Shoftim תרל”א 4
אא”ז מו”ר ז”ל דקדק עמ”ש הירא מעבירות שבידו.
On the pasuk that discusses going out to war. “One who is scared…” would not go out to battle, for he could make others scared. Rashi explains that the fear that the person has is fear because of sins that he has committed.
כי הסימן שנמחל לו בשאינו ירא ובטוח לבו בה’.
The Chidushei Harim explained that we see from here that the sign that a person has been forgiven is when he is no longer scared of that sin, and his heart is completely trustful of HaShem.
כי כפי הסתלקות החטא מתקרב להשי”ת ע”כ.
For inasmuch as one is more removed from sin, he becomes closer to HaShem.
ולכאורה הוא מדה טובה להיות ירא מהחטא.
The Sfas Emes now queries this. It is seemingly a good trait to be fearful, why is having no fear a sign of closeness to HaShem?
אך מי שיש בו יראה כראוי א”י לצייר בלבו החטא כלל. אף שכבר חטא.
The answer however is that once a person has proper true fear of HaShem, he cannot then imagine the sin that he committed. (it is removed from his consciousness) even though he has committed the sin.
וכ”כ בשרה ותכחש כו’ כי יראה. והלא ידעה כי בפני ה’ מדברת רק כנ”ל.
We find this idea by Sara, who denied having laughed (at the prophecy that she would have a child). Even though she was aware that she was standing before HaShem, nevertheless because she was so removed from any vestige of sin, she had no connection to it and denied it, for she had don’t such a complete teshuva that she denied having done it at all. (Of so it could be that HaShem was telling her that on her level she needs to do an even further level of teshuva).
וזה תשובה שלימה שאינו משיג החטא שנעשה איש אחר כנ”ל.
This therefore is what true teshuva is, that one cannot comprehend the sins that they have done because he has become a different person!
והסח בין תפלה כו’ חוזר מעורכי מלחמה ופי’ רק היסח הדעת.
Similarly if a person sins even a small sin, for example if he is distracted between putting on tefilin Shel Rosh and tefilin Shel yad, even if he didn’t talk, and only got distracted
ומ”מ אם ירא מזה לא הי’ נכנס למלחמה כנ”ל:
Nevertheless if he is scared of this sin, he would no go out to battle, because one needs to be so removed from the sin (through teshuva) that he doesn’t comprehend having done such a sin.
