Questions:
-What is the literal translation of Teshuva?
-What do we define Teshuva as?
In the Jewish tradition, repentance is called teshuvah, a Hebrew word translated as “returning.”
One of the Hebrew words for sin is chet, which in Hebrew means “to go astray.” Thus the idea of repentance in Jewish thought is a return to the path of righteousnes; return from sin.
According to the Rambam, the stages are; acknowledging the sin, regretting it, and deciding to take a better path.
שבעה דברים נבראו קודם שנברא העולם ואלו הן תורה ותשובה וגן עדן וגיהנם וכסא הכבוד ובית המקדש ושמו של משיח
Wasn’t it taught in a baraita: Seven phenomena were created before the world was created, and they are: Torah, and repentance, and the Garden of Eden, and Gehenna, and the Throne of Glory, and the Temple, and the name of Messiah.
-Is there another way we can understand the meaning of Teshuva after reading this Midrash?
In Rav Kook’s book “Orot Hateshuva”, Rav Kook talks of returning to one's self and writes:
‘When we forget the essence of our own soul… everything becomes confused and in doubt. The primary teshuva, that which immediately lights the darkness, is when a person returns to himself, to the root of his soul – then he will immediately return to God, to the soul of all souls’.
-what does it mean to return to yourself?
-where in the Torah do we see this concept?
וְאֵין אֶחָד מֵהֶן דּוֹמֶה לַחֲבֵרוֹ. לְפִיכָךְ כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד חַיָּב לוֹמַר, בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם.
and yet no man is quite like his friend. Therefore, every person must say, “For my sake the world was created.”
It was said of Reb Simcha Bunem that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket.
On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olam—“for my sake the world was created.”
On the other he wrote: V’anokhi afar v’efer”—“I am but dust and ashes.”
He would take out each slip of paper as necessary, as a reminder to himself.
The well-known saying of Rav Meshulam Zusha of אניפולי , brother of the famous Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk:
"If they ask me in Heaven why I wasn't Elimelech, I will know how to answer. But if they ask me why I wasn't Zusha – I will have no words".
This is the essence of Teshuva – to be like Zusha again, the call from ourselves to be us and to fulfill our mission in the world, and not to try and be like anyone else.
(יד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי:
(14) He [Rabbi Hillel] used to say: If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?
-How do these sources relate to Rav Kook's concept of teshuva as 'returning to yourself'?
HaRav Kook explains that sin results from forgetting the "me", whether as individuals or as a collective. The question "איכה" – where are you - is the question that lies at the core of sin. He writes:
The sin of Adam, [the first man,] which according to the Gemara took place on Rosh Hashanah, was that he became estranged from himself, `that he yielded to the snake's opinion, and lost himself. He failed to answer a clear
response to the question of איכה because he didn't recognize his own soul, because the real sense of self was lost from him(Orot HaKodesh 3, 97)