The Talmud (B’rachos 10a) relates the story when hoodlums were causing Rabbi Meir severe anguish, to the point that he prayed to G-d in order that they should die. [In Midrash T’hillim 104:27, rather than being described as hoodlums, they were heretics, with one of them constantly badgering him by quoting verses to back up his heresy. Although the two descriptions (hoodlums and heretics) are different, they aren‘t mutually exclusive, and both could be true. There might also have been more censorship of the Talmud, to the extent that the term had to be changed there, whereas it was kept intact in the Midrash. It should be noted that many of the questions asked on this Talmudic Aggada do not apply if Rabbi Meir’s adversaries were heretics rather than hoodlums.] Rabbi Meir’s wife, B’ruria, convinced him that rather than praying that they die, he should pray that they repented instead. [Interestingly, in the Midrash, Rabbi Meir only prayed that the one heretic who was badgering him should die, whereas after B’ruria convinced him to pray that he repented instead, he prayed that all the heretics would repent. This could explain why in the Talmud we are told that the hoodlums repented, while no such information about the heretics repenting is provided in the Midrash, as it’s possible that only the heretic who was badgering Rabbi Meir repented, but not the other heretics he had also prayed for.]

Maharsha asks how Rabbi Meir could pray that those causing him anguish would repent, if “everything is in the hands of heaven with the exception of fear of heaven” (B’rachos 33b). Since G-d has left room for us to have free will, and whether we choose right over wrong, good over evil, and truth over falsehood is left to each individual, how could the prayer of another impact the choice to repent? [Maharsha then differentiates between asking G-d to help us repent and asking Him to help others repent, based on G-d helping those who try to do the right thing. If we are working on repenting, and ask G-d to help us do so, He certainly will. These hoodlums, though, were not trying to repent, and only did so because of Rabbi Meir’s prayer.] Doesn’t repentance fall under the category of “fear of heaven,” and therefore need to be done by the individual rather than imposed from an external source?

Although Maharsha doesn’t proved an answer, he tells us that an answer can be given (something he does quite often). Ahavas Aysan quotes the Maharsha, and suggests that the answer he is alluding to is based on how Maharsha himself explains the “fear of heaven” that is not “in the hands of heaven,” as an intellectual fear that is more like “awe.” The natural “fear,” on the other hand, when a person is scared of something and adjusts in order to avoid it, is not based on free will, and is therefore not excluded from being “in the hands of heaven.” [Allow me to emphasize this point; an action done as a natural reaction to something else, even if how we react comes via a decision-making process, does not necessarily include “free will,” even if the choice of which action to take is “good” (or “bad”), such as choosing to repent (in this case, no longer badgering Rabbi Meir) in order to avoid the consequences of not repenting.] To prove the point, Maharsha (on 33b, quoted by Ahavas Aysan on 10a) quotes the Talmud elsewhere (Y’vamos 63b), which says that punishment only comes to the world so that it will scare (the nation of) Israel so that they will repent. In other words, G-d uses external factors to “impose” repentance on people. True, a person must get the message, and then decide to change after receiving a wake-up call, but if this repentance is a natural reaction to being scared, then it is not a function of “free will,” and could occur even if there is no conscious choice to do what’s right instead of continuing to do what’s wrong. Therefore, when Rabbi Meir prayed that the hoodlums (or heretics) would repent, he wasn’t necessarily impinging on their ability to choose, and was not contradicting the notion that “everything is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.” [This is similar to how S’fornu understands G–d hardening Pharaoh’s heart; it didn’t take away his free will, but restored it, giving him back the ability to choose to defy G-d despite how harsh the plagues were. Had G-d not hardened his heart, he would have given in (i.e. repented), but that choice would not have been one made of his own free will.]

The implication is striking. We are familiar with the distinction made between “repenting out of love” for G-d, whereby sins, even those done purposely, are turned into good deeds, and “repenting out of fear,” whereby sins done purposely are considered as if they were done inadvertently, but the assumption (at least the assumption I made) is that both were choices made through the use of free will (even if one was much better than the other). Based on this, though, it would seem that there is a concept of repenting without using our free will to do so (which is what enabled Rabbi Meir to pray that others would repent). The very concept of “repenting,” which is more accurately translated as “returning” (but must still rely on “repentance” in order to “return”), need not refer to a “change of heart,” where we become a different person in order to facilitate a change in our behavior, but may be a function of the person we already were, i.e. someone who reacts to situations that scares us by acting the way we already knew we really should be acting, but hadn’t until now because we weren’t really scared enough to do so. G-d provides the “scare” that brings this out in us, and Rabbi Meir was asking G-d to provide such a scare (or other external factors) to bring it about in those who were badgering him.

If changing the way we act can be called “repentance” even when we aren’t exercising our free will to make such changes, the “formula” recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (in U’n’saneh Tokef) for undoing harsh decrees (T’shuva, T’filla and Tz’daka) not only becomes more internally consistent, but also becomes much easier to attain. We can understand why a decree issued against someone who sinned is nullified if the underlying cause that led to the sin has been nullified through complete repentance (T’shuva), but why is that true of prayer (T’filah) and giving charity (Tz’daka) as well? And how are the three put in the same category if only the first one really undoes the internal damage done by the sin? However, if “repentance” means changing our ways even if we haven’t really changed who we are, the three things in the formula are really on the same plane (and the question applies equally to all three). What we are being told by this prayer, then, is that even if we haven’t attained the ideal level of complete repentance (it doesn’t say “complete repentance” nullifies the decree, just “repentance”), a harsh decree can be nullified by changing our ways, even if we only change our ways to avoid having any harsh decrees that were issued remain in force.

Yom Kippur is a wonderful gift, providing us with the opportunity to press the “undo” button and start living our lives the way we know we really should. But aside from the opportunity to bring about real, meaningful change in who we are, we are apparently also given the opportunity to avoid harsh decrees from being carried out by merely changing our ways (and creating a connection with our Creator through prayer and helping others through charity).