New Quotes from the Tanya on Teshuvah

Chapter 4

The Zohar comments on the word Teshuvah – Tashuv hei (it breaks up the Hebrew word into two which means) return the hei. Hence there is a higher and lower Teshuvah, which relates to the two heis, in the name of God.

The difference between how God creates everything besides man, is like the difference between speech and blowing, for in speech one can speak long but not tire, but in blowing one tires quickly; for in the former, it is only an outer energy, while in the latter an inner; similarly, all of creation is made with the Divine name Eloikim (we find this name used the first 32 times in the Torah) however Man’s soul is created with the name Havayeh, which represents that it was only man for whom all else was fashioned.

Chapter 5

Our souls begin in God, like a rope that starts in point a. and ends in point b. our body.

This rope is compared to 613 strands (like all ropes are the intertwined, twisted smaller strands) every positive deed strengthens the connection, and God-forbid a negative severs that particular strand.

Chapter 6

The meaning of returning the lower “hei” is as follows – as our soul begins in God and it is like a rope, hence when one pulls the bottom of the rope, the top gets dragged after it – similarly, as we are given freedom of choice – when we choose to drag our minds and hearts into selfish or cruel endeavors, this drags the Divine side into those realms – however, when we return to doing good, this returns the Divine soul to its rightful place.

Chapter 7

The mechanism to effect this Teshuvah return is twofold:

1. This is the process as taught by the Baal Shem Tov, to feel bad for the Divine – the Divine, attached to your soul was dragged into the – as the Alter Rebbe speaks elsewhere – like a king being forced to place his head into a toilet bowl filled with excrement (as the Kabbalah teaches “A king (the Divine) bound by the chains of immoral and ignoble thoughts”) for the thoughts of man being connected to the Divine drag the Divine down – especially considering how awesome and great the Divine is, one can truly feel great pity on God.

2. This is the mechanism – which the Alteh Rebbe recommends we should do an hour daily (particularly at night) of considering all the times we dragged the Divine into the filth – This creates a great humility – for the essence of evil – which has no true existence; it merely puffs itself into a false persona – hence the humbling of self, is the destruction of the forces of evil that have attached to oneself.

Chapter 8

Once one has done the above (two Teshuvah excersizes mentioned in Chapter 7) now we can truly ask God to please return our soul – a request from the depths of our heart.

 

This effects that “hei” (see chapter 6) returns back to its source in God at the same level as it was before it came into this world.

 

This is what is considered the higher Teshuvah, especially when we follow our repentance with Torah study (for the essence of this repentance is not the state of return, but the continued existence with the Divine – this is especially true of a Baal Teshuvah whose return – coming from feeling far, hence the tremendous outpouring of love and attraction even exceeds that of a Tzaadik.)