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What is your definition of a Baal/as Teshuva?
Did/Do you consider yourself a Baal/as Teshuva after learning in Israel for x number of years?
Would you consider someone who was already frum/Shomer Shabbat to be a Baal/as Teshuva?
(The above is excluding the fact that every single person is a Baal/as Teshuva motzia Yom Kippur.)
i had a teacher in H.S. that told us all the time a story that someone asked if she was a baal teshuva and since she was FFB she said “No” to which the person answered “we all need to be ba’ali teshuva every day for we all do Avairos everyday!”
Totally agree. We all need to be “Ba’aley Teshuva” every single day. We should do Cheshbon of everything that we did that day and take it from there.
I daven for teshuva and forgivness from Hashem thrice daily. (My parents have also been asking for his for themselves..)
I heard Rabbi Chaim Pinchos Sheinberg describe how, as a public school student, an Italian kid punched him.. down the stairs! The next day his mom refused to send him to school, so she sent him to RJJ. (His point was that we can all be like him.)
I also heard Rabbi Chaim Dov Keller say, back in his day, he was brought close to Torah. That’s it. He was as responsible as everyone else (and was treated that way). Nowadays he would be a “BT”. New rules would be made for him and he’d never have become who he is.
What I meant from Rabbi Keller is that once a person is fully committed to a Torah life style, then that’s it. They are a Torah/Frum/orthodox.. Jew. That’s it. All else is not relevent
there are obviously different connotations as to what baal teshuva means; however, in the contemporary vernacular it refers to someone who was not shomer Torah u’mitzvos & became shomer
How about a guy who has worn a hat and jacket since his bar mitzva, has been in yeshiva three years post high school and has never performed the mitzva of tefillin? (He didn’t learn properly and both batim were far off enough to preven him fromm being yotze)
Or the guy who suddenly starts keeping the laws of lashon hara?
Or the guy (me) who has an epiphany and starts keeping lo sisna et achicha bilvavecha?
Why must every male baal teshuva cut off a ponytail to qualify?
We are all, to a certain extent B”T every time we are mekayeim a mitzvah whoch we did not do beforehand in the proper way. But what is generally meant by the term, is not the frum Yid who tries to grow in his Torah and Yiddishkeit, but rather the Yid who was never minimally frum to begin with, or who was OTD, and in both cases, returned to frum observance.
Or the guy (me) who has an epiphany and starts keeping lo sisna et achicha bilvavecha?
Which part is new, the lo sisna et achicha, or the bilvavecha? 🙂
We are all, to a certain extent B”T every time we are mekayeim a mitzvah whoch we did not do beforehand in the proper way. But what is generally meant by the term, is not the frum Yid who tries to grow in his Torah and Yiddishkeit, but rather the Yid who was never minimally frum to begin with, or who was OTD, and in both cases, returned to frum observance.
You are correct in the common usage of the term, and I think you answered the OP’s question.
To the best of my knowledge, the original term technically can refer to anyone who has done teshuva (which involves regret, besides proper observance) from even one aveira.
One of the chassidishe rebbes once told a chassid who had mentioned to him that he is not a baal teshuva (meaning, he’s FFB) “Un Farvos Takeh Nisht???” (And, takeh, why not???)
The lesson is-that regardless of our upbringing in terms of observance, we must constantly be improving and perfecting our ruchniyus. We must all be Baalei Teshuvah on our own level.
ItcheSrulik…
I don’t think one necessarily HAS TO “cut off a pony tail to qualify”, BUT…
If the pony tail is not because you are a nazir, then you should ask yourself exactly WHY you DO have the pony tail?
The honest answer to that question MAY make you realize that perhaps you should think about cutting it.
DaasYochid: Both. It’s hard, but worth it.
AinOhdMilvado:I think you misunderstood me. I meant why does someone have to have had a ponytail or some other thing that FFB’s consider a “colorful past” to qualify as a baal teshuva.
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