Teshuva 101

(7) then they shall confess their sin which they have done; and he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him in respect of whom he hath been guilty.

(1) All of the commandments in the Torah: whether they be the positive commandments, or the negative commandments; if a person transgressed any of them, whether he did so intentionally, whether he did so unintentionally, when he repents and returns from sinning - he is obligated to confess before God, as it says, (Numbers 5:6-7) "When a man or a women does any of the sins of man...and he shall confess his sin that he committed..." - this refers to a verbal confession. And confession, that is a positive commandment.

(3) What is teshuvah? It is when a person ¹abandons the sin that he sinned and removes it from his thoughts ²and commits in his heart that he will not do it again, as it says, The wicked should abandon his path etc. (Isaiah 55:7). And also ³that he regrets sinning, as it says, After I returned I regretted (Jeremiah 31:18). And the One Who Knows Hidden Things testifies about him that he will never return to this sin, as it says, And we will no longer call the work of our hands “god” etc. (Hosea 14:4). ⁴And he must confess verbally and say these things that he has committed in his heart.

(11) Teshuva and Yom Kippur only atone for transgression between man and God, such as one who eats a forbidden food, or has a forbidden sexual relationship, etc. But transgressions between man and his fellow, such as hurting his fellow, or cursing his fellow, or stealing from him, etc, those are never forgiven until he gives his fellow what he owes him, and [his fellow] is appeased.

(3) Do not say that there is only teshuvah for sins that have an action, such as fornication, robbery, and theft; rather, just as a person must do teshuvah for these, so too he must search out his bad character traits, and do teshuvah for anger, hatred, jealousy, laziness, pursuit of money and honor, gluttony, and so on. A person must return in teshuvah from all of these. And these sins are harder than those which have an action, because once a person is immersed in them it is difficult for him to break free from them. Thus the verse says, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts (Isaiah 55:7).

(3) The root of this mitzvah. ¹Through verbal confession of sin, the sinner reveals his thoughts and feelings: that he truly believes that all his deeds are revealed and known before the Blessed God, and that he will not act as if “the Eye that sees” does not see. Furthermore, ²through mentioning the sin specifically, he will feel remorseful about it, and he will be more careful on another occasion not to stumble in the same way again. After he declares verbally ‘I did such-and-such, and I stumbled in my deeds’ ³he should create barriers so he won’t repeat what he did, and through this he will be wanted by his Blessed Creator. And the Good God, the One who Wants Goodness for His Creations makes them walk in this way, and provides it.

It is clear that repentance ... is one of those principles which are an indispensable element in the creed of the followers of the Law. For it is impossible for man to be entirely free from error and sin; he either does not know the opinion which he has to choose, or he adopts a principle, not for its own merits, but in order to gratify his desire or passion. If we were convinced that we could never make our crooked ways straight, we should for ever continue in our errors, and perhaps add other sins to them since we did not see that any remedy was left to us. But the belief in the effect of repentance causes us to improve, to return to the best of the ways, and to become more perfect than we were before we sinned. For this reason many things are prescribed for the promotion of this very useful principle: e.g., confessions and sacrifices for sins committed unknowingly, and in some cases even for sins committed intentionally, and fasts, and that which is common to all cases of repentance from sin, the resolve to discontinue sinning. For that is the aim of this principle. Of all these precepts the use is obvious.