In the previous section we explained why we say "סלח לנו" ("forgive us") three times every single day: it is because of the sin of bittul Torah, wasting time that could have been spent learning Torah, which no person escapes in the course of a day. This is a failing a person runs into constantly, and so the request "selach lanu" comes back around three times daily. It parallels the korban tamid, the daily offering brought in the Beis Hamikdash, of which it is said that it atoned for positive commandments: a constant, ongoing atonement. The same is true of the request "selach lanu."
Here a question arises, much like the one asked earlier: already at Shacharis a person knows that in a few hours Mincha will come and he will say "selach lanu" again, and after that Maariv, and so on. Doesn't that knowledge itself open a door, an invitation to sin in the meantime?
But that is not the intent at all. As was explained, when a person asks "selach lanu" he means it, and we are speaking of a Jew who is actually davening and paying attention to the words, and in that moment he genuinely does not want to sin. And the Holy One knows His creations, as the piyut we say on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur puts it: "אמת כי אתה הוא יוצרם ואתה יודע יצרם כי הם בשר ודם" ("It is true that You are their Maker, and You know their inclination, for they are flesh and blood"), "אדם יסודו מעפר" ("man, his origin is from dust"). Hashem knows that a person has a yetzer hara, and that when he meant it, he truly meant it, only that afterwards he got confused all over again. Therefore, at the moment he meant it, he is forgiven; and even though it is known that he may well become confused again, he is given another chance.
This is what we say in davening: "חנון המרבה לסלוח" ("Gracious One who forgives abundantly"). His forgiveness is without limit, and it never becomes tiresome to Him, because He knows that each time the person meant it sincerely. The Tanya has already used the expression in earlier chapters, "רשעים מלאים חרטות" ("the wicked are full of regrets"): a person regrets and falls, regrets again and falls again, and around it goes.
And this is not a case of "sinning in order to repent":
Of one who sins with the intention of doing teshuvah afterwards, the Gemara says that "he is not given the opportunity to repent." But as was explained at length in the previous lesson, that applies only when at the very moment of the sin he is relying on teshuvah, and it is that reliance that lets him sin. Here that is simply not the case: when a person says "selach lanu" he means his request sincerely, and he is not, chas veshalom, planning to sin on the strength of the forgiveness. The "I will return" comes after the fact: if he stumbled, chas veshalom, he comes back and asks again. But at the moment of the sin itself, had he stopped for one second and considered what was happening, he would not have sinned at all.
The whole problem lies in the ruach shtus, the "spirit of folly" that confuses a person. A parable: a man decides he is going to daven Shemoneh Esrei and pay attention to every single word, and suddenly he finds himself mumbling several lines further on with no idea where he is holding, because a foreign thought slipped in and threw him off. He resolves again, and again his mind is carried away, until in a single Shemoneh Esrei there can be twenty five resolutions and twenty five corresponding lapses. In each and every resolution he meant it truly, only that immediately afterwards another thought came and confused him. That is how the human soul works, and everyone recognizes it in himself.
"With this we can understand": a general summation of the whole subject:
At the close of the chapter the Alter Rebbe writes "ובזה יובן" ("with this we can understand"), and he does not mean only the last few lines; this is a general summation of everything we have learned up to here: "ובזה יובן למה ציוה משה רבינו ע"ה במשנה תורה לדור שנכנסו לארץ לקרות ק"ש פעמיים בכל יום" ("With this we can understand why Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, commanded in Mishneh Torah, the generation that entered the Land, to read Shema twice each day"). The mitzvah of krias Shema is stated in Sefer Devarim, in parshas Va'eschanan, and in Shema we say "ואהבת את ה' אלוקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך" ("you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul"), to the point of mesirus nefesh. Mesirus nefesh means that if someone should stand against the Jew, he would give up his life over it.
Hence the question: is such a command a fit for the generation entering the Land? Moshe Rabbeinu promised that very generation "פחדכם ומוראכם יתן ה'" ("Hashem will place the fear and dread of you") and so on: upon their entry into the Land the nations would flee before them and be terrified of them, and they had no one to fear. Had this been a command aimed at later generations, fine; but why was it given specifically to the generation that entered the Land?
This will be understood by first noting a precision in the Alter Rebbe's wording: why does he specify that the command was given "in Mishneh Torah," and why does he stress "Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him," that is, that it is Moshe specifically who commands it?
As for the precision "in Mishneh Torah": had this been written in Vayikra or Bamidbar there would be no question at all, because in the earlier books Moshe Rabbeinu speaks to the Jewish people in a general way and for all generations, and there is no necessity that everything said there is addressed to that moment in particular; he may well have been speaking there about matters relevant several generations later. But in Mishneh Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu gathered the Jewish people a month and a half before his passing and told them: you are the generation entering the Land, and I want to tell you a number of important things. Sefer Devarim is a book in which everything said is a live, immediate message for the generation entering the Land. If so, why is it precisely to them that the matter of mesirus nefesh had to be given as something to remember?
