Tshuva: A Gradual Churning. (Rosh Hashanah 5785/2024)

Posted on October 11, 2024

A few weeks ago, I sat before a man who, in the company of strangers, sat with his head bowed and his hands open in his lap.  He was a white man in his 60s with cropped grey hair – wore an ironed shirt and a tie. He spoke plainly and slowly, saying “I know I don’t deserve to be here. I have spent the last 30 years actively harming the people in this room. I beg for your forgiveness.”

 

We were quiet. It was a Tuesday morning in early September in Auburndale, MA. We were a small community of people – mostly Jews, some Christian pastors – sitting in the Beit Midrash – “the house of study,”  at Hebrew College.

 

Reverend Dr. Robert Schenck [SHANK] is an Evangelical Pastor.  He has spent much of his life on a much more public stage than where I first encountered him. Born into a Jewish family, he was a rebellious teen, who at age 16, was baptized, or born again, in the Niagara River. A natural leader and captivating speaker– he gained public attention quickly. In 1995, he founded the organization “Faith and Action,” in Washington DC, a group that targeted elected officials and Supreme Court justices  – to advocate against same sex marriage and against abortion access. The founder of a national anti-abortion organization, he recruited and trained thousands of protesters to  block the doors to abortion clinics, and protest women seeking and providing abortion care.

 

His work – central to his own theology, was personal too, to others. One of the  physicians who was a target of his activism – Dr Barnett Slepian, an abortion provider in Buffalo, New York – was shot and killed in his home. When Schenck sent flowers to his wife, she sent them back smashed, expressing that he was tp husband’s murder.

 

For Reverend Schenck, this tragedy was a turning point. He began to ask himself about his own certainty, asking,  “Are we as good as we think we are?” With the patience, support, and prodding from his wife, children and a therapist, Reverend Schenck began to go through a process of transformation that would last two decades. He calls the process, a “gradual churning.”  I want to, today, call this process tshuva, or “return,” or “repentance,” – one of the core pieces of spiritual work that we, as Jews, are instructed to undergo during this high holiday season.

 

In the years to come, Reverend Schenck’s life became unrecognizable. He  reflected that in this period of time was, once more, “born again” – but this time, another type of birth. He began to believe that his community had abandoned their focus on Jesus in favor of political and financial power – and he sought to find his way back. This process transformed his marriage – and brought him back into contact with his son he hadn’t spoken to for 10 years. His politics, too, took a 180 – crystallized in a new political stance on reproductive freedom. He began to understand that it wasn’t his place to legislate for women & those who experience pregnancy, regarding an experience he could never understand. In 2019, he wrote an Op-ed for the NYT expressing his support for Roe v. Wade, calling his readers to “ Put your money where your mouth is. Devote yourself and your considerable resources to taking care of poor women and their children before you champion laws that hem them into impossible situations.”

 

And he did – and still does – devote himself. To address the years of harm he caused, he serves on the board of US Black Womens Chamber of Commerce, supports the ACLU, and  founded an organization that advocates for gun control and a compassionate approach to immigration. He was recently hired by Hebrew College’s Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership – where he teaches a course alongside Rabbis, focused on White Christian Nationalism,  and interfaith understanding. On an interpersonal level, as a Preacher – he now focuses on supporting others to foster curiosity and compassion, and encouraging them to question if they are indeed, as right as they think they are.

 

Reverend Dr. Schenck’s story has become an earworm for me. I frankly can’t stop thinking about him – particularly, in this season. What an arc. And what unimaginable courage to undertake a reflective process that was so cutting. It’s a lightening bolt of a teaching. A reminder of how tshuva is, ultimately about encountering our reality fully– and embarking on an earnest re-ordering of the soul.

 

What, exactly, are we talking about when we talk about tshuva? Perhaps it’s a new idea for some of us. Perhaps, we understand it through guilt at the pit of our stomachs, when the leaves begin to turn. Perhaps it’s a meaningful spiritual process, which we undergo, guided by mussar. Perhaps it’s selichot.

