In On Repentance, noted scholar Pinchas Peli has gathered the major points of Rabbi Soloveitchik's teachings on teshuvah (repentance), based on the annual series of lectures on the theme of teshuvah, presented on the anniversary of his ...

The classic work on repentance and religious conduct. For anyone seeking the true path to repentance and reconnection with G-d, this incisive guide is essential. With vowelized Hebrew and English translation.

Mass death resulting from war, starvation, and disease as well as the vicissitudes of extreme poverty and enforced sexual servitude are recognizably pandemic ills of the contemporary world. In light of their magnitude, are repentance, regret for the harms inflicted upon others or oneself, and forgiveness, proferring the erasure of the guilt of those who have inflicted these harms, rendered nugatory? Jacques Derrida claims that forgiveness is intrinsically rather than circumstantially or historically impossible. Forgiveness, trapped in a paradox, is (...) possible only if there is such a thing as the unforgivable. "Thus, forgiveness, if there is such a thing," can only exist as exempt from the law of the possible. Does this claim not open the way for hopelessness and despair? More troubling for Derrida is his concession that forgiveness may be necessary in the realm of the political and juridical. If so, is not the purity of the impossibility of forgiveness so crucial for him, contaminated? In pointing to some of the difficulties in Derrida's position, I shall appeal to Vladimir Jankelevitch's distinction between the unforgivable and the inexcusable. I shall also consider the significance of repentance in the theological ethics of Emmanuel Levinas and Max Scheler. Forgiveness, I conclude, is vacuous without expiation, a position that can be helpfully understood in the context of Judaism's analysis of purification and acquittal in the Day of Atonement liturgy. I argue that what disappears is Derrida's assurance of the impossibility of forgiveness, a disappearance that allows for hope. (shrink)

Mass death resulting from war, starvation, and disease as well as the vicissitudes of extreme poverty and enforced sexual servitude are recognizably pandemic ills of the contemporary world. In light of their magnitude, are repentance, regret for the harms inflicted upon others or oneself, and forgiveness, proferring the erasure of the guilt of those who have inflicted these harms, rendered nugatory? Jacques Derrida claims that forgiveness is intrinsically rather than circumstantially or historically impossible. Forgiveness, trapped in a paradox, is (...) possible only if there is such a thing as the unforgivable. "Thus, forgiveness, if there is such a thing," can only exist as exempt from the law of the possible. Does this claim not open the way for hopelessness and despair? More troubling for Derrida is his concession that forgiveness may be necessary in the realm of the political and juridical. If so, is not the purity of the impossibility of forgiveness so crucial for him, contaminated? In pointing to some of the difficulties in Derrida's position, I shall appeal to Vladimir Jankelevitch's distinction between the unforgivable and the inexcusable. I shall also consider the significance of repentance in the theological ethics of Emmanuel Levinas and Max Scheler. Forgiveness, I conclude, is vacuous without expiation, a position that can be helpfully understood in the context of Judaism's analysis of purification and acquittal in the Day of Atonement liturgy. I argue that what disappears is Derrida's assurance of the impossibility of forgiveness, a disappearance that allows for hope. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Repentance: The Meaning and Practice of TeshuvahAndrew FlescherRepentance: The Meaning and Practice of Teshuvah Louis E. Newman Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2010. 224 pp. $24.99Louis Newman’s Repentance is a welcome and comprehensive treatment of the Jewish tradition’s dealing with the tricky question of how individuals who form wicked characters address sin and restore their membership in the moral community, an activity that Aristotle, who believed (...) that the virtuous and non-virtuous have little to say to one another, thought to be scarcely possible. Newman’s perspective is decisively Aristotelian but not as pessimistic as Aristotle’s. Primarily using biblical and Talmudic sources, but also with an eye toward the insights of other traditions as well as contemporary religious thought, Newman argues that the process of atonement among those who have developed the worst sorts of habits is one of a tradition’s providing for the prospectively repentant individual with a self-awareness sufficient to attend to compensate for that individual’s penchant for self-deception. Yom Kippur, the holiday in the Jewish tradition dedicated to atonement, is an opportunity that bears down equally on every Jew to cleanse oneself of the sinfulness in which one has inevitably taken part in the previous year (58–61). Newman elaborates various respects in which Judaism anticipates that one will have been seduced by yetzer ha-ra (“evil force”) and warns of the ignorance of believing that one is immune to evil’s pervasive influence. Teshuvah, in keeping with this conviction, is characterized as the opportunity to re-catch the spark of goodness and purity with which one was initially endowed (29).Newman elucidates at least two forms of self-knowledge in which atonement consists. First there is a communal self-knowledge that both sin and atonement are basic to human existence. We are hardwired to become “unclean” and therefore require a means of becoming alerted to the importance of purging ourselves in the setting of a congregation. Newman builds upon Paul Ricoeur’s insight from The Symbolism of Evil that a fear of contaminating created goodness always stands in the background of our psyches (29). Once we have become aware of such a threat, we will be prepared to address it. The second sort of self-knowledge pertains to an awareness of the specific [End Page 221] senses in which we have wronged others (and ourselves), dispositions and deeds of which we can be made cognizant only because of the prior humility encouraged by the tradition that asserts that all of us are in need of atonement. The idea of Teshuvah makes possible our ability to say to ourselves the “It is I” that is necessary to assume responsibility for atonement (83). It is importantly ironic, argues Newman, that Teshuvah is the opposite of the avoidance of wrongdoing, for to know oneself as one who has shunned the good one must categorically embrace one’s culpability and only then address one’s specific transgressions (86). Remorse, in this sense, goes hand in hand with moral responsibility. Newman’s observation is refreshingly Augustinian and Aristotelian.In contrast to other volumes on Jewish repentance, this one narrowly attends to the problem of reversing the irreversible (76). Newman argues that remorse, the idea that we are never fully worthy unto ourselves, furnishes us with the ability to know ourselves as beings in need of forgiveness (and in need of forgiving ourselves). Since sin is a natural condition, addressing sin by building into our psychological expectations that we are sinners must also become part of the moral life cycle. This is something that a religious tradition, like Judaism, can help us to do from the beginning of our moral consciousness in our adult lives. According to Newman, we should relinquish all efforts to see ourselves as free of wrongdoing lest we become “slaves to an image of perfection that is unattainable” (84). We are all, in varying degrees, in the process of forming wicked characters; yet, paradoxically, it is precisely seeing ourselves in this way that prevents against a resistant characterological plaque transforming into an irremovable tartar.Newman does address the separately interesting cases of irredeemable sinners and... (shrink)

