Quote of the Month

Just as the body is susceptible of sickness and afflictions, so is the soul. The affliction of the soul and its sickness are its evil traits and its sins. […] And just as it sometimes occurs in bodily sicknesses that the sickness is alleviated of itself and most of the affliction is remedied, without the body’s being entirely cleansed of it except through the drinking of bitter liquids; and further, that it must endure suffering through abstention from all desired food, so a soul may be sick from much transgression, and though most of the sickness may have been cured, and most of the factors of punishment been canceled after repentance, […] the soul is not yet cleansed of the sickness and its transgression not yet absolved until the sinner is made to suffer afflictions and is visited with pain, and is beset with evils and troubles.

(Yonah Gerondi, Sha‘arei Teshuvah)