"Has anyone seen my stapler?" Jana called from her bedroom. There was no answer. Jana continued searching through her drawer. Frustrated, she hurried to the kitchen where her mother was preparing dinner.
""Mom, I can't find my stapler anywhere! Miriam must have used it and didn't put it back. She's always taking my things without permission.""
""Please calm down, Jana. Tell Miriam I want to see her. Please, talk to her nicely and let me handle this," her mother said.
The matter was quickly resolved. The day before, Miriam had borrowed Jana's stapler, but she dropped it and, since it broke, threw it away. Jana was very sorry about that.
""Miriam," her mother asked gently. "Why are you so sad?""
""The truth is, I shouldn't have taken it without permission. I won't do it again," Miriam replied honestly. "I'm so sorry it broke.""
""But Miriam, this happened yesterday. When someone truly feels bad about something they've done, they shouldn't wait until others find out and they get into trouble to repent. If one waits, it seems as if the reason they feel bad is because someone found out, or because they're now in trouble. When we do something wrong, we should take responsibility and do teshuvah (repent and not do it again) for what we did. We should do teshuvah because we feel inside that we did something wrong, not because we might get into trouble.""
""We can learn this lesson from this week's parashah. When Joseph's brothers went to Egypt to buy food and saw how much trouble they were getting into, they realized it was because of what they had done to Joseph. They felt very bad and said, 'It's our fault.' That sounds like doing teshuvah, doesn't it?"'
""At that moment Reuben says to them, 'I told you not to harm Joseph, didn't I? And you didn't listen to me!'"'
""Mom, that's not very nice. All the brothers are feeling bad about what they did and are doing teshuvah. Why is Ruven making them feel even worse?""
""That's what I wanted to tell you, Miriam. Obviously, Ruvén isn't trying to make his siblings feel worse. Quite the opposite. He's the oldest, and he feels he should guide and help them.""
""Reuben knew they had to do true teshuvah. This means that a person truly repents for what they did; not just feeling bad about the problem their actions caused. But the brothers said, 'It's our fault...and that's why we're getting into so much trouble now.'"'
""Reuben was teaching them that what should make them do teshuvah is the fact that they realized they did something wrong, and not the problem and difficulties that their mistake caused.""
Extracted from Please tell me what The Rebbe says.