Teshuvah Guidelines

They say that Communism was defeated by three leaders. One was Mikhail Gorbachev, who passed away last week. Another was Ronald Reagan, the man of the 1987 Berlin speech: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. By the way, many Democrats thought it was inappropriate, raised too many expectations, or whatever. You know, sometimes American Democrats also can be wrong.

And the other man who defeated Communism was Karol Wojtyla. He turned the Catholic Church into a belligerent machine that supported movements in Poland and elsewhere and instructed the Vatican diplomacy to adopt a no-compromise attitude.

Wojtyla achieved his goal -ending Communism. And he brought religion back into politics. Before him, the general understanding was that Christianity was a thing of the past. He showed how strong faith can be — and Khomeini was doing the same thing for Islam, but that is another matter. The end of Communism was not enough for Karol Wojtyla. After achieving such a historical goal, he led the Church in the following years, through a series of solemn apologies and reconciliations, in view of the 2000 Jubilee.

Wojtyla gave solemn speeches, asking for forgiveness from the Jews. He apologised to the women. He met with representatives of the Protestant Churches persecuted by the Inquisitions. He apologised for the conquest of America, the genocide of the natives, the involvement of Catholic missionaries in the slave trade, etc.

That series of apologies was a historical turn — but, from a Jewish point of view, very problematic.

Note, I am not engaging in anti-Catholicism. In fact, most of my friends are Catholics. But those apologies are different from the Jewish teshuva, repentance, which is what we should devote our souls to these days in preparation for Yom Kippur.

Those Catholic ceremonies were collective, solemn events. The world saw the pope apologising, sometimes in front of representatives of the offended communities. Everything happened in public, in front of the cameras. All the world could see.

But what if the representatives of those abused communities did not feel they could accept these apologies on behalf of all women, Protestants, Jews, and American natives…? What if they feel they count only for themselves? What if they cannot act on behalf of -for example- all the witches burnt at stake, all the Jewish victims of the Crusades, all the Huguenots massacred in Paris in 1572?

In fact, Jews, women, protestants, natives and other communities don’t have a leader who takes this sort of decision. Who’s the leader of the witches anyway? And yet, when you are in front of one of the world’s most influential and respected leaders, a man who defeated Communism, and he demands you to accept his apologies … it’s impossible to say no. You are playing a part on the stage of world history, under the spotlight of public opinion, and of course, “the show must go on”: you have to say yes. Dear pope, apologies accepted, forget the past, from now on we are best friends…

From a Jewish point of view, these public and collective apologies are really problematic. They certainly are not teshuvah. The Jewish process of teshuvah or repentance (and of reparation) is personal, not a collective process. You cannot apologise on behalf of others. We cannot delegate to a Jewish leader the power to accept apologies for our pain or the offences we have received.

Collective guilt, collective sin, and collective repentance are not Jewish concepts. For us, guilt is a personal condition that must be sorted through personal relations, possibly with a private conversation. The Jewish way of offering apologies is direct. It does not require the presence of an audience,

Ideally, on Yom Kippur, in the synagogue, you should make the first move when you meet someone you have a problem with. You should say something like, “can we talk for a moment?” and see how it goes, hopefully achieving the moment when apologies are given and accepted. A one-to-one conversation, around Yom Kippur, Even on Yon Kippur, when everybody is aware of their limitations and feels fragile and exposed.

And now you know why we have such a long break on Yom Kippur, indeed, It is, as you see, a scenario very different from those solemn papal messages addressed to the crowd assembled in San Pietro Square. The problem is that repentance and apologies in contemporary society follow a pattern more similar to the Woytyla model rather than the Jewish ideal.

People offend routinely on social media. By the way, I find it increasingly difficult to call Twitter and Facebook “social media”. They do not encourage sociality; call them anti-social media.

Offences take place. But what happens with these offences?

I’ve seen two kinds of scenarios. In one scenario, typically, the offender uses racist stereotypes and language against one political opponent. Something like: You are XYZ because all people like you are XYZ (“and especially you”). Then the offender hurriedly posts a couple of lines of apologies. Then everything is forgotten, “I did not mean it; let’s move on”.

It is hard to see anything sincere in such a process. The only thing that matter to the abuser is his reputation. There is no empathy nor care for the abused person. No commitment to change behaviour. No understanding of the reason why that prejudice, why that language has been used against that specific person. And indeed, after a short time, a couple of hours perhaps, friends of the abuser resume the offensive behaviour again.

Then there is another kind of process, the “cancel culture”. It works this way. Someone claims to have been offended because of something read on social media. This time is not a targeted offence but a general statement, perhaps poorly phrased (“I think that the XYZ people have a problem with…”). Someone who self-appointed himself as a spokesperson for all the XYZ people in the world makes a big deal of “feeling unsafe”, of “being a victim”, of “structural racism”, and other fashionable wordplays. The offender did not intend to offend anyone. Nonetheless, he’s now forced to pass through a series of humiliations. None of the apologies will be considered acceptable or indeed accepted.

Here, too, everything is public. The posture of the self-proclaimed offended persons, the attempt to achieve forgiveness, the series of increasing humiliation. Everything in the public arena, everything under the eyes of the reader, nothing persona. Nothing, in the end, is truly sincere.

I am grateful to Karol Wojtyla, as well as to Michael Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan because he defeated one of the most oppressive regimes of the 20th century. But I have to point out also that the model of repentance he has popularised is very problematic. It has encouraged the culture of victimhood and made interpersonal relations very difficult. And it has nothing to do with the Jewish teshuvah., which requires time for personal conversations. We have an entire month at our disposal to prepare ourselves for a proper teshuvah. The month of Elul, this month.

Let’s make the best of it.