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The Door in Its Side: Always in Teshuvah

The ark’s door was to be set “in its side.” Why should the place of a door be commanded at all? And what could the Gemara’s question, why the leg of the letter hei hangs apart from its roof, have to do with Noach’s ark?

Bereishis 6:16

צֹהַר תַּעֲשֶׂה לַתֵּבָה וְאֶל־אַמָּה תְּכַלֶנָּה מִלְמַעְלָה וּפֶתַח הַתֵּבָה בְּצִדָּהּ תָּשִׂים תַּחְתִּיִּם שְׁנִיִּם וּשְׁלִשִׁים תַּעֲשֶׂהָ

Make a light for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; set the door of the ark in its side; lower, second and third stories you shall make it.

23“And set the door of the ark in its side” hints that the tzaddik must always be in teshuvah. The Gemara asks why the leg of the hei (ה) hangs, and answers that it is so that whoever wants to enter may enter.¹ The hanging leg leaves an opening at the side of the hei, and that is the door “in its side”: he should enter through that opening, which hints at teshuvah.

וּפֶתַח הַתֵּיבָה בְּצִדָּהּ תָּשִׂים, רֶמֶז שֶׁהַצַּדִּיק צָרִיךְ לִהְיוֹת תָּמִיד בִּתְשׁוּבָה, ע"ד דְּאִיתָא בַּגְּמָרָא "לָמָּה 'כַּרְעֵי דְּהֵא תָּלוּי' מַאן דְּבָעֵי לְמֵיעַל" כו׳, וְזֶהוּ "בְּצִדָּהּ תָּשִׂים", דְּהַיְינוּ שֶׁיִּכָּנֵס בְּאוֹתוֹ פֶּתַח שֶׁהוּא מִן הַצַּד שֶׁל הה"א, שֶׁהוּא רֶמֶז לִתְשׁוּבָה.

Menachos 29b: the hei is open below, “so that whoever wants to leave may leave. Why does its leg hang? So that if he returns in teshuvah, he is brought in.” The leg hangs free of the roof (Rashi there). ↩

In shortThe ark's door in its side is the opening at the side of the hei, the entrance of teshuvah, and the tzaddik must always come in through it.

The maamar as a whole

R’ Elimelech reads the ark’s door, set “in its side,” as a hint that the tzaddik must always be in teshuvah. He brings the Gemara that asks why the leg of the letter hei hangs apart from its roof, and answers: so that whoever wants to enter may enter. The hanging leg leaves an opening at the side of the hei, and that opening is the door “in its side.” The hei hints at teshuvah, and the tzaddik is to come in through its side door, not once but always: for him teshuvah is a constant way of life.

Takeaway

R' Elimelech asks even the tzaddik to live always in teshuvah. The way back in is never closed: there is a door at the side of the hei for whoever wants to enter.

Learn this in the merit of Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk. His yahrzeit and life ›

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