THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF TESHUBA
In his book Menorat haMaor, Rabbi Isaac Abohab, who lived in Spain during the 14th century, writes (p. 668-669) that there are seven levels of Teshuba or repentance. These levels are divided according to the timing and circumstances of the act of repentance. That is, when and why does repentance take place? The first level of Teshuba, which is also the highest and most effective, is when one regrets what he or she did wrong immediately, on his own initiative, without the intervention of third parties, and without being motivated by external factors. When this happens, says Rabbi Abohab, it is an indication that this individual’s conscience is awake and active.
DRINKING AND REGRETTING
We will try to understand a little better this profound idea.
Imagine a person who drinks too much alcohol and gets drunk.
In the first scenario, this individual drives his car, goes through a red light, is stopped by the police, is fined and his driver’s license is taken away. Under these circumstances, this individual surely regrets drinking alcohol simply because he is suffering the consequences of driving while intoxicated.
Second scenario. A person gets drunk at a social gathering, misbehaves in front of everyone, and embarrasses his wife and children. Once sober, his wife reproaches him for his behavior and explains the damage and pain he caused his loved ones. After this warning, this man will surely regret drinking.
Third scenario. A guy gets drunk in public but luckily his drunkenness went unnoticed, and he didn’t embarrass anyone. He drove his car, but nothing happened to him or to others. In short: he did not suffer any serious consequences from his drunkenness. It is quite possible that in this scenario, ironically, this man would NOT regret getting drunk. Why? Because he was lucky enough not to suffer any negative consequences from his terrible mistake. And because of these positive circumstances, ironically, this individual is likely to continue to drink heavily and get drunk again. From this point of view, it was not so good for him to have been spared the consequences of his drunkenness.
Let us see now a fourth possibility. This individual drinks excessively and gets drunk, and fortunately, nothing negative happens to him. But still, when he recovers from his intoxication, he regrets his actions and repents “even though nothing serious happened to him.” This is the repentance that is considered by Rabbi Abohab to be of the highest moral level. Why? Because the remorse comes directly from the conscience, and not from an external factor that opened his eyes: an accident, a bad moment, or the intervention of a third party.
This type of “direct” repentance reflects that this individual has an inner voice, an active conscience (neshama) that nurtures the extraordinary ability to recognize our mistakes on our own and help us to correct our bad behavior without another factor or person having to open our eyes.
IMMEDIATE REGRET
Let’s imagine that I offended another person by saying to him an inappropriate word. If I would apologize immediately and say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that”; “I didn’t mean to offend you”; “I was wrong”, “I used the wrong words, etc.” In most cases, my apologies will be accepted much more easily than when I apologize after a while, when I see this person the next time.
Rabbi Abohab explains that when one commits a transgression towards God or others and repents immediately and by his own moral compass, that “transgression” is considered a mistake, a temporary slip, an impulsive act, more than an offensive deliberate act.
And he concludes the exposition of this first level of TESHUBA by quoting a text from the Gemara in Berachot (10a) that says: “If you saw a Torah scholar committing a transgression during the night, in the morning, you must assume that he has already done Teshuba”. Why do we give this person the benefit of the doubt? First, we can see that a person who studies Tora, like any other human being, is not immune to making mistakes. But the study of the Divine commandments helps a person to develop an internal ethical referent, an active mental mechanism that keeps our conscience awake, and in these circumstances the moral alarm goes off as soon as we do something wrong, pushing us to repent, and preventing us from repeating the same mistake before it becomes a bad habit.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
