Don’t Skip Steps – Part 2 – Teshuva with Happiness
Repentance is not about breast beating or bemoaning our sins! To be done properly, it must be done with happiness! Rabbi Arush teaches us how...
Three Levels – In Order
As I explained in Don’t Skip Steps – Part 1 last week, in The Garden of Emuna I teach that emuna has three levels. It is important to work on them in order and not jump around.
If you don’t have the foundation underneath you for the higher step, you can easily fall into sadness or even become so overwhelmed that you move farther away from a relationship with Hashem, G-d forbid. Remember the iron rule: You can only approach teshuva (repentance) properly when your soul is healthy and you are filled with emuna that this is from God, who loves you and wants to help you improve. As long as you think that the situation is bad, or that Hashem hates you, or is punishing you – you cannot attempt to do teshuva!
Let’s go through each of the levels of emuna in order and explain how to work through them properly, with special emphasis on the third level:
1. "Kacha Hashem rotzeh” – this situation is directly from Hashem, and it is exactly the way Hashem wants it to be!
This is the foundation that “ein od milvado” – there is nothing besides Hashem. God, and only God, is in charge of what happens in this world. Don’t blame anyone else, including yourself, for what happened, is happening, or will happen. Everything is directly from God Himself!
2. Everything is for the best, so say thank you!
Hashem is all good. Since Hashem does everything, then by definition, everything that happens has a good purpose, whether we understand it or not. There is no bad, and no evil, in the world whatsoever. Therefore, we must accept everything with love and say thank you for everything with our whole heart.
3. Everything has a purpose. Find it and improve yourself!
Only when you truly live these first two levels fully – only then can you move on to this stage. If you don’t yet experience the truth that everything is from God – then you still blame yourself and feel like the biggest rasha (evil person) on earth for your sins. And if you aren’t strong in the emuna that this is for the best, that means that you still don’t experience how much Hashem loves you and only wants to help you. If you try to do teshuva in this state, then you are trying to repent without emuna!
Only when you can say “thank you” with true happiness are you ready to do teshuva properly. In fact, this is the best time to start reviewing your actions and truly regret your mistakes. Now that you feel just how much Hashem loves you – now you can start returning to Him, fixing yourself, moving forward. Now is your opportunity to truly fix the problem at its root.
In fact, many of the people who came to me with stories of I Said Thank You and Saw Miracles say that after they said thank you, they really felt the Divine Guidance of Hashem and just how much God loves them. It was this feeling that changed them and enabled them to start changing their lives for the better, start keeping Torah and mitvot, and start doing personal prayer every day – and especially, reviewing their deeds from one day to the next. Meaning – fulfilling the second level of thanking and gratitude fully automatically launched them into the third level of repentance.
It is also important to note that saying thank you was never meant to stop at the second level, and not 
continue to the third level of reviewing your life and making real changes. The point of saying thank you isn’t to fix the current problem and go back to business as usual. This is a huge mistake! What, did you think that Hashem made you suffer randomly, and for no reason? No! The suffering came to you from Hashem in order to push you to change something – and if you refuse to move to this third stage in recognition of this fact, then the suffering will simply come back.
What is Proper Teshuva?
It may surprise you to learn that teshuva is not about breast-beating! Proper teshuva does not include becoming depressed about your low level or bad deeds. Remember – fixing your deeds and returning to God is supposed to build you – not break you.
The basis of all emuna is that there is no suffering without sin. All suffering in this world is a personally 
signed letter from God filled with love so that you can “take the hint” of what you need to work on. In doing so, you return to your purpose and mission in this world. Is there any good greater than this? This is the good purpose in all our suffering!
Therefore, the first level of teshuva is simply saying thank you for everything that happens. This corrects your blemishes of emuna – which is the basis of everything!
Once you are filled with the emuna of saying thank you and feel how much Hashem loves you and is only here to help you, now you can repent and change your ways, happily and with love. Only from this place of emuna can you understand what Hashem wants you to improve and change in your life – and then really do it, happily! And when you do, then you sweeten all the judgments, and turn all your sins – into merits! This is the level we want to achieve!
This is also the deepest “thank you” that we can really say to Hashem: “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to save myself from my sins! Thank you for pushing me to strengthen my emuna and live the Truth! Thank you for hinting to me how I need to improve, for my own benefit in this world and the next! Thank you for enabling me to turn my life around and return to You – to do teshuva!”
6/03/2022
I thank you for this teaching. It has opened my eyes and gave me happiness. Thank you.