Thursday, December 3, 2009

Purifying the day, Purifying one's self

Hi,

"When a person repents, his repentance involves two levels.

"One level is that he corrects the corruption and returns to the state of completeness which he possessed before his sin. Even if he has not yet ascended to the level he occupied before his sin, still, since he has abandoned his wickedness it is impossible to say that this day possessed no purity. Even though we will discover, upon gauging this person’s status, that he has not yet performed according to what was set out of him, for he should have ascended to a level higher than the one he occupies and he did not do so, still, since he had already descended to evil and he has now returned and created a new heart to serve HaShem, he has already performed and corrected much on that day.

"The day is then pure in itself, but the person, himself, is not yet pure until he adds strength in his awe of Gd and his closeness to Gd, and he desires with greater strength than he had before his sin, so that he will ascend to a greater level than he had before. Then his purity will return to him as a person, as he had been pure in terms of the day at the start of his repentance."

(R' Avraham Yitzchak haKohen Kook, Ein Ayah to Berachot 1:3)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

No comments:

Post a Comment