{"id":383610,"date":"2011-08-25T14:04:21","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T14:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/%d7%9c%d7%9c%d7%90-%d7%a7%d7%98%d7%92%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%94\/confession-a-new-perspective\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:49:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T12:49:27","slug":"confession-a-new-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/383610\/","title":{"rendered":"Confession: A New Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translated by Aaron Yoseph<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
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\nQuestion:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

There are sins that a person transgresses every day without even considering it, like wasting time that could have been used for learning Torah, loshon hora<\/em> (evil speech), not guarding one\u2019s eyes sufficiently, depression and going after one\u2019s appetites. How is it possible to confess about them when it\u2019s very hard for me to commit on not doing them anymore? Furthermore, there are some sins that are hard to even have any sincere regret about\u2026<\/span><\/span>
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\nAnswer:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Confession doesn\u2019t always take the form of expressing regret and accepting upon oneself to never return to \"\"sin. Every prayer and request for spirituality and spiritual growth is a form of confession. Confession also encompasses simply telling Hashem about all the falls that we\u2019ve gotten used to, to the point that we can\u2019t imagine for ourselves living differently, and asking and begging for His help to help us get out of these behaviors and become accustomed to a life of holiness instead.<\/span><\/span>
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\nThis is the practice that the Rebbe instructed us to do, day in day out \u2013 to sit before Hashem and tell Him about our spiritual situation, even if we ourselves can\u2019t see any way of behaving differently, and even when we\u2019re in a place where we can\u2019t promise that we won\u2019t stumble again. Even when a person\u2019s lusts and yetzer hora<\/em> (evil inclination) are burning within him, he should still confess this to Hashem. He can say, \u201cRibbono shel Olam<\/em> (Master of the World), see how in the depths of my heart I do want to act differently. Help me. Save me. Show me a way to live differently. Renew my hope \u2013 take me out of the life I\u2019ve become accustomed to, and out of the despair that this is how I\u2019ll live the rest of my life.\u201d<\/span><\/span>
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\nEvery such prayer counts as a confession, and it has the power to extricate all the evil from our bones, and to purify all of our limbs, making them worthy of becoming nullified to Hashem\u2019s will and vehicles for His sovereignty to rest upon. This is one of the Rebbe\u2019s essential principles – he accustoms us to make teshuva<\/em>, repentance, a constant and central focus of our lives. We are to confess again and again, and to pray and beseech Hashem to bring us close to serving Him. <\/span><\/span>
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\nThis is exactly our task in these weeks that we\u2019re preparing for Rosh Hashanah \u2013 to simply sit and tell Hashem about the situation of the exile we\u2019re in \u2013 as a nation and as individuals. Similar to the prayers of Tikkun Chatzot<\/em> (Midnight Repair) and the Kinnot <\/em>(Lamentations), where we aren\u2019t requesting anything, but rather lamenting about the situation; we tell it as it is, the sins and the falls. On the contrary, if one sees that he\u2019s fallen so low as to become accustomed to living this way, even if he was guilty in this, he should lament and confess this itself, \u201cFather! Look at where I am!\u201d \u2013 this is confession. <\/span><\/span>
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\nSuch a confession to Hashem is the beginning of setting things right. The \u201cThree Weeks\u201d were a preparation for Elul, when we go deeper into teshuva<\/em>, with confessions and nullifying ourselves to Hashem\u2019s sovereignty. In these days after the Three Weeks, all we have the strength to do is long for the light amidst the destruction, right in the place where we feel there\u2019s no way to change. From here, we confess to Hashem, \u201cI see the truth,\u201d even though we may feel far from any feelings of wanting to change.<\/span><\/span>
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\n***<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Courtesy of the \u201cGates of Emunah Publication\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Translated by Aaron Yoseph \u00a0 \u00a0 Question: There are sins that a person transgresses every day without even considering it, like wasting time that could have been used for learning Torah, loshon hora (evil speech), not guarding one\u2019s eyes sufficiently, depression and going after one\u2019s appetites. How is it possible to confess about them when … Continue reading “Confession: A New Perspective”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62109,"featured_media":4848039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[15322],"tags":[16632,16600,23662,49076,16552],"author_post":[15111],"new_serie":[],"class_list":["post-383610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-menachem-av-and-elul","tag-confession","tag-elul","tag-yetzer-hara","tag-tikkun-chatzot","tag-teshuva","author_post-rabbi-avrohom-yitzchok-kletzky"],"acf":{"intro_text":"

Confession also encompasses simply telling Hashem about all the falls that we\u2019ve gotten used to, to the point that we can\u2019t imagine for ourselves living differently\u2026<\/p>\n","breslev_id":"20144","post_views_count":"112","help_field_to_import_order_in_category":"35","updatetime":"01\/01\/0001","special_content_in_the_post":"none","meta_title":"Confession: A New Perspective","meta_description":"Confession also encompasses simply telling Hashem about all the falls that we\u2019ve gotten used to, to the point that we can\u2019t imagine for ourselves living differently\u2026","paragraph_first":"","paragraph_second":"","youtube":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383610"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4848054,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383610\/revisions\/4848054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4848039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383610"},{"taxonomy":"author_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author_post?post=383610"},{"taxonomy":"new_serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breslev.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/new_serie?post=383610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}