תשובה סתמית כלליתReturn Without a Named Sin

teshuvah stamit klalitIn Gamatria ↗

Even a nameless heaviness can be the doorway home.

One kind of return targets a specific sin. The person sets it before him, regrets it, and feels enslavement give way to holy freedom, ending in the thanks of Psalm 103. A second kind has no particular sin in view. One simply feels heavy, closed-hearted and far from God's light, as if locked in stocks, which Kook calls the worst distress. From that very bitterness return arrives like a skilled doctor's poultice, drawing on the soul's depths, on nature and on Torah. Day by day the feeling grows surer, until he senses himself a new creature, echoing Yoma 86a: one person's return heals the world.

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