Jewish Life Digital Edition September 2015 | Page 98

ROSH HASHANAH 5776
earth’, meaning that we all have to overcome our earthly constraints in our mission towards spirituality and perfection.
And every single person has a different degree of earthliness in their nature that
they need to overcome, making it impossible for anyone to accurately judge anyone
else’s shortcomings, since you have no idea
where his difficulties lie, as it says in Pirkei
Avos4, “Don’t judge anyone until you’ve
stood in his place.” We can’t fathom the
difficulties that Rabbi Akiva had to overcome to become who he became, and his
difficulties weren’t like Moshe Rabbeinu’s.
And so too Adam, who was almost completely spiritual in nature, but since he was
taken from the earth, there remained a
very fine barrier between him and pure
spirituality. We can have no way of really
understanding the tremendous test he was
up against; the acquisition of perfection on
the most delicate level.
Even Adam’s sin was a very fine matter.
He chose to eat the fruit from the tree of
knowledge. This was the knowledge of
good and bad. As was explained, Adam’s
test was never to avoid doing ‘bad’, it was
the active achievement of ‘good’. Before
the sin, Adam had no connection with the
reality of ‘bad’. He was, however, aware
that such a concept existed, and he
thought that by eating the fruit and experiencing the knowledge of something that
he had no awareness of before, he could
then actively choose ‘good’ in the face of
‘bad’, and that would be a greater service
of Hashem. A limited example of this
might be a person who wants to help rehabilitate people who have become addicted to drugs. This person has a lot of
information and wisdom in psychology,
but if he would experience the drive behind someone’s addiction, he would be
much more qualified to help them. Not

THE COMMON MAN TRIES HIS HARDEST TO
AVOID SINNING AGAIN, WHEREAS THE
RIGHTEOUS MAN BEMOANS NOT ONLY THE BAD
THAT HE’S DONE, BUT THE GOOD WHICH HE HAS
NOT DONE, AND HOW HE LACKS IN HIS ACTIVE
SERVICE OF G-D.
for the pleasure, but from good motives,
this man decides to take drugs. He now
has a completely different knowledge of
the problem his patients are dealing with.
So too Adam HaRishon; his test was to
choose more ‘good’, but he knew that his
choosing ‘good’ would be a much more
valuable choice if it was in spite of the
temptations of ‘bad’. So he ate the fruit,
and only after this was choosing ‘bad’ actually an option. In an ideal world, doing
the wrong thing is not even a possibility;
the only choice would be how much of the
right thing we choose to do.
Another interesting idea is that we are
taught in a Mishnah5 that the judgment
for the wicked in Gehenom is 12 months.
On the other hand, we know that the reward for our good deeds in the World to
Come is eternal. Why is this so? Why
should the punishment for sins be temporal, whereas the reward for good deeds is
eternal? One answer could be in accordance with our understanding of Adam’s
sin. If the whole purpose of man in this
world is the quest for perfection, then the
ultimate reward will be given for that,
and if the avoiding of sin is just an unfortunate reality as a result of the original
sin, but which wasn’t supposed to be our
main test in this world, then we have to
atone for any indiscretions, but after that
they will not be with us for eternity. This
in no way diminishes the intense strength
we are obligated to exert to avoid sinning,
rather it emphasises the importance of

BY NOT DOING ANYTHING, EVEN IF ONE IS
ALSO AVOIDING SIN BY HIS INACTIVITY, HE IS IN
A ZONE OF UNPARALLELED DANGER IN FAILING
TO REACH HIS POTENTIAL.
94 JEWISH LIFE ■ ISSUE 88

also striving for perfection by actively
performing deeds of worth which bring
us closer to our Creator. The Ramchal6
says there is no danger like the danger
brought on by a person being slow and
lazy in his fulfilment of mitzvos. These
are frightening words. He doesn’t say
there is no danger like doing a sin. Instead he implies that by not doing anything, even if one is also avoiding sin by
his inactivity, he is in a zone of unparalleled danger in failing to reach his potential. And even if we are already motivated
to do good deeds, there is no end to the
perfection we can pursue; we can work to
deepen our understanding of that mitzvah, to focus and direct our attention to
relevant concepts while performing the
actions, and to act with more emotion
and care. We can continue to ‘choose’,
even when we’ve already made our choice.
Everyone points out that there is no vidui (admission of sin) on Rosh Hashanah.
Rosh Hashanah is the day of placing Hashem at the front of our minds, and accepting upon ourselves the yoke of His service.
We celebrate the birthday of the first man,
the day when the world had a purpose; the
purpose of striving for perfection with an
unwavering dedication. If we hope to be
part of the plan for the coming year, of
course, resolving not to transgress any sins
will help us a great deal; but to decide to
become a perfect human being, someone
who is constantly growing and coming
closer to Hashem, that is the main aspect
of teshuva, that is true pleasure, and that
is why we are here. JL
Sha’arei T’shuva 2:9
Kings 1, 1:21 and Judges 20:16
3
Bereishis Raba 8:10
4
2:5
5
Maseches Ediyos 2:10
6
Mesillas Yesharim chpt. 7
1
2