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Once on the day after Yom Kippur, the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe asked his father, “What must we do now?” His father replied, “Now, we must begin to do Teshuvah.”
My superficial understanding of this story is that Teshuvah is something that we must do on every day of the year.
‘Teshuvah’ is commonly and wrongly translated as ‘repentance’.
Repentance in Hebrew is actually ‘Charatah’, which implies remorse or a feeling of guilt about the past, to such an extent that someone decides to become a ‘new person’.
‘Teshuvah’, however, means something quite different, namely to “return" to the old i.e. one's original nature. Teshuvah underlies the fact that the Jew is essentially good and that it is only desires or temptations that temporarily distract us from being ourselves and true to our essence. Thus Teshuvah means rediscovering our true selves, our genuine ‘I’.
Most people don’t consider happiness to be a spiritual quality. In Judaism, however, happiness is a spiritual obligation. As it says in Psalms “Serve G-d with Joy; come before Him with Joyful song”. This also includes our service of Teshuvah. Our motivation to do Teshuvah doesn’t arise from an awareness of our shortfalls, but rather from the appreciation of the infinite potential within our souls.
The idea of Teshuvah and the fact that nothing stands before it brings an immense sense of joy.