How Do You Erase the Past? The Complete Process According to Tanya

00:00 We all want to do teshuvah, but we don’t always know exactly what the process of teshuvah involves. These days—the days of mercy and forgiveness, the month of teshuvah, the month of Elul—we are right in the midst of the days of teshuvah. The forty days from Rosh Chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur are days of Divine favor, as it says in the Shulchan Aruch. Each of us wants to do teshuvah, but it isn’t always easy, and we don’t know exactly how to go about it. Today we’ll learn from the Alter Rebbe’s wonderful explanations in Igeres Hateshuvah, in Tanya, where he devotes twelve chapters to explaining the process of teshuvah. We’ll discuss three points, which are really three stages in the work of teshuvah, and try to understand them—first from a halachic perspective, and especially from the inner perspective of Chassidus—to grasp the depth of the subject. The Alter Rebbe teaches us that the process of teshuvah has three stages. First is teshuvah itself, the essence of teshuvah, which is the Torah’s mitzvah of teshuvah. Then there is confession, which is also a mitzvah from the Torah. In fact, there are several opinions among the early halachic authorities about whether we count them as two mitzvos. Some say there is really just one mitzvah, made up of two parts: doing teshuvah and confessing. Others say they are two distinct mitzvos. The mitzvah of teshuvah appears in Parshas Nitzavim: “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d.” This is how the Alter Rebbe cites it in Tanya. For the Torah’s mitzvah of teshuvah, he quotes the verse in Nitzavim, “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d and listen to His voice.” That is the mitzvah of teshuvah. Then there is the mitzvah of confession, in Parshas Naso: “And they shall confess the sin that they committed.” So we have two mitzvos here. According to the Rambam, though, it sounds as if there is only one mitzvah. The Rambam lists only the mitzvah of confession. There are several ways to understand this. Some explain that the Rambam holds

02:18 that there is no Torah mitzvah to do teshuvah; the mitzvah is only to confess. If you want to do teshuvah, you have to confess. Others say it is really one mitzvah, but the Rambam lists only its practical part—the confession spoken aloud—as opposed to teshuvah, which takes place in the heart. Still others say that teshuvah is a general mitzvah, not something particular and specific, so it is not counted as a mitzvah in its own right. The Rambam’s approach is that general mitzvos are not counted among the 613 mitzvos; only a specific mitzvah is counted, and that is confession. In any event, there is a stage called teshuvah, the essence of teshuvah. There is the confession of teshuvah, and then a third point: atonement. Atonement in connection with teshuvah is a subject in its own right. We see this in the Gemara at the end of Tractate Yoma. The Gemara explicitly relates that Rabbi Masya ben Charash asked Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah—there is a whole account there—about the different parts of teshuvah. Rabbi Elazar told him that there are three categories of atonement, with teshuvah accompanying each one. From this Gemara we learn that, in addition to teshuvah, there is something else: atonement. So we want to understand what these three stages are, and exactly what we need to do and why. First, what is the essence of teshuvah? What is the purpose of confession? Why is confession so important? We see that according to all opinions, confession is a mitzvah from the Torah. Why is saying it so important? Why isn’t it enough that I feel sorrow and regret in my heart and make good resolutions in my heart and mind? Why must I specifically say it aloud, put it into words, and declare, “I have sinned, I have acted iniquitously, I have transgressed,” and so on? We generally say this confession every

