Repenting for Antisemitism: “To Elevate Evil into a State of Goodness”

Abstract

This paper examines repentance as a practice of transformation that aims to improve relations between the Jewish and Christian communities but also changes Christian theology itself. In his lectures, On Repentance, Orthodox rabbi and philosopher Joseph Soloveitchik maintains that “it is the memory of sin that releases the power...to do greater things than ever before. The energy of sin can be used to bring one to new heights.” My subtitle invokes Soloveitchik’s claim that a certain “quality of repentance...elevates evil to a state of goodness.” Following Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah (1170-1180), Soloveitchik unpacks the interlocking precepts of teshuvah, the Hebrew term for repentance that literally translates as turning back or returning to God. The basic precepts of repentance are not unlike the three-step process of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. What attracts me, a Lutheran theologian, to the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance and the Jewish ritual observance of teshuvah is precisely their clearly outlined set of obligations that provide texture and structure to the process. Repentance, in Soloveitchik’s startling declaration, has the power to transform historical wrongdoing into a state of productive and constructive “goodness.” This is an audacious hope, even in religious communities, where the teachings and practices of repentance appear to lie increasingly fallow; it seems outlandish. The language of repentance has largely been replaced by that of reconciliation. The terminology of reconciliation is popular in the fields of transitional justice, cultural memory, politics, and theology, while penance sounds quaint and antiquated, too “religious” for serious consideration in the areas of politics, law, and psychology. A quick search confirms that there are over ten times more titles on “reconciliation” than on “repentance” in the Library of Congress and the libraries of Boston College