 

Enter Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, Maimonides, or the Rambam – who has his own answer. Born in 1135 in Spain, the Rambam, the doctor and philosopher, wrote his magnum opus the Mishneh Torah to create a clear and practical guide for Jews everywhere to follow.  To make the tradition accessible, he gathered information from the Mishnah and Talmud – and created a work that still acts as a central guide, on the big ideas , and nuts and bolts of Jewish life.

 

So – let’s take moment for text study on Tshuva, in the Mishnah Torah.

 

One of the first things we will learn about tshuva begins with Rambam’s editorial choices– where in the Mishnah Torah chooses to write about tshuva. These teachings don’t appear in the sections of Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. Rather,  they appear in Sefer haMa’dah – the book of knowledge – the section that talks about the core elements of a spiritual Jewish life. Scholar, Theologian, and Philosopher Shai Held points out how this placement shows us that tshuva has a much deeper role beyond the HHD. Tshuva, the spiritual work of return and repairing, is at the heart of what it means to live a Jewish life.

 

So –  how do we do it? The Rambam lays out the path to repentance in 5 steps – ok, 5-ish steps. In Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s remarkable book ‘On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World,’ she takes our hand, and helps us understand Rambam’s teaching in our contemporary moment. These two sages will support us in our learning.

 

Rambam teaches us that the first step is to “call out before Gd.” An act in two parts. First, – name the harm you have caused outloud. Say the facts. Then, secondly, and crucially:  seek to understand it – a task that is done by “cheshbon nefesh,” or, an accounting of the soul. The work of this accounting is reflective: we must see and investigate the hurt we may have caused. We are meant to curious – what did we do? What was the impact ? How might the other person feel? And when we have sense of all this – no small task – we speak it, outloud, in a public setting that is appropriate for the situation. For example, “Hey Dad,  I know I didn’t follow-up with you after your surgery. I see now how  that made you feel neglected.” Or, “I ignored the allegations of harassment because I was scared of the legal consequences. Now, I realize how that harmed the people I supervise.”  Rabbi Ruttenberg is careful to note: this is not an apology – but a declarative statement. This is where we step into our own accountability– not  a moment to seek our own pardon. We simply state what we did – out loud – where we can be seen and heard.

 

The next  step is the most complex– we seek to change. The key word is “seek.”  Full tshuva, writes the Rambam,  only happens when a person has the opportunity and the ability to commit the same harm, but chooses otherwise– not because of her lack of strength or fear – but due to their own growth. How to change? Perhaps we grapple tearfully in prayer, or make financial sacrifices by redistributing income, pursue therapy, rehab, pursue new perspectives. As anyone who has tried to learn a new coping mechanism or change a difficult pattern in their relationship knows – this takes time – months, years, until the end of our lives. Think of our Reverend – who understands his own ongoing transformation to have spanned two decades – and still counting.

 

Step three: Restitution and acceptance of consequences. The amends, like every piece of this process, are context specific. This could mean include asking the victim what they might want, financially supporting a therapeutic process, stepping down from a role.  Why must our amends be so concrete? Imagine if the person who stole your bike years ago bought you a new one. Through this, you might learn that they understood the harm, reflected on it, and sought to ameliorate the harm.

 

The fourth step is to apologize. The Rambam writes, after restitution is paid, a person is obliged to “.. beg for their forgiveness…they must appease and implore until the forgiven party forgives them.”  Our tradition teaches us: there is a big difference between repentance and forgiveness. The person pursuing tshuva has to seek repair. The other person can forgive them if they wish–  but this isn’t the point of tshuva. The process moves at the level of the relationship. A person undergoes tshuva to return home to their own ethical center, to “get right with gd” as Rabbi Ruttenberg says. This is as an expression of care to those harmed. Forgiveness might happen in the process– or it’s possible one may never be forgiven. Accepting this, too, is part of the work.

