FALLING AFTER YOM KIPPUR [#15611]

1) If on Motzei Yom Kippur a person fell into committing a serious sin, does that mean he lost all of the levels he gained from all the Yomim Noraim and all of the purity he gained on Yom Kippur? Does it mean that he has to start over all his avodah from the beginning? Or does he still retain his growth from Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur and it’s just that he needs to shake himself off from the dirt of the sin and continue his avodah as usual, continuing to serve Hashem and growth through Succos, Hoshanah Rabbah and Simchas Torah and not thinking about how he fell after Yom Kippur? (2) How can a person encourage himself and not fall into despair since he feels that all of his growth on Yom Kippur was all being imagined and that it was all for nothing, since he fell again right after Yom Kippur?

Right after Yom Kippur we are still amidst the mighty spiritual month of Tishrei and the process of teshuvah. After Yom Kippur the main kind of teshuvah we need to do is teshuvah m’ahavah, to return to Hashem out of love, in which “In his right Hand He will endear me”, so following Yom Kippur a person should be doing teshuvah out of love, on his own level. (2) He should become clear about the root reason of why he fell, and then come up with a plan of avodah that will counter the root that led to it, so that he can prevent the root that caused his sin from rearing its ugly head again.