Elazar ben Dordaya was a man consumed by desire. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 17a) records that he was so enslaved to his passions that he traveled across seven rivers to visit a particular woman — going to extraordinary lengths to satisfy appetites that had become the entire purpose of his existence.
During one such encounter, the woman said something that pierced him to the core: "Just as this breath that I blow will never return to its place, so Elazar ben Dordaya will never be received in repentance." She meant it as a casual insult. He received it as a death sentence.
Elazar was shattered. He left and went to sit between two mountains. He cried out to the mountains: "Mountains, pray for mercy on my behalf!" They replied: "Before we pray for you, we must pray for ourselves." He turned to the heavens and the earth, to the sun and the moon, to the stars — each one refused. Each had its own account to settle with God.
Finally, Elazar understood. "The matter depends on me alone." No mountain, no star, no cosmic force could repent on his behalf. He placed his head between his knees and wept — wept with such intensity, such utter destruction of his former self, that his soul departed. He died in the act of repentance.
A heavenly voice declared: "Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is destined for the World to Come." When Rabbi Judah HaNasi heard this, he wept and said: "Some acquire their portion in the World to Come over many years, and some acquire it in a single hour." The deepest repentance — the kind that kills the old self completely — can accomplish in one hour what a lifetime of gradual improvement cannot.