hope without an excuse to delay
One reason we postpone return is the belief that it is already too late. We may have repeated the same failure so often that another promise feels empty. Or we may think that the harm is too serious for any change to matter.
Rambam warns against treating a person who has returned as permanently distant from the righteous:
וְאַל יְדַמֶּה אָדָם בַּעַל תְּשׁוּבָה שֶׁהוּא מְרֻחָק מִמַּעֲלַת הַצַּדִּיקִים מִפְּנֵי הָעֲוֹנוֹת וְהַחֲטָאוֹת שֶׁעָשָׂה.
Ve-al yedammeh adam ba’al teshuvah she-hu meruchak mi-ma’alat ha-tzaddikim mipnei ha-avonot ve-ha-chatta’ot she-asah.
“A person who has returned should not imagine being far from the standing of the righteous because of the wrongs and sins previously committed.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.4
In Repentance 3:14, he says that even someone who denied the foundation throughout life can have a share in the world to come after returning at the end. Source note 5 gives the passage. A grave past is not a reason for us to refuse the work now.[ER74]
Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin makes a direct appeal in Divrei Soferim 16 to a person who feels increasingly trapped in wrongdoing: do not conclude that you can no longer leave it. Source note 5 gives his words. His insistence on hope should not be reduced to a claim that every person who struggles with guilt is arrogant.[ER75]
The other mistake is to make the possibility of forgiveness a reason to continue. Mishnah Yoma warns against planning to sin and then return. The promise of return is not something we can use in advance to excuse the choice. Source note 5 includes that warning.
Hope should make it possible to face what we did. It should not make the harm smaller or allow us to put off the response again.
VI What we carry forward
After a real change, we still know what we have done. That knowledge can help us recognize the circumstances in which we are likely to make excuses. It can also make us more attentive to someone else who is struggling to change.
Berakhot records Rabbi Abbahu’s teaching:
מָקוֹם שֶׁבַּעֲלֵי תְשׁוּבָה עוֹמְדִין, צַדִּיקִים גְּמוּרִים אֵינָם עוֹמְדִין
Makom she-ba’alei teshuvah omedin, tzaddikim gemurim einam omedin.
“In the place where those who have returned stand, the completely righteous do not stand.”
The Talmud identifies this as a disagreement with Rabbi Yochanan, who reserves the higher promise for the completely righteous. Rambam follows Rabbi Abbahu’s view and explains the standing of those who return through the effort of resisting a desire they have already known. Source note 6 gives the differing accounts.[ER76]
Rabbi Tzadok offers another way to think about what failure can teach. In Tzidkat HaTzadik 49, he connects the area of a person’s greatest struggle with a particular task of correction. The point is to work on the very place where the difficulty has become clear. Source note 6 gives an excerpt.
This does not make wrongdoing a desirable route to understanding. It asks what we will do with the knowledge we already have. If dishonesty has become familiar, honesty will need particular attention. If we have misused authority, we need practices that make us answerable to others.
Return can be real and complete in the sense Rambam describes. It also gives a direction to the life that follows. We can acknowledge a change without assuming that vigilance is no longer needed.[ER77]
VII Regret and the life that still needs to be lived
Regret can remain after we have begun to put things right. We should not dismiss it merely because it is uncomfortable. But there is a difference between remembering a wrong and deciding that we can do nothing worthwhile again.
The sources do not all tell a person simply to stop thinking about past sins. Rambam calls for renewed confession in a later year even when the person has maintained the return. Rabbi Tzadok, in Tzidkat HaTzadik 57, gives religious significance to recurring remorse. Source note 7 gives the relevant passages. We should not turn a call to resume our responsibilities into a rule against continuing regret.[ER78]
At the same time, our present responsibilities remain. Someone may still need the money we owe, the correction we promised or the care we have been too absorbed in ourselves to give. The useful question is what regret is asking us to do today.
We also need to distinguish return from the full completion of atonement. Rambam says that some wrongs are atoned for immediately and others only over time. Source note 7 gives that distinction. A short sequence of actions cannot settle every question about consequences, forgiveness or what repair remains possible.[ER79]
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” matters here too. We have to take our conduct seriously without assuming that our own feelings give the final verdict on what HASHEM will receive. We can seek guidance, attend to what remains unfinished and carry out the next obligation.
VIII The return a community must make
Some failures are shared. A community can grow used to unpaid obligations, ignored complaints or recurring needs that no one has agreed to address. Individual goodwill does not automatically correct those arrangements.
The communal confession gives us a language for examining this. Its recurring words are:
עַל חֵטְא שֶׁחָטָאנוּ לְפָנֶיךָ
Al chet she-chatanu lefanekha.
“For the sin we have committed before You.”
sefaria.org/Machzor_Yom_Kippur_Ashkenaz,_Musaf_for_Yom_Kippur,_Shemoneh_Esrei.51
The wording is plural. Rambam also identifies a plural acknowledgment as central to confession. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, in Sefat Emet, emphasizes Israel’s coming together on the Day of Atonement and each person’s contribution to the community. Source note 8 gives the passages.[ER80]
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” asks us to examine our part in communal conduct. As Chapter Four explained, accountability for failing to protest depends on the ability to protest. Shared confession does not establish that every person committed every listed wrong, or that everyone bears identical responsibility for what a community has allowed.[ER81]
The practical application I draw is that we should examine arrangements as well as intentions. Was a need repeatedly brought to us and left unanswered? Did a practice make it difficult for people to tell us about harm? Who had the authority and ability to change it? The answers should identify work that can actually be assigned and carried out.
A community may need to correct a record, repay what it owes or change how it hears complaints. Confession should lead toward those acts. It should not become a shared statement that allows everyone to leave without knowing who will do the work.
IX Return and the hope for redemption
The importance of return reaches beyond one person’s past. Rambam connects it directly to גְּאֻלָּה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption”:
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה.
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
He continues by describing Torah’s promise that Israel will return at the end of exile and be redeemed. The promise retains the necessity of return. It does not give us a reason to wait for someone else to begin.
Deuteronomy describes that return in terms of listening:
וְשַׁבְתָּ עַד־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ וְשָׁמַעְתָּ בְקֹלוֹ
Ve-shavta ad ADONAI Elohekha, ve-shama’ta ve-kolo.
“You will return to HASHEM and listen to HASHEM’s voice.”
Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones speaks to a people who believe their hope is gone. HASHEM asks the prophet whether the bones can live:
בֶּן־אָדָם הֲתִחְיֶינָה הָעֲצָמוֹת הָאֵלֶּה וָאֹמַר אֲדֹנָי יֱהֹוִה אַתָּה יָדָעְתָּ
Ben adam, ha-tichyenah ha-atzamot ha-elleh? Va-omar, ADONAI Elohim, attah yada’ta.
“Human being, can these bones live? I answered, ‘HASHEM, You know.’”
The vision identifies the bones with the whole house of Israel and promises restoration. Source note 9 gives that identification. It is an image of a people’s renewal, not a description of the steps of individual repentance. Read alongside the command to return, it warns us against treating our own despair as the measure of what HASHEM can bring about.[ER82]
Volume Two will consider the work of redemption more fully. Here the connection is enough to ask something of us now. The correction before us belongs within the life of a people called to return.
X Practicing return
There is a practical reason to attend to smaller failures before they become familiar ways of living. We learn how to name what happened, hear an answer we do not like and change a habit. Repeated practice can make those actions more familiar when the next failure comes.
The image of a muscle is useful only as an analogy. Return is not a bodily mechanism, and practice does not guarantee that a difficult situation will become easy. The point is to make honest examination part of ordinary life instead of waiting for a crisis.[ER83]
The calendar gives this work recurring attention. Rambam singles out the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement while saying that return and prayer are always fitting. Source note 10 gives his words. Regular confession and prayers for forgiveness also have their place, with practices that differ by community and day.[ER84]
Begin with one wrong you can identify plainly. Write down what you did, whether it is still happening and who was affected. Stop the conduct. Acknowledge it before HASHEM, name the change you are committing to make and identify any restitution or request for forgiveness that remains.
Make the next step concrete. Return the item you have kept. Correct the false statement you made. If the right way to approach the person is unclear, seek guidance about that approach. Set a time to follow through, then check that you did.
HASHEM is the uncreated Source, and Torah gives the obligation its authority. A notebook, a reminder or a conversation can help us fulfill it. None can take the place of the return itself.
The question is what remains undone and whether we will do it. Begin there.
Source notes
The Hebrew and Aramaic excerpts were checked against the linked Sefaria texts. Vocalization follows the supplied text where present, with cantillation and paragraph markers omitted. Transliteration follows Sephardic pronunciation. English renderings are adapted for this manuscript’s naming conventions. Applications to personal and communal conduct are distinguished from the cited teachings.
1 The components of return and confession
Rambam defines return in Repentance 2:2:
הוּא שֶׁיַּעֲזֹב הַחוֹטֵא חֶטְאוֹ וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ וְיִגְמֹר בְּלִבּוֹ שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲשֵׂהוּ עוֹד
Hu she-ya’azov ha-chote chet’o, vi-siro mi-machashavto, ve-yigmor be-libbo she-lo ya’asehu od.
“The person who sinned must abandon the sin, remove it from thought and resolve in the heart not to do it again.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.2
The same paragraph adds regret for the past and requires spoken confession of the inward commitments. In 1:1, the model confession includes both regret and shame over one’s deeds. These are parts of repentance, rather than substitutes for changed conduct.
In Yoma’s discussion of confession, the sages define deliberate wrongdoing:
עֲוֹנוֹת אֵלּוּ הַזְּדוֹנוֹת
Avonot, ellu ha-zedonot.
“Wrongs: these are deliberate acts.”
The next segment identifies rebellion:
פְּשָׁעִים אֵלּוּ הַמְּרָדִים
Pesha’im, ellu ha-meradim.
“Transgressions: these are acts of rebellion.”