04:14 day after Shacharis and Minchah on days when we say Tachanun, and in Krias Shema before going to sleep. There is also confession on Yom Kippur, and so on. What is the deeper meaning? Why is saying the confession so important? And third, what is atonement? How do we attain it? What role does atonement play in the work of teshuvah? So let’s come to the mitzvah of teshuvah itself—its essence. As the Alter Rebbe tells us in the first chapter of Igeres Hateshuvah in Tanya, the Torah’s mitzvah of teshuvah is simply to abandon the sin. What does “simply to abandon the sin” mean? One could explain it in many ways. What does the Alter Rebbe tell us? He gives it a wonderful, fundamental definition: abandoning the sin means resolving that from now on I will no longer rebel against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, the essence of teshuvah, the mitzvah of teshuvah expressed in the verse “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d” in Parshas Nitzavim, is to return to the King and accept upon myself the yoke of Heaven. With any sin—no matter how many sins a person has committed or how serious they are—whether it involves a positive mitzvah, a prohibition, even a rabbinic prohibition, a transgression punishable by kares or another punishment, or one carrying no punishment at all, there is an element of rebellion, of betrayal of the King. A Jew is a servant of the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When a Jew sins, he rebels against the Kingdom of Heaven. So, as the Alter Rebbe teaches us, the essence of teshuvah lies in returning to the King: “And you shall return to Hashem your G-d”—returning to accept upon myself the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of mitzvos from now on. That is the essence of teshuvah. As we said, when it comes to the essence of teshuvah, there are differing opinions about whether it is counted as a mitzvah. Why is there an opinion that teshuvah is

06:35 not a mitzvah from the Torah? Of course, this can be explained in terms of halachic principles, as we said: it is a general mitzvah rather than a specific one, and so on. According to another explanation, there is no obligation to do teshuvah; rather, if you want to do teshuvah, you must do it in a particular way, through confession and so on. The halachic commentators offer various explanations, but there is also a deeper one. At the heart of teshuvah is the idea that a Jew must give himself over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In fact, the essence of teshuvah should come before the commandments, because every mitzvah is a particular command from the King. First there is a King, and then there are commandments. As our Sages tell us in Tractate Berachos: “Accept upon yourselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, and then I will issue decrees to you.” Why does the passage of Shema precede “Vehayah im shamoa”? So that a person first accepts the yoke of Heaven, and afterward the yoke of mitzvos. The yoke of Heaven must come first. Before that, there is no one to command you. Once you have accepted the yoke of Heaven, you have a King. Then the King issues decrees, gives commands and instructions, and we obey and carry out His commands. As we said, the point of teshuvah is to accept upon myself the yoke of Heaven. That means returning to the root, to what comes before the commandments. After all, the person betrayed the King and rebelled. He broke away and did not follow the King’s instructions. He must return once again to the root, to what comes before the mitzvos—to go, as Chassidus puts it, to the One whose will it is, the One from whom all these expressions of will come. The mitzvos are the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every mitzvah is Divine will. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants tefillin, wants tzitzis, wants Shabbos, wants kashrus. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants the 613 mitzvos. But there is

08:41 The King who precedes the mitzvos—the One whose will they express. Teshuvah means returning to the King, and that is why it should come before the mitzvos. But there is an even deeper reason. Why is teshuvah not a mitzvah? Because at the heart of teshuvah is a person’s own decision to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A Jew must choose to connect and bind himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If it comes as a command—someone commanded me to return—then it does not come from within me. In other words, I have not connected from my innermost place. When the connection comes from that innermost place, no one needs to obligate me, demand it of me, or command me. It comes from me. It is something natural to my soul, something I want of my own accord. That is the point at the heart of teshuvah. The basis of the process is that the Jew returns through his own strength. No one forced him or compelled him; no one is telling him, “You have to.” On the contrary, it comes from within. Because a Jew is truly a part of G-d above, because he has an essential, intrinsic bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he does not feel comfortable being separate. A Jew naturally wants to fulfill Hashem’s will, as the Rambam tells us. It comes from me. No one needs to command me, and therefore it does not have to be a mitzvah. That explains the view that teshuvah is not, in fact, a mitzvah. At the same time, as we said, most halachic authorities do count it as a mitzvah, because ultimately there is a command here too. The point is that teshuvah should also take the form of a command to the person, because a mitzvah has a special quality: it creates the connection. Sometimes

