For Three People a Person Cries Out to Heaven, and He Is Not Answered

Greetings and blessings

This is the wording of the Gemara in tractate Bava Metzia, page 75b: The Sages taught: Three cry out and are not answered, and these are they: one who has money and lends it without witnesses; one who buys a master for himself; and one whose wife dominates him. And these are the twenty-four matters that prevent repentance. Rambam, Laws of Repentance 4:1: There are twenty-four matters that prevent repentance; four of them are a grave sin, and one who commits one of them is not given by Hashem the opportunity to repent because of the magnitude of his sin.

These are they: (1) one who causes the masses to sin, and included in this sin is one who prevents the masses from performing a mitzvah; (2) one who turns his fellow from a good path to an evil one, such as an inciter and a seducer; (3) one who sees his son going astray and does not protest, since the son is under his authority, and if he had protested he would have turned back, and he is therefore considered as one who caused him to sin; and included in this sin is anyone who is able to protest against others, whether an individual or many, and does not protest, but leaves them in their downfall; (4) one who says, I will sin and then repent, and included in this is one who says, I will sin and Yom Kippur will atone.

Halacha 2: There are five matters that bar the ways of repentance before those who do them, and these are they: (1) one who separates from the community, because when they repent he will not be with them and will not merit with them in the merit they achieve; (2) one who disputes the words of the Sages, because his dispute causes him to separate from them and he does not know the ways of repentance; (3) one who mocks the mitzvot, since they are despised in his eyes, he does not pursue them and does not perform them, and if he does not perform, by what will he merit? (4) one who despises his teachers, for this causes him to be repelled and driven off, like Gehazi, and when he is driven off he will not find a teacher or guide to show him the way of truth;

(5) one who hates rebuke, for he has not left himself a path to repentance, since rebuke leads to repentance, because when a person is informed of his sins and is shamed, he returns in repentance, as it is written in the Torah: Remember and do not forget; you were rebellious; Hashem did not give you a heart; a foolish and unwise people. And so Isaiah rebuked Israel and said: Woe, sinful nation; an ox knows its owner; I know that you are stubborn. And Hashem also commanded him to rebuke sinners, as it is stated: Cry aloud, do not hold back. And so all the prophets rebuked Israel until they repented. Therefore, one must appoint in every community in Israel a great sage, elderly, and G-d-fearing from his youth, and beloved by them, who will rebuke the public and return them to repentance. But one who hates rebuke does not come to the rebuker and does not listen to his words; therefore he remains in his sins, which in his eyes are good.

Halacha 3: There are five matters that, if a person does them, it is impossible for him to return in complete repentance, because they are sins between man and his fellow, and his fellow does not know that he sinned against him so that he can restore what he took or ask him to forgive him. These are they: (1) one who curses the masses, but did not curse a specific person so that he could ask him for atonement; (2) one who partners with a thief, since he does not know whose theft this was, but the thief steals from many and brings it to him and he takes it, and moreover he supports the hand of the thief and causes him to sin; (3) one who finds a lost object and does not announce it until it is returned to its owner, for after some time, when he repents, he will not know to whom to return it; (4) one who eats the ox of the poor, orphans, and widows; these people are distressed, and are not known or widely recognized, and wander from city to city and have no acquaintance through whom one could know whose ox this is and return it to him; (5) one who accepts a bribe to pervert judgment does not know how far this perversion reached or how much power it had, so that he can return it, for the matter has legs, and moreover he supports this person and causes him to sin. +The objection of the Raavad: And one who eats the ox of the poor, etc. The father of the court objected: It seems that he reads sho'r with a resh, but it is actually shod with a dalet, meaning that he pressures him through his debt until they seize their land for less, or their movable property, and he says, I am taking what is mine.+ Halacha 4: There are five matters that, if a person does them, he is not presumed to repent from them, because they are things that seem trivial in the eyes of most people, and thus he sins while imagining that this is not a sin. These are they: (1) one who eats from a meal that is insufficient for its owner, for this is dust of theft, and he imagines that he has not sinned and says: Did I eat anything other than with his permission? (2) one who uses the collateral of a poor man, for the collateral of a poor man is only such things as a hoe or a plow, and he says in his heart: They are not diminished, and I have not stolen it; (3) one who gazes at forbidden relations, imagining that there is nothing wrong in it, saying: Did I have relations with her, or even come near her? He does not know that the sight of the eyes is a grave sin, because it leads to forbidden relations, as it is stated: You shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes; (4) one who takes honor through his fellow's disgrace says in his heart that it is not a sin, because his fellow is not standing there and did not suffer humiliation and was not shamed, but he displayed his own good deeds and wisdom against the deeds or wisdom of his fellow so that it should appear from the comparison that he is honorable and his fellow despicable; (5) one who suspects the fit and proper says in his heart that it is not a sin, because he says: What did I do to him? There was only suspicion - perhaps he did it, perhaps he did not - and he does not know that this is a sin, for he places a fit and proper person in his mind as though he were a person of transgression.

Halacha 5: There are five matters that, if a person does them, he will continue after them always and it is difficult to separate from them. Therefore a person must beware of them, lest he cling to them, and they are all very bad traits: gossip, slander, one who is quick to anger, one who harbors evil thoughts, and one who associates with the wicked, because he learns from their deeds and they are engraved in his heart, as Solomon said: and a companion of fools shall be broken. We have already explained in Laws of Character Traits the matters in which every person must always conduct himself, all the more so one who has repented. Halacha 6: All these matters and the like, even though they delay repentance, do not prevent it; rather, if a person repents from them, he is a penitent and has a share in the World to Come.

With blessings - Binyamin Shmueli