True Teshuva
Chassidism speaks of five periods of teshuvah (letter of the Rebbe Rayatz):
- Elul - rectifying thought, speech, and action; the days of Selichot - rectifying one's character traits; Rosh Hashanah rectifying the intellect; the Ten Days of Teshuva - rectifying the will; Yom Kip-pur - rectifying pleasure
The Alter Rebbe once described what gen-uine regret and teshuvah should look like, using the example of a non-Jew from Shklov.
He related, "once there was a raging storm, and the Dnieper River was turbu-lent and swollen. A non-Jew attempted to cross the river in a small boat. People shouted at him and warned him that he was endangering his life, but he ignored them and continued on his way. When he was in the middle of the river, the boat overturned. The people standing on the riverbank heard the man's cries just before he drowned: 'Oy! I regret it..."