A vort from the Rebbe in this week's parshah, Parshat Bo. In Parshat Bo, it says Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu to tell Paroh to let the Yidden out, and he said, \"כי אם מאן אתה לשלח את עמי,\" if you will refuse to send out, let out my nation, \"הנני מביא מחר ארבה בגבלך,\" I will bring grasshoppers into your גבול, which means in your borders, into your country. So from the words of the pasuk it seems that the makah of ארבה, the makah of grasshoppers came as a punishment for the fact that now Paroh was not letting the Yidden out. He said, \"If you don't let them out, I will bring the ארבה.\" It means it's because you're not letting He's punishing you for not letting them out now. It's not because of something that happened before that, before he didn't like a punishment like you do sometimes you give a punishment for someone doing something wrong before, you punish him for it. Here it seems like he was giving him a choice saying, \"You let them out,\" in other words, if you don't let them out If you do let them out, you won't get punished, but if you don't let them out, you will get punished with ארבה. Lichorah, what does that mean? We learned in the pesukim before already that Hashem said, \"כי אני הכבדתי את לבו ואת לב עבדיו,\" that at one point the Eibershter says, \"I made his heart hard.\" That means that Hashem took away the free choice of Paroh of letting the Yidden out. So what does it mean, \"I'll punish you for not listening to me and letting them out\"? Hashem himself made that his heart was hard, and he took away his free choice, and then he's telling him, \"If you don't let them out, I will punish you.\" Isn't this a contradiction? If you don't let him choose to let them out, you took away his free choice, how could you say that if you don't let them out, I will punish you?

So the Rebbe explains it based on what the Alter Rebbe writes in Iggeret HaTeshuvah, פרק י״א, the same thing he writes in Tanya itself, פרק כ״ה, he says like this: that there are certain people which the Gemara says, \"אין מספיקין בידו לעשות תשובה.\" Certain things a person does, אין מספיקין, we don't allow them to do teshuvah basically, it's just not the real meaning, but that generally the meaning, k'ilu as if saying the Eibershter will not allow them to do teshuvah. So Hashem, so to speak, took away his free choice in this case. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe says, \"אם דחק ונתחזק ונתגבר על יצרו ועשה תשובה, מקבלין תשובתו.\" If he worked hard and he pushed himself, and he did teshuvah, he overcame his yetzer hara and he did teshuvah, the Eibershter accepts his teshuvah. In other words, the Alter Rebbe says that even where the person is, so to speak, his bechirah chofshis, his free choice is taken away and he can't do teshuvah, he still could do teshuvah. There's always shayach as the inyan of דוחק ונכנס. If you push hard, you will get in and you are able to do teshuvah.

And the source of this actually is from a Maharsha. The Maharsha says in the Gemara Chagigah דף ט״ו, it says לגבי Acher, Elisha ben Avuya, who is Acher, that he was a Tanna, but then he turned away, he went off the derech, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, \"שובו בנים שובבים חוץ מאחר.\" The Eibershter was saying all the Yidden who turned away should do teshuvah except Acher. In other words, he was saying Acher cannot do teshuvah. Nevertheless, he was punished. And the Maharsha says, why was he punished for it? Because he shouldn't have cared, the Maharsha says. אין דבר העומד בפני התשובה, nothing stands in the way of teshuvah. Even when it says Hashem doesn't let him do teshuvah or doesn't help him do teshuvah, he still is able to do teshuvah, that's what the Maharsha says. So the Alter Rebbe says the same thing with everybody: no matter what the hardship of doing teshuvah, and no matter if we say he doesn't k'ilu almost like he doesn't have free choice to do teshuvah, he still could do teshuvah. And the same thing was with Pharaoh. Pharaoh, even though Hashem made his heart hard, nevertheless, it was still possible for him to do teshuvah. דוחק ונכנס, he could have pushed himself and he would have done teshuvah, and he would have let the Yidden out. And that's what the Eibershter said: \"If you don't let the Yidden out, you don't do teshuvah,\" which I made it hard for you, but you still could do it, and if you don't, he says he will be punished with the makah of arbeh. U'mesaymin b'tov.