THE GREATNESS OF REPENTANCE

[7:1] Since man has freedom of choice, as explained above, a person must repent
verbally, confessing his transgressions and ridding himself of his sins, so that he
dies as a righteous, repentant Jew, worthy of life in the World to Come.
[7:2] A person does not know how long he is destined to be in this world.
Therefore he should repent immediately, and not say to himself, "when I am old,
I will repent." King Solomon wisely said, "Let your clothes always be white."
(Ecclesiastes 9:8)
1
.
[7:3] Do not think that repentance applies only to sins involving action, such as
immorality, robbery, and theft. Just as one must repent these sins, so too must
one search his soul for bad character traits, and, repent for becoming angry
without proper justification, for being envious of his fellow man, for hating his
fellow man, for mocking his fellow man, for running after money or honor, for
overindulging in food, etc. From all these sins he must repent. It is more difficult
to repent of bad character traits than of sins involving action, for it is extremely
difficult for a person addicted to these (bad traits) to break away from them.
Concerning this it is written, "The wicked will forsake their ways and the corrupt
man his thoughts." (Yeshayahu 55:7).
[7:4] A truly repentant person should not think that his previous transgressions
will keep him from attaining righteousness. This is not true. After repenting, his
sins are erased from the book and he becomes a righteous person who did not
sin
2
. Furthermore, he has done a great mitzvah by repenting and by abstaining
from sinning again, although by nature he is attracted to these pleasures because
he has tasted them. The Sages said, "The level of a repentant person is higher
than the level of a truly righteous person," (relative to the mitzvah of repentance,
and to the mitvos he transgressed and repented.) This is because the repentant
person works harder to subdue his evil inclination not to do the mitzvah, since he
has tasted the pleasures of sinning
3
.

1 Meaning, repent (every day) and you will be free of sin.
2 Although he is lacking the mitzvos he did not do, due to his sins, nevertheless,
he is considered righteous in the same way that one who was ill and could not
perform mitzvos because of his illness, is considered righteous.
3 In general, the truly righteous person is on a higher spiritual level than a
former sinner who repented. If they were both righteous, but one did one sin and
repented, they would both be considered on the same spiritual level.