It also identifies inadvertent acts:
״לְכׇל חַטֹּאתָם״ אֵלּוּ הַשְּׁגָגוֹת
Le-khol chatto’tam, ellu ha-shegagot.
“‘For all their sins’: these are inadvertent acts.”
Rabbi Meir and the sages differ over the order of these categories in confession. Rabbi Meir begins with deliberate wrongdoing, then rebellion and inadvertent wrongdoing. The sages begin with inadvertent wrongdoing, followed by deliberate wrongdoing and rebellion. Rambam’s wording in 1:1 follows the latter order. The classification belongs to this discussion, rather than being a fixed translation of each word in every context.
2 Complete return and later return
Rambam describes the person who again encounters the opportunity to commit the same wrong:
וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה. לֹא מִיִּרְאָה וְלֹא מִכִּשְׁלוֹן כֹּחַ.
U-ferash ve-lo asah mipnei ha-teshuvah. Lo mi-yir’ah ve-lo mi-kishlon ko’ach.
“The person withdraws and does not act because of repentance, rather than fear or a loss of strength.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.1
The same paragraph also describes return in old age, when repeating the act is no longer possible:
אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּשׁוּבָה מְעֻלָּה מוֹעֶלֶת הִיא לוֹ וּבַעַל תְּשׁוּבָה הוּא.
Af al pi she-einah teshuvah me’ullah, mo’elet hi lo, u-va’al teshuvah hu.
“Although this is not the highest form of return, it is effective for that person, who is a person of return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.1
The paragraph continues by including return on the day of death. It therefore does not support withholding all recognition of repentance until an identical opportunity occurs again.
3 Restitution and seeking forgiveness
Rambam states that after returning the money owed, a further obligation remains:
אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהֶחֱזִיר לוֹ מָמוֹן שֶׁהוּא חַיָּב לוֹ צָרִיךְ לְרַצּוֹתוֹ וְלִשְׁאל מִמֶּנּוּ שֶׁיִּמְחל לוֹ.
Af al pi she-hechezir lo mamon she-hu chayyav lo, tzarikh le-ratzoto ve-lish’ol mimmennu she-yimchol lo.
“Even after returning the money owed, the person must seek reconciliation and ask the injured person to forgive.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.9
If the initial request is refused, the paragraph describes bringing three companions to ask, then a second and third group if needed. It concludes:
לֹא רָצָה מְנִיחוֹ וְהוֹלֵךְ לוֹ וְזֶה שֶׁלֹּא מָחַל הוּא הַחוֹטֵא. וְאִם הָיָה רַבּוֹ הוֹלֵךְ וּבָא אֲפִלּוּ אֶלֶף פְּעָמִים עַד שֶׁיִּמְחל לוֹ
Lo ratzah, menicho ve-holekh lo, ve-zeh she-lo machal hu ha-chote. Ve-im hayah rabbo, holekh u-va afillu elef pe’amim ad she-yimchol lo.
“If the person refuses, the wrongdoer leaves, and the person who did not forgive bears the sin. If the injured person was the wrongdoer’s teacher, the wrongdoer returns even a thousand times until forgiven.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.9
The conclusion belongs to the procedure and conditions Rambam describes. The chapter does not determine that those conditions have been met in a particular dispute or authorize pressure on an injured person.
4 Isaiah and resistance to return
הַשְׁמֵן לֵב־הָעָם הַזֶּה וְאׇזְנָיו הַכְבֵּד וְעֵינָיו הָשַׁע פֶּן־יִרְאֶה בְעֵינָיו וּבְאׇזְנָיו יִשְׁמָע וּלְבָבוֹ יָבִין וָשָׁב וְרָפָא לוֹ׃
Hashmen lev ha-am ha-zeh, ve-oznav hakhbed, ve-einav hasha. Pen yir’eh ve-einav u-ve-oznav yishma, u-levavo yavin, va-shav ve-rafa lo.
“Make the heart of this people dull, make their ears heavy and close their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart, return and be healed.”
Rashi describes the people’s refusal to hear the prophets:
נָתְנוּ לִבָּם שֶׁלֹּא יִשְׁמְעוּ דִּבְרֵי נְבִיאִים
Natenu libbam she-lo yishme’u divrei nevi’im.
“They set their hearts against hearing the words of the prophets.”
sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Isaiah.6.10.3
He explains that they fear the words will persuade them to understand and return. Rambam reads the verse in his account of judgment after chosen wrongdoing:
שֶׁמּוֹנְעִין מִמֶּנּוּ הַתְּשׁוּבָה וְאֵין מַנִּיחִין לוֹ רְשׁוּת לָשׁוּב מֵרִשְׁעוֹ
She-mone’in mimmennu ha-teshuvah, ve-ein mannichin lo reshut lashuv me-rish’o.
“Repentance is withheld from that person, and the freedom to return from wickedness is not granted.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.6.3
Rambam distinguishes the freely chosen wrongdoing from this subsequent judgment. His account should not be replaced by a claim that the verse describes only a weakening habit. Neither reading gives this chapter authority to identify a living person as excluded from return.
5 The call to hope and the warning against presumption
Rambam writes concerning return after denial of the foundation:
אֲפִלּוּ כָּפַר בָּעִקָּר כָּל יָמָיו וּבָאַחֲרוֹנָה שָׁב יֵשׁ לוֹ חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא
Afillu kafar ba-ikkar kol yamav u-va-acharonah shav, yesh lo chelek la-olam ha-ba.
“Even someone who denied the foundation throughout life and returned at the end has a share in the world to come.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.3.14
Rabbi Tzadok addresses the person who feels increasingly caught in wrongdoing:
אל יתייאש בעצמו לומר שלא יוכל לפרוש עוד
Al yitya’esh be-atzmo lomar she-lo yukhal lifrosh od.
“A person should not despair and say that it is no longer possible to turn away.”
sefaria.org/Divrei_Soferim.16.1
This appeal to hope belongs alongside the Mishnah’s warning about deliberate reliance on a later return:
הָאוֹמֵר, אֶחֱטָא וְאָשׁוּב, אֶחֱטָא וְאָשׁוּב, אֵין מַסְפִּיקִין בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹת תְּשׁוּבָה.
Ha-omer, echeta ve-ashuv, echeta ve-ashuv, ein maspikin be-yado la’asot teshuvah.
“One who says, ‘I will sin and return, I will sin and return,’ is not granted the opportunity to repent.”
The chapter preserves both the invitation to return and the warning against using it as advance permission for wrongdoing.
6 The disagreement about those who return
Rabbi Yochanan’s view is recorded immediately before Rabbi Abbahu’s statement quoted in the chapter:
כׇּל הַנְּבִיאִים כּוּלָּן לֹא נִתְנַבְּאוּ אֶלָּא לְבַעֲלֵי תְשׁוּבָה, אֲבָל צַדִּיקִים גְּמוּרִים ״עַיִן לֹא רָאָתָה אֱלֹהִים זוּלָתְךָ״.
Kol ha-nevi’im kullan lo nitnabbe’u ella le-va’alei teshuvah. Aval tzaddikim gemurim, ayin lo ra’atah Elohim zulatekha.
“All the prophets prophesied only for those who return. As for the completely righteous, ‘No eye has seen, HASHEM, apart from You.’”
The Talmud explicitly identifies the disagreement with Rabbi Abbahu in the following segment. Rambam, in Repentance 7:4, cites the higher standing of those who return and gives this reason:
מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהֵן כּוֹבְשִׁים יִצְרָם יוֹתֵר מֵהֶם
Mipnei she-hen koveshim yitzram yoter me-hem.
“Because they restrain their inclination more than those who have never sinned.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.4
Rabbi Tzadok connects the site of recurring failure with the work of correction:
ובדברים שהרבה לפשוע בהם ידע שהוא כלי מוכן להיות דייקא באותו דבר נקי ובר לבב
U-va-devarim she-hirbah lifsho’a bahem, yeda she-hu keli mukhan lihyot davka be-oto davar naki u-var levav.
“In the matters where a person has repeatedly transgressed, that person should know of the capacity to become clean and pure of heart in that very matter.”
sefaria.org/Tzidkat_HaTzadik.49.1
The passage’s vessel image concerns a person’s capacity for correction. The practical application in the chapter does not make sin a desirable preparation for spiritual growth.
7 Memory and the completion of atonement
Rambam explicitly includes renewed confession of past sins:
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁהִתְוַדָּה עֲלֵיהֶם בְּיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים זֶה חוֹזֵר וּמִתְוַדֶּה עֲלֵיהֶן בְּיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים אַחֵר אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהוּא עוֹמֵד בִּתְשׁוּבָתוֹ
Averot she-hitvaddah aleihem be-Yom Ha-Kippurim zeh, chozer u-mitvaddeh aleihen be-Yom Ha-Kippurim acher, af al pi she-hu omed bi-teshuvato.
“Wrongs confessed on this Day of Atonement are confessed again on another Day of Atonement, even when the person has maintained the return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.8
Rabbi Tzadok also gives significance to recurring remorse:
ומי שזוכה מן השמים מזכירים לו בכל עת עבירות שעשה ומתמרמר עליהם
U-mi she-zokheh min ha-shamayim, mazkirim lo be-khol et averot she-asah u-mitmarmer aleihem.
“One favored by HASHEM is repeatedly reminded of wrongs previously committed and grieves over them.”
sefaria.org/Tzidkat_HaTzadik.57.1
The passage gives this pain religious meaning. It should not be cited for the opposite claim that all continuing remorse is arrogance. The chapter distinguishes these teachings from its practical concern that present responsibilities still need to be met.
Rambam separately distinguishes the times at which atonement is completed:
יֵשׁ עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁהֵן מִתְכַּפְּרִים לִשְׁעָתָן וְיֵשׁ עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁאֵין מִתְכַּפְּרִים אֶלָּא לְאַחַר זְמַן.
Yesh averot she-hen mitkapperim li-she’atan, ve-yesh averot she-ein mitkapperim ella le-achar zeman.
