In the previous section we learned that even when a person eats food that the Torah permits, if the eating is driven by animal desire the vitality within that food descends into the three impure kelipos, and there is no way to raise it back up except through teshuvah. Now the Alter Rebbe continues, and draws a distinction between this case and the case of eating forbidden foods.
"מה שאין כן במאכלות אסורות" ("Not so with forbidden foods"):
When a person makes use of something forbidden, non-kosher food or forbidden relations, we are not dealing with something that is permitted in itself and was dragged down into the kelipos only by the person's animal desire. Forbidden food belongs entirely to the three impure kelipos by its very essence. It was not the person's thoughts and cravings that pushed it down there; rather, the person took into his own body something that is itself three impure kelipos. That is why the Alter Rebbe writes that they are "אסורים וקשורים בידי החיצונים לעולם" ("bound and tied in the hands of the external forces forever"): something whose very essence is of the impure kelipos remains tied to them.
It is worth noting in advance that at the beginning of chapter 8 the Alter Rebbe will deal with a case where a person ate forbidden food for the sake of Heaven, or without knowing that it was forbidden. Here, by contrast, we are speaking of someone who ate forbidden foods knowingly.
So we find an essential difference. With permitted foods, if the person afterwards returns to serving Hashem and to His Torah, he uproots the vitality and elevates it to holiness. But with forbidden foods, even if the person decides to use the strength he received for Torah study and prayer, it does not help. The vitality remains suspended and bound in the three impure kelipos, "ואין עולים משם" ("and they do not rise up from there").
The Alter Rebbe does, however, continue with the word "עד" ("until"), and with it we will see that there is nevertheless a possibility. Before we examine it, one general point needs clarifying, because these words raise a great many questions regarding baalei teshuvah.
A general clarification: two dimensions in every sin
Throwing off the yoke of Heaven: the very act of sinning, in any sin whatsoever, is a statement addressed to the Creator: "I do as I please, and I do not accept Your yoke upon myself."
The blemish: every sin has its own particular damage, in the person's soul and in his environment, near and far, each sin according to what it is.
The first dimension can be repaired easily: a thought of teshuvah and a decision to accept the yoke of Heaven from now on. Someone who until now was a rasha, one who has thrown off the yoke, is from this moment called a tzaddik, one who has accepted the yoke. This does not depend at all on the blemishes he caused, which he must repair in the ways appropriate to each of them.
An illustration: a man betroths a woman and says to her, "You are betrothed to me on condition that I am a complete tzaddik," even though everyone knows him to be a complete rasha. The Gemara rules "she is betrothed out of doubt," because perhaps at that very moment when he gave her the ring he had a thought of teshuvah. At that moment he accepted upon himself the yoke of Heaven and became a tzaddik. It may well be that his house is full of stolen goods he has not yet returned, and many blemishes for which he has not even had a chance to meet those he harmed and appease them, for sins between a person and his fellow are not atoned until he appeases his fellow and returns what he stole to the one he stole from. Even so, as far as the definition of whether he has thrown off the yoke or accepted it, this man who had a thought of teshuvah has accepted upon himself the yoke of Heaven.
As for the blemishes themselves, each one needs its own kind of repair. The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah lists a number of things that a person cannot make fully good, such as one who steals from the public and does not even know to whom to make restitution, so he cannot fully repair what he did. Even so, in terms of accepting the yoke of Heaven he is a baal teshuvah; he simply still has a problem on his hands that he cannot bring to completion.
The discussion here in Tanya has nothing to do with that first dimension, the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven. A person who had a thought of teshuvah, however severe his sin, has accepted the yoke of Heaven upon himself from today onward, and in that respect he is perfectly fine. Everything the Alter Rebbe will say below, that this helps and that does not help, refers to the matter of kapparah, atonement. "Kapparah" comes from the word for wiping away filth, as is explained in Iggeres HaTeshuvah, and therefore everything depends on how deep the filth is and what is needed to clean it. This clarification removes a large part of the questions in advance.
The two possibilities contained in the word "עד"
The question before us is what will cause the vitality within forbidden foods to be elevated back to holiness. With permitted foods it was enough to return to the service of Hashem; but the vitality of forbidden foods lies buried deep within the three impure kelipos. To this the Alter Rebbe offers two answers:
"עד כי יבוא יומם" ("until their day comes"): a day will come when the Holy One, blessed be He, will take from Above all the forces of impurity in the world, nullify the evil within them, draw out the sparks of holiness hidden in them and raise those sparks to holiness. This is "ובלע המוות לנצח" ("He will swallow up death forever"). "Death" is one of the names of the three impure kelipos, and its nullification means that all the sparks of holiness within them will be joined to holiness, and consequently nothing of them will remain in existence, as it says, "ואת רוח הטומאה אעביר מן הארץ" ("and I shall remove the spirit of impurity from the earth"). This possibility is brought first, since it is the more common one.
A great teshuvah: "או שיעשה תשובה גדולה כל כך שזדונות נעשו לו כזכויות ממש" ("or that he do such a great teshuvah that his willful sins become for him like actual merits"). This does not mean a teshuvah consisting only of a resolution not to sin from now on; that by itself already makes a person a complete tzaddik in terms of kabbolas ol. It means a teshuvah that uproots the thing that fell below and raises it up to holiness, until the willful sin itself is transformed into a merit.
"זדונות נעשו לו כזכויות ממש" ("willful sins become for him like actual merits")
The source is in the Gemara, in the words of Reish Lakish. The Maharsha, one of the commentators on the Gemara, asks how such a thing can be said: does the sinner come out ahead? He sinned, he committed willful transgressions, and in the end he even profits by having them turned into merits? The Maharsha gives his own answer, while the Alter Rebbe here explains the meaning of the matter, and adds the word "ממש" ("actual").
First we must clarify what sort of teshuvah is being spoken of: teshuvah out of love, out of love of Hashem. "מעומקא דליבא" ("from the depth of the heart"), "באהבה רבה וחשיקה ונפש שוקקה לדבקה בו יתברך, וצמאה נפשו לה' כארץ עיפה וציה" ("with a great love and yearning, with a soul that longs to cleave to Him, blessed be He, and his soul thirsts for Hashem as a parched and weary land"). We are speaking of a person whose desire for G-dliness, whose longing and thirst for holiness, are so wondrous and lofty that standing at such levels is not at all ordinary.
This can be put as a mashal. A father who has several sons loves them all, and one cannot say that once another son was born his love for the earlier sons, or for the next one, was diminished, for the heart has room for them all. And yet a father who has an only son loves him in such a way that his entire heart is given over to this son alone, with an intensity that has no parallel. There is no comparison between love for many children, which is not diminished, and a father's love for an only son, which is an altogether different kind of love.
In summary: in this section we learned that with forbidden foods, unlike permitted food eaten out of animal desire, the thing is by its very essence of the three impure kelipos, and therefore it is "אסורים וקשורים בידי החיצונים לעולם" ("bound and tied in the hands of the external forces forever"), and the vitality within it does not rise even if the person returns to Torah and prayer. We clarified that every sin contains two dimensions, the throwing off of the yoke of Heaven, which is repaired by a thought of teshuvah, and the blemish, which needs its own form of repair, and that the discussion here concerns kapparah alone. Finally we examined the two possibilities contained in the word "עד": "עד כי יבוא יומם," with the removal of the spirit of impurity from the earth, or a great teshuvah out of love through which willful sins become for him like actual merits.
In the next section we will continue with the explanation of the mashal of a father's love for an only son, and with understanding the nature of that teshuvah out of love which has the power to transform willful sins into actual merits.