10:45 if you leave it only in the realm of the inner self, the heart and the emotions, it can remain very disconnected from reality. The goal of teshuvah is not for it to remain only a feeling in the heart—a Jewish feeling of wanting to draw close to Hashem, but being a Jew only in one’s heart. We want teshuvah to actually lead us to action. That is why, according to most halachic authorities, teshuvah is also among the mitzvos: it is meant to bring you into a process of action—of performing mitzvos and serving Hashem, bringing Hakadosh Boruch Hu into reality, into a person’s 248 limbs and 365 sinews. So on the one hand, according to some opinions, teshuvah is not a mitzvah; on the other hand, it is also among the mitzvos, especially the confession that accompanies teshuvah. This brings me to the essence of teshuvah. When someone asks me, “What exactly is the essence of teshuvah?” I answer with the Alter Rebbe’s words in Tanya: “The mitzvah of teshuvah means what the word itself means: to return—to return to Hashem, to accept upon oneself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and to serve Him through all His mitzvos.” But then comes confession. What is its purpose? On the simplest level, confession means expressing in words what a person feels, so that it does not remain, as we said earlier, in the emotional and spiritual realm, but comes into action. We know that the entire Torah and the mitzvos must find expression in the body, in the physical, in its limbs. The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that the entire Torah and the mitzvos were given to a soul in a body. Their purpose is to connect the Jew, together with his body, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is why every mitzvah must find expression through the limbs of the body. Each mitzvah relates to a particular limb, as explained in a number of books written on the subject, which describe how every mitzvah has

12:54 an effect on a limb, on a part of the body. The mitzvos must have an effect on the physical world. That is why teshuvah, too, must find verbal expression in speech, in moving one’s lips. The physical body must be part of the mitzvah as well. But there is something more to confession, something deeper. We see in human nature that a person can have a feeling in his heart, and that feeling can remain there in a cool, settled, restrained way. But the moment he puts it into words, the words have the power to awaken the feeling, fill it out, and bring it surging to the surface. We see this both with happy, positive feelings and with negative ones, in all kinds of ways. Say a person is happy: he has received good news, something to celebrate. While the happiness is in his thoughts and in the feeling of his heart, it may be cool and restrained. But when he begins to talk about it, suddenly he becomes excited. Suddenly he starts to move, until he begins to dance. Speaking about the joy makes it surge and takes it beyond its bounds. The same happens with sorrow, G-d forbid. Sometimes we see a person who has some pain, something distressing. It is there, lying in his heart, and he is fairly calm. But the moment I talk about it with someone, bring it out and express it, suddenly I become emotional. It overwhelms me, and I start to tear up and cry. I already knew about it; nothing new has come to light. But there is something about speech. The voice awakens the inner feeling. Speech and words have the power to awaken, strengthen, and bring out the feelings in the heart. And so, with teshuvah too, for a person to truly feel sorrow and remorse, to have inner regret over what he has done, the Torah asks for confession. When you speak about

14:57 these things and express your regret aloud, it also awakens the feeling of sorrow and remorse, and then the remorse is complete. As we said earlier, remorse is not teshuvah itself. It is very, very important to grasp this point. Teshuvah itself concerns the present and the future. It is the decision that from today onward I will be a different person. That is the essence of teshuvah. But for it to be genuine and complete—so that the next day I do not fall back into the same place I was yesterday—there must also be remorse. There must also be a feeling of regret over the past. So alongside the decision to leave the sin behind and accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and the yoke of the mitzvos from now on, there must also be sorrow and remorse for the past. Confession has the power to bring that sorrow out, so that a person truly regrets the past and his teshuvah becomes more complete. That is what the Torah asks for. Complete teshuvah is teshuvah together with verbal confession. There is another point about confession, which the Tzemach Tzedek tells us. He explains it in an interesting way: Every transgression, every sin a person commits, has, in effect, a body and a soul. There is the act itself—the body of the sin—and there is the feeling. When a person commits a transgression, there is the pleasure, the excitement, the warmth, the enthusiasm he felt at the time of the sin. These are the soul and body of the sin. When a person sins, through his action he has, so to speak, created a negative body and soul, just as happens on the positive side. When a Jew performs a mitzvah, he creates an angel, because when a Jew performs a mitzvah, there is the body of the mitzvah—the act of performing it—and there is the intention