“Some wrongs are atoned for immediately, and others are atoned for only after time has passed.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.1.4
His following distinctions concern different categories of wrongdoing. The chapter does not substitute its practical exercise for those distinctions.
8 Shared confession and communal responsibility
Rambam identifies this plural acknowledgment within the customary confession:
אֲבָל אֲנַחְנוּ חָטָאנוּ
Aval anachnu chatanu.
“But we have sinned.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.8
Sefat Emet calls for communal unity on the Day of Atonement:
לכן צריכין להיות אגודה אחת ביוה"כ
Lakhen tzerikhin lihyot aguddah achat be-Yom Ha-Kippurim.
“Therefore, we need to be one united community on the Day of Atonement.”
sefaria.org/Sefat_Emet,_Deuteronomy,_For_the_Day_of_Atonement.14.2
The same passage asks each person to contribute their share to the community. This supports the chapter’s discussion of shared return. Its examples of correcting communal arrangements are the author’s application.
The condition concerning protest, discussed in Chapter Four, remains in place:
הָתָם שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדָם לְמַחוֹת, וְלֹא מִיחוּ.
Hatam she-yesh be-yadam limchot, ve-lo michu.
“There, the case is one in which they could protest but did not protest.”
Shared belonging does not erase the differences in what people knew, could influence or were responsible for doing.
9 Ezekiel’s vision and Israel’s restoration
The vision identifies the bones:
הָעֲצָמוֹת הָאֵלֶּה כׇּל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵמָּה
Ha-atzamot ha-elleh, kol beit Yisrael hemmah.
“These bones are the whole house of Israel.”
The verse goes on to describe the people’s lost hope. Verses 12–14 promise restoration to the land and renewed life. The chapter reads the vision as an answer to collective despair while grounding the condition of return in Rambam’s explicit statement at Repentance 7:5.
10 The recurring opportunity to return
Rambam writes:
אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהַתְּשׁוּבָה וְהַצְּעָקָה יָפָה לְעוֹלָם. בַּעֲשָׂרָה הַיָּמִים שֶׁבֵּין רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה וְיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים הִיא יָפָה בְּיוֹתֵר
Af al pi she-ha-teshuvah ve-ha-tze’akah yafah le-olam, ba-asarah ha-yamim she-bein Rosh Ha-Shanah ve-Yom Ha-Kippurim hi yafah be-yoter.
“Although return and crying out are always fitting, they are especially fitting during the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.6
The paragraph then distinguishes the individual from a community returning and crying out wholeheartedly. It does not prescribe an identical daily confession practice for every community or occasion.
Closing
Tending the fire
The priest returned to the altar each morning to add wood. That ordinary act is where I want to leave this volume. What we have studied will need our attention again tomorrow, in the responsibilities we carry and the people who depend on us.
I The command that remains
The loss of the Temple did not end the covenant. Its absence matters, and the commands concerning its service remain part of תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching.” Among them is the command to keep the altar fire burning:[ER85]
אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּה׃
Esh tamid tukad al ha-mizbe’ach, lo tikhbeh.
“A continual fire shall burn on the altar. It shall not go out.”
Yoma adds a detail that matters for the argument of this book:
אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאֵשׁ יוֹרֶדֶת מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם, מִצְוָה לְהָבִיא מִן הַהֶדְיוֹט.
Af al pi she-esh yoredet min ha-shamayim, mitzva le-havi min ha-hedyot.
“Even though fire descends from heaven, there is a commandment to bring fire by human means.”
The fire from heaven did not release the priests from their work. They still had something to bring. The passage concerns the altar service. I draw from it a lesson about our response to HASHEM: dependence on the Source does not excuse us from the work we have been given.[ER86]
Throughout this closing, the tended fire is an image for sustained human attention. Study, prayer and care for another person have their own obligations. Calling them ways of tending a fire does not make them the literal performance of the altar command. Source note 1 keeps that distinction clear.
The question for us is what we keep attending to after the first feeling of commitment has passed. A person still needs an answer. A promise still needs to be kept. There is still something to learn before we can act responsibly.
II The work of each day
The daily work appears in the verse just before the command about the continual fire:
וּבִעֵר עָלֶיהָ הַכֹּהֵן עֵצִים בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר
U-vi’er aleha ha-kohen etzim ba-boker ba-boker.
“The priest shall add wood to it every morning.”
Someone had to return and do it. The same need for regular attention runs through the subjects of this volume.
אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM” needs a place in the day. תְּפִלָּה ~ Tefillah ~ “Prayer” asks us to turn toward HASHEM while other demands compete for our attention. Study gives us something to understand more carefully and carry into practice. Rambam describes a love that occupies a person continually. He also connects love with knowledge of HASHEM. Source note 2 gives both passages. Regular prayer and learning are ways I ask the reader to attend to that love.[ER87]
אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings” reaches the people around us through what we do. עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility” asks us to make that care dependable. Food has to be available when it is needed. A worker has to be paid when payment is due. Someone has to check whether the help we promised actually arrived. These details matter to the person relying on us.
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility” also needs attention after we have understood the idea. חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ ~ Cheshbon HaNefesh ~ “An accounting of the soul” gives us a way to examine our conduct. Did we listen? Did we take over a decision that belonged to someone else? Did we avoid work that was ours to do? The answers should lead to a correction we can make.
תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return / Repentance” addresses the wrongs we uncover. We have to stop the conduct, acknowledge it and resolve to change. Where another person has been harmed, there is repair to address and forgiveness to seek. Chapter Six showed why regret belongs in that work and why regret alone cannot finish it.[ER88]
None of these habits can be left to a moment of enthusiasm. They need time in the day and a willingness to notice when we have drifted. A reminder or a notebook can help us keep a commitment. The obligation comes from Torah, and we remain responsible for carrying it out.
III What the six chapters ask of us
The six chapters have followed one question through different parts of life: what does it mean to live before HASHEM?
Chapter One began with HASHEM as the First Being, the uncreated Source of everything that exists. Our abilities and the lives of the people we encounter depend on HASHEM. Torah precedes creation and judges what we do within it. There is no part of life outside that claim.
Chapter Two brought us to Sinai, where Israel received and accepted the covenant. The book takes that encounter as an event in the history of the people. The teaching reaches later generations through transmission, study and the responsibility to act on what has been received. Receiving the covenant does not make us its authors.[ER89]
Chapter Three asked us to hold love of HASHEM together with care for other people. Devotion should change how we treat someone who needs our time or patience. Care for that person should remind us of the Source of both our lives. Neither commitment gives us leave to neglect the other.
Chapter Four asked how care becomes reliable. It considered shared responsibility alongside the particular laws governing rescue, wages and provision for people in need. Those laws have conditions and limits. Taken seriously, they require more from us than sympathy when a story happens to move us.
Chapter Five examined the influence that comes with helping. Humility means using our abilities without treating another person’s life as ours to direct. It also means accepting work we can do instead of avoiding it under the cover of modesty.
Chapter Six asked what happens when our conduct falls short. We remain obligated after we have done wrong. Return requires an honest acknowledgment and a change in conduct, including the repair we owe other people. We can take that work seriously without deciding that our past makes every future effort pointless.
Together, these chapters ask us to make our learning visible in the way we live. An argument about responsibility has to reach our use of time, money and speech. Other people will encounter the result in how we treat them.
IV The volumes that follow
Volume One establishes the foundation for the rest of the series. The later volumes will follow questions introduced here in greater detail.
Volume Two takes up גְּאֻלָּה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption.” It will ask what that hope requires of us now. The future promise and the present work of return belong together. As Chapter Six explained, Rambam makes return a condition of Israel’s redemption:[ER90]
וְאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִגְאָלִין אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה.
Ve-ein Yisrael nigalin ella bi-teshuvah.
“Israel is redeemed only through return.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
Volume Three examines מָסוֹרָה ~ Masorah ~ “Transmission,” following the teaching from Moshe through the prophets and sages to later generations. It will ask what faithful transmission requires of New Yavneh, and how contemporary teaching remains answerable to what it has received.
Volume Four turns to lived practice. It will consider how the commitments developed in the first three volumes enter an ordinary day, including the routines and relationships through which people sustain them.
Those volumes will develop the argument further. The responsibilities already before us do not depend on finishing the series. We can begin with what we have understood and keep studying what remains unclear.
V Beginning again
The psalmist gives us words for turning toward HASHEM:
וַאֲנִי תְפִלָּתִי־לְךָ יְהֹוָה עֵת רָצוֹן
Va-ani tefillati lekha ADONAI, et ratzon.
“As for me, my prayer is to You, HASHEM, at a time of favor.”
Berakhot asks when this time of favor occurs and gives a specific answer:
אֵימָתַי עֵת רָצוֹן, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהַצִּבּוּר מִתְפַּלְּלִין.
Eimatai et ratzon? Be-sha’ah she-ha-tzibbur mitpallelin.
“When is a time of favor? When the community is praying.”
The teaching directs our attention to communal prayer. It does not say that every moment is equally favorable. The practical point I want to leave with the reader is that we need not wait until we feel certain or inspired before taking up the prayer and obligations already before us. Source note 3 gives the context.[ER91]
Begin with one responsibility you have left undone. If the neglect has harmed someone, stop what is causing the harm and identify the repair you owe. It may mean returning something, correcting a false statement or answering a person you have kept waiting. If you are unsure how to proceed, bring that question to someone qualified to guide you.
Choose the next action and a time to do it. Then follow through. At the end of the day, ask what you did and what remains. This gives the book’s argument a place in your life that another person may be able to recognize.
Our own efforts belong within a hope larger than what any one of us can accomplish. The closing prayer of the daily service includes these words:
לְתַקֵּן עוֹלָם בְּמַלְכוּת שַׁדַּי
Le-takken olam be-malkhut Shaddai.
