[Avodah] Can a Rasha do Teshuva?

[Akiva Miller]

Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva 3:3 -- "... on Rosh Hashana: One who is found to be a tzadik is sealed for life. And one who is found to be a rasha is sealed for death. And the beinoni is left hanging until Yom Kippur: If he did teshuva he is sealed for life, and if not he is sealed for death."

L'maaseh, on a practical level, it is obvious that since no one knows which category they fall into, everyone has to do the best teshuva they can. But l'halacha, in theory, there are some things about this that bother me:

Is teshuva ineffective for the rasha? A simple reading of this Rambam would seem to indicate that the rasha was already sealed for death on Rosh Hashana, and it is only the beinoni who needs to bother with teshuva. Is it impossible for the rasha's future to be improved by teshuva?

Let's set that quesion aside for a moment, and ask a different question: What of a beinoni who is *exactly* in the middle and did not do teshuva. Would his fate really be sealed for death? I recall learning that in such a case, where one is *exactly* in the middle, HaShem tips the scale towards life. If that memory is accurate, then it is a question on this Rambam. But the question can be easily answered by saying that the Rambam is speaking about the beinoni as a very wide category, including everyone who is neither a tzadik *gamur* nor a rasha *gamur*.

If so, this explanation reflects back on the first question, and shows us that it is only the tzadik gamur and rasha gamur whose fate is immediately sealed. The 99% tzadik and 99% rasha can still improve their fate via teshuva. This shows that not only is "beinoni" a wide category, but "life" and "death" are also wide categories, including not only whether or not the person will live out the coming year, but also the *quality* of that life. (I come to that conclusion by wondering whether the 99% tzadik is in any danger of actually losing his life in the coming year.)

But this logic seems to confirm what I wrote in the beginning, that the rasha gamur, the 100% rasha, is sealed for death on Rosh Hashana, and no amount of teshuva will help him. I am very troubled by this. I would prefer to think that *everyone* -- even the rasha gamur who might not ever actually exist -- can improve his fate by doing teshuva.

Surely I misunderstood something. But what?

Akiva Miller


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