Introspection

The time around Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is directed to be a period of teshuva, repentance, and, as such, it may be worthwhile to take a look at this process of introspection and how it can benefit our own self-development.
Maimonides presents four steps in the teshuva process: first, one has to identify his/her sins; second, one has to feel anguish and remorse over these errors; third, one has to make the honest commitment not to repeat these misdeeds; and, finally, one has to voice this, take this out of the realm solely of our thoughts and articulate this with our speech. On the surface, this seems rather straightforward. Under investigation, though, this may not be the simple case, and the process may actually reveal to us insights about ourselves that we would otherwise not contemplate.
Let us consider the question of which of these steps in the process, we believe, to be the most difficult. The answer of the vast majority of people would, most likely, be the third step: trying not to repeat this negative behaviour. Interestingly, though, if we look at the two classic, Biblical examples of repentance – the stories of David with Bat Sheva and Yehuda with Tamar – the focus is not on the third step but rather the first. There was no issue that David and Yehuda would correct their actions once they recognized that they were wrong. Their difficulty was in recognizing that they were acting incorrectly. In both of these models that the Bible presents to us in regard to repentance, the challenge that is documented is in the very evaluation of our behaviour. This would seem to indicate that it is actually this first step that may be the most difficult.
David just thought that what he was doing was fine; Yehuda actually thought he was doing a mitzvah, that his actions in this case were even praiseworthy. In both cases, it was actually someone else – Natan the Prophet in the case of David and Tamar, herself, in the case of Yehuda – who had to inform them of their mistake. This would seem to further indicate to us that the greatest difficulty in the process of teshuva, in an undertaking of introspection, may be in the very identification of our mistakes, our sins. It may even be that we have to repent for some action we actually believe to have been a mitzvah, to have been proper, for under the scrutiny of subsequent investigation and introspection, we now see that it was wrong. This recognition, figuratively, puts everything on the table. How can one be sure about anything? What I believe to be right today, I may discover to have been wrong tomorrow. Yet, we may also find it to be that we were right about it yesterday and that we are again right about it today.
The call of introspection is not for one to be unsure of oneself. As we take value positions, it is important for us to stand behind them and be adamant in our presentation of what we believe. There are two ways, though, to sustain this adamancy. One is by making a decision and then simply standing behind the decision that was made. The other is by constantly re-evaluating the decision and then supporting it, not because it was the decision that you made yesterday but because it is the very decision that you are making now.
The realities of life are such that it is impossible for us to re-evaluate every decision we make again and again in every moment. Some decisions demand time for investigation and evaluation leaving us to be bound by the decision we made yesterday when we had the time to fully consider the matter. The acceptance of a value of introspection, however, reminds us of this and of the need to consider this challenge. Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur is a time of teshuva, repentance, introspection. It is a time to look again at our decisions and accept them not because we have already made them but because we continue to consider and then to make them.

Gmar Tov
Rabbi Ben Hecht