The answer is clear from what we have learned in these chapters: mesirus nefesh is not only when a gentile stands facing the Jew with a weapon, but also, and primarily, against that little "gentile" who resides inside each person and interferes with him at every step, at all times and in every hour. And how can one stand up against him? By remembering the matter of mesirus nefesh, as we learned today: if he would hand over his life and die a painful death al kiddush Hashem, then all the more so can he overcome his yetzer with a mesirus nefesh far smaller than that. And this remembering has to be constant.
The generation of the wilderness did not need this to the same degree. They were a dor dei'ah, a generation of knowledge, people who saw G-dliness constantly, and most of them were not subject to this day to day struggle, for they were heavenly people. But the generation that entered the Land had already come down a level; it is not the same intensity, and it is they who need the constant remembering of mesirus nefesh.
And this is how the chapter concludes: "אלא משום שקיום התורה ומצותיה תלוי בזה שיזכור תמיד ענין מסירת נפשו לה' על יחודו, שיהיה קבוע בלבו תמיד ממש יומם ולילה לא ימוש מזכרונו" ("but rather because the fulfillment of the Torah and its mitzvos depends on his always remembering the matter of giving over his soul to Hashem for His Oneness, that it be fixed in his heart constantly, literally, day and night it shall not depart from his memory"). In order to be able to keep Torah and mitzvos on an ongoing basis, a person must always remember the matter of giving over his soul to Hashem for His Oneness, and this remembering must be fixed and lodged in his mind continuously.
And here the second precision falls into place: why did the Alter Rebbe need to write "Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him," when it would seem enough to say that so it is written in Mishneh Torah to the generation that entered the Land? To teach us that in order to arrive at such a constant remembering, a Jew needs help from Moshe Rabbeinu, and for the generation that entered the Land it was the Moshe Rabbeinu of their generation. Moshe Rabbeinu is the one who helps a Jew that this be fixed in his heart constantly, literally, day and night not departing from his memory, and he is the one who gives him the strength for mesirus nefesh. "כי בזה יוכל לעמוד נגד יצרו לנצחו תמיד בכל עת ובכל שעה כנ"ל" ("for with this he will be able to stand against his yetzer and overcome it always, at every time and in every hour, as explained above"). And with this is fulfilled "כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאוד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו" ("for the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it"), and "in your mouth" comes through hiskashrus, connection, to Moshe Rabbeinu.
With this we have completed an entire unit of chapters. As we noted when we opened chapter 18, chapters 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 form a single piece, in which the Alter Rebbe explained how a person can arouse the ahavah mesuteres, the hidden love, which reveals within him the power to give over his soul.
"For with You is forgiveness, so that You may be feared":
Let us close with a point connected to the days of teshuvah, on which we say each day the mizmor "ממעמקים קראתיך ה'" ("From the depths I called to You, Hashem"). It says there: "כי עמך הסליחה למען תיוורא" ("for with You is forgiveness, so that You may be feared"), and the meaning of the verse ties in to what we have learned about forgiveness. The Alter Rebbe rejects the thought that the opportunity to ask "selach lanu" three times a day amounts to "sinning in order to repent," because knowing that there is forgiveness does not move a person to sin, chas veshalom; on the contrary, it awakens in him an added yiras Shamayim. And this is "for with You is forgiveness": precisely because the Holy One grants the opportunity for forgiveness, "so that You may be feared" (from the word yirah, awe). There is no concern that the forgiveness will encourage sinning, for out of the forgiveness comes a greater awe and a further bond with G-dliness, and this is the special quality of the Ten Days of Teshuvah.
In summary: in this section we learned that saying "selach lanu" three times a day comes for the sin of bittul Torah, which no person escapes, much like the constant atonement of the korban tamid; and that this is not "sinning in order to repent," since a person means his request sincerely and stumbles only because of the confusing ruach shtus, and therefore He is "חנון המרבה לסלוח," forgiving without limit. We also examined the close of the chapter: the reason Moshe Rabbeinu commanded in Mishneh Torah specifically the generation entering the Land to read Shema twice daily and to give over their souls for the Oneness of Hashem, namely, that constant fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos depends on a constant remembering of mesirus nefesh, which has the power to stand against the yetzer and defeat it at every time and in every hour, and this remembering comes about with the help of the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation.
In the coming chapters the Alter Rebbe will give organized, targeted advice and guidance: how to deal with the problems every person encounters, and how not to fall and despair over the interruptions that come along, so that these things should indeed hold up at every time and in every hour.