Likutei Moharan 79:3/ליקוטי מוהר"ן ע״ט:ג׳

13. Now, there are two <types of> repentance. One is that of a person who is occupied in business and involved in the transient things of this world. In the midst of this it occurs to him to repent, but he afterwards returns to his original condition. This is as in “The living creatures ran and returned” (Ezekiel 1:14). He has no calm—being at one time impure, then at another time pure; kosher then unkosher; forbidden then permitted. This corresponds to the six days of the week. In contrast, complete repentance is the aspect of Shabbat. He has calm, because: When Shabbat comes, rest comes (cf. Rashi on Genesis 2:2). He has absolute rest, and the evil is repelled entirely.

2You can know for certain that complete repentance corresponds to Shabbat, since we find in Midrash Rabbah (Bereishit Rabbah 22:13): When the First Man encountered Kayin and asked him, “What was the outcome of your case?” [Kayin] answered that he repented [and was pardoned]. “If so, then the power of repentance is indeed great,” said [Adam, after which] he proclaimed: “A psalm, a song for the Shabbat day.”

3On the face of it, what does Shabbat have to do with repentance? However, based on what we have said the parallel is precise. For when a person repents completely and repels evil entirely, and so has calm—this is the aspect of Shabbat, Shadai and Metat. What is the meaning of Shadai?—that He said to His world, “Dai! (Enough!)” (Chagigah 12a). This relates to Shabbat as well, as it is written (Genesis 2:2), “He ceased on the seventh day from all His work” and said “Dai!”

4And Metat, too, corresponds to Shadai, as is known.

5This is as it is written in the holy Zohar (I, 27a) concerning the verse: “He took the human and placed him in the Garden of Eden…” (Genesis 2:15) .

6“He took”—from where did He take him? He took him from his four elements…. When a person repents and engages in Torah study, the Blessed Holy One takes him from there. Concerning this it is said: “from there it splits off” (Genesis 2:10). He separates his soul from their temptations… to tend [the Garden] through the positive commandments and to guard it with the prohibitive commandments…. If he violates the Torah, he drinks from the bitterness of the Tree of Evil, which is the Evil Inclination. <And about all his limbs, which are formed of the four elements, it is said: “They made their lives bitter” (Exodus 1:14)—with the bitterness of the Tree.> … But if he repents, it is said of him: “God showed him a tree”—the Tree of Life—through which “the water turned sweet” (ibid. 15:25). This is Moshe-Mashiach, of whom it is said: “with the mateh (staff) of God in my hand” (ibid. 17:9). MaTeh is MeTat, from whom comes life and also death.

7This concludes the extract [from the Zohar].

8This is as we have explained, that when one repents fully, evil is entirely repelled and good prevails. This is the aspect of Moshe-Mashiach, of whom it is said: “with the mateh of God in my hand”—i.e., he had the power to turn <from evil to good>. MaTeh is MeTat, from whom comes life and also death. For Metat corresponds to the Mishnah, <in that> the six weekdays correspond to the six orders of the Mishnah, which include the six categories of kosher and unkosher, pure and impure, forbidden and permitted, as is known.

9Thus, those people who are not yet steadfast in worshipping the Blessed Creator, so that their repentance is still incomplete—

10so that, occasionally, they happen to have thoughts of repentance and begin to worship God a bit, only to afterwards slacken off and return to their original condition; and still later are again stirred only to again fall, changing each time from good to bad and from bad to good—this repentance corresponds to the six weekdays, which are the categories of kosher and unkosher, etc. This is because such a person is similarly at one time kosher, and at another time unkosher; at one time impure, and at another time pure, etc., and so he has no calm.

11But when a person repents fully, it is the aspect of Shabbat, as we have explained. This corresponds to Moshe-Mashiach, who has the power to turn from evil to good and to repel the evil entirely.

12This is the aspect of Shadai, and he has absolute calm. And Metat, too, is the aspect of Shadai. Although we said the Metat is the Mishnah, that is the case during the week. But “when Shabbat comes, rest comes,” and “He ceased… from all His work”—this being the aspect of Shadai. {Then Metat is encompassed in Shadai .} We derive from this that by repenting fully, which, as we said, is the aspect of Shabbat, a person can consequently recognize his own lowliness, as explained above.