# Elul 14 - The Three Rungs of Teshuvah: Pain, Fear and Love Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642/elul-14-the-three-rungs-of-teshuvah-pain-fear-and-love Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642/elul-14-the-three-rungs-of-teshuvah-pain-fear-and-love.md Podcast: [Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe](https://stenobird.com/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642) Published: 2026-08-27T17:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/503f2a98 Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/media.transistor.fm/503f2a98/b24ed0ee.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642/episodes/elul-14-the-three-rungs-of-teshuvah-pain-fear-and-love Duration seconds: 519 ## Resource Drawing from Tractate Yoma 86a , Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe explores the Talmud’s declaration: “Great is teshuvah, for it brings healing to the world.” The Gemara describes repentance in different ways—sometimes as completely eradicating a person’s waywardness and sometimes as healing the spiritual damage that remains. The distinction depends not only on whether a person repents, but also on what motivates the repentance . The highest form is teshuvah out of love . When someone truly loves Hashem, even a small transgression feels like a betrayal of the relationship. The person is not merely worried about consequences; he is pained by the distance his actions created between himself and his Creator. This sincere desire to repair the relationship allows the person to return as a beloved child returning to a loving Father. A second level is teshuvah out of fear . Here, the person regrets his behavior because he fears judgment, punishment, or the consequences of continuing along the same path. The repentance is real and valuable, but its primary focus is avoiding what may happen to the sinner rather than repairing the relationship itself. The third and lowest level discussed is repentance prompted by suffering . A person feels cornered by pain and begins examining his conduct. Rabbi Wolbe shares his great-grandfather’s teaching that after prophecy departed from the world, pain became a kind of prophet—a force that can awaken a person and inspire honest introspection. Yet the ultimate goal is to rise beyond pain, then beyond fear, and reach the highest rung: returning to Hashem purely out of love. _____________ This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Peter & Becky Botvin This Episode is dedicated in Honor of Dr. Leonard & June Goldberg Recorded at TORCH Centre in t… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642/episodes/elul-14-the-three-rungs-of-teshuvah-pain-fear-and-love/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/jewish-inspiration-podcast-rabbi-aryeh-wolbe-675642/elul-14-the-three-rungs-of-teshuvah-pain-fear-and-love.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.