“To set the world right under the sovereignty of HASHEM.”
sefaria.org/Siddur_Edot_HaMizrach,_Weekday_Shacharit,_Alenu.3
The surrounding prayer looks toward a world that turns to HASHEM. That hope should deepen our care for the work entrusted to us. We cannot do everything, but there is something we have already understood and have yet to do.[ER92]
The priest added wood each morning. We have our own obligations to return to. Begin with the one you can name, and keep returning to it.
Source notes
The Hebrew and Aramaic excerpts were checked against the linked Sefaria texts. Vocalization follows the source where supplied, with cantillation and paragraph markers omitted. Transliterations follow Sephardic pronunciation. English renderings follow the manuscript’s sacred naming conventions. The applications to daily conduct are the author’s readings of the sources.
1 The altar fire and the image of daily attention
Leviticus 6:5 specifies the priest’s daily addition of wood. Leviticus 6:6 commands the continual altar fire. Yoma 21b:5 preserves the duty to bring fire by human means even when fire descends from heaven. The closing applies this daily attention to human conduct. It does not identify contemporary prayer or assistance as literal performance of the altar command, or describe HASHEM as a material force.
2 Rambam on continuing love and knowledge
In Repentance 10:3, Rambam describes a person absorbed in love of HASHEM:
וְנִמְצָא שׁוֹגֶה בָּהּ תָּמִיד
Ve-nimtza shogeh bah tamid.
“The person remains continually absorbed in that love.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.10.3
His comparison with lovesickness describes human love. It does not assign a body or human emotion to HASHEM. Later in the same chapter, he connects the degree of love with knowledge:
וְעַל פִּי הַדֵּעָה תִּהְיֶה הָאַהֲבָה אִם מְעַט מְעַט וְאִם הַרְבֵּה הַרְבֵּה.
Ve-al pi ha-de’ah tihyeh ha-ahavah, im me’at me’at, ve-im harbeh harbeh.
“Love corresponds to knowledge: where knowledge is little, love is little, and where knowledge is abundant, love is abundant.”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.10.6
The call to regular prayer and learning is the author’s application of these teachings.
3 Prayer and the hope for a world turned toward HASHEM
Psalms 69:14 asks for favor and an answer. Berakhot 8a:1 associates the time of favor with communal prayer. The invitation to begin with today’s responsibilities is the author’s application.
The final liturgical excerpt is from Siddur Edot HaMizrach, Weekday Shacharit, Alenu 3. The surrounding text asks for the removal of idolatry and for all people to accept the sovereignty of HASHEM. The rendering “set the world right” keeps the work of repair within that stated purpose.
Glossary of key terms
These entries explain the terms used in this volume and the meanings given to them in its argument. They are arranged alphabetically by transliteration. Each entry gives the Hebrew, a Sephardic transliteration, an English meaning and a source, followed by a short explanation.
Some terms have wider meanings elsewhere. Where this book uses a word in a particular way, the entry says so. The linked passages support the definitions and discussion. Glossary labels are not presented as verbatim quotations from every linked passage, which may use a related grammatical form. The chapters provide the fuller arguments and their qualifications.
A
אַהֲבַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת ~ Ahavat Ha-Briyot ~ “Love of created beings”
In this book, care for other people, grounded in the recognition that their lives come from HASHEM. Chapter Three connects this care with love of HASHEM. Hillel’s teaching joins love of people with bringing them near to Torah. The chapter asks what that means for how we listen, teach and help.[ER93]
אַהֲבַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Ahavat HASHEM ~ “Love of HASHEM”
The love commanded in Deuteronomy 6:5. Chapter Three asks how devotion to HASHEM shapes our attention, choices and treatment of other people. Prayer and study belong to that devotion, alongside the conduct through which another person encounters our care.
עֲנָוָה ~ Anavah ~ “Humility”
An honest understanding of our abilities, responsibilities and limits. Chapter Five asks us to use what HASHEM has given us without taking authority over another person’s life. Humility also requires accepting necessary work that we are able to do. Numbers 12:3 describes Moshe as exceptionally humble.
עַרְבוּת ~ Arevut ~ “Mutual responsibility”
The responsibility Jews carry for one another within the covenant. Chapter Four considers how that responsibility makes care dependable. The Talmud’s discussion of accountability includes the ability to protest wrongdoing. The laws of rescue, wages and support for people in need retain their own sources and conditions.[ER94]
עֲבוֹדָה ~ Avodah ~ “Service / Work”
A word used for work and service, including the Temple service. In this volume, it also describes serving HASHEM through the responsibilities of ordinary life. The book’s image of tending a lamp or fire concerns human conduct. It does not turn every task into the literal Temple service.
עֲזִיבַת הַחֵטְא ~ Azivat Ha-Chet ~ “Abandoning the sin”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.2
Stopping the wrongdoing. Rambam begins his description of return in Repentance 2:2 with leaving the sin and removing it from one’s thoughts. Chapter Six makes this explicit because an apology cannot resolve conduct that a person intends to continue.[ER95]
B
בַּעַל תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Ba’al Teshuvah ~ “A person who has returned”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.4
Someone who has returned from wrongdoing. The book also addresses people returning to Jewish observance. Chapter Six discusses the standing of those who return, including Rabbi Abbahu’s view, followed by Rambam, and Rabbi Yochanan’s differing view. Their disagreement does not make wrongdoing something to seek for its supposed benefits.[ER96]
בְּחִירָה ~ Bechirah ~ “Choice”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.5.1
The human capacity to choose how to act. Rambam describes each person as able to turn toward good or evil. Chapter Two treats that freedom as carrying responsibility before HASHEM. Having a choice does not make us the source of the obligation we are choosing whether to fulfill.
C
חֲרָטָה ~ Charatah ~ “Regret”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.2
Regret for the wrongdoing itself. Chapter Six distinguishes this from simply being upset about getting caught. Regret belongs with stopping the conduct, confessing and resolving to change. It can remain painful even while a person begins to make repair.[ER97]
חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ ~ Cheshbon HaNefesh ~ “An accounting of the soul”
sefaria.org/Cheshbon_HaNefesh.22.1
Regular examination of one’s conduct. It asks what we did, where we failed and what needs to change. Chapter Five uses written reflection to support humility. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lefin’s work of this name describes a method of focused practice and evening review. The purpose is correction, rather than repeated self-condemnation.
D
דַּעַת הַשֵּׁם ~ Da’at HASHEM ~ “Knowledge of HASHEM”
Knowledge and recognition of HASHEM as the Source of life. Isaiah 11:9 describes the earth filled with that knowledge. Chapter Three asks how this recognition changes the way we understand and treat other people. The phrase does not mean that a person comprehends the essence of HASHEM.
E
אֵין עוֹד מִלְבַדּוֹ ~ Ein Od Milvado ~ “There is nothing besides HASHEM”
The phrase from Deuteronomy 4:35 that Chapter One connects with the dependence of all existence on HASHEM. Nothing exists as an independent source beside HASHEM. The book draws from this the responsibility to bring every part of life under Torah’s judgment.
אֵשׁ תָּמִיד ~ Esh Tamid ~ “Continual fire”
The fire commanded to burn continually on the altar. The Closing draws on the priest’s daily addition of wood as an image for sustained attention to our obligations. Study, prayer and care have their own responsibilities. They are not described as literal performance of the altar-fire command.[ER98]
G
גַּאֲוָה ~ Ga’avah ~ “Arrogance”
An inflated estimate of our importance or authority. Chapter Five examines how this can enter even the wish to help. We may begin to assume that another person needs our approval or that our judgment should settle every question. Humility asks us to recognize those claims and correct them.
גֵּר ~ Geir ~ “Convert”
In this book, a person who has entered the Jewish people through conversion. Converts are among the readers addressed in the Prologue. Their lives within the covenant carry real obligations and belonging. In biblical passages, this Hebrew word can refer to a resident outsider, so its meaning must be read in context.[ER99]
גְּאֻלָּה ~ Geulah ~ “Redemption”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.7.5
The redemption of Israel discussed in Chapter Six and the Closing. Rambam makes it contingent on return. The book connects that future hope with present responsibility, including the wrongs we must stop and the repair we owe. Volume Two will develop this subject further.[ER100]
H
הֲלָכָה ~ Halakhah ~ “Jewish law”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Transmission_of_the_Oral_Law.1
The body of law through which Torah gives practical form to obligation. It concerns conduct across daily life, including time, speech, property and relationships. The chapters discuss particular laws and their applications, showing how responsibility takes shape in the decisions people face.[ER101]
הַשֵּׁם ~ HASHEM ~ “The Name”
The reverent designation used throughout this book for the First Being, the uncreated Source of all existence. The Hebrew expression means “the Name.” It is a way of referring to the sacred Name. The book writes HASHEM in full capitals and avoids gendered English pronouns for HASHEM.[ER102]
K
קַבָּלָה לֶעָתִיד ~ Kabbalah Le-Atid ~ “Commitment for the future”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.2
Resolving not to repeat the wrongdoing. In Chapter Six, this commitment belongs with abandoning the act, regret and confession. It should affect the next decision, including changes that make repetition less likely. Rambam’s test of complete return concerns refraining when the earlier opportunity and ability are present again.[ER103]
כֹּהֵן ~ Kohen ~ “Priest”
A member of the priestly line descended from Aharon. The priesthood has particular duties in the sanctuary service. The Closing focuses on the priest who adds wood to the altar each morning and uses that work as an image for attending regularly to one’s responsibilities.
כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה ~ Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba-Zeh ~ “All Israel are guarantors for one another”
The Talmudic formulation of shared responsibility discussed in Chapter Four. The surrounding discussion qualifies accountability for another person’s wrongdoing by the ability to protest. The phrase calls for responsibility within the covenant. It does not establish that every person bears identical blame for every communal failure.
L
לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל דַּם רֵעֶךָ ~ Lo Ta’amod al Dam Re’ekha ~ “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor”
The prohibition against standing by when another person’s life is in danger. Chapter Four discusses the duty to help and the questions of ability, risk and appropriate action. The wrong is failing to respond when a response is required, rather than the physical act of standing near the person.[ER104]
לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִיא ~ Lo Ba-Shamayim Hi ~ “It is not in heaven”
The words from Deuteronomy taken up by Rabbi Yehoshua in the dispute recorded in Bava Metzia. Chapter Two uses that discussion to examine the responsibility for interpretation after Torah has been given. Interpretation follows the received teaching and its rules. It does not give interpreters unrestricted authority to remake the covenant.[ER105]
M
מִצְוָה ~ Mitzva ~ “Commandment”
An obligation commanded by Torah. In this volume, a commandment makes a claim on conduct before we decide whether carrying it out is convenient or appealing. What a particular commandment requires, and to whom it applies, depends on its law and circumstances.
מוּסָר ~ Mussar ~ “Ethical instruction / Discipline”
sefaria.org/Cheshbon_HaNefesh.22.1
Teaching and practice directed toward the correction of character and conduct. Chapter Five draws on this tradition through regular self-examination. The aim is to notice habits that interfere with our responsibilities and work on them consistently. The word also names a later movement devoted to this work.[ER106]
N
נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע ~ Na’aseh ve-nishma ~ “We will do and we will hear”
Israel’s response after Moshe reads the book of the covenant in Exodus 24:7. Chapter Two examines the willingness to accept obligation before understanding everything it will require. The verse does not describe acceptance without any prior teaching. Learning continues as the people carry out what they have received.
P
פֵּאָה ~ Pe’ah ~ “The field’s edge”
The portion of a crop left unharvested for people in need. Chapter Four uses this command to show that provision for others is built into the use of what we produce. The farmer’s harvest is limited by the obligation to leave this portion available for others.[ER107]
פִּיּוּס ~ Piyyus ~ “Appeasement / Seeking reconciliation”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.9
Addressing the person we have wronged and seeking forgiveness. Chapter Six explains why repayment and an apology cannot simply replace one another. When forgiveness is refused, Rambam describes a procedure involving groups of companions and makes a separate provision for a teacher. The chapter explains those conditions.[ER108]
S
שַׁבָּת ~ Shabbat ~ “The seventh day of rest”
The weekly day of cessation from prohibited work, commanded in Torah. The volume treats Shabbat as part of the rhythm in which prayer, study and family and communal life take place. Its observance has specific laws. A general description of rest does not define them all.
שְׁמַע ~ Shema ~ “Hear”
The opening word of Deuteronomy 6:4 and the name commonly given to the associated scriptural recitation. Chapter One discusses its declaration of the oneness of HASHEM, followed by the command to love HASHEM. The call to hear asks for attention that reaches conduct.
שְׁתִיקָה ~ Shetikah ~ “Silence”
Restraint in speech. Chapter Five draws on the teaching in Avot about the value of silence. In ordinary conversation, this can mean listening fully or leaving room for someone else to answer. Restraint does not excuse silence when there is an obligation to speak.
שִׁפְלוּת ~ Shiflut ~ “Lowliness”
A word whose value depends on context. This book warns against making ourselves so small that we refuse abilities or responsibilities entrusted to us. Rabbinic texts can also praise lowliness of spirit. The harmful self-erasure discussed in Chapter Five should not be treated as the word’s only meaning.[ER109]
סִינַי ~ Sinai ~ “The mountain of revelation”
The mountain where Israel receives the covenant in the Torah’s account. Chapter Two treats this as an event in the people’s history and examines how its obligations reach later generations. Its image of the mountain reaching us describes the continuing claim of that covenant.
T
תַּמְחוּי ~ Tamchui ~ “Communal food distribution”
The daily collection and distribution of food for people in need described in Bava Batra. Chapter Four uses it as an example of organized care that can be relied on. Calling it a soup kitchen is a useful modern comparison, though the ancient arrangement should not be assumed to match a modern institution in every detail.[ER110]
תְּפִלָּה ~ Tefillah ~ “Prayer”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Prayer_and_the_Priestly_Blessing.1.2
Turning to HASHEM in prayer. Rambam’s description includes praise, requests and thanks. The volume also asks how prayer helps us examine our conduct and remember the Source of our lives. That is part of the book’s interpretation of prayer, rather than the literal meaning of the word.[ER111]
תְּשׁוּבָה ~ Teshuvah ~ “Return / Repentance”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.2.2
Returning from wrongdoing through stopping the act, regret, a commitment to change and confession. Harm to another person also requires attention to repair and forgiveness. Chapter Six distinguishes complete return from the later completion of atonement. Wrongdoing does not suspend the obligation, and relief from guilt alone does not establish that the work is done.[ER112]
תּוֹכֵחָה ~ Tokhahah ~ “Rebuke / Correction”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Human_Dispositions.6.7
Addressing another person about wrongdoing in order to help them correct it. Chapter Four examines the care required in doing this. Rambam calls for a private, gentle approach that makes concern for the person clear. The manner and circumstances matter. The obligation does not authorize humiliation or control.
תּוֹרָה ~ Torah ~ “Teaching”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Transmission_of_the_Oral_Law.1
The teaching received from HASHEM, including the Written Torah and the Oral Torah that explains and applies it. This book treats Torah as preceding creation and judging how we live. It gives obligations their authority. Study asks us to understand those obligations carefully enough to act on them.
צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים ~ Tzelem Elohim ~ “The image of HASHEM”
The scriptural language for the human being’s creation in the image of HASHEM. Chapter Three takes it as a reason to honor every person’s life. The phrase does not assign bodily form to HASHEM or mean that a person is a piece of HASHEM.
V
וְאָהַבְתָּ ~ Ve-Ahavta ~ “And you shall love”
The wording of the commands to love HASHEM and to love one’s neighbor. Chapter Three examines how these obligations belong together in a person’s life. The book’s circuit image expresses that connection. It does not collapse the two commandments into one legal category.[ER113]
וִדּוּי ~ Vidui ~ “Confession”
sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah,_Repentance.1.1
Acknowledging wrongdoing in words before HASHEM. Rambam’s model confession names the act and includes regret and a resolve not to repeat it. Chapter Six asks us to speak honestly about what we did. Confession belongs with changed conduct and does not replace restitution or seeking another person’s forgiveness.
Y
יֹשֶׁר ~ Yosher ~ “Uprightness”
sefaria.org/Haamek_Davar_on_Genesis,_Introduction_to_Genesis.4
Honest and decent conduct toward other people. Chapter One draws on the Netziv’s account of the patriarchs, who cared for people beyond their own circle, even when they opposed those people’s conduct. The point is that learning and observance must be accompanied by care in the way we treat others.[ER114]
Using the terms
Choose one entry that names a responsibility you have neglected. Identify the conduct that needs to stop or change, the person affected and the repair that remains. Take one concrete step, then return to the relevant chapter to study the obligation more carefully. If you are unsure what the law requires, bring the question to a qualified rabbi.
Scribe review
This internal review page is separate from the manuscript. The complete volume brings together the approved preface, prologue, six chapters, Closing and glossary. Repeated title blocks and separate review pages have been consolidated. Source notes remain with their chapters, and the glossary retains all 40 original entries plus the two approved additions.
The original 112 Word comments are retained as an editorial record. Two additional comments explain small consistency edits to the preface. “Ba-shamayim” is corrected in one quotation in Chapter One and two in Chapter Two. Transliteration spellings are aligned, vowel points are preserved and cantillation marks are omitted consistently. The four-volume plan and the account that New Yavneh grew out of ETI remain as confirmed by the Scribe.
The unverified Alan Morinis attribution remains omitted from the prose and glossary. The attached note records why. No claim is made that the exact wording or its edition and page have been verified.
[SCRIBE VERIFY: publication year, edition statement and publisher imprint.] The author-supplied 2026 copyright notice is retained. The original first-edition statement is left out pending confirmation of publication details.
For cohort applications, visit www.newyavneh.org.
DRAFT. PENDING SCRIBE REVIEW.
Protocol of Fidelity:
1. HASHEM IS SOURCE: [HASHEM remains the uncreated Source of existence and obligation. English prose and translations use no gendered pronouns for HASHEM.]
2. TORAH IS SUBSTANCE: [Torah precedes creation and judges conduct. Human preference, institutional claims and emotional relief do not create or cancel its authority. Wrongdoing does not suspend covenantal obligation.]
3. INSTRUMENTAL BOUNDARY: [Science, institutions, writing and practical routines assist human work. They do not generate obligation or replace qualified judgment. This volume issues no individual ruling.]
4. MASHAL INTEGRITY: [The blueprint, circuit, fire and other comparisons remain comparisons. They do not give HASHEM bodily form or turn an application into the literal meaning of a source.]
5. FIDELITY & NON-SOVEREIGNTY: [The approved arguments, personal account and source distinctions are preserved. Editorial comments record substantive corrections. Practical return is included and redemption remains contingent on human return. Final judgment remains with the Scribe.]
DRAFT — PENDING SCRIBE REVIEW
[ER1]Assembly consistency edit: the unexplained phrase “structural realism” is removed. The surrounding definition and the explanation of responsibilities and limits are preserved, in keeping with the approved Chapter Five and glossary.
[ER2]Assembly consistency edit: the brief definition of Teshuvah now follows the approved Chapter Six. Wrongdoing does not suspend obligation. The sentence about a renewed opportunity remains an indication of change, not a denial of effective later-life return.
[ER3]The original described the Hebrew verb as irreversible adhesion or fusion and compared it with clothing stuck to a wound. Those lexical claims were not supported by the cited verse. The rewrite retains the argument about durable commitment without presenting those claims as the meaning of the word. Please review this correction.
[ER4]The original treated the claim that these cases never occurred as a general rabbinic conclusion about both the inciter and the city. Sanhedrin 71a:16 concerns the city and 71a:17 records Rabbi Yonatan’s disagreement. The rewrite names the disagreement and retains the original distinction between historical judicial commands and present personal responsibility. This is source clarification, not a practical ruling.
