The Return - Avraham Fried

To apologize for the past without pledging to change is just another, more sinister form of wrong. To return, a changed person, without apologizing for the past is at worst an unfinished journey. This is why the ערי מקלט, though open to everybody, were only built inside Eretz Yisroel: it is one thing to live a life of חוץ if, when the time is ripe to run, you run to Eretz Yisroel. It is quite another thing to "return" to the same barren desert.