Repentance in Judaism

Repentance (/tʃuvɑː/; Hebrew: תשובה, romanized: tǝšūvā "return") is one element of atoning for sin in Judaism. Judaism recognizes that everybody sins on occasion, but that people can stop or minimize those occasions in the future by repenting for past transgressions. Thus, the primary purpose of repentance in Judaism is ethical self-transformation.^[1]

Maimonides defines the essence of repentance as follows:

"The sinner must leave his sin, and remove it from his thoughts, and decide in his heart not to do it again... and he must regret the past... and [God] must know that he will never return to this sin... and he must confess with his lips, and say those matters which he decided in his heart."^[2]

A Jewish penitent is traditionally known as a baal teshuva.