196. Complete Teshuvah
Teshuvah 1: 4
Even though teshuvah atones for sins and Yom Kippur also effects atonement, some sins can be atoned for immediately and other sins can only be atoned for over time. For example, if a person violates a positive mitzvah that does not carry the penalty of kareis and he repents, he will not leave that place before he is forgiven. Regarding such sins, Jeremiah 3:22 says, “Return, faithless children, and I will heal your rebellious deeds.” If someone violates a prohibition that is not punishable by kareis or by execution and he repents, teshuvah suspends the sin and Yom Kippur atones for it, as per Leviticus 16:30, “This day will atone for you.” If a person commits acts that carry the penalty of kareis or execution and he repents, teshuvah and Yom Kippur suspend the sin and suffering that comes upon him will effect atonement. Such a person cannot receive complete atonement until he endures suffering as per Psalms 89:33, “I will punish their sin with a rod.”
All this only applies when the sin does not involve a desecration of God’s Name. However, if someone desecrated God's Name, even if he repented, Yom Kippur arrived, and he endured suffering, he will not receive full atonement until he dies. The combination of repentance, Yom Kippur and suffering suspend the sin and death effects atonement as per Isaiah 22:14, “…surely this sin will not be atoned for until you die.”
Teshuvah 2:1
A person has achieved complete teshuvah when he finds himself in the same situation as the one in which he originally sinned, and he has the ability to perform the sin again, but he refrains because of his teshuvah alone. For example, if a person had an unlawful sexual union with a woman, then they met later in private in the same place and with the same urges, if he refrains and does not do it again, then he a complete baal teshuvah (penitent).
To be a complete baal teshuvah, one must possess the capacity to repeat the sin. This is what King Solomon means in Koheles 12:1, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth….” If a person does not repent until his old age, when he is incapable of repeating his former deeds, he is a baal teshuvah but this is not as high a level of repentance.
Even if a person sinned his entire life and he only repented on the day of his death so that he died in his teshuvah, all his sins are forgiven as Koheles 12:2 continues, “Before the sun, the light, the moon or the stars are darkened...,” which refers to the day of one’s death. We learn from this that if one remembers his Creator and repents before he dies, he will be forgiven.