Parshas Beha’alosecha
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
In Judaism, a ba'al teshuvah (plural, בעלי תשובה, ba’alei teshuvah; lit, “master of return") is a Jew who was not observing traditional Jewish law, who later repents and returns to G-d and Torah and mitzvos, becoming religiously observant.
[Originally, the term ba’al teshuvah referred to a Jew who transgressed the halakhah (Jewish law) knowingly or unknowingly and completed a process of introspection to "return" to the full observance of G-d's mitzvos. In contemporary times, the phrase is primarily used to refer to a Jew from a secular background who becomes religiously observant later in life. The alternative term, chozer b'teshuvah (חוזר בתשובה), plural chozrim b’teshuvah, is more commonly used in Israel. In Hebrew, chozer b'teshuvah translates to “returning to return” or “returning to repentance.”]
This past week the Jewish world mourned the passing of Rabbi Uri Zohar ZT”L, a former Israeli film director, actor and comedian and cultural icon who shocked the country in the late 1970’s when he left the entertainment world and his very secular lifestyle to become an Orthodox rabbi. Truth be told, Uri Zohar is not the only ba’al teshuvah in the Jewish world today or in Jewish history … he is just one of the most well-known. But there are literally thousands upon thousands of other Jews that have returned to religious observance over the centuries and millennia.
In this article I highlight five famous Ba’alei Teshuvah that the Jewish world has known, including some lessons we can learn from their lives … enjoy!
Ishmael
Ishmael, son of our forefather Abraham, was arguably one of the first “ba’alei teshuvah” in ancient history. As we read in Genesis 21:9: “Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking”. And Rashi in his commentary on that verse writes that ‘mocking’ connotes idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder. Which means that starting out in life, Ishmael wasn’t such a nice guy (to put it mildly!)
Yet we find that later on in life Ishmael repented of his evil ways. Where do we see this? In Genesis 25:9, the Torah tells us that Abraham died and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. The Talmud in Bava Basra 16b states that from here we see that Ishmael repented, and let Isaac walk ahead of him, out of respect, even though Ishmael was the older. [This is the “gold old age” which was said about Abraham in the preceding verse.]
Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya
The following story - related in the Talmud in Avodah Zarah 17a - is one of the most extreme examples of a ba’al teshuvah that you’ll ever read:
We learned in a Baraisa: They said about Elazar ben Dordaya that there was not a prostitute in the world that he had not visited. Once he heard that there was a prostitute in one of the towns by the sea [whose charms were so great] that she demanded a purse of dinars for her services. So he took with him a purse of dinars and crossed seven rivers to get to her. As he was with her she told him that even if he repented, his teshuvah would never be accepted. Hearing this he sat between two mountains and cried out, “O, you hills and mountains, please pray for me!” They replied, “How can we pray for you; we need to pray for ourselves, for it says, ‘For the mountains will move and the hills will shake’” (Isaiah 54:10). So he cried out, “O, heaven and earth! Please pray for me!” They, too, replied, “How can we pray for you when we need to pray for ourselves, for it says, ‘The heavens will dissipate like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment’ (ibid. 51:6). He then exclaimed, “O, sun and moon, please pray for me!” But they gave the same answer, “How can we pray for you when we ourselves are in need of prayer, for it says, ‘Then the moon will be ashamed, and the sun will be abashed’” (ibid. 24:23). He cried out, “O, stars and constellations, please pray for me!” They answered, “How can we pray for you? We need prayers ourselves. For it says, ‘All the hosts of heaven will dissolve’” (ibid. 34:4). Finally he said, “I see that it is up to me alone!” He then placed his head between his knees and wailed bitterly until his soul departed. Then a Heavenly Voice was heard proclaiming: Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the life of the World to Come! … When Rebbi heard this story he cried, saying, “There are some who earn eternal life only after many years, yet here is a person who earned eternal life in an instant!” Rebbi also remarked, “Not only that, but he even was called ‘Rabbi’ [by the Heavenly Voice]!”
[To gain a deeper meaning of this very obscure Talmudic story, click on:
https://www.chabad.org/
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish
Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (or Reish Lakish, as he was known) was one of the greatest Talmudic scholars whoever lived and was a chavrusa (study partner) of the great Rabbi Yochanan. Yet, as the Talmud relates in Bava Metzia 84a, he got off to a rather ignoble and dishonorable past:
One day, Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the Jordan River. Reish Lakish saw him and jumped into the Jordan, pursuing him. At that time, Reish Lakish was the leader of a band of marauders. Rabbi Yochanan said to Reish Lakish: ‘Your strength should be used for Torah study’. Reish Lakish said back to him: ‘Your beauty should be used for women’. Rav Yochanan said to him, “If you abandon your ways, I will give you my sister [in marriage] who is even more beautiful than I am.” Reish Lakish agreed, and accepted upon himself to study Torah. Subsequently, Reish Lakish wanted to jump back out of the river to bring back his clothes, but he was unable to return, as he had lost his physical strength as soon as he accepted the responsibility to study Torah upon himself. Rabbi Yocḥanan taught Reish Lakish Chumash [Bible], and taught him Mishnah, and turned him into a great man. Eventually, Reish Lakish became one of the outstanding Torah scholars of his generation. [see the Talmud in Bava Metzia 84a for the tragic ending of this story.]
Dr. Nathan Birnbaum
The first ba’al teshuvah of the modern era was Nathan Birnbaum. His teshuvah was so sincere and shocking that his contemporaries named him “der Baal Teshuvah.” Dr. Nathan Birnbaum is the forgotten giant of modern Jewish history, although he was a leader of three mass movements that shaped the Jewish world. Born in Vienna in 1864, he was one of the founders of the Zionist movement even before Theodor Herzl arrived on the scene. But then Birnbaum committed Zionist heresy by embracing Yiddish and advocating for Jewish autonomy in the Diaspora. His odyssey continued when, as a world-famous Jewish intellectual, he abandoned secularism. Birnbaum became arguably the first ba’al teshuvah of the modern era, rising to prominence in the nascent (Orthodox) Agudas Yisrael organization. But written out of Zionist history, and part of a secular Yiddish culture that has vanished, Nathan Birnbaum is preserved only as a dim memory in the religious world. [Click here to learn more about Dr. Nathan Birnbaum’s life: https://mishpacha.com/vision-
Rabbi Uri Zohar
More often than not, when cultural icons from the entertainment industry change their lifestyles and opt to become religious, they fade into anonymity. Not actor Uri Zohar, who went from being the secular king of Tel Aviv’s bohemian society to becoming religiously observant and an outspoken champion of Orthodoxy. Uri Zohar’s teshuvah – much like Nathan Birnbaum’s before him – sent shockwaves through Jewish and Israeli society and opened the door for others to make the same journey. Zohar’s transformation was gradual. The first major sign was when he began wearing a kippah on camera. In the late 1970s, he moved completely away from his secular milieu to immerse himself in Torah. His journey from secular to religious was primarily an intellectual one. He was a man of truth, who was willing to make every effort possible to get at the truth – whatever that truth might be.
As Uri Zohar writes in the introduction to his book My Friends, We Were Robbed!:
“This book is intended for people to whom nothing is sacred, people who are not afraid to ask pointed and critical questions about anything, be it the contents of the Torah or the contents of their own lives. It is intended for people willing to make every critical effort possible to get at the truth; for that is what the Torah demands of the Jew – to be a student of life so that he may learn to recognize and distinguish between that which is true and that which is false.”
And when Uri Zohar finally found the truth, he didn’t just hog it for himself. Rather, he went around Israel and wherever else Jews could be found, and challenged them with that truth, just as he himself had been challenged.
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=715