Turning Sins into Merits

Introduction There seems to be a “code” written into the very root of reality. A wrong act leads to a fall. A fall leaves damage. Damage brings consequences. This is the law of cause and effect, as simple and clear as arithmetic. So ask yourself: when a person has fallen, when he has done wrong openly, simply because he wanted to, what is left for him? What can he do with a past that is written on him like a tattoo? It can feel as if the “stain” is final, as if it defines you forever. That feeling is one of the sharpest pains a person can feel inside. First Step: Returning out of Fear Covers the Crack But our Sages already revealed that the system is not completely closed. Returning to Hashem works, even when it comes from fear. The Talmud says: “His deliberate sins become for him like mistakes.” That alone is a wonderful thing. The serious wrong is covered over. It is now treated as a “mistake,” an error he did not intend. The crack is plastered over. The stain fades. This is a real repair. But notice: this is still only a “cover.” The crack is still there. It has only been hidden. The damage has been erased, but it has not become something else. The person has “healed,” but he has not come out stronger than he was before he got sick. Second Step: Returning out of Love Breaks Through the System But there is more. The same passage in the Talmud goes on. When a person returns to Hashem out of love, “his deliberate sins become for him like merits.” Stop for a moment. They are not “erased.” They are not “covered.” They actually become merits. The wrong itself has been turned around. This is not a repair. It is a change in its very nature. Maimonides, the great medieval sage, writes in his Laws of Returning to Hashem about a person who has fully come back to Hashem. Such a person has reached a place where it would not even occur to him to do that wrong again. And our Sages said: “In the place where those who have come back to Hashem stand, even the completely righteous cannot stand.” Why? Because the righteous person never fell into those depths. Those very depths are the greatest treasure of the person who has come back. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains this in its section called the Letter on Returning to Hashem. A lot of power went into the wrong act itself: vitality, thirst, great energy. When a person returns to Hashem out of tremendous love, these powers are not lost. They are turned around. The very “life” that once flowed toward impurity now flows back with full force toward holiness. The deeper the fall, the higher the takeoff. That is why the wrong itself becomes a merit. It does not happen by erasing it. It happens by turning it around. A Note: The “Glitch” That Was Built In Here is the truly wonderful point. This is not a glitch in the system. It was the plan of creation from the very start. The Book of Esther has a phrase: “and it was turned around.” That phrase teaches that creation has a deep mechanism. It does not just “cancel the decree.” It turns the day of mourning itself into a day of joy. The mourning was not erased. It was turned around. The “darkness” was not removed. The darkness itself became the source of the light. As King Solomon wrote, light has an advantage that comes from darkness. It comes from the darkness, and from nowhere else. A Parable and Its Lesson Think of it this way. A person who has fallen carries a “picture”: the picture of his fall, the “stain,” the shame. It seems that everyone who looks at him sees it. That “picture” defines him. But a person who returns to Hashem out of love does something completely different. He does not hide the picture, and he does not erase it. He turns it into his “logo.” The shame itself becomes a message. The fall becomes a stage. The cracks are the very place the greatest light shines out from. A person who has never cracked has no such light coming out of him. King David fell, and fell hard, but he did not hide it. The whole Book of Psalms is his song of coming back to Hashem. The fall became a song. The “stain” became a crown.