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Choosing the right path is not easy

For example, when a person is addicted to some repeated transgression, like viewing pornographic material on the Internet, his will is directed toward evil. His desire is to satiate his craving for the immoral pleasure it gives him. All the day, even while engaged in other matters, he thinks about getting back to his secret vice. His will is directed in an unhealthy, unwholesome path. To do t'shuva, this person must redirect his will to a yearning for good.  

We are not accustomed to thinking in terms of the will. In school we learn about many different subjects, we learn about different professions, we learn how to get along in the world. But we don't learn very much about being good. Rabbi Kook, however, teaches that education should focus not on professional training alone, but on finding ways to direct all of man's endeavors, both material and spiritual, toward the world's general aspiration for goodness (Orot HaT'shuva, 15:2).

"Pure honesty demands that all of the labor of science should be directed toward the fundamental ideal of enhancing man's will with the ultimate goodness fitting to it, to refine the will, to strengthen it, to sanctify it, to purify it, to habituate it through educational channels to always strive for what is lofty and noble" (Ibid).

When, however, mankind strays from the proper course, and instead of striving to elevate the will, leaves it wallowing in its baseness, wanting only to satisfy the will's lower passions, then humanity plunges into darkness, degeneracy, and idolatry.

"Out of its depths, (mankind) will cry out to the G-d of truth and return to the holy goal of making the foundation of every activity the uplifting of the will.... This is the entire basis of t'shuva, the elevation of the will, transforming it to good, to rise up from darkness to light, from a valley of tribulation to a gateway of hope" (Ibid).

Shot Out Of A Cannon

T'shuva can come about gradually, or in a sudden powerful flash. Gradual t'shuva resembles any developmental process whereby one thing leads to another in a natural fashion like the growth of a tree, which progresses from the seed to the fruit in a slow, predictable process.

BOOM!

The longing for goodness that makes up a person's willpower has a resiliency like that of a spring. Sin causes the will for goodness to be contracted, like a spring which is being stepped on. The further a person is caught up in sin, the tighter the spring is compressed. When a person frees himself from the shackles of sin, he is freeing his willpower to return to cleaving to G-d. Since his willpower was in such a constricted state, when it is released, it explodes with a super momentum and force, far greater than the force of gradual t'shuva. The sudden baal t'shuva has a magnificent outburst of will which propels him into a frenzy of spiritual endeavor. From the depth of his darkness, he discovers an incredible light, an incredible goodness. All at once, BOOM, he is turned on by G-d. His prayer, his Torah study, his good deeds are all filled with a fiery intensity and fervor for universal good (Ibid, 9:3).

It is this revitalized energy which makes the newly religious seem "born again." This occurs because his willpower has been rescued and recharged. This accounts for the teaching that a tzaddik cannot reach the level of a baal t'shuva, for a tzaddik is motivated by the normal, step-by-step will to do good, and not by the explosive, shot-out-of-a-cannon passion of the baal t'shuva.