[Avodah] Rabi Yehuda Hanasi - Yom Hakippur wipes away all sins even without teshuva

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Marty Bluke asked:

> What is the rationale behind this? A person does all kinds of
> serious aveiros doesn't feel bad about it and doesn't repent
> and yet comes Yom Kippur all is forgiven.  Why? How does that
> make any sense?

This has bothered me for many decades, since the very day I first heard it.

The only answer I've come up with -- and I am very aware that it is only a
very partial answer -- is that I have learned quite a lot about teshuva and
how it works, but I have learned almost nothing about kapara and how it
works. This has predisposed my brain to reject any sort of forgiveness that
is not accompanied by teshuva.

Yet, as RMBluke points out, it is most definitely possible to ameliorate
sins even without teshuva. Perhaps the problem is understanding the
differences between various methods of amelioration. I don't know what
kapara is, but I do know that it is different from selicha and mechila.
Every Yom Kippur Machzor tries to explain the differences.

In other words, perhaps the question as phrased is faulty. He wrote that,
"comes Yom Kippur all is forgiven", but perhaps that's inaccurate. It might
be more accurate to say that with Yom Kippur all has been *atoned for*, but
this atonement is without forgiveness, unless there is teshuva.

That's all I can offer in direct response to this question. But this is my
opportunity to get something off my chest that I have held in too long. I
post it now, with the hope that it will help someone develop a better
answer to the question.....

WHY do I know so little about kapara? WHY is it that I understand so little
about how kapara works, yet so much about how teshuva works? I can't help
but suspect that (similar to our avoidance of learning Nach), this is a
reaction to the fact that most (all?) of Christian theology is based on
kapara, more specifically, on their idea that one particular human "died
for our sins". It seems (to me) that as a defense against the possibility
that we might, chalila, be drawn towards Christianity, we have been taught
to reject that idea. NO!!!, we are taught, it is NOT possible that any
person might have "died for our sins."

(And yet, ironically, when frum Jews hear of a person's passing, we often
console their relatives with, "It should be a kapara." Do we believe this
stuff or not???)

Whenever I read in the Chumash about a particular korban (or some other act
- it's not always a korban) being m'chaper for something, my brain wants to
understand the mechanics of how that works. And I come up empty-handed
every time. A good example is in parshas Korach, where a plague had broken
out, but Aharon was able to stop the plague and provide kapara, that verb
appearing in psukim 17:11 and 17:12.  The plague has already started, and
Moshe tells Aharon what to do, and to do it quickly! There is no mention of
any sort of teshuva, yet the procedure worked.

Everything about this story sounds (to me) very scientific, mechanical,
deterministic - if only we would understand the science involved. Rashi
gives us a hint of how this works, when he tells us (17:11) that the Malach
Hamavess taught Moshe that ketores can stop a plague. I could easily accept
that there's some sort of biology working here, but how does that
accomplish kapara?

Akiva Miller
.
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