From the very days of your ancestors you have turned away from My laws and have not observed them. Turn back to Me, and I will turn back to you—said GOD of Hosts. But you ask, “How shall we turn back?” Malachi 3:7

לְמִימֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם סַרְתֶּם מֵחֻקַּי וְלֹא שְׁמַרְתֶּם שׁוּבוּ אֵלַי וְאָשׁוּבָה אֲלֵיכֶם אָמַר יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת וַאֲמַרְתֶּם בַּמֶּה נָשׁוּב׃

Teshuvah – Returning to the ways that God expects of us, is the theme of these Days of Awe, and again and again our liturgy exhorts us to return to God, and that should we do so, God will return to us. But as the prophet Malachi records – sometimes our response to that exhortation is – I would like to – but how do I do it?

Tradition tells us that teshuvah is not an event, but a process. Maimonides codifies the laws of Repentance in his Mishneh Torah, which begins

(1) All commandments of the Torah, whether they be mandatory or prohibitive, if a person violates any one of them, either presumptuously or erroneously, when they will repent and turn away from their sinful way, they are obliged to confess before God, blessed is God! even as it is said: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin..… Then they shall confess their sin which they have done (Num. 5.6–7), which is a confession of words. Such confession is a mandatory commandment.”

So the very beginning of the process is that a person must have in some way sinned, either deliberately or by mistake, and that they will recognise that they have done so. The recognition then leads to an acknowledgement, in the form of a confession before God.

How do we recognise and acknowledge what we have done / failed to do? The process is called cheshbon hanefesh – literally the accounting of the soul. The metaphor of a cheshbon is deliberate – the word is used in hebrew to describe a calculation, a reckoning, an account, and is the word in modern hebrew for the bill at a point of sale.

So we begin by looking in detail at our past selves, and look at each action – was it something that gave my life more meaning and brought me closer to my best self? Was it something I did carelessly that maybe impacted negatively? Was it something that brought me selfish gain or pleasure but did not reflect well on my values?

It is the first step in a process of return to our best selves, but cheshbon nefesh does not only have to be done retroactively as we reflect on our lives at this time. Cheshbon nefesh can be a useful metric for us to make choices going forward – we can ask ourselves how a particular choice will sit in the accounts book – will it take me closer to who I want to be or will it take me further away?