The Fragrance of the Traitors' Teshuvah

1“He smelled the fragrance of his garments” [Bereishis 27:27]. Chazal say: “Do not read begadav, his garments, but bogdav, his traitors” (Sanhedrin 37a). Rashi, citing the Midrash on “Myrrh, aloes and cassia are all your garments” (Tehillim 45:9), says likewise: “Do not read bigdosecha, your garments, but begidosecha, your betrayals.” The Midrash Rabbah on our parshah (Bereishis Rabbah 65:22) gives as examples Yosei of Meshisa and Yakum of Tzeroros¹; see the Matnos Kehunah there, who also explains it along the lines of Chazal's reading.

2We can explain Chazal's words in a sweeter light through something my father and teacher, R' Yechiel of Alexander, zt"l, said when we were in Marienbad for medical treatment. He greatly enjoyed the clear air and the good fragrance there, and he remarked that although there are bad people and sinners there, they do not spoil the air or its fragrance. A farmer spreads foul-smelling manure and refuse on his field, yet the field's own fragrance is not spoiled at its core. Once the bad smell passes, the field's good fragrance comes back. The same is true of the “portion of Yaakov” within every Jew. Even if he sins and soils himself with filth, the fragrance of holiness, the inner point deep within him, is not spoiled, and no trace of blemish touches it. From it flow “the springs of life” (Mishlei 4:23), so that he can return in teshuvah and once again give off a fragrance like spices. This is the meaning of “Even though he has sinned, he is still a Jew” (Sanhedrin 44a). It is also the meaning of the verse, “See, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of a field which Hashem has blessed” (Bereishis 27:27). Why is the field's fragrance not spoiled? Because Hashem has blessed it, and His holy blessing stands forever. So too with “the fragrance of my son.” These are his holy words.

3aTo explain his holy words: within every Jew dwells a spark of the “flashes of fire, a flame of Hashem” (Shir HaShirim 8:6), and no trace of defect can touch it. It is a Divine portion, as we say, “the soul You breathed into me,” and “one who blows, blows from within himself.” This is the very “portion of Yaakov,” whose image is engraved on the Throne of Glory. And a part always longs to rejoin its whole. But separating screens and garments have wrapped themselves around it, “like chaff covering the wheat, like a cloud covering the sun.” These are what trouble a person, for they do not let the spark rise to the source from which it was hewn. That is what teshuvah is: bringing it back “to her father's house” (Vayikra 22:13), to the source from which it was hewn. So when a person washes off all the filth of sin, regrets his sins and abandons them, the part fits the whole with nothing in between. When his soul is not purified, the part does not fit the whole, because the sins form a barrier and separate them. And when Hashem helps and has mercy on the Jewish people, and “the time of love” arrives, as on Yom Kippur and all the holy festivals, the light of teshuvah is revealed and the gates of light are opened to the world. Then it is easy for the inner point to return to its father's house, as it always longs to do. This is explained in the Midrash Rabbah on our parshah, above (Bereishis Rabbah 65:10).

3bYaakov's image is engraved on the Throne of Glory. He includes all the souls of Israel, and of him it says, “Yaakov was a wholesome man” (Bereishis 25:27). So when Yitzchak Avinu looked at Yaakov, he saw only good in him: “He did not look upon iniquity in Yaakov” (Bamidbar 23:21). Even if a Jew sins, he will surely return to Hashem out of the love hidden in his heart, by the power of the inner point that no blemish reaches, and then all his willful sins will be turned into merits. Yitzchak saw that true teshuvah out of love, through which willful sins become like merits (Yoma 86b), like the teshuvah of Yosei of Meshisa and Yakum of Tzeroros. So he did not see the Gehinnom the sin would bring, only the Gan Eden that would come from the teshuvah out of love that followed. This is what Rashi means by “the fragrance of Gan Eden entered with him.” And this is the meaning of the Gemara's “fragrance of his traitors”: Yitzchak did not sense the foul smell of the sin, Heaven forbid, but only the fragrance of spices from the teshuvah out of love. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)