Teshuvah and the Yom Kippur cycle

Domain XIII · Contemplative & religious disciplines

What it is

This is a religious observance, not a therapy. Teshuvah (literally "return") is, in rabbinic teaching, repentance. Maimonides describes it as abandoning the sin, regretting it, resolving in the heart not to repeat it, and confessing it in words before God (Teshuvah 1:1, 2:2–3). He holds that Yom…

Format

• Who leads and authorises: community rabbis lead services and teach; questions of Jewish law (halakha), including whether a person may or must eat on Yom Kippur, are decided by the person's rabbi or legal decisor (posek), with medical input. Liberal movements leave more to individual conscience and…
• No source sets a session count; work fits into ongoing therapy.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• The therapist steering toward or away from religion. Working when the client's choice reduces distress.
• Post-holiday low mood or a sense of failure. Working when the client takes something usable from the season.
• Complicated grief; guilt toward the dead. Working when the ritual holds the grief rather than overwhelming the client.
• The client fasting in secret against advice; shame in the synagogue. Working when the client describes the day as theirs despite eating.
• An adolescent with an eating disorder using the fast; scrupulosity emerging around bar/bat mitzvah. Working when expectations are clear and safe.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.