Teshuvah תשובה is often imprecisely translated as "repentance," but the richness contained in the Hebrew is lost in this rendition. In Hebrew, the word is derived from the word shuv שוב, which means "return." So, teshuvah is more precisely translated as "returning."
What returning? To what? Somewhat unusually, Judaism holds that in its essence, the soul is holy and pure. It is not predisposed to sin. Teshuvah is a return to the soul's essential, pristine state. Sin is an external shell that covers the soul's light and inherent connection to the Divine; the internal reality of a human being is that s/he is a creature of light, made in G‑d's image.
No comments:
Post a Comment