[ER5]The original says “There is no birthright in Torah.” The rewrite makes explicit the distinction already stated at the beginning of the original prologue: inherited Jewish status does not by itself fulfill covenantal obligations. It avoids implying that a Jew by birth loses status through nonobservance.
[ER6]Rashi on Deuteronomy 29:14:1 says “future generations.” The original’s more detailed statement about all future souls and converts is not stated in that comment. Shevuot 39a:9 directly supports the inclusion of future converts. The rewrite distinguishes these sources rather than attributing the whole claim to Rashi.
[ER7]The original says Rambam opens “not with a law.” Foundations of the Torah 1:6 identifies this knowledge as a positive commandment. The rewrite preserves its foundational role while correcting that distinction. See source note 1.
[ER8]The original Hebrew attributed to 1:2 does not match either that passage or its accompanying English. It appears to mix elements of 1:2 and 1:3. The Hebrew here is the actual text of 1:2, with corresponding transliteration and adapted English.
[ER9]The sentence “Whoever forms a mental image of HASHEM is suspect” is absent from Foundations of the Torah 1:9. The rewrite replaces that attribution with language the passage contains. It also removes the unsupported inference that this passage itself prohibits gendered English pronouns. The manuscript’s pronoun practice remains intact.
[ER10]The original limits Rambam to “two things only,” negation and will through revelation. Guide I:54 and I:58 also discuss attributes of action. The rewrite includes that distinction and avoids presenting the author’s summary as an exhaustive statement of Rambam’s position.
[ER11]The original calls the sacred and secular divide an illusion and describes all space as holy ground. The rewrite preserves the claim that no part of life is exempt from responsibility while avoiding the implication that Torah’s distinctions between sacred and ordinary status disappear.
[ER12]Sforno on Exodus 20:2 speaks of the giver of existence and worship without an intermediary. The original’s “relational address before legislation” is an interpretation of that scene, not Sforno’s stated formulation. The rewrite makes the author’s interpretation explicit.
[ER13]The relevant passage is Haamek Davar, Introduction to Genesis, especially paragraphs 3 and 4. It is available on Sefaria. The original reference to a print-only Petach Ha-Sha’ar is corrected. The claim that character must precede law is recast as the author’s practical conclusion rather than a chronology asserted by the Netziv.
[ER14]The original gives “Reishit chokhmah” from Psalms 111:10 while citing Proverbs 9:10. This quotation uses the actual Proverbs text, beginning “Techillat chokhmah,” and includes the second half of that verse.
[ER15]The original attributes “alert attentiveness, not trembling fear” to Malbim. His comment explicitly includes fear of punishment and distinguishes it from reverential awe. The rewrite retains attentiveness as the author’s practical application. It also describes Guide III:51 more precisely: the scholars accept true beliefs but lack inquiry into their foundations, rather than having no orientation toward HASHEM.
[ER16]The original describes each thing as “nothing other than the Divine will taking a particular form.” The rewrite emphasizes continual dependence and avoids suggesting that HASHEM has a physical form or is identical with created objects. It does not claim that Tanya and Rambam use the same philosophical account. The Tanya link is also corrected.
[ER17]The original presents an absolute claim that a nation cannot acquire a false collective memory and describes the Kuzari as non-apologetic. The rewrite attributes the argument to Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi and preserves its distinction between public revelation and private testimony without asserting an independently proved law of collective memory. The exact Sefaria segment is Kuzari 1:93, whose displayed text is numbered 87 in the edition.
[ER18]Deuteronomy 29 is the covenant renewal in Moav, not a speech delivered at Sinai. The rewrite identifies that setting and uses both verses 13 and 14. Shevuot 39a:9 supports the inclusion of future generations and future converts. The original’s separate claim about every future soul being present at Sinai is not needed to establish this point and is not attributed to that passage.
[ER19]The original says the people spoke these words before Torah was given and before knowing its contents. Exodus 24:7 explicitly places a reading of the covenant before their response. Rashi on Exodus 24:1:1 places the episode before the Ten Commandments, while Ramban on Exodus 24:1:1 places the covenant ceremony after them. The rewrite distinguishes these chronologies and preserves the teaching about commitment preceding complete understanding.
[ER20]The rewrite keeps the Bava Metzia account while explicitly treating the smile and language of defeat as figurative. It also limits the rule about heavenly voices to this dispute rather than presenting an exhaustive ruling about every rabbinic use of such a voice. The original’s spatial formula “Source remains above” is removed to avoid locating HASHEM in physical space.
[ER21]The original states that ignorance and circumstances can no longer provide any defense. The rewrite preserves personal responsibility without turning a theological exhortation into a blanket judgment about culpability in every circumstance. The application of those distinctions is a question for qualified human judgment.
[ER22]The original’s categorical statement “Geulah is not withheld. Geulah is refused” is recast as the author’s criticism of refusing the required work of return. Rambam, Repentance 7:5, supports the contingency of redemption on repentance. It does not provide a diagnosis of every delay or a basis for assigning all suffering to a particular person’s refusal.
[ER23]The original moves directly from the Great Court’s authority to the authority of the entire later chain. The rewrite preserves transmission while avoiding an equivalence between the Great Court and every later teacher or institution. It also corrects the quoted wording from the singular “amud” to the source’s plural “ammudei.”
[ER24]The original treats the requirement of greater wisdom and numbers as a general prohibition on overturning earlier rulings. Rebels 2:1 allows a later Great Court to reconsider an interpretation. Rebels 2:2 treats enactments, decrees and customs, while 2:3 treats protective prohibitions accepted throughout Israel. The rewrite keeps these categories distinct. It does not apply the rules to a present-day case.
[ER25]The original risks reducing the Oral Torah to later application of the Written Torah. Rambam’s introduction states that the commandments were given to Moshe with their explanations. The rewrite preserves both the received teaching and the later work of interpretation and enactment, without treating all of them as the same category.
[ER26]The original calls “tetze” a present participle and substitutes “yotze” in its explanation. The verse uses “tetze,” understood here in its future prophetic setting. The rewrite keeps Isaiah’s future vision distinct from the author’s application to the present work of transmission.
[ER27]The original repeatedly presents an electrical circuit as a precise account of covenantal life. The rewrite retains the central image as an illustration of human devotion and conduct. It excludes physical descriptions of HASHEM and distinguishes the chapter’s theological connection from an identity between separate commandments.
[ER28]The original says humanitarian compassion without explicit love of HASHEM cannot survive a difficult neighbor. The rewrite preserves the theological claim that HASHEM grounds obligation without presenting an unsupported prediction about the behavior or motives of every person outside that stated commitment.
[ER29]The original declares that a person acting with contempt has not fulfilled the laws, then says the letter has been fulfilled. The rewrite preserves the criticism of contempt while separating the chapter’s ethical argument from a ruling on the legal validity of a particular act. Rabbi Akiva’s phrase is translated “a great principle,” rather than “the great principle.”
[ER30]The biography is now attributed to the rabbinic account in Avot DeRabbi Natan 6:2. The source describes learning beside his son. The rewrite removes the unsupported claim that Rabbi Akiva’s principle was literally his autobiography, along with claims to know the private psychological origin of his teaching.
[ER31]The original first reports a disagreement, then declares the teachings not to be in competition and resolves them as nested principles. The rewrite distinguishes the recorded disagreement from the author’s proposal to read the teachings together. It does not assign a settled universal-versus-particular legal interpretation to either authority.
[ER32]The original turns the order in Avot 1:12 into a categorical rule that teaching without prior love is not Torah transmission. The rewrite identifies the sequence as the author’s educational reading. It also restores “Go and learn” to Hillel’s statement in Shabbat 31a:6, which the original quotation omitted.
[ER33]The original says Torah’s blueprint “only comes to life” when illuminated by a human soul. The rewrite preserves the need for humane teaching while avoiding the implication that Torah depends on human warmth for its reality or authority. “Darkness” remains an image for need, not a label declaring another person deficient.
[ER34]The original contrasts love with charity by defining charity as voluntary. The rewrite distinguishes optional generosity from obligatory giving and cites Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 7:1, including its reference to the giver’s means. It also labels the outward application of Rambam’s love imagery as the author’s interpretation.
[ER35]The original attributes this argument to Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions 6:2–3. Those passages address attachment to sages and love of fellow Jews. The direct source for inviting others to serve and believe in HASHEM as an expression of love is Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandments 3:1. The quotation and attribution have been corrected.
[ER36]The original treats Arevut as unrestricted liability identical to guaranteeing a financial debt and attributes its entire legal structure directly to Sinai. The rewrite retains the force of guarantorship, cites the exact statement at Shevuot 39a:22 and includes the qualification at 39b:1. It avoids a blanket ruling or an identification of all duties toward humanity with this specific covenantal category.
[ER37]The original identifies every law discussed in the chapter with Arevut as though all were direct applications of a single legal category. The rewrite distinguishes the specific covenantal principle from the author’s broader use of it to discuss dependable communal care. The individual commandments retain their own sources and conditions.
[ER38]Shevuot 39a:22 and 39b:1 concern accountability for wrongdoing where protest was possible. The original presents unrestricted financial-style liability and invents an immediate Talmudic question about people who have never met. That question and answer are removed. The separate discussion at Shevuot 39a:9 supports the covenant’s reach across generations and future converts, as noted below.
[ER39]The original treats the body image as literal physiology and makes an unqualified claim that any injury is felt throughout the body. The rewrite grounds the image in Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 9:4:2 and identifies the extension to communal responsibility as an analogy. No medical or anatomical claim is needed.
[ER40]The original declares that Torah abolishes the innocent bystander and recognizes no innocence through disengagement. The rewrite preserves the warning against avoidable inaction while retaining the source’s condition of actual ability. It does not declare everyone guilty of every failure in the surrounding community.
[ER41]The original says capacity is the sole limit on rescue and gives jumping into the water as an ordinary example. The rewrite retains the obligation to obtain and fund help from Sanhedrin 73a:8 without supplying a universal rule about personal risk or unlimited expense. It avoids turning an illustrative chapter into instructions for a dangerous rescue.
[ER42]The original treats every one-day delay as the same violation. Sefer HaChinukh 588:3 distinguishes the payment periods for daytime and nighttime work and discusses further conditions. The rewrite retains the concern for the worker’s needs without issuing a universal payment deadline for every employment arrangement.
[ER43]The original describes every employer and landlord as a legal guarantor and all economic power as fiduciary power. The cited passage does not establish those legal classifications. The rewrite preserves the argument that economic relationships are subject to Torah while removing unsupported claims about landlords and universal fiduciary status.
[ER44]The daily and weekly arrangements are at Bava Batra 8b:6, not 8a. The obligation to appoint communal collectors is at Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 9:1, not 10:7. Rambam’s account at 9:3 distinguishes the widespread communal fund from the food provision that varied by locality. The rewrite preserves that distinction.
[ER45]The original describes biur ma’asrot as distributing all retained tithes. Mishnah Maaser Sheni 5:6 distinguishes distribution to the entitled recipients from removal of other produce and records disagreements about particular categories. The rewrite preserves the point about limits on retention without giving an inaccurate uniform procedure.
[ER46]The original repeatedly declares that the field’s edge never belonged to the farmer. The rewrite states the secure point in the cited command: the farmer may not harvest or gather everything and must leave the prescribed gifts. It does not resolve technical questions about the moment at which particular property rights arise.
[ER47]The original’s rule that correction may be offered only once is the opposite of Bava Metzia 31a:18. Privacy and gentleness are stated by Rambam in Human Dispositions 6:7. The teaching about words that will not be heard is at Yevamot 65b:6. The rewrite identifies the separate sources rather than attributing all these rules to Bava Metzia.
[ER48]Sefer HaChinukh 239 concerns correction and 240 concerns humiliation. The original attributes a general requirement to act from love to entry 240 and states an absolute ban on public correction. The rewrite retains the emphasis on the person’s good, gives the correct entries and acknowledges the qualifications in Rambam 6:8 and Sefer HaChinukh 240:3. It does not turn them into a present-day ruling.
[ER49]The original says that fulfilling Arevut earns no special credit and presents one universal definition of altruism. The rewrite distinguishes voluntary action from binding duty without denying the worth or merit of fulfilling a command. The statement about encouraging others to give is at Bava Batra 9a:13, not 9b. Its application to dependable organization is identified as the chapter’s inference.
[ER50]The opening now follows the approved Chapter Four. The original claim that Arevut abolishes the innocent bystander is removed. The obligation to act retains the conditions of ability and responsibility established in that chapter, rather than imposing unlimited guilt or authority over a neighbor.
[ER51]The original attributes the universal middle path to Human Dispositions 2:3 and calls Shiflut the defective opposite of arrogance. This reverses that passage, which praises being shefal ruach and makes pride an exception to the middle path. The rewrite preserves the distinction in 1:5 as well as the stronger instruction in 2:3. It does not force these passages into the original two-extremes scheme or identify lowliness of spirit with inability to act.
[ER52][Attribution omitted from assembled manuscript] The original attributes the exact phrase “no more than my place, no less than my space” to Alan Morinis’s Everyday Holiness without an edition or page. Related wording appears in contemporary Mussar materials, but the precise book quotation was not confirmed. Its practical meaning is retained here as the author’s explanation. Restore the direct attribution only after checking the intended edition and page.
[ER53]The original presents a shared root between Anavah and anah, “to respond,” as an established etymology, then uses it to rule out initiative. The unverified linguistic claim is removed. Responsiveness remains an explanation of the author’s argument, not a dictionary definition. Human initiative is addressed explicitly in the next section.
[ER54]The original says Moshe never acted on his own initiative. Shabbat 87a:2 explicitly says otherwise, and 87a:5 discusses the breaking of the tablets. The rewrite also removes unsupported counts of confrontations with Pharaoh and ascents of Sinai. The argument now rests on verified episodes rather than absolute claims about Moshe’s entire life.
[ER55]The original presents arrogance and burnout as two pathologies caused by false authorship, then claims that Anavah prevents both. The rewrite removes the unsupported psychological guarantee and the implication that exhaustion proves a spiritual failure. It preserves the distinction between responsibility and total control.
[ER56]The original describes an inability to make a ruling and labels it Shiflut, a supposed deficiency extreme. Gittin 56a:4 records two specific objections, while 56a:5 gives Rabbi Yochanan’s judgment. Rashi explains the relevant word as forbearance. The rewrite retains the criticism without inventing a Rambam-based classification or presenting this rabbinic account as an exhaustive historical explanation of the destruction.
[ER57]The original moves directly from a person’s sense of responsibility to a claim that their authority has been assigned by HASHEM. The rewrite distinguishes the source of obligation from an individual’s claim to a particular role. It also removes the literal-sounding account of authority flowing through Moshe and returning when a task ends.
[ER58]The original loosely combines several parts of Iggeret HaRamban into a single sequence and says the heart is elevated. Sections 2–4 instead move from calm speech to avoiding anger, from avoiding anger to humility and from humility to reverence. The rewrite follows that sequence and retains the traditional attribution of the letter rather than making a new authorship claim.
[ER59]The original turns Avot 2:16 into an absolute claim that the reader cannot complete the work and is bound only to labor, never to outcomes. The rewrite preserves both clauses without making effort alone sufficient. It also removes the guarantee that understanding the teaching produces peaceful rest.
[ER60]The original says the people were not primarily worshipping an idol and describes a channel for spiritual energy. Meshekh Chokhmah, Ki Tisa 21–23, on Exodus 32:19, identifies the calf as a grave error and explains the confusion behind it. The rewrite removes language that makes HASHEM’s presence sound like a material energy or minimizes the idolatry. The original broad and nonworking reference is replaced by Sefaria’s current exact sections.
[ER61]The original adds a specific claim that HASHEM allowed the Temple’s destruction in order to prevent worship of the institution. Ki Tisa 22 discusses covenantal failure and the loss of sanctity. The rewrite stays with that explanation. The application to modern institutions is presented separately as the author’s inference, rather than as the commentator’s explicit account of every institution or of HASHEM’s purposes.
[ER62]This paragraph preserves the original application to New Yavneh as the author’s normative reflection. It does not assert a current organizational policy, a legal obligation to dissolve or verified operational facts. No institutional action is authorized by the chapter.
[ER63]Cheshbon HaNefesh is available on Sefaria. The original claim that it is unavailable and the vague reference to a “Kol Ya’akov or similar” edition are removed. Sections 21–24 show that the weekly focus is one trait but daily accounting covers the full set of thirteen. The rewrite corrects the suggestion that all other traits are simply set aside.
[ER64]The quotation now follows the Hebrew text actually displayed at Avot 1:17, including its continuation about action. The original uses a different wording for the silence clause and turns it into a ranking of silence as the deepest of all practices. That unsupported ranking is removed. The Berakhot 6b:11 citation is also removed from this argument: the reward for running to a lecture does not establish that speaking during learning is secondary.
[ER65]The original says the letter closes with a promise about the Shekhinah and concludes that HASHEM lives in a space inside a person. The passage is in section 5, not the closing section. Section 4 explicitly rejects containment. The rewrite retains the teaching about humility and presence without literal spatial language or a claim that a spiritual result follows automatically from an ego-management technique.
[ER66]The original defines Teshuvah as re-entering obligation after a violation. The rewrite makes clear that wrongdoing does not suspend covenantal obligation. It also avoids presenting failure as inevitable in every particular case or treating the existence of return as permission to fail.
[ER67]The original turns the word chayyav in 1:1 into a claim about the precise legal status of repentance as a whole, then gives an inflexible sequence beginning with confession. The quoted clause directly concerns the obligation to confess when returning. The rewrite follows 2:2 for the components of repentance and does not settle broader debates about their legal classification.
[ER68]Abandoning the sin was missing from the original four-part list. It is explicit at the beginning of Repentance 2:2. The revised explanation includes it and distinguishes the components of return from a supposedly non-negotiable chronological order.
[ER69]Yoma 36b:5–7 supplies the categories behind the confession: inadvertent wrongdoing, deliberate wrongdoing and rebellion. The original narrows deliberate wrongdoing to acts driven by desire and asserts an unsupported universal reason for requiring all three words in communal confession. Those additions are removed, and the disagreement over the order of the words is identified in the source note.
[ER70]The original repeatedly treats renewed temptation as the sole verification of valid repentance. Repentance 2:1 distinguishes complete repentance from later repentance that is still effective, including on the day of death. The rewrite preserves that distinction and does not instruct a reader to recreate a tempting or prohibited situation as a test.
[ER71]Repentance 2:9 is not a simple three-attempt rule. After the initial request, it describes a group of three, followed by a second and third group if needed. It then addresses refusal and adds an exception for one’s teacher. The rewrite retains the source’s conclusion in the note without turning it into a blanket judgment against any injured person who has not forgiven.
[ER72]The original repeatedly opposes feelings to Torah and says that emotional relief accomplishes nothing. Rambam explicitly includes regret and shame in Repentance 1:1 and regret in 2:2. The rewrite preserves the critique of feeling without repair while recognizing that inward change is part of repentance.
[ER73]The original declares Isaiah 6:10 to be ironic speech, expressly rules out a judgment preventing return and reduces the passage to psychological atrophy. Rashi on Isaiah 6:10:3 emphasizes the people’s avoidance. Rambam, Repentance 6:3, explicitly cites the verse for the withholding of repentance as judgment. The rewrite names the differing readings and removes the universal claim that the gate can never be closed.
[ER74]The Hebrew sentence attributed to Repentance 7:1 in the original does not appear there. It is replaced by a verified quotation from 7:4. The reference to 3:14 is retained with its actual example and scope. No new quotation is presented as Rambam’s wording without verification.
