Repentance, as the Alter Rebbe explained in the opening chapter, is in no way synonymous with fasting for a sin that one has committed; repentance merely entails abandoning the sin for all time. This is so even with regard to transgressions—those punishable by excision or by execution—whose atonement becomes complete through suffering. Even in these instances, the suffering is not intended to be self-inflicted through fasting but is brought on from Above.