16:56 of the mitzvah. Together, the two of them—the body and soul of the mitzvah—create the body and soul of a good angel. The same thing happens in reverse. When a Jew commits a sin, a body and soul of darkness, impurity, and evil are created. When I do teshuvah, teshuvah includes a process of nullifying, erasing, removing the... what remains of the sin. So there are two stages here. The feeling, the heart of teshuvah—the heartfelt regret, when a person resolves not to do it again from now on—that feeling erases the soul of the sin, the... the pleasure experienced at the time of the sin. It transforms and nullifies it. But the body of the sin is erased through action. An action can erase an action. A thought cannot erase an action. So when you express your teshuvah in speech, there is an action involved. In the words of our Sages, moving one’s lips is an action. Moving your lips is a physical act, and with that you erase the body of the sin. That is why verbal confession is so important. Then comes completion, atonement—the third stage, complete atonement. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that the word “kapparah” in the Holy Tongue means more than atonement or forgiveness, as it is usually translated. We know that in the Torah, kapparah also has the sense of cleaning: “And he shall cleanse the house.” The Torah uses the term kapparah for washing and cleaning utensils as well. In other words, every sin, every transgression, every wrongdoing a Jew—or any person—commits causes damage and leaves a stain. It brings about a kind of disconnection, damages the soul, damages the higher worlds and the higher sefiros, impairs the forces of holiness, and gives... adds strength to the kelipos and the sitra achra. Through teshuvah, we want not only to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to reconnect, accept the yoke of Heaven, and ask forgiveness. We also want no trace to remain.

19:16 We want to clean, wash, scrub, and polish, so that no blemish remains—not in the soul, not in the higher worlds, not in the lower worlds. Everything should be clean and polished. In the language of the Talmud, of the Gemara, a person should be beloved and accepted as before the sin, and even more so. How do we accomplish that—become even more beloved and accepted than before the sin? This is where atonement comes in: the practices of teshuvah described in various sefarim. And on this, the Alter Rebbe tells us something extremely important, especially for these days. It also has a basis in halachah, in the Rambam and other halachic works. In the past, people would discuss fasting, self-denial, and all kinds of ways to make amends through teshuvah. The Alter Rebbe says that in our generations, when we are physically weaker, we cannot subject the body to suffering today—and this is also according to Torah. Someone who undertakes fasts today beyond those required by the Torah is, as the Alter Rebbe says, in a sense a sinner, because he will not be able to study Torah properly or serve Hashem, and he will be in a bad mood, and so on—as we see happening in practice today. The Alter Rebbe says: Today, atonement is achieved through tzedakah. “Redeem your sins through tzedakah.” Tzedakah has this power. A Jew gives money to tzedakah—the cost of a day’s food, or other amounts of tzedakah. Through the tzedakah a Jew gives, it is possible to cleanse and atone, to remove all the blemishes and stains. “It is through Hashem’s kindnesses that we have not come to an end, for His mercies have not ceased.” The Alter Rebbe explains: Because we are not whole or complete—we have sins and transgressions—we learn about Hashem’s kindnesses. The mitzvah of tzedakah, and not just ordinary tzedakah: giving tzedakah, sometimes more than you are obligated to give according to halachah,

21:19 breaking through the limits when it comes to tzedakah. That also breaks through the limits Above and brings about the revelation of the light of the Infinite One, blessed be He, down here. It cleanses all our sins and brings a person to a state of complete purity. This is especially relevant during this month, the month of Elul. So in addition to everything else a Jew does, we must increase our giving of tzedakah. As the Rambam writes, during these days—the Ten Days of Teshuvah, and before and after them—every Jew increases in giving tzedakah. Through this, we will merit that Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant us a good and blessed year, a good inscription and sealing, a good and sweet year in every respect, materially and spiritually. Above all, may we merit the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.