The forty days between Rosh Chodesh Elul and Yom Kippur provide a unique opportunity for spiritual awakening. They engender an urgent call for heartfelt and lasting teshuva to carry us through the rest of the Jewish year and beyond.

But however powerful this awakening might be, what is its longterm impact? Does the desire to change actually last, or does it quickly dissipate, leaving us year after year in more or less the same (frustrating) place? How can we ensure that our sincere intentions and lofty aspirations for teshuva should translate into actual change?

Teshuva: Restoring Life offers answers to these vexing questions by drawing on Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin's seminal work Nefesh HaChaim, transforming its profound insight into a practical, readable and user-friendly guide to teshuva.

Rabbi Reuven Leuchter, a prominent disciple of the late Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe zt"l, is a leading ba'al mussar of our generation and author of a recently published Hebrew commentary on Sefer Nefesh HaChaim. Rabbi Leuchter has served as a Mashgiach in several Yeshivos. He currently delivers numerous weekly Mussar vaadim and other shiurim throughout Israel and abroad, as well as training budding young rabbis for rabbinic or kiruv careers with Ner Le'Elef.

Teshuva: Restoring Life was originally presented in a series of vaadim to a diverse group of students, whose positive experience was the impetus for this book.