Hashem Does Teshuva For Us

וְשָׁב ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ אֶת שְׁבוּתְךָ וְרַחֲמֶךָ וְשָׁב וְקִבֶּצְךָ מִכָּל הָעַמִים וגו' (ל, ג)

And Hashem, your G-d, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations... (30:3)

Hashem Does Teshuva For Us:

The Rebbe of Kuzmir zy"a explains this pasuk by quoting the Gemara (Sukkah 52B) that states: "Hashem regrets four things every day..." One of those things is creating the yeitzer hara.

Charatah (regret) is one of the ways of doing teshuva. The Gemara is saying that Hashem "does teshuva" for creating the yeitzer hara by helping us do teshuva. The pasuk says: “V'shav Hashem Elokecha es shevusecha", which can be understood to mean that Hashem will do our teshuva for us. “And He will have mercy upon us" in the sense that even though He did our teshuva for us, He will still love us as if we did it.

He adds that this is also the explanation of the verse in Tehillim (126:4): “Shuvu Hashem es shevuseinu." (Hashem, return our captives.) This can also be translated to mean that we ask Hashem to do teshuva for us. If so, what is left for us to do? The pasuk answers: "Ka'afikim banegev" (like streams in the desert). We should be like the desert sand when water flows onto it and soak in the teshuva that Hashem does for us.