Rebbe Naḥman of Breslov teaches that a person must always strive to repent
before God. Even one who has repented should do so again because his earlier
perceptions of God were limited to his understanding of God at the time of his
initial repentance. A second repentance represents an admission that God is
greater than one had originally thought. Hence, when one attains a higher
degree of spirituality, his acknowledgment of God becomes stronger as well.
Additional repentance is necessary since one's perception of God has been
advanced. This process of increased spiritual awareness accompanied by
additional repentance is called "repentance upon repentance."
This concept is implied by two halachot,
codified by Maimonides:
Teshuva (repentance) is great for it draws a man
close to the Shechinah as the
verses state: "Return, O Israel, to God, your Lord;" [Hosea 14:2] "`You have not returned to Me,' declares God;" [Amos
4:6] "`If, you will return, O
Israel,' declares God, `You will return to Me.'" Jeremiah 4:1]. That is, if
you will return in Teshuva, you will cling to God.
Laws of Teshuva 7:6
Repentance,
which brings one to cling to God, is a dynamic and ongoing process; the more
one clings to God, the greater his perception of God's awesomeness and the more
one strives to cling to Him.
Sins which were confessed on one Yom Kippur should be confessed on
another Yom Kippur even though one remains steadfast in his repentance, as [Psalms
51:5] states: "I acknowledge my transgressions and my sins are always
before me." ibid., 2:8
Since
teshuva is a dynamic and ongoing process, the level of one's confession on
a previous Yom Kippur is lower than that on subsequent Yemei Kippur, hence the subsequent
confession should be based upon a deeper understanding of how one's sins
distanced him from God and Godliness.
Essentially, the process of teshuva
is an ascending spiral.
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