Daily Chidush: How to do Teshuva for Lashon HaRa (4 minutes)

0:11Someone came to the Chafetz Chaim once—it's a famous story—and he said, "Kvoda Rav, I want to do teshuva. Rosh Hashanah is coming up, and I need to do teshuva." The Chafetz Chaim responded, "Great, is there anything specific you can think of that you want to do teshuva for?" The man replied, "Yes, yes, Kvoda Rav, I need to fix my Lashon Hara. I spoke Lashon Hara, and I need to fix it." The Chafetz Chaim said, "Sure, sure, no problem. Go to your house and bring me one of your pillows." The man looked at the Rav in a very strange way. That's what the Rav says. What the Rav says, we listen to our Rav. The Gemara says you have to fear your Rav like you fear God. So, I'm not going to ask him why he wants me to bring a pillow. I'm just going to go bring a pillow. He went home and he brought a pillow. And he came back with the pillow, and the Rav says, "Okay, come with me. We're going to go to the roof." And they went to the roof. Then he says, "Take the pillow and rip it." Again, he looks at the Rav. This is a very strange thing. An expensive pillow full of feathers. We're just going to rip it, destroy it? Fine, that's what the Rav says. We have to fear the Rav like we fear God. And he rips the pillow. Then the Rav says, "Now throw the pillow in the air." Again, he doesn't understand what's going on here, but he follows what the Rav says. The pillow goes in the air, and the feathers follow it. They follow the wind and go all over the place. The Rav says, "Okay, great. That was the first step of teshuva."

1:11feathers. We're just going to rip it, destroy it? Fine, that's what the Rav says. It's what the Rav says; we have to fear the Rav like we fear God. And he rips the pillow. Then the Rav says, "Well, throw the pillow in the air." Again, he doesn't understand what's going on here, but he follows what the Rav says. The pillow goes in the air, and the feathers follow it. They follow the wind and go all over the place. And he says, "Okay, great. That was the first step of teshuva." It's still not complete until you collect all of the feathers that went everywhere. So now, the poor man says to the Rabbi, "I didn't ask you any questions until now because I trusted you, but now you've given me a test that I can't pass. There's no way that I can collect all of the feathers. There's no way that I could fix that." And the Rav says, "Exactly. You see, once you say something publicly..."

2:11embarrass somebody, fixing it is very, very difficult. Why? Because you have to make sure that everyone that heard that Lashon Hara, everyone that heard that embarrassment, now has to hear the apology. B'ezrat Hashem, this gives us an idea of why judgment is the way it is in Shamayim and how hard we have to work on our Teshuva. This is why Rabbeinu Yonah, Zecher Tzadik v'Kadosh L'Vracha, After he realized that he was wrong with what he did against the Rambam, he spent the rest of his life going from community to community, embarrassing himself and apologizing in public to the Rambam. And this is actually the result. This teshuva that he did, the outcome of it, was him writing the very famous book, Shaarei Teshuva. So you see, saying I'm sorry, it's not like kindergarten.

3:12Saying "I'm sorry" doesn't mean much. First and foremost, we have to be sorry. Secondly, we have to start fixing it. Until we've accomplished step number one, step number two is not even relevant. Just skipping to step number two is also not relevant. Why? Because we didn't do step number one. So as much as anyone... feels obligated to forgive the other person. The reality of it is, in shamayim, they judge very differently than they do man. You may get forgiven by man down here, but in shamayim they may not forgive. So we have to make sure that when we're doing teshuvah, when we're actually saying selichah, we have to make sure that in both places they forgive. And if we can't fix everything perfectly, at least we can try. That's what Rabbeinu Yonah taught us in Shabbat Shuvah. taught us in Shabbat Shuva.