[ER75]The original assigns an unspecified teaching about despair as arrogance to Tzidkat HaTzadik and incorrectly says that work is unavailable on Sefaria. The verified appeal against despair is cited here from the same author’s Divrei Soferim 16:1. The unsupported diagnosis of despair as arrogance is removed. Verified passages from Tzidkat HaTzadik 49:1 and 57:1 inform the later discussion.
[ER76]The original presents Berakhot 34b as a single uncontested teaching, then denies that it involves higher standing and explains it solely through experiential depth. Berakhot 34b:21–22 names a disagreement between Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Abbahu. Rambam, Repentance 7:4, explicitly describes a greater standing grounded in restraint of desire. The rewrite preserves the disagreement and distinguishes it from the chapter’s practical application.
[ER77]The original’s claim that return is a direction rather than a destination becomes an absolute denial that repentance can be completed. That conflicts with its own citation of complete repentance. The rewrite retains continuing vigilance while allowing the completed return recognized by Rambam.
[ER78]The original attributes to Rabbi Tzadok a blanket view that prolonged guilt is arrogance and says the process should simply end after four steps. The cited work’s section 57 assigns significance to recurring remorse, while Rambam 2:8 explicitly calls for renewed confession over past sins. The rewrite names those teachings and removes unsupported claims about what lingering guilt usually means.
[ER79]Repentance 1:4 distinguishes repentance from the completion of atonement across different categories of wrongdoing. The rewrite removes the implication that completing a brief checklist automatically settles every consequence. It also avoids diagnosing persistent guilt or declaring an individual’s atonement complete.
[ER80]The original cites Repentance 2:8 for the Al Chet wording, which that passage does not contain. The quotation is now linked to an exact prayer-book segment, with Sephardic transliteration. Sefat Emet, Deuteronomy, For the Day of Atonement 14:2 supplies a verified teaching on communal unity. The original’s detailed theory of responsibility for social conditions is not presented as a direct quotation or specific teaching from that passage.
[ER81]The original moves from plural confession to sweeping statements that every person is implicated in every communal failure. The rewrite retains the condition in Shevuot 39b:1, consistent with the approved Chapter Four. Communal belonging and collective self-examination are distinguished from an automatic judgment of equal personal guilt.
[ER82]The original expands Ezekiel’s brief response into invented first-person reasoning about probability and treats the vision as a direct demonstration of the process of repentance. The rewrite quotes the actual response, grounds the collective reading in Ezekiel 37:11 and marks the connection to individual return as an application. The language of bones and renewed life is kept within the prophetic vision.
[ER83]The original treats repentance as a muscle with predictable atrophy, recovery time and readiness. The rewrite identifies the comparison as an analogy, removes unsupported psychological guarantees and avoids claiming that difficulty in returning can be measured by a fixed mechanism.
[ER84]The original presents confession in both morning and afternoon prayer as a universal daily practice. The rewrite acknowledges variation in rite and calendar and grounds the seasonal point in Repentance 2:6. It does not prescribe a prayer schedule or issue a ruling about when confession is recited.
[ER85]The original moves from the loss of the Temple to statements that the altar is still burning and that its fire now literally lives in study, prayer and repair. The rewrite preserves the continuing authority of Torah while distinguishing the altar command from the author’s application to daily life. It also removes the sweeping claim that every visible expression of the presence of HASHEM has been absent since the destruction.
[ER86]Yoma 21b:5 is the exact segment for the duty to bring fire by human means. It speaks of fire, rather than specifically of bringing wood. The wood belongs to Leviticus 6:5, quoted in the next section. The rewrite also replaces the original language of equal partners with the required human response to HASHEM.
[ER87]The original says that Rambam’s lovesick person is someone who tended the fire every day, as though this were Rambam’s explanation. Repentance 10:3 describes continual absorption in love, while 10:6 connects love with knowledge. The rewrite cites those teachings and identifies the daily fire application as the author’s own.
[ER88]This passage and the Chapter Six recap follow the approved rewrite. The original repeated the claims that obligation is re-entered after sin, that return can never be complete and that the gate is unconditionally always open. Those formulations overlook distinctions discussed in the approved chapter, including Rambam’s accounts of complete return, atonement and impediments to repentance. The closing now calls for action without restating those absolutes.
[ER89]The original recap calls Sinai a transfer of authority from HASHEM to a people. The approved Chapter Two describes a people addressed by HASHEM and entrusted with responsibility under the covenant. This recap follows that distinction and avoids implying that the Source of authority has changed.
[ER90]The original defines redemption as present labor instead of a future event. The rewrite preserves the demand for present action while retaining the future promise and the explicit condition of return in Repentance 7:5. The user has confirmed the series plan, so the descriptions of Volumes Two through Four are retained as the author’s stated plan.
[ER91]The original attributes the equation “a time of favor is now” to the tradition without identifying an authority. Berakhot 8a:1 explains the phrase as the time when the community prays. The rewrite gives that exact teaching and separates it from the author’s appeal to begin acting without waiting for ideal feelings or circumstances.
[ER92]The original gives no exact address for this liturgical quotation. It is verified here against Siddur Edot HaMizrach, Weekday Shacharit, Alenu 3. The translation follows the manuscript’s sacred naming conventions. The surrounding prayer concerns turning from idolatry and accepting the sovereignty of HASHEM, rather than granting sovereignty to a human institution.
[ER93]The original presents Hillel’s wording as an inflexible legal sequence and makes every person’s claim to care unconditional in scope. The rewrite follows the approved Chapter Three, distinguishing the connection between love and teaching from a universal procedural rule or unlimited personal liability.
[ER94]The exact guarantorship passage is Shevuot 39a:22. The qualification about ability to protest is at 39b:1. The revised entry follows Chapter Four and does not reduce distinct laws to a single unrestricted liability.
[ER95]This entry is added to reflect the approved Chapter Six. Abandoning the sin was missing from the original glossary and its four-step account of repentance.
[ER96]The original presents one view in Berakhot 34b as uncontested and explains it as experiential depth that the righteous have not earned. The rewrite follows the approved Chapter Six, which names the disagreement at Berakhot 34b:21–22 and Rambam’s explanation in terms of resisting a previously known inclination.
[ER97]The original calls regret the second stage in a fixed sequence and defines shame only as a social reaction. Rambam includes regret in 2:2 and regret and shame in the confession at 1:1. The revised entry preserves their place without treating emotion as a substitute for changed conduct.
[ER98]This entry follows the approved Closing. It preserves the altar command while identifying the application to ordinary life as an analogy. The original blurred the two.
[ER99]The original treats “convert” as the word’s meaning in every context and relies on Deuteronomy 29 alone to establish later legal status. The rewrite distinguishes biblical usage from this book’s audience and uses the conversion discussion in Yevamot 47b:2. It does not adjudicate any individual’s conversion.
[ER100]This entry is added because redemption is discussed in the approved Chapters Five and Six and the Closing. Its condition of return and its future promise are both retained.
[ER101]The original presents “the way” as the literal definition. The revised entry gives the established meaning, Jewish law, and avoids making an etymological explanation carry the legal definition. Rambam’s introduction supports the relationship between the written teaching and its received explanation.
[ER102]The original calls HASHEM the proper name itself. The rewrite distinguishes the reverent designation “the Name” from the sacred Name to which it refers. Leviticus 24:11 supplies a scriptural use of the expression. The fuller account of HASHEM as Source remains in Chapter One.
[ER103]The original labels this the third stage of a mandatory sequence. The rewrite follows the components in Repentance 2:2. Chapter Six separately explains the test of complete return at 2:1 and the continuing value of later-life return.
[ER104]The original says that standing over the endangered person is itself the prohibited act. The rewrite states the duty as an obligation to respond and refers readers to Chapter Four for its qualifications.
[ER105]The transliteration is corrected from “va-shamayim” to “ba-shamayim” to reflect the bet with dagesh in the cited text. Final assembly applies the same correction to one transliteration line in Chapter One and two in Chapter Two. The Hebrew here follows Bava Metzia 59b:5.
[ER106]The original glossary repeats an exact formulation attributed to Alan Morinis. The assembled manuscript retains the omission of that attribution. An edition and page check is required only if the quotation is restored. The glossary therefore defines the term without repeating the unverified quotation. Biblical ethical instruction is also distinguished from the later movement bearing the name.
[ER107]The original makes an unqualified claim that the corner never belonged to the farmer. The approved Chapter Four describes a limit on what the farmer may take. This entry follows that wording and avoids settling property-law questions through an image.
[ER108]The spelling is normalized to Piyyus, as in the approved Chapter Six. The original labels it the fourth stage of repentance and reduces Rambam’s procedure to three requests. The revised chapter explains the initial request, successive groups of three companions and the separate rule concerning a teacher.
[ER109]The original defines this word only as a defective form of humility. Avot 4:4 positively urges lowliness of spirit. The rewrite separates the book’s warning against refusing responsibility from the broader and sometimes positive use of the term. The approved Chapter Five discusses the conduct without making the Hebrew word itself exclusively negative.
[ER110]The exact daily-distribution passage is Bava Batra 8b:6, rather than the original glossary’s 8a. The definition distinguishes the ancient arrangement from the modern soup-kitchen comparison.
[ER111]The original gives “self-examination” as the literal definition and treats contemporary prayer as the altar fire in another form. The rewrite uses “prayer” as the translation and identifies self-examination and fire imagery as applications. It does not prescribe one identical daily obligation for every person.
[ER112]This definition follows the approved Chapter Six. It restores abandoning the sin, removes the fixed four-stage sequence and distinguishes continuing obligation, complete repentance and atonement. It also replaces the original statement that repentance can only be a direction and never a completed return.
[ER113]The original calls this an imperative form. Its biblical grammatical form is not the morphological imperative, though it carries a command in these passages. The rewrite states its function without mislabeling its grammar.
[ER114]The original describes character as categorically prior to and separate from law. The approved Chapter One emphasizes the Netziv’s criticism of learned and observant people whose conduct lacked uprightness, and his praise of the patriarchs’ care for others. This definition follows that argument without presenting ethics as an independent source of obligation.