Teshuvah

And wouldn’t everyone be doing teshuvah if observing mitzvot alone would guarantee lavish income, great health, and shalom bayit (of course matching everyone up perfectly too)?

Why don’t we? Because we have a yetzer hara and Hashem blocks us from seeing clearly SO we can have free will.

One does tshuva because one has transgressed. Has charata; owns the responsibility; and takes it upon themselves to be a better person and not revisit the transgression. One does NOT do tshuva because of financial woes, health problems, or financial abuse. That approach makes the individual relationship with HKBH transactional. While the national relationship with HKBH is by definition transactional, the individual one is not and cannot be. It is one of pure supplication, request, pleading for HKBH’s mercy and help. Not conditional, not with any strings, not with a promise based on circumstances.

A few months ago I was in a circumstance where my life hung in the balance, and not by a small margin. As I lay there on the hospital bed awaiting emergency surgery, I had the stark, clear realization that there is no bargaining with HKBH. “if you save me I’ll do this” “I’ll do that if I survive” There is no IF. HKBH had it in his power to save my life so I asked him for his mercy, and he granted it. And in giving me the gift of life, he gave me the opportunity to do more mitzvos. But not because I bargained with him, rather because its my responsibility as a Jew, just as it is to avoid transgression.

BH I have made a full recovery, and I am grateful every day for HKBH’s gift.

PS, Lightbrite, I don’t think you meant it this way, but I find it obscene to consider suffering from spousal abuse as a specific indicator to do tshuva. The person’s spouse is an abusive evildoer, who has full responsibility for what they do. Your assumption sounds too much like blaming the victim.

There were many tzadikim with all of the above problems.