Rabbi Elazar Ben Dudaya

4 Tishrei

For those interested, this blog will bli neder be kept daily up until Yom Kippur.

Many of us get discouraged when we think of Teshuva. We write down just a few of our faults, our sins, and we realize that we have a very long way to go. How can we not give up hope? The following story, told in the Gmara Avodah Zara, tells us that anyone - yes, even you - can do a full teshuva.

The Gmara tells a story about Elazar ben Dudaya, someone far away from being called Rabbi. Elazar ben Dudaya had a hobby. Just like I used to collect baseball cards, Elazar ben Dudaya collected zonahs, or prostitutes. There was not one zonah in the world that he had not visited at least once.

Then Elazar ben Dudaya heard of a zonah in a far-off land, a woman who charged a whole purse of gold for her services. Elazar ben Dudaya rushed to rent a boat and a crew. He crossed seven rivers and many lands to reach this one far-off zonah.

(Paranthentically, one can learn another middah from Elazar ben Dudaya - mesiras nefesh. How often do we half-heartedly perform mitzvos? While Elazar ben Dudaya was willing to cross seven oceans, pay a whole bag of money, and be completely moser nefesh to that which he wanted. If we had half the moser nefesh that Elazar ben Dudaya had... But that's a discussion for another time...)

Elazar ben Dudaya finally reached the zonah, and paid her the bag of money. Just then, a strange thing happened. Elazar ben Dudaya passed gas, and the zonah commented on it. She said, just like that gas will evaporate and be gone from the world, so too Elazar ben Dudaya.

These words had a profound impact on him. Elazar ben Dudaya left the zonah without doing the aveirah, and went into a valley to think. He was in big trouble! He needed to do teshuva! But he didn't know where to start. So he asked the Earth and Sky - help me! But the Shamayim Va'Aretz said, "We have to worry about our own skin, we can't help you!" Elazar ben Dudaya turned to the sun and moon and said, help me! Assist me in teshuva!" But the sun and moon also had to worry about themselves and could not help him. Elazar ben Dudaya turned to the mountains, the valleys, but they too declined to help him. So finally Elazar ben Dudaya realized, "Ain HaDavar Talui Ela Bi" - the matter is solely dependant upon myself. With that, Elazar ben Dudaya put his head between his knees, and cried such a deep cry that his soul departed him. At that, a bas-kol came out of shamayim and said, "RABBI Elazar ben Dudaya is zoche to Chayei Olam HaBah."

There are many lessons from this story, but the one that we'll take now is this - if Rabbi Elazar ben Dudaya could do a complete teshuva, certainly we can as well!

gmar chasima tova.