The Path to Teshuva Excellence

Complete teshuva, says the Rambam, exists only when the very same sin is placed in front of you again, in the same place and with the same temptation, and you walk away. Is that really the only way? And in the Rambam's account of Rosh Hashanah, a person with sixty percent mitzvos is called a tzaddik. What happens to the other forty? A strange exchange between a man with a long beard and a swimmer in a lake sets up a way of doing Yom Kippur that goes deeper than saying sorry.