(Rabbeinu Yonah). Sha’arei Teshuvah [“The Gates of Repentance,” ethics]

Highly significant treatise by Rabbeinu Yonah (c.1200-1263), the earliest work of ethical literature. It is divided into four portals: The first is devoted to a definition of repentance; the second to a description of the various ways by which a man should arouse himself to penitence; the third, a classification of the precepts and the punishments meted out for their transgression; and the fourth, a discussion of the conditions of forgiveness. See A.T. Shrock, Rabbi Jonah ben Abraham of Gerona: His Life and Ethical Works (1948), who compares the printed editions to the manuscript version of Sha’arei Teshuvah found in the British Museum. Shrock suggests that our Sha’arei Teshuvah is in fact only a portion of a much larger work containing perhaps eight more “she’arim” or portals.