The Hebrew word is teshubah, from a root meaning “return,” and the concept is generally understood to mean, “returning to God from a situation of estrangement.” The turning is not only from sin, for sin serves as an indicator of a deeper pathology, which is utter estrangement from God. Teshubah thus involves not humiliation but reaffirmation of the self in God’s image. It follows that repentance in Judaism forms a theological category encompassing moral issues of action and attitude, wrong action, arrogant attitude, in particular. Repentance forms a step in the path to God that starts with the estrangement represented by sin: doing what I want, instead of what God wants, thus rebellion and arrogance. Sin precipitates punishment, whether personal for individuals or historical for nations, punishment brings about repentance, which, in turn, leads to atonement and, it follows, reconciliation with God. That sequence of stages in the moral regeneration of sinful humanity, individual or collective, defines the context in which repentance finds its natural home.
The conception of repentance—regretting sin, determining not to repeat it, seeking forgiveness for it—defines the key to the moral life with God. No single component of the human condition takes higher priority in establishing right relationship with God, and none bears more profound implications for this-worldly attitudes and actions; the entire course of a human life, filled as it is with the natural propensity to sin, that is, to rebel against God but comprised also by the compelled requirement of confronting God’s response, punishment for sin, takes its direction at the act of repentance, the first step in the regeneration of the human condition as it was meant to be. The concept takes on specificity when atonement comes to the fore: in the Temple, atonement involved correct offerings for sin; for the prophets, repentance would characterize the entire nation, Israel, come to its senses in the aftermath of God’s punishment, and, in the Talmudic literature, repentance takes on a profoundly this-worldly, social sense. But in all statements of the matter, the single trait proves ubiquitous: repentance defines a stage in the relationship of humans and God, inclusive of repentance to one’s fellow for sin against him or her.
There is no such thing as preemptive atonement, as Mishnah Yoma 8:9 states explicitly:
A
He who says, “I shall sin and repent, sin and repent”—
B
they give him no chance to do repentance.
C
[If he said,] “I will sin and the Day of Atonement will atone”—the Day of Atonement does not atone.
D
For transgressions done between man and the Omnipresent, the Day of Atonement atones.
E
For transgressions between man and man, the Day of Atonement atones, only if the man will regain the good will of his friend.
The process of reconciliation with God encompasses a number of steps and components, not only repentance; and repentance, for its part, does not reach concrete definition in the formulation of the process. A sin offering in the Temple in Jerusalem, presented for unintentional sins, atones, and therein we find the beginning of the definition of repentance. It lies in the contrast between the sin offering at A, that is, atonement for unintentional sin, and those things that atone for intentional sin, which are two events, on the one side, and the expression of right attitude, teshubah, returning to God, on the other. The role of repentance emerges in the contrast with the sin offering; what atones for what is inadvertent has no bearing upon what is deliberate. The willful sin can be atoned for only if repentance has taken place: genuine regret, a turning away from the sin after the fact, therefore transforming the sin from one that is deliberate to one that is, if not unintentional beforehand, then, at least, unintentional afterward. Then death, on the one side, or the Day of Atonement, on the other, work their enchantment.
Forgiveness is available to all who repent, and the hand of God is continually stretched out to those who seek atonement (Babylonian Talmud Pesaim 119a). Moreover, recognizing the dramatic change of behavior and intense commitment to God’s will that stand behind true repentance, Judaism praises those who have sinned and repented even beyond those who have never sinned: “In a place in which those who repent stand, those who are completely righteous cannot stand” (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 34b).
In Jewish thought, repentance always is possible, even on the day of death. The only requirement is that the desire to repent be serious and that the individual forsake his or her sinful ways. Atonement is not achieved through the pronouncing of a linguistic formula or through simple participation in a rite of expiation. It depends, rather, upon a true commitment to changing one’s life, turning from sin, and engaging in proper behavior before God.
This is the complete article, containing 800 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
im 119a). Moreover, recognizing the dramatic change of behavior and intense commitment to God’s will that stand behind true repentance, Judaism praises those who have sinned and repented even beyond those who have never sinned: “In a place in which those who repent stand, those who are completely righteous cannot stand” (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 34b). 
