"The penitent is one who cures himself of insanity"

“Our sages say, ‘A person only sins when a spirit of insanity enters him.’

The baal teshuvah (‘penitent’) is one who cures himself of this insanity, who now realizes that he performed his previous actions without a true understanding and awareness of their significance.

With such repentance, he severs himself from his past and attains new perspective on himself and his life, on his past and his future.”