Teshuva does not mean “repentance” but “return”. It is not a feeling, it is a change of direction.
The Rambam gives its components: abandon the sin, regret it, confess it aloud, and resolve not to go back to it.
The Talmud (Rosh Hashana 18a) applies to the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Kippur the verse “Seek Hashem while He may be found”.
Offences against another person are not forgiven by Yom Kippur until the injured party has been appeased (Mishna, Yoma 85b).
The Talmud distinguishes return out of fear from return out of love: the first lightens the sins, the second transforms them (Yoma 86b).
The root of the word is shuv, to return. Not “to regret”, not “to apologise”: to return. Teshuva therefore assumes there is a place one has moved away from, and to which one can come back.
In Hilkhot Teshuva the Rambam describes what the one who returns does: he abandons the sin and drives it from his thought; he regrets the past; he takes upon himself not to do it again; and he confesses with his mouth.
— Aziva: stop. As long as the act continues, everything else is theory.
— Harata: real regret — for the act, not for the penalty.
— Kabala lehaba: decide for the future, precisely, not vaguely.
— Vidui: say it with the mouth. What is not put into words stays vague, and vagueness shelters the sin.
The Rambam adds a formidable definition of the complete baal teshuva: the one who, placed in exactly the same situation with the same opportunity, does not do it again.
The Talmud (Rosh Hashana 18a) applies this verse to the ten days from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. Not that the door is shut the rest of the year — teshuva always counts — but because in those days the closeness is offered.
The Mishna (Yoma 85b) is explicit: sins between man and Hashem, Yom Kippur atones; sins between man and his fellow, Yom Kippur does not atone until he has appeased his fellow.
This is not added severity: it is the very logic of teshuva. One cannot return to the One who created man while trampling on a man.
The Talmud (Yoma 86b) distinguishes: for the one who returns out of fear, deliberate sins are counted as mistakes; for the one who returns out of love, they become merits.
The second statement is startling: how does a sin become a merit? A widespread reading among the commentators explains it thus: when it is precisely the fall that produced the return, the fall has entered the road.
— Wanting to change everything at once. One resolution kept is worth more than ten dropped on the 3rd of Tishrei.
— Confusing shame with teshuva. Shame looks backwards; teshuva walks.
— Waiting for the feeling. The Rambam describes acts, not an emotion.
— Postponing the approach to another person until after Kippur. That is precisely the one with a deadline.
Rosh Hashana 5787 begins on Friday evening, 11 September 2026; Yom Kippur begins on Sunday evening, 20 September and ends on Monday 21 September. Between the two: ten days.
The Selihot said since Rosh Hodesh Elul are nothing other than the preparation for those ten days. They replace nothing; they set things moving.
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