Q:
If a person repents, does Hashem forgive even for very severe sins?
A:
This you have to know is a general rule. Teshuva helps for everything. Repentance helps for everything.
But it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy. Sometimes even with repentance, a person will have to undergo certain vicissitudes. And he’s lucky, however, if it’ll happen to him. If a person passes out of this world easily, if he gets off easy, he has to know that he has to worry.
Now there are certain compensations, certain ways of making up; instead of yessurim, you can substitute certain things. That has to be studied. Rabbeinu Yona in Shaarei Teshuva says if a person will go in head over heels in studying Torah and teaching and spreading Torah, teaching others Torah too, and also he’ll go head over heels in tzedakah, in helping poor worthy Jews support themselves, but he does it in an excessive way, then to a certain extent that’ll take the place of the sufferings that he should undergo because of his sins.
So we see that teshuva, although many things teshuva helps entirely but some things teshuva also requires a certain amount of chastisement. But if people will inquire, they can find ways and means of exchanging their misfortunes that they should undergo for things that are easier. It requires a lot of work but it’s easier to undergo. It’s easier to be a big baal tzedakah, it’s easier to be a laborer in Torah, than other kinds of suffering.
TAPE # 307 (March 1980)