 

Lastly, step five: make different choices. Tshuva Gemora, or “full repentance,” blooms when we are able to transform our behavior. Rambam writes, rather colorfully, “Anyone who verbalizes his confession without resolving in his heart to abandon the harm, can be compared to a person who immerses oneself in a or ritual bath, while holding the carcass of a lizard in their hand. Their immersion will not be valid until they casts away the carcass.” We are asked to loosen our hands on the grip of the lizard of how we have caused pain, belittled a loved one, taking something that isn’t ours, habituated structural racism– to let it drop. It’s not easy, it’s grueling work.

 

With respect to Rabbi Danya’s and Rambam’s list of 5, I want to add a 6th piece: the gates of compassion are always open. Rambam writes how, even if someone transgressed their whole life, if they do tshuva on the day of their deathbed and dies in repentance, they are forgiven. Tshuva,  Rambam teaches, is possible at every moment. It’s just that during these days of awe, the are “immediately accepted.” Imagine this – that a sea of compassion awaits us.

 

Let’s return, for a moment, to the good Reverend – a look back into his story – within this framework. 1) Reverend Schenk calls out to gd. 2) He names harm in his relationships and actions 3) He begins to make amends, donating time for study, money, and attention – towards repairing structural harm he created. 4) He apologizes. And 5) Now, “tshuva gemora,” full tshuva –  he’s open-minded enough to engage with weird Jews like myself, who walk up to him, on a Tuesday in Elul, and inform him that for decades, he’s been in a process of tshuva.

 

On that Tuesday, I confided to him,  “when you asked for forgiveness, I felt it hit the center of my chest.” I asked – one seeker to another  – “how did you undergo this process?”? He paused for a moment. Then he said,  “First, I have to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness.” He took a breath in, paused and released it – “one has to live with a certain amount of agony.”

Yes. It can be agonizing.

Many of us are raised to feel that if we encounter disharmony in our personal lives we’ve failed. That we could have avoided it – if we were purer, kinder, “better.” But, it’s not true– harm happens. We take when we shouldn’t, we blame others to avoid responsibility, we break other’s hearts, we violate boundaries, we isolate others with our actions. We harm inadvertently and on purpose. Ashamnu, Bagadnu. We feel this grief, and regret this brokenness.

But – Tshuva offers us something –  the refuge of knowing that this is our nature, and that repair is possible.

Beautifully and mysteriously, it is this recognition of harm, and the instruction to work with it – that alights transformational benefit. The Reverend’s heartbreak at the tragic murder of the abortion provider– in fact, renewed his heart. Tshuva directs us to feel this pain – that we wish we didn’t or wouldn’t cause others – and directs careful attention to understanding it. Stephen Fulder, a meditation teacher I studied with this past winter in the North of Israel, told us, as we peered into our hearts – full of fear, grief, heartbreak — that– “attention is the beginning of compassion.” If we pay attention to the harm we do –and to crucially, those who we have harmed –  the heart just might swell with compassion. In this process, we might encounter our nascent desire for tshuva. We might –  like a seed pushing against the hard ground – feel the yearning for renewal.

When we pursue tshuva, we pursue the gradual churning of transformation: of ourselves, our relationships, and the structures that harm ourselves and others. It’s so challenging – and just beautiful work to partake it. So deeply worth it.

On Rosh Hashanah, as we prepare for yet another stroll yet again through our same stories in the Jewish year, some of have a custom of wearing a new piece of clothing, or putting a new fruit on the table on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. We anticipate a return to the beginning of  creation – nashuv, we will return. And, as we return again, perhaps paradoxically, we say the shehecheyanu – a prayer for new things.

Tshuva offers us the hope of how –  through encountering this new – we can return home. And in returning home, we can begin anew.

As we head into these 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I want to bless you that, as you step into a process of tshuva at whatever scale, and direct attention to your own experience and actions – that this will seed new compassion. I want to bless us that in the coming year, this compassionate attention will be a source of renewal, comfort, and connection – for each of us, and for all living beings.

And I want to bless you with the wisdom of our ancestors – who teach us that when we lower ourselves to our knees and beg for forgiveness,  so too, we orient our hearts and hands towards repair. That, from this place, on the ground – we see that the gates are open – and the new fruit, waiting to ripen in our hands.

Shana Tova.