Sins, sinners, and mistranslation

,This is one of the lessons I never forgot from Rabbi Copperman

zl. There's a famous Gemara in Berachot 10a

:I copied the text and translation from Sefaria with my own italics added

aנהו בריוני דהוו בשבבותיה דרבי מאיר והוו קא מצערו ליה טובא הוה קא בעי רבי מאיר רחמי עלויהו כי היכי דלימותו אמרה ליה ברוריא דביתהו מאי דעתך משום דכתיב יתמו חטאים מי כתיב חוטאים חטאים כתיב

With regard to the statement of Rabbi Yehuda, son of Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi, that David did not say Halleluya until he saw the downfall of the wicked, the Gemara relates: There were these hooligans in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood who caused him a great deal of anguish. Rabbi Meir prayed for God to have mercy on them, that they should die. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Berurya, said to him: What is your thinking? On what basis do you pray for the death of these hooligans? Do you base yourself on the verse, as it is written: “Let sins cease from the land” (Psalms 104:35), which you interpret to mean that the world would be better if the wicked were destroyed? But is it written, let sinners cease?” Let sins cease, is written. One should pray for an end to their transgressions, not for the demise of the transgressors themselves.

ועוד שפיל לסיפיה דקרא ורשעים עוד אינם כיון דיתמו חטאים ורשעים עוד אינם אלא בעי רחמי עלויהו דלהדרו בתשובה ורשעים עוד אינם

Moreover, go to the end of the verse, where it says: “And the wicked will be no more.” If, as you suggest, transgressions shall cease refers to the demise of the evildoers, how is it possible that the wicked will be no more, i.e., that they will no longer be evil? Rather, pray for God to have mercy on them, that they should repent, as if they repent, then the wicked will be no more, as they will have repented.

בעא רחמי עלויהו והדרו בתשובה:

Rabbi Meir saw that Berurya was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented.

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R' Copperman said that the actual grammatical form of חטאים doesn't mean sins -- as it is usually translated but habitual sinners in contrast to the occasional sinners who would be identified as חוטאים. 

My husband found the Rif on Eyn Yaakov who does translate חטאים rather than sins. And he quotes  an example in the Torah  in Parshas Korach (Bamidbar 17:3) אֵ֡ת מַחְתּוֹת֩ הַֽחַטָּאִ֨ים הָאֵ֜לֶּה בְּנַפְשֹׁתָ֗ם וְעָשׂ֨וּ אֹתָ֜ם רִקֻּעֵ֤י פַחִים֙ צִפּ֣וּי לַמִּזְבֵּ֔חַ the censers of these who sinned at the cost of their lives, and they shall make them into flattened out plates as an overlay for the altar.

But of course, the proof that Berurya [more often spelled Bruriah] offers her husband is a verse from Tehillim.  So if we look at that in chapter 104 verse 35, we see that Rashi explains חטאים means  חוטאים because of the grammatical construction. (This is contradistinction to Metzudas David, who learns the verse as "sins will depart from the land, and a s a result of that, there will be no more Reshaim" in the way that Beruriah's drash reads the text.) Rashi, like Ibn Ezra, identifies חטאים with sinners within this context both because of the indicated parallel between them and the Reshaim  and because of the appearance of the dagesh in the Tes. This is why Rashi  explains the word one way here -- according to the pshat as indicated by the grammatical construction -- and deviates from the path of straight pshat  in explaining the same verse when it is quoted by Beruriah in the Gemara to say there is a kri that is distinct from ktiv for that drasha.  As The Torah Temima on Tehillim says,  ואע"פ שהט' מודגשת ופירושו הוא אנשים חטאים ומאי קאמרה ליה ברוריה לרבי מאיר, מ"מ מבואר ברש"י "חטאים כתיב קרי ביה חטאים שיכלה יצר הרע" והיינו לעולם חטאים ט' דגושה כתיב אבל רק קרי ביה חטאים בט' רפויה.

So one can say that the drash would allow one to read the word differently, though one should not forget that ayn mikra yotzeh mitoch peshuto and that we have to distinguish between what is the plain pshat and what one may pin on a play of words. 

I'd like to say that it makes sense to read Bruriah's meaning also as perpetual sinners in light of another verse in Tehillim that uses the same word in 51:15

15I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will return to You.

טואֲלַמְּדָ֣ה פֹֽשְׁעִ֣ים דְּרָכֶ֑יךָ וְ֜חַטָּאִ֗ים אֵלֶ֥יךָ יָשֽׁוּבוּ:

In this verse, it is more obvious that  וְ֜חַטָּאִ֗ים refers to people who sin rather than sins themselves because people are the ones who do teshuva -- not the sins. Nevertheless, I did hear someone mistranslate this as referring to sins -- likely because he was transposing from 104:35 in light of how the Gemara is understood. But let's learn pshat.

The Malbim, whose approach is to always distinguish between apparent synonyms that appear in TaNaCh, says that the reason we have two categories of sinners here is because they sin from different motives. The poshim sin out of rebellion; the chataim sin out of desire. David Hamelech here says that he will teach those who rebel because they believe Hashem's ways to not be good  that the ways of Hashem are filled with good and chesed. As for the chataim, they don't need to be taught because they don't lack knowledge of Hashem's ways. Rather, they believe that they cannot overcome their desires. Therefore, David says, I will demonstrate that I overcame my own desire and did teshuva so that they will realize that can do it, too and so return to you [G-d].

Just like chataim are juxtaposed to poshim in 51, they are juxtaposed to reshaim in 104. All categories of habitual sinners will, ultimately, disappear. Yet it in can happen in a positive rather than destructive way. That's  the scenario that Bruriah wanted to inspire in her husband to bring about. Consider how the episode in the Gemara ends.  "Rabbi Meir saw that Berurya was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented. "

R' Meir didn't just decide to not hold anything against them, to forgive them himself.  He went further and  prayed that they will achieve teshuva. Accordingly, just as the chataim  in chapter 51 will return and so lose their status of chataim, so too will those in chapter 104. They don't need to be destroyed; they need to do teshuva. As a result of doing so, they are no longer call chataim. It's possible they may slip up and do a sin (Koheles 7:20) and so fall into the category of chotim, but they can remove the name of chataim through teshuva. 

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