For Matanos L’evyonim donations Click Here

Teshuva immediately after sin

Question:

I heard that the best time to do Teshuva is immediately after the sin. It’s been more than a day since my sin and it still feels impossible. I did mumble a pathetic “I’m sorry” to Hashem after the sin, but it was embarrassing and obviously not enough. The sin was on purpose and something I knew better than to do. Bein adam l’Makom. I don’t know what to do. I feel stuck. How do you do Teshuva immediately after a sin? How is that even possible? Right in the aftermath of “getting your way” and benefiting from it, even though there’s a nagging feeling inside saying do Teshuva, but I feel like a fraud. My Teshuva isn’t sincere. Please help me.

 

Answer:

Thank you for your question.
You are very correct. A person can only do teshuva when feeling regret for what was done and when the person is ready to leave the aveiro that was done. If the person is not feeling that way on the day that the aveiro was done, and the person is not ready to tell Hashem sincerely that he is sorry for what was done, then teshuva can not be done at that point. It can still be done later, although it is not as good. A person is not a fraud if they didn’t do the most optimum teshuva. Hashem accept all forms of teshuva.
As a side point, the idea of doing teshuva on the day the aveiro was committed is because, the Aveiro get “written down” in shomayim, when the person’s neshoma goes up while they are sleeping. Doing teshuva afterwards will then require “erasing” what was written, and there are differant levels of erasing things. If however the person does teshuva before then, it isn’t written down in the first place.
Best wishes

 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *