What is Teshuva?

2 Elul 5770

Many of us know that Elul is a time for Teshuva. Unfortunately, many are missing a minor detail - what exactly is Teshuva?

Let's look at what חז"ל say, and then we'll sum it up into something we can take with us.

The Rambam introduces Hilchos Teshuva with the following phrase:

מצות עשה אחת (הוא מצות תשובה), והוא שישוב החוטא מחטאו לפני ה' ויתודה

According to the Rambam, Teshuva is a positive commandment to: a) repent, b) admit your sins before God. Then, throughout the first halacha in Hilchos Teshuva, the Rambam goes on to emphasize this concept of וידוי, of admitting your sins before God. He writes phrases like: כל המרבה להתודות ומאריך בענין זה הרי זה משובח - anyone who goes on at length with his וידוי is praiseworthy.

What is the big deal about וידוי? Why is it so important for someone to "admit his sins before God?"

Let's think about this rationally. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-adjective. He is, for lack of a better term, The Man. היה הווה ויהיה, HKB"H knows all.

Why, then, are we telling Him about everything we've done wrong? Was He not aware that we skipped maariv last week? Stole twenty bucks from our parents' stash in their sock drawer a month ago? Cheated on our finals in June? What can God possibly gain from us listing off every time we've screwed up - does He really enjoy making us feel so terrible about ourselves?

The answer, of course, is that וידוי is not for God. Hashem is not some human king who needs to be informed by his subjects about all that's going on in His kingdom. He knows already. But we are the ones who need to know. We are the ones who need to be informed. And the only person who's going to be able to tell us about our own shortcomings is ourselves.

You all know how well we take criticism. It's usually received with defensive, angry, uncooperative feelings and emotions. Even if it's constructive criticism. But when we criticize ourselves, when we catch ourselves doing something wrong, we stop and listen. When we hear about our חטאים from our own mouth, there is a chance we will take it to heart. There is a chance we will think about it, because it's not someone else expressing their superiority by pointing out our faults. It's coming from us.

That's what so huge about admitting our sins. The best platform we have to receive criticism about our actions is from our own mouth. So when we enumerate the things we have to work on, we are able to think - with a clear head - about actually improving those areas.

More on this later on.