Emory Ethics Center Hosts Talk About Repentance

Two of America’s leading religious scholars visited Emory University’s Center for Ethics to discuss how we make amends for our behavior to others and how that is shaped by modern spiritual practice.

The discussion called on issues of trust and forgiveness and how America’s leading religious traditions deal with reconciliation and the repair of human relationships. The program was called simply, “Atonement and Repentance,” and featured Lewis Newman, a leading scholar of Jewish ethics. Dr. Newman is the author of “Repentance – The Meaning and Practice of Teshuvah.”

Appearing with Dr. Newman was Teresa Morgan, who taught for a quarter-century at Oxford University before coming to the Yale School of Divinity two years ago. She is an ordained Episcopal priest and the author of the recent book “Trust in Atonement – G-d, Creation and Reconciliation.”

The interfaith program was moderated by Jonathan Crane, who is a Reform rabbi and a scholar of bioethics and Jewish thought at the Emory Center. In his introduction, he pointed out that the issue of how to best repair human relationships is approached in ways that vary with each religious tradition.

“Wrongdoing and suffering are part and parcel of the human condition,” Crane said. “Some traditions speak of these kinds of experiences in terms of transgression and atonement, while others use language like sin, guilt and repentance.”

According to Dr. Newman, the Jewish practice of repentance begins with teshuvah, a Hebrew word derived from a root which means “a turning or returning.” We are asked, particularly on the Day of Atonement, to return to our better selves where righteousness takes precedence over a life of transgression against moral and spiritual teachings. We are asked to return to G-d, to return to who we truly are.

“We’re not really finished with the process of repentance until we have faced our demons inside,” Newman emphasized. “We are required to make restitution and apology to the people we’ve harmed, made public confession, and finally, face a situation in which we have the opportunity to show that we have literally changed. We must show that we are not the same person we were, and we will not fall into the same mistake again.”

And, while the process of repentance against the breaking of G-d’s law, such as the violations of the Sabbath and the regulations governing kashrut or kosher living, begins and ends with G-d, violations against others we’ve offended must begin with them. So, while the Yom Kippur holiday is favored as a time of return, the possibility to repent in always present.

“If you are truly repentant,” Newman points out, “the gates of repentance are always open. So, no matter what the impediment was that seemed like it made it impossible, the tradition seems to want to come back again and again, to never give up the possibility of transformation, the possibility of repair, Because if you give that up, then you’re lost, then you are forever chained to the sins of the past.”

In commenting on those principles, Dr. Morgan referred to her own understanding of how the theology of trust makes repentance possible.

“The trust that G-d puts in us, I think, implicitly, is the kind of trust that says humanity is basically a good kid, you know, humanity will become good, given, as it were, time and opportunity and the gates being left open.”

But Jewish tradition emphasizes more than the role of G-d’s love and forgiveness. Teshuvah, according to Dr. Newman, cannot occur until we take responsibility for what we do to others and become accountable to them.

“Teshuvah says to me, the concept of repentance says to me, yes, I am absolutely accountable for what I did, and I have to absolutely own it and claim it. And when I do that, I can then, in fact, get the benefits of G-d’s ultimate forgiveness. And there’s a way forward. It’s not one or the other. They’re both.”

We are asked on the Day of Atonement to repair our relationship with G-d but first repair our relationship with other human beings we have hurt. We are asked to take that first step before G-d can respond to the work of teshuvah.

In summarizing his understanding of a return to righteous living, Dr. Newman pointed to a teaching from the Talmud that says that in the place where a repentant person stands is even more holy than where a perfectly righteous stands. How is that so, he asked.

“In the process of making mistakes and repairing them, we deepen our humanity. We come to appreciate the flaws in others more fully, so that we can forgive others in the same way that we recognize ourselves as flawed.”