Creating Clarity
One of the tools in the yetzer hara’s arsenal in his war on teshuvah is lack of clarity—that is, he makes a person feel that he doesn’t know what steps to take regarding teshuvah. When we tell a person to shake lulav and esrog, he knows exactly what to do. This is a lulav, this is an esrog, this is a hadas, and this is an aravah. Take them together and shake them. True, there are numerous details and halachos. But this is the mitzvah. It is clear and straightforward. And it is the same with most other mitzvos. There is a clear order, and a person can clearly ascertain whether he carried out the mitzvah properly.
When it comes to teshuvah, however, it isn’t so clear. A person cannot touch it and proclaim, “Today I fulfilled one of the most important mitzvos... today I generated a nachas ruach to the Ribbono shel Olam.” Why? Because he doesn’t have clarity in the mitzvah.
Sure, he experienced pangs of regret. Any Yid, with a beating Yiddishe heart, who has transgressed will feel pain and regret. His neshamah is torn and it cries.... But what happens next? He feels something, and then he proceeds further without realizing that something big just happened. This thought of regret is a big step.
Regret and Resolution
Furthermore, when a Yid sits on Friday night, singing ותשבחות שירות to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and suddenly he feels yearning for kedushah... he feels an ironclad desire to become close to Hashem... this too is a form of חרטה. What is charatah, regret? Regret means thinking, “I want this, and I don’t want what I currently have.” And this regret comes in two forms. One is positive and one is negative. The negative is when he contemplates his spiritual position and he is broken and regretful about it. The positive is when a person sees that there is something even better out there, and he wants to abandon what he has in favor of what he can have.
Often, a person feels regret when he finds something better in his spiritual life. Until now, he also learned Torah—but it was without doing teshuvah beforehand, and so it wasn’t with the right mindset and attitude. But one day, he experienced learning amid bittul to Hashem... he said Tehillim beforehand, he did teshuvah prior to learning, and then he sat down to learn. And since that time, he regrets his prior attitude to learning. He says, “Now I want this! I don’t want my old learning anymore.” Similarly, a person goes through many such thoughts, and he doesn’t pause to appreciate the fact that he is experiencing teshuvah.
The same applies to positive resolutions that a person takes on—one of the central tents of teshuvah. A person accepts upon himself a positive kabbalah for the future. He sets an alarm clock to wake up at an earlier time to learn and daven.... Something special just happened; this person engaged in the mitzvah d’Oraisa of teshuvah.
The third aspect of teshuvah is ווידוי, confession of one’s past transgressions—the most explicit of all three aspects, which we see clearly in the Torah: עוונם את והתודו, and they will confess their sin. A person says explicitly, “I have sinned... I have committed aveiros... I don’t want such a life... I fell prey to the yetzer hara. Ribbono shel Olam, please accept my teshuvah and help me for the future.”
