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At Congregation Ohr Torah in Edison Sept. 9, Rabbi Yissocher Frand proposed a method for repentance he called "guaranteed to work."

Frand said he could make that assertion because it wasn't his method, it was God's. It wasn't a new-fangled approach, but rather already part of our lives and even comes every week, he said. In Frand's estimation, longing for Shabbat and observing it with spirituality are paramount to the teshuva process.

"If we restore our neshama (soul) every single week, we will be able to cope with the world," Frand said.

The head of Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Frand gives extremely popular Thursday night halakha lectures based on the weekly Torah portion, which have been compiled along with his other shiurim into a series of widespread tapes and CDs.

But on this Wednesday night leading up to the High Holidays at Ohr Torah, attendees in a packed main sanctuary heard Frand deliver "Shabbos: The Key to a Lasting Tshuva" live. After kicking off the I. David and Miriam Goldstein Memorial Teshuva Drasha nine years ago, Frand returned to the Orthodox synagogue for the annual lecture sponsored by Charyn and Harvey Atlas in memory of Charyn's parents.

I. David Goldstein died a mere three hours before Rosh Hashanah in 1999, and Miriam died in 2002. The event also raised money for Yad Eliezer, a charity that funds and distributes food to thousands of Israel's poorest families.

"This is a very great kavod and honor for [the Goldsteins] that we have these programs in the community the past 10 years," Rabbi Yaakov Luban, leader of Ohr Torah, said.

Luban called Frand a close friend who is inspiring not only in his presentations, but also as a person and as a Jew.

"What he says matches the way he is," Luban said.

Frand said he was in Detroit that Monday and normally doesn't travel twice in the same week, but found a "selfish aspect" for making the trip to Ohr Torah -- the privilege of receiving Luban's critique of his lecture. When Frand emails Luban his speeches, he said he gets back pages of detailed comments.

"Rabbi Luban's fingerprints are all over my drashas," Frand said.

Lakewood only became the "Torah metropolis" it is today because of pioneers like Charyn Atlas' grandfather Bezalel Goldstein, Frand said. Goldstein was among the individuals who started Lakewood's Orthodox community in 1898, and in 1948 founded the Bezalel Hebrew Day School, which David Goldstein later oversaw for 18 years.

Frand said an impediment to teshuva is recidivism, the tendency to return to bad behavior every year. A voice in our head tells us it's not worth it to repent because we'll just go back to being the same people, Frand said, comparing the problem to individuals who want to lose weight but lament that they will put the weight back on anyway.

Keeping Shabbat "by the book" and adhering to every law isn't enough, Frand said. Without spirituality, Shabbat is not the sublime experience it is meant to be, he said.

To make the connection between Shabbat and teshuva, Frand used a midrash (interpretative story) about Cain and Abel. Punished to wander the earth for killing his brother, the midrash explains how Cain repented and "made a deal with God." Adam, Cain's father, was elated upon hearing the news and composed "Mizmor Shir le-Yom Ha-Shabbat," later incorporated into Psalms and the siddur.

Frand asked that if Cain repented, shouldn't Adam have composed a prayer about teshuva, rather than Shabbat? Frand answered with an interpretation of the midrash that explained how when Cain was punished to wander the earth, he was worried about losing his relationship with God since he would be constantly subject to physical temptations. So in the "deal" between God and Cain, Frand said, God maintained Cain's penalty of for six days a week, but let him rest on Shabbat to restore his soul and rebuild his spirituality.

In modern times, we are all cursed with Cain's problem of having to deal with the physical world for six days, Frand said, using the example of one of his students who compares taking the subway to going down "to the pits."

"What it did for Cain, it can do for all of us," Frand said of Shabbat.

People don't consider Shabbat special because it comes every week and is "old hat" or "just another cholent," Frand said. One key to making Shabbat special is in the preparation, he said, as God asks us to want Shabbat -- to long for it and anticipate it.

Mundane tasks like cooking and cleaning should be thought of as holy, Frand said. For a guide to proper Shabbat preparation, he said, look no further than the intense preparation leading up to Passover.

"Let's borrow a page from Pesach's playbook," Frand said. "And that is, you have to prepare for Shabbos. You have to make your Shabbos table more holy."

Young children need to receive something that tells them that Shabbos is special, whether it is stories, singing, or special games, Frand said. For teenagers, a discussion of how current events impacts Jews would be appropriate, he said.

"[Shabbat] cures all what ails you," Frand said. "It restores your soul; it purifies your mind."

Shepard Presser, of Rahway, said that Frand's lecture showed him the need to prepare for Shabbat the entire week, and then use Shabbat to "cleanse his soul to everything it was exposed to during the week."