The Creation of Repentance
Originally published on Gimme Some Torah by Rabbi Eli Garfinkel on September 2, 2026.
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash
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The Talmud (B. Nedarim 39b.)) says something interesting about the creation of תְּשׁוּבָה (teshuvah), which means repentance:
Repentance (teshuvah) was created before the world was created, as it is written: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are G*d” (Psalms 90:2), and it is written immediately afterward: “You return man to contrition; and You say: Repent, children of man” (Psalms 90:3).
What does the Gemara mean when it says that teshuvah was created before the world was created? What are the ramifications of such a statement? Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks זצ׳׳ל wrote that this statement teaches us something about G*d from a Jewish perspective:
The sages said that Gd created repentance before He created humanity (Nedarim 39b). What they meant was that Gd, in creating humanity and endowing the human person with freewill, knew that we would make mistakes. We are not angels. We stumble, we sin. We are dust of the earth and to dust we will one day return. Without repentance and forgiveness, the human condition would be unbearable. Therefore Gd, creating humanity, created the possibility of repentance, meaning that when we acknowledge our failings, we are forgiven. Exile is not an immutable fate. Returning to Gd, we find Him returning to us. We can restore the moral harmony of the universe. (From R. Sacks’s commentary on the Koren Maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah)
Notice that the Rabbi Sacks describes sin as an expected and normal characteristic of human life. Sin is not something that we must extirpate from our lives; we would be unable to do so even if we wanted to. Rather, sin is like bad weather. We try to avoid it, and it can be very dangerous. Sin, however, has a relatively easy answer—teshuvah. We do not need to be “saved.” Repairing our transgressions does not require us to believe anything; all we need to do is clean up the messes we’ve made.
On one level, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are grand rituals that instill reverence and hope. But on a more practical level, the High Holy Days are simply G*d’s way of announcing, “Cleanup in aisle 9, cleanup in aisle 9.” Our sins are only a terrible problem if we fail to fix them with repentance.
G*d’s creation of repentance before the universe also teaches us that teshuvah is not merely a divine gift. Rather, it is a foundation of existence. There is no human life without teshuvah.
On the same page of Nedarim above, we learn that God wrote the Torah itself before the creating the universe. Therefore, it can be said that teshuvah and Torah are partners that defend our existence.
Just as a car comes with a spare tire, the Torah comes with teshuvah.
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