The goal of teshuva is far-reaching:
It should cast our faults as seeds of virtue, for the recognition of our misdeeds is the mechanism that triggers the journey back, which is what enables us to rebuild our personality and our past.
In the Kabbalah, we read that "those who are the highest of all–those who can turn darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness–enter Heaven 'by the higher gates.'"
Achievements of this magnitude signify the pinnacle of repentance, the complete transformation of the past, a sign of perfect inversion.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From an essay, "Teshuva" September 19, 2003, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz