Jewish Sexuality dot Com

"If not for the contemplation of t'shuva, and the comfort and security which come with it, a person would be unable to find rest, and spiritual life could not develop in the world. Man's moral sense demands justice, goodness, and perfection. Yet how very distant is moral perfection from man's actualization, and how feeble he is in directing his behavior toward the pure ideal of absolute justice. How can he aspire to that which is beyond his reach? For this, t'shuva comes as a part of man's nature. It is t'shuva which perfects him. If a man is constantly prone to transgress, and to have difficulties in maintaining just and moral ideals, this does not blemish his perfection, since the principle foundation of his perfection is the constant longing and desire for perfection. This yearning is the foundation of t'shuva, which constantly orchestrates man's path in life and truly perfects him" (Orot HaT'shuva, 5:6).

Dear reader, please note: if you are not yet a tzaddik, you need not be depressed. Success in t'shuva is not measured by the final score at the end of the game. It is measured by the playing. The striving for good is goodness itself. The striving for atonement is atonement. The striving for perfection is what perfects, in and of itself.

King Solomon teaches that no man is sin free (Kohelet, 7:20). Transgression is part of the fabric of life. Since we are a part of this world, we too are subject to "system failure" or sin. For there is not a just man on earth that does good and never sins (Ibid). This is particular true in sexual matters. Even the righteous occasionally succumb to temptation (Sanhedrin 107A). Thus, until the days of Mashiach, an ideal, sinless existence is out of man's reach.

An illustration may help make this concept clearer. On Yom Kippur, we are like angels. We don't eat, we don't drink. All day long we pray for atonement from all of our sins. At the end of the day, with the final blast of the shofar, we are cleansed. But in the very next moment, as we pray the evening service, we once again ask G-d to forgive us. Forgive us for what? The whole day we have acted like angels. Our sins were whitened as snow.8 In the few seconds between the end of Yom Kippur and the evening prayer, what sin did we do? Maybe at the beginning of the evening prayer, exhausted by the fast, we didn't concentrate on our words. Maybe our prayers on Yom Kippur were halfhearted. Maybe, we forgot to ask forgiveness for some of our sins.