The concept of forgiveness is analyzed as a moral gesture toward the offender designed to help restore that individual's moral standing. Jewish sources on the conditions under which forgiveness is obligatory are explored and two contrasting positions are presented: one in which the obligation to forgive is conditional on the repentance of the offender and another in which people are required to forgive unconditionally. These two positions are shown to represent different ways of framing the offending behavior that rest, (...) in turn, on different ways of balancing the need for justice and for mercy respectively. In the final analysis, Judaism's two contrasting attitudes toward forgiveness are rooted in different theological assumptions and different ways of construing the very goals of the moral life. The author points out the merits and shortcomings of both positions and concludes with the suggestion that the two complement each other in important ways. (shrink)

Beʼurim ṿe-heʻarot she-nikhtevu be-tsamud le-divre rabenu -- Miluʼim - beʼurim be-kamah ʻinyanim be-divre rabenu be-harḥavah.

Mador ʻinyene teshuvah -- Mador ʻinyene ha-moʻadim -- Mador maʻalot ha-Torah -- Mador ʻinyene emunah -- Mador Torah u-maʻalote' -- Mador ʻinyene ha-musar ṿe-tiḳun ha-midot -- Mador zikhron ḳedoshim -- Mador be-shule ha-mesilah.

Seder ha-teshuvah -- Marpe la-nefesh -- Teshuvah me-ḥayim.

ʻEdut be-Hosef -- Derekh ʻets ha-ḥayim -- Refuʼat ha-nefesh -- ha-Tapuaḥ.

Shaʻar ha-tefilah -- Shaʻar ha-teshuvah.

A glowing treasure now available to the English-speaking public! The trail-blazing work of Rav Yisrael Salanter, and his disciple, Rav Yitzchak Blazer illuminate the darkness of our generation with wisdom and insight. This classic Mussar work focuses on attaining closeness with G-d and on ethical introspection. This volume is a compendium of four classics of ethical thought: The Gates of Light, The Light of Israel, Paths of Light, and Stars of Light. This extraordinary book, translated into lucid, flowing English, will (...) enable all who read it to reach a new spiritual dimension. Contains English text only. (shrink)