T178 PNC - Need Precisely Verbal Confession — Verbalization Is the Act of Teshuvah (1 seg)

Know that one needs precisely vidui devarim — confession in words. It is not sufficient to feel remorse internally or to acknowledge sin mentally; one must articulate the sin in words, confessing it verbally each time, for every individual deed. There are many obstacles to this: some people feel ashamed to speak the words, others feel that internal acknowledgment is sufficient, and others cannot bear to hear themselves say the specific sin aloud. But the teaching is clear: the verbalization itself is the act of teshuvah. Just as the mouth is the channel through which speech enters the world and has real effects, so too the spoken confession has a specific spiritual effect that inner acknowledgment alone cannot produce. Every unspoken confession is an incomplete teshuvah. The word spoken in confession activates the spiritual mechanism of forgiveness in a way that thought alone cannot.