Reply To: Short & Sweet

Naso: Admit It

The first step of Teshuva is taught to us in this weeks Parsha. When a person steals or does any other aveira, the first step is והתודו את חטאתם, Viduy on what they’ve done wrong. The Rambam in particular stresses how Viduy is the very essence of teshuva. But why is so much emphasis put on verbalizing our mistakes? Why can’t we just focus on fixing them?

Based on the Chinuch, R’ Aaron Lopiansky explains that often we like to brush our problems under the proverbial rug. Even if we acknowledge our shortcomings, it is often only in an abstract way. In order to motivaste ourselves to grow, we need to concretize exactly where the problems are that we need to fix.

Rav Huna famously tells us in יומא פו that once somebody is עבר ושנה, repeats their misdeeds, they tend to quickly forget that what they’re doing is wrong at all. The act of verbalizing our mistakes can help fix this. By admitting where we’ve fallen short, we keep our ideals from being watered down by our actions. Only when we acknowledge that there are higher ideals to live up to do we stand a chance of eventually living up to them.

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום