[Avodah] teshuva

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, Oct 09, 2016 at 06:08:56PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: I recently a quote from ROY that is based on the comparison of teshuva to a
: mikvah...

RYBS, OTOH, famously described two kind of teshuvah, utilizing the mishnah
quoting R' Aqiva.
1- Lifnei Mi atam metaharim, where a person purifies themself.
2- uMi mitaher eschem, where HQBH provides the taharah.

The metaphor being just this -- taharah via miqvah, a person can do himself.
Taharah by parah adumuh requires a mitaheir.

I see I touched on this before (May 2003), when writing about RYBS's
identification of tum'ah with the objectification of man
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n007.shtml#08>:

> ... The bifurcation of man into nosei (actor) and nisah (acted upon)
> is caused by cheit. The mishnah of R' Aqiva that begins "ashreichem
> Yisra'el, lifnei Mi atem metaharim umi metaheir eschem" refers to two
> levels of objectification. (See the actual mishnah, Avos 8:9; the song
> lyrics skip a bit that is important to this vort.)

> R' Akiva then brings two ra'ayos. The first (Yechezkel 36:25) is "Zeraqti
> aleikhem mayim tehorim..." This is the taharah of the parah adumah, where
> man so objectified himself that he needs HQBH to be the Actor. The second
> (Yirmiyahu 17:35), "Mikveh Yisrael Hashem" is man immersing himself,
> not being purified by another.

> This notion of the tum'ah of cheit being objectification is also found in
> another Shabbos Shuvah derashah (included in R' A Lustiger in his sefer,
> and he's invited to elaborate or correct). The following is a snippet
> from my post in v6n161:
...

And it could be that leshitaso, uMi mitaher eskhem is possible with a
chatzitzah, as long as we don't think of it as a sheretz beyado.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet
micha at aishdas.org        about things most people don't watch even on
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter