Three speakers explore teshuvah, the Jewish practice of repentance, through Chassidic teachings. They frame it not as distant atonement but as a return to your truest self and a direct connection with God. One speaker uses a parent-child analogy: breaking the rules can actually deepen your bond once repaired.
Chassidus came to show how it's close, how it's easier, how it's reachable.
Teshuvah is a way to get to what a mitzvah is really all about.
Teshuvah is the realization that I have a connection with the Aibishter. That is unbreakable.
Teshuvah is return. It's restoring yourself to the way that you naturally are. You don't have to go out and get it. It's within you. You have it in your heart.
So I'm going to go back to being good.
No.
I'm going to be like everybody else. I'm going to be like somebody who never sinned. No, that's not good.
Teshuvah doesn't mean I did it, I got it out of my system.
You're wasting a juicy Avera. G-d took this neshamah and He threw it down into Olam Hazeh, and the neshamah messed up and got stuck in the mud. G-d looks, okay, it's an investment. There's an inner reason for it, why the neshamah gave in.
Teshuvah means it makes me very sad that I once was the kind of person who thought such things would make Him happy. And I'm not that person anymore. But now, knowing what I know, gives me a greater sensitivity. I'm more careful about gravitating towards what's right because I got burnt in the past than if I had never been.
The parent says, "These are the rules, you gotta follow the rules, then you'll be a good boy and we'll give you dessert." So the kid feels, "I want more than that. I don't want to be just— you need me because I do these things. There's got to be more to it than that. I want to have a relationship directly with you." What the kid does is go, "Let's see what happens if I break the rules. Do you still love me when I break the rules?" Father, mother, whoever it is, is upset, but now when it's healed, you've come much closer. You've shown that it's not really just about these rules, it's about I'm there inside the rules. So the rules are valuable because they're things that I really want for your sake, for our sake, to connect us together.
Teshuvah is the realization that I have a connection with the Aibishter that is unbreakable. And whatever happened doesn't matter. Whatever happened, he's still like a father to children. Nothing could break that. We have to train our mind how to look on ourselves, how to look at Hashem looking on us.
With teshuvah, you're able to come to a much deeper relationship.
Now I can guard my relationship with Hashem with such vigilance that I never would have if I never had if I never would have known what it means to lose it. It's something that's happening to you. Teshuvah is allowing yourself to return to your natural state. Just show up, let it happen, submit yourself, surrender. That's what it's all about. Put yourself in Hashem's hands. He's got a program for you.
Our whole generation is the story of teshuvah. Go over to Eid with real avesh Yisroel, with confidence. And certainty and warmth. You're a Yid, and therefore do a mitzvah. And that's the story of our generation. It changed the whole generation. There's thousands of Baalei Teshuvah.
Sin is unnatural. Disconnection is unnatural. When we stray, we are straying from our true self.
I'm a neshamah. Gvald, how can a neshamah be doing those things? That's not who I am, and that's not what I could be.
So we have to go over to ourselves the same way, with avesh Yisroel and confidence and certainty. You're a Yid. You really care. Therefore, just do something. Start doing.
99.9% of your time should be spent b'simcha, thinking about what is it that I got to be doing now.
We're going to do this together. Each one of us is going to do a little bit of teshuvah, and we're supporting each other. Come Sukkot, we're going to dance together. Pesach Torah, we're going to share in each other's victory.
