The Avera Creates Damage to the Nefesh

The Rambam and the Nefesh Hachaim both say that the main mitzvah that is connected with teshuvah is viduy. If so, it is most important that we know how to do a proper viduy.

The first thing to know is that the main thing what we are trying to do when we do teshuvah, is to return our nefesh back to the state that it was in before the aveirah. The main thing of teshuvah is not how to repair the bad action that we did.

Teshuvah with menuchas hanefesh

This is why Rashi (Parshas Vaeira 7,3) says that Hashem says that He knows that the non-Jewish nations do not have nachas ruach to do teshuvah with a lev shalem. Therefore, Hashem is more interested in punishing Pharoah and the non-Jews for the sake of making us do teshuvah and not for the sake of making the non-Jews do teshuvah.

Not having nachas ruach means that they do not have menuchas hanefesh. They do not have menuchas hanefesh with which to do teshuvah. The reason why menuchas hanefesh is needed for doing teshuvah is because teshuvah is working on the nefesh and not just on bad actions that we did.

People think and say as we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that we should take teshuvah seriously. We think that this means that we should feel pressured and nervous. However, this is absolutely not true. If a person is feeling under pressure, they could do big actions but this is not what teshuvah is about. Teshuvah is about restoring the nefesh to how it was before having done the aveira and this can only be done when a person is in a state of mind of menuchas hanefesh.

One reason why people might make a mistake and think that teshuvah is all about correcting actions is because one of our great poskim, the Chaye Adam provides us for our viduy, with an index of actions that we might have done wrong, according to the aleph beis.

A person might try and say all of the Chayei Adam’s list, with the hope that if they did something wrong then it will be included somewhere in the list. This is nothing other than leitzonus.

Viduy about the nefesh

But besides for this problem, Chazal did not tell us to do viduy through confessing our actions. They gave us a list- oshamnu, bogadnu etc. These are not describing wrong actions at all. Rather they all refer to different kochos hanefesh. They are all describing where the nefesh has gone wrong and what has been destroyed.

Now, let us show (besides from the actual text of the viduy) from looking at the original formation of the yetzer hara, when Odom Harishon did the first sin, that the main problem of when we do an aveirah is in our nefesh or in our peniymius.

The yetzer hara managed to enter our penimius

The Nefesh Hachaim in Shaar Aleph, perek vav (in the hagaah) says that before Odom Harishon sinned, the yetzer hara stood outside of the person.  However, When Odom sinned then the yetzer hara entered mamash inside him.

This means that before the first aveirah, the yetzer hara was not inside man and it did not even have any penimius of its own. Once Odom sinned then the yetzer gained a penimius. It now got inside the penimius of man.

So, this means that whenever we do an aveirah it is coming from the yetzer hara which is inside our penimius, our nefesh. So, we see that when we sin, our penimius is wrong, not just our actions.

The inability to admit that we have done more than just a bad action

Our problem is that we are not prepared to admit this. After doing aveiras and coming to do teshuvah, we all say that we have done wrong actions but as a person we are fine. We understand that the person who is addicted to his I phone or to his tablet, he has a problem as a person. He has a nefesh which is mushchas but we only made a problem in our actions.

This is absolutely not true though. The Torah tells us that whenever we do aveiras we are a mushchas in our nefesh. There is a problem within us as a person.

An example of a problem with kochos hanefesh

Just to give an example of what it means to do something wrong within our kochos hanefesh. People are interested in sports. If you think about what problem this might cause you would think that the issue is just bitul Torah. This is the problem in terms of action. However, there is a deeper problem. There is a problem within the kochos hanefesh of the person.

Every person has kochos hanefesh of hesegyut– the want to conquer something or tacharut– the want to fight. When a person follows sport, they give a satisfaction to these kochos hanefesh. They watch the sportsmen who try so hard to fight and fight until they win. They watch the sportsmen jump and then he tries again and again until he conquers it.

Through doing this people are giving an outlet to these kochos hanefesh. However, the outlet is not a Torah outlet. The true outlet of these kochos should be to learn again and again a really schwer Rashba until you conquer it!

We need to admit that the problems we are making for ourselves when we do aveiras are not just the actions themselves. The real problem is from where we are doing the bad actions. We are sinning from our kochos hanefesh. Therefore, the vidduy that we say needs to be focused on this and not on the actions.

This is why Rashi says that teshuvah with a complete heart needs to be done with menuchas hanefesh. Since the only way that we can access our nefesh, to bring it back to the right place, is through menuchas hanefesh.