What the Rav said:
If a person makes teshuva, then no judgement can rule over him.
He’s got a beard, he’s got payot, and he’s got happiness all over his face.
When he was a sinner, he was sad, annoyed, angry. Now, he’s happy, he’s got a smile on his face.
He’s already rejoicing. It’s impossible to recognise him.
It’s over, he’s got a completely new face.
And from this, alone, he is freed from all the judgements.
My thoughts:
Rabbenu taught us the importance of trying to be happy always.
The Rambam taught us that happiness is the best cure for all sickness.
And, the Rav teaches us that when a person is happy – truly happy (not fake happy which comes from watching Friends re-runs) – then, he is freed from all the judgments.
How do we get that true happiness? True happiness follows automatically when a person makes teshuva. How do we do that?
Back to the Rambam – four stages: stop sinning, admit we did something wrong, regret it and ask Hashem to help us not to do it again.
Happiness in a nutshell.
Thank you Darin for your comments (I hope we'll get others to join in the conversation too!).
Sometimes we only notice the change after we've been away. Like the apocryphal frog that gets boiled alive in a slowly heated pot of water, sometimes we don't notice the change going on around us.
It takes a rerun of Friends to make us want to jump out of that steaming pot!
It's really funny that you mention Friends reruns. A week or so ago my wife and I were rewatching Friends season 1, which I haven't seen in well over 10 years, and I was literally /shocked/ at how much more immodesty-based humor there was than I remembered. I knew there was some, but it was basically wall-to-wall. I seem to remember a lot more character-based humor than there really was. It became really quite difficulty and uncomfortable to watch, no matter how fond my memories of it are.
But of course the show hasn't changed - I have. Thank you Hashem.