Teshuvah Quotes

“Knowing that the door is always open and that there is a way through it, knowing that there is no irredeemable situation, can itself serve as a goad to teshuvah.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“On the other hand, if he is not fully observant, at least in public, the fact that he covers his head may lead others to see him as hypocritical. Indeed, it may cast a shadow of hypocrisy over the entire observant community.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“For various historical reasons, chiefly because most Jews no longer wear a distinctly Jewish garb, the head covering has, for many, taken on the significance of a badge.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“God’s love comes to Israel as a gift, and it is this gift that is emphasized in the Shabbat liturgy with the repetition of the phrase “in love.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“A gap may still exist between human beings and God, but narrowing that gap is the work of a lifetime and not something to be accomplished all at once.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The same constant vigilance one learns to exercise concerning the kashrut of the food imbibed by the body must be applied to the ideas imbibed by the soul. A Jewish pattern of life, not to mention a Jewish outlook, cannot be maintained when the heart and mind are indiscriminately open to everything that comes along.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“Halakhically speaking, one must have at least two social frameworks in order to function today as a Jew: the family, which is required for the fulfillment of a whole set of mitzvot, and the minyan, which is needed to fulfill the communal aspects of Judaism – the Jews as “the congregation of the Lord,”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“Chapter eleven Social Relations”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“As the holy Zohar tells us, ba’alei teshuvah are even more exalted than the saints, “for they are drawn to Him with greater force.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“Wealth, honor, peace of mind, and personal satisfaction are transient things.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The Sages say that in addition to keeping all the commandments, one should choose a single observance in which to be particularly scrupulous and diligent – “more careful,” in the words of the Talmud.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“the literature of religious guidance, including Musar, repeatedly emphasizes caution, strictness, respect, humility, and submission.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“In the final analysis, the secret of fellowship is to be found in this verse: “For should they fall, one can raise the other; but woe betide him who is alone and falls with no companion to raise him!” (Ecclesiastes 4:10).”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“As the Sages said, “Let a man always study what, and with whom, his heart desires.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The heartfelt desire for transcendence, for some kind of contact with the Holy One, blessed be He, is the inner expression of the human soul, the very essence of humanness. This aspiration, which grows ever stronger as one’s inner stature grows, can never be fully realized, for with spiritual growth and the deepening of knowledge comes ever-clearer recognition of the unbridgeable chasm between oneself and the infinite. Ordinary satisfactions are attained easily enough, but to attain something higher, beyond normal human limitations, is possible only through Divine grace.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The saying in the Zohar that “without awe and love, [the study of] Torah and [the performance of] mitzvot do not reach heaven” expresses the difference between routine mechanical acts and those in which the soul is involved.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“Sexual life is seen rather as a physical expression of the union between man and woman, as an act of positive significance in itself, and, at the highest level, as a sacrament.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The basic philosophical justification for marriage is that it is not only a means for “multiplying,” but an intrinsic part of being human. A man or a woman alone is only “half a body”; in the archetype of Adam and Eve, the two are seen as the two parts of a single unity that must return and unite again in the form of man and woman in order to create the whole human being.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The saying of the Sages that “in the place where ba’alei teshuvah stand, even saints cannot stand” is explained by the Zohar to mean that ba’alei teshuvah “draw out” the Holy One, blessed be He, “with greater force.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew

“The ba’al teshuvah is thus like a person on a journey who at some point decides to change direction. From that point on, his steps will be carrying him toward a different destination. The turn itself is accomplished in a second. Yet the new path, like the one abandoned, is long and arduous.”
― Steinsaltz Adin, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew