Dr. Halbertal: So the the basic idea of teshuvah is really that your future is not hostage to your past right that your that your past doesn’t determine your your future and the capacity to free yourself of your past right…The idea is that teshuvah is the open-endedness of the possibilities vis-a-vis your future and the future of the community. And I think that’s something very deep, deep and then you ask yourself, you have to reflect how is that possible?
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Noam: Hey everyone, welcome to Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam.
Mijal: I’m Mijal.
Noam: And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to unpack those really big questions that people ask about Israel, about Judaism, about the Jewish experience. We don’t have it all figured out, but this show is our way of trying to learn together, to wonder together, and to grow together.
Mijal: As we say every week, our favorite part of this show is wondering with you. So please continue to share your questions, suggestions, disagreements, feedback, whatever is on your mind. Just email us at wonderingjews@unpacked.media.
Noam: We’re proud to be collaborating with Sefaria and The Simchat Torah Challenge, on this episode along with all of the other episodes of our “In the Beginning” mini-series in which we’re unpacking the foundational questions of Jewish life. We’re big fans of these incredible organizations and you can learn more about the amazing work that they do through the links in the show notes.
Mijal: And if you’re interested in sponsoring an episode of Wondering Jews with Mijal and Noam or even an upcoming mini-series, be in touch at, you guessed it, wonderingjews@unpacked.media
Mijal: So Noam, great to be in person again.
Noam: Yeah, and to continue this. You know, Florida’s far.
Mijal: Love it, love being in person.
Noam: It’s not that far, you know what’s further? What is A lot of places, but LA, that’s where I used to live. So it’s for me, South Florida to New York, it’s just like… A joke.
Mijal: It’s a joke. It’s easy. Okay, great. But Noam, I am really, really excited because we are recording this in preparation for the high holidays. And I gotta say, I actually feel every year, but for a different reason. Like I feel that my soul is like needs the high holidays so badly. Yes. And I’m grateful that we had this opportunity and that we have an amazing guest who I’m going to introduce in a second to help us prepare, prepare spiritually, intellectually, just prepare.
Noam: Yeah, got to prepare. There’s the famous line in Hebrew, ein kedushah bli hachana, that there’s no sanctification, there’s no elevation, there’s no holiness without preparation. So it’s kind of a necessary ingredient. So I’m pumped for this conversation.
Mijal: Yeah. So our guest today, I’m so excited. His name is Professor Moshe Halbertel. He is the Grass professor at NYU Law School, which by the way means that I’ve had the privilege of being Professor Halbertel’s neighbor whenever he’s been downtown and been in community with him. He’s also a professor of Jewish thought and philosophy at the Hebrew University, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and he’s the author of 13 books. If I have that, is that, I got it right?
Mijal: Yes. 13 books. I have read many of them, learned so much from them. And I’ll just say, Professor Halbertal, part of the reason that I am so grateful and excited that you’re here is that I really think of you not only as somebody who’s a world-class expert and thinker, but you speak with so much soul and intentionality and menschlichkeit, and I think that’s really important for us as we have this conversation.
Noam: I agree. I agree. And I also want to say, Professor Halbertal, I do not fanboy often, but you are somebody that like when I’m in your presence and have the opportunity to learn from you, it’s just like I don’t think people realize out there the impact that you’ve had on so many educators, scholars, whomever. So I’m excited to have to have this conversation.
Halbertal: Well, thank you, thank you for having me really. It’s an honor and a privilege and your conversation is such a contribution. Mijal: Thank you. So we are recording this in the month of Elul, the last month of the Hebrew calendar, and it comes really before the big days. The big days are Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and Yom Kippur, which I guess in English is the day of atonement. And those days, I would say, they’re scary a little bit, right? Like we are told we are judged, judgment is sealed, life hangs on the balance. There are also inspiring days you can really connect, a spiritual intimacy.
Noam: I think they’re serious days. They’re joyful. They’re supposed to be joyful also, but they’re serious, they’re joyful. There’s a lot of presence in those days, a lot of meaning in those days. They’re intense days. But meaning, I don’t view it as the sadness of the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av. That’s sad. That’s mournful. This is intense. It’s a different feeling.
Right. So, Professor, before we get into philosophy, but just checking in with you, like, you know, as you’re thinking about the high holidays, the days of awe, in the spectrum between joy and seriousness and awe, where are you?
Dr. Halbertal: It’s interesting because there is a sense, would say seriousness in the following sense, because these are days that are about judgment and repentance and what’s the meaning of judgment? And I think the idea is that your actions make a difference. They amount to something. I think many of us or personally many times one obstacle to change or to self-reflection is that whatever you do is anyhow doesn’t matter, right? That sense of decadence or that you don’t have an impact neither on yourself nor on society, et cetera. And I think this idea that your actions matter, think this is without that there is no moral life, right?
So I would say there is a great sense of joy in the fact that you taking yourself and what you do and the community actually as a community taking itself in a way that it matters what they do, right?
There is the Talmud says, everybody has to think about himself in the way that the world is kind of, there is a judgment and his action might turn the result for the world either for destruction or for merit, right?
So I think there is that sense as well of joy and confidence that when you’re gonna go through that process, there will be change and forgiveness and acceptance. But acceptance and forgiveness and change is predicated on that sense of taking your actions seriously, that it matters what you do. And that’s what I would say the very complex, but I think humanly very meaningful disposition towards these days.
Mijal: Right. And I guess that same sense can lead you to, like, if I really think every action matters, it is, is, you said there’s, there’s confidence there, there’s greatness. It’s also terrifying, right? Because how much, how often do we go through life and do we just do small things and we just like, you know, minutes pass, hours pass, days pass, and we don’t presume that they are filled with capacity for greatness. Yeah.
Dr. Halbertal: That’s true. Yeah, and I think this idea that it matters, it’s not their aim that making you feel obsessed and guilty, right? It’s actually a sense of, I would say it’s all about restoring agency. And for restoring agency, the first precondition for agency, before you think you can do et cetera is that what you do matters. And that sense of the restoration of agency in its fullness, in its understanding of the obstacles, the hopes, the possibilities, that’s what for me encapsulates this position.
Noam: I have a question based on this idea of agency, which like Mijal, like you said there, when you have agency, it means you have responsibility also, right? And there’s like… that could be cumbersome in many ways. We have this line during these 10 days, we say… that repentance, prayer, and I don’t know how to translate tzedakah. Charity. That it either… How would you translate the rest of that sentence actually into English? And the concept is that if you do these three things, if you repent, if you pray, if you do acts of charity, then that will avert the evil decree. Do you believe that?
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah, I think it’s a very deep, you would say a very deep combination here because what is what is the evil decree right and what are those elements right? So you would say what is to our repentance–
Mijal: I don’t like that translation, by the way.
Dr. Halbertal: well repentance means Yeah to repent yeah to return to yeah renew of that.
Noam: Yeah. Why don’t you like that, Mijal?
Mijal: No, I struggle with it, literally, because I’m like, it sounds very Christian.
Noam: Well, Tefila also, you wouldn’t say means prayer either. You feel better with that one?
Mijal: I feel better with… Well, I just feel smart, but I interrupted you. I’m sorry.
Dr. Halbertal: I think it so so the the basic idea of teshuvah is really that your future is not hostage to your past right that your that your past doesn’t determine your your future and the capacity to free yourself of your past right so so if we think about the bad degree decree it could be looked as a punishment but it’s, it’s more internal to whom you are. say, well, there is a course of life that you’re engaging in that might lead you to bad results, bad consequences, harm to yourself, to others, et cetera.
And teshuvah might change it. The idea is that teshuvah is the open-endedness of the possibilities vis-a-vis your future and the future of the community. And I think that’s something very deep, and then you ask yourself, you have to reflect how is that possible? What does it mean in terms of internal and societal practice? But as an idea to say, well, you see a course of action, you see a way in which you are in the world and you see it leading towards disaster. Could be minor, bigger, could be communal, et cetera, and you say, no, teshuvah averts, avoids that disaster. I think it’s something very powerful. So that’s the first element. You say, if you want to look at the future and ask, how can the ro’ah hagzeira, the bad thing that might happen can be averted, can be changed, is through the idea that the future is open, so there are possibilities. So that’s the first element.
The second element, think, is, tefillah means, is the understanding of, there is there a voice, God, that, that responds to that, that listens to that, that is in relation to you, that is so powerful, that is so deep, right. Where you can engage with, including by way of asking for help, because we all need help in that, by the way, from God and from society. There is an interesting idea in teshuvah that you’re not allowed to say to a son to have changed his ways, remember your past. Because one way of blocking change is by society framing you to what they know you are.
Mijal: So if a criminal went through a rehabilitation process and served their time and had remorse, you’re not allowed to throw their crimes in their face.
Dr. Halbertal: Exactly, you don’t say well be careful because we know that years ago you have done so and so and so. And basically you Exactly
Mijal: We’re different than cancel culture.
Noam: It reminds me of the story in the Talmud of Rabbi Yohanan and Rish Lakish. Right. Is that?
Halbertal: Yeah, where he says to him in in a mode of argument because Reish Lakish is came from criminal background and he says it was about you know weapons he said well a Robber or a murderer knows his trade right right and basically—
Mijal: So Rav Yohanan was reminding Reish Lakish, you know this because you are.
Dr. Halbertal: And that’s a way of but I think in part of what pains me in criminal processes from contemporary criminal processes is the following you have a very detailed ritual of entering jail, right? You go through the court for this for that for that but exit right usually a criminal exits jail prison and he’s you know with his bag and either he’s picked up or or a bus or whatever.
What I would have done is I would have bring him back to the court that sent him to jail and that the court said you are our brother, you’re accepted, there is a closure.
Mijal: It’s a punitive system as opposed to a rehabilitative one.
Dr. Halbertal: And that’s where atonement comes in, Yom Kippur, that’s the concept of atonement, right? Because atonement means a sense of closure, right? That the past is gone.
Mijal: Wait let’s stop for a second so atonement I’m assuming in Hebrew it’s kapara. So atonement is different than teshuvah which is a form of like return you defined it. Sorry when you speak, I take notes. Teshuva the future is not hostage to your past but atonement is defined as
Dr. Halbertal: The word aton lechaper can either mean to cover or can either mean to clean actually. There’s a cleansing. And that idea, that sense of cleansing, kivan shelakah achicha, since he is punished after punishment, there is your brother, right? And I think part of what enables transformation is a communal acceptance of the possibility of transformation because part of what holds you in your past is the way you’re being framed by your environment. And I think if I had to design this kind of criminal system there are many many issues that we have to rethink our criminal system but one part of it will be that it lacks the imaginary sense of atonement, you know, it comes from the kind of ritualistic sphere, et cetera. It might be alien to a civic kind of secular structure, but it’s very deep, right?
And also rituals mean a lot. And that criminal should have, after serving their term, serving their punishment, they should have been brought back to that court, embracing them back to society. So I think the concept of tefillah is that mode of embrace. And then tzedakah is being redeemed or being freed by the capacity of giving.
Because I think part of the power of giving is, I think, there are a few issues there. One is, I would say it’s the narcissism of self-reflection, you know, can I change what I did, et cetera, right? The kind of bizarre connection between righteousness and narcissism, right? I’m kind of looking into the depth of my soul, examining my
Mijal: I am very provoked right now.
Noam: So am I!
Mijal: Isn;t that what we’re supposed to do?
Noam: Keep going, keep going, keep going. This is resonating strangely. You’re upset, I’m happy right now. Keep going.
Dr. Halbertal: Well, there is a corrective aspect to it, right? At the end, transformation is in action and action towards others.
Noam: But what did you mean by the narcissism thing? This is what’s getting me going.
Dr. Halbertal: You see, if, the narcissism is a kind of a health.
Noam: Wait, Mijal, not many people talk about the narcissism of self-reflection.
Dr. Halbertal: So so you say, well, life has to be devoted to the art of self-transformation, right? You hear it in different contexts, right? And that engages in a serious way, right? It engages, you know self-reflection about your past understanding your motivations, understanding the path in which You can go all of this is good. But there is a lurking lurking anxiety here about this practice, which is you turn to yourself. I’m happy you were intrigued, because there is an intriguing relationship between saintliness and narcissism.
Mijal: But you’re using saintliness right now to exclude righteousness towards others.
Noam: Mijal, Professor Halbertal is cooking right now. He’s cooking.
Dr. Halbertal: You, it’s, tzedakah means you being at the end your transformation is by giving a hand to someone right it’s by transcending yourself Transcending your horizons by the way, which It’s interesting because it might it might be as a way of changing It might, it might transcend even self-reflection and say, okay, you want to change, just do something for another person.
Mijal: Right. It’s funny, by the way, because very often when we do, when I think of tzedakah or charity, being honest here, it’s often opening up my computer, right? Finding an organization and donating money. And that is not the transformational process that you’re describing. mean, it of course is important, but I think you’re describing a way to make sure that our process of teshuvah and kapara are not just about us, but involve society.
Dr. Halbertal: Right, because part of, you might say, part of going astray, you might even say part of sin, is really about self-orientation, self-love. It’s kind of the power of the ego.
Mijal: I do want to note something it’s interesting whenever I have taught classes about the days of awe, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, very often a lot of people come with a lot of feelings of guilt and shame and a lot of fear because, you right now, professor, presented what I’m going to call, you might disagree with it, but a more like rationalist almost. Maybe that’s not the right word, but like a description that it’s really, you change yourself, you’re able to change your future, you change yourself, you’re able to transform.
But a lot of the liturgical language, right, speaks about punishment. So a lot of the way that many Jews approach these days, and I’m not even taking a side right now, but it’s, I need to take advantage of these days to fix my ways so that God doesn’t punish me. And so that me and my family, like in Sephardic communities, and we once we once, Professor Halbertal, compared and contrasted the Yom Kippur in Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities. But you hear the loudest responses in the prayer where it’s like open up the gates of like health and wealth, and everybody’s like yes I’m going to pray so hard because I want God to give me and my children a good life.
Dr. Halbertal: Be on my side. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that relates to me. I’m in full embrace of that. It relates to me that things matter, that there is a moment that stakes are high, that life is high stakes event, right? And that it’s full of anxieties and concerns that we all feel about our capacity to provide, our capacity to go on, about the horrible contingencies of life. And then you say, well, there is a moment in which you’re not just a victim of those forces, And there is, you know, self-transformation, teshuvah, and there is God there that is there. Yado pshuta lekaveh le’shavim. His hand is stretched to embrace the repentant person, the one who returns.
And then there is the ultimate, I think, this is why it’s at the end, the power to give, right? Tzedakah, and tzedakah means, it’s just, you sit next to a computer and you send a check or whatever. No, it’s actually seeing the concerns of another person, meeting that other person. And that’s, if you ask about the way in which the self transcends itself, a lot of problems are is through the capacity to give, right, through seeing the other.
And I think you want to know why is the future not locked? How is this gzera, you know, this horrible thing that might happen, be changed, it’s just by your capacity to give.
And there is something I think very deep about that. So I take this… teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah, This… You might say, Holy Trinity, right? Of…
Mijal: Our Holy Trinity.
Dr. Halbertal: Yes. Of repentance, prayer, and charity or giving. I take this kind of dialectically a fascinating summation of what is it that we’re talking about. I find it powerful.
Mijal: I have some questions about Teshuva. There’s different visions and voices in Jewish tradition around what Teshuva is. So one example that I’ve often thought about is that for some thinkers or in some texts, I’m thinking here of someone like Rav Soloveitchik or some narratives in the Talmud, you see Teshuva, which again, repentance is not a perfect translation. It’s about return, repair. But you see it as like a full transformation. Like you’re someone who was in a wrong path. And then you have some process that leads you in the same way you said like a criminal become somebody else. We don’t remind them who they were, right? So you become transformed fully to the extent that you can say, I was a different person then, and now I am a new person.
There’s a different vision. I’m going to maybe attribute this one, at least the way that I think about it, to like Maimonides in Hilchot Teshuvah, the laws of teshuvah, that which I would describe more as a very technical action oriented process. So again, Maimonides, by the way, I find I’ll just put my cards on the table. I find this it makes my life it makes me feel less overwhelmed. Maimonides says, well, if you do something wrong, right you you can just approach the action you have remorse you You have we do you confess with your lips you make a decision in your heart that you’re not going to do it, you change your ways. And if you’re able to desist from your bad ways in this particular action, you can say ah look here. I am a baal teshuvah. What do you think about this two different visions?
Dr. Halbertal: All those questions are so deep, right? We’re trying to figure out those issues. So the following, I would say this is a spectrum. It’s not an either or situation, right? So there is what you say, there is a teshuvah from a certain act that you have done, right? You say, well, I’m behaving in a certain way, action-wise. And the…And then there is a process that says, first of all, I have to acknowledge that that’s what I’m doing because self-deception and covering is so complicated. And just the acknowledgement, well, I’m doing that, just facing it.
And then there is a sense of evaluation, of regret, because I face it, I don’t regret it. And then there is a kind of committing yourself not to repeat it. And I think there is a place, some people, you know, that the sort of issues they’re facing is a certain habit, a certain practice, a certain action that they do.
And you would say, look, there is a way of overcoming that. There is a way of overcoming that through a faith in your agency of your capacity to do it. Being whom you are, doesn’t define you. You have lied. It’s true, but you’re not a liar. It’s a big thing. You have light. It’s true. You have erred in this. You have made a mistake here, et cetera, et cetera. How do we know it? Because in those same circumstances, some same conditions, you didn’t repeat it. It doesn’t define you.
But then there is a deeper aspect of transformation. Apropos Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance, because it’s such a great text. It’s one of the greatest achievements of a Jewish codifier, thinker Etc. There’s another thing which is changing character. That’s a complicated thing. Rambam says, Maimonides says, well a person can decide whether he’s Smart or stupid, whether he is generous or stingy, whether he’s brave or cowardly. And here we come to a different way of changing which is character transformation, right?
Mijal: That’s much harder.
Dr. Halbertal: Much harder. And by the way, it’s interesting, because Maimonides sees the issue of being wise or ignorant and stupid as a choice. And he’s right. There is, I remember saying to myself and to students and to, by the way, politicians, I say being an ignoramus is a choice, being stupid, stupidity is a way of life. It’s not a matter of your genes, right? It’s a matter of your approach. Are you inquisitive? Are you studying, are you learning, et cetera.
So in any event, there is that level of transforming character. And by the way, how do you know that your character is being transformed? Apropos giving, if you’re stingy, but still you give because it’s an act of will, there is a pain involved in giving. But when you’re generous, right? The act flows from whom you are. There’s a joy in doing it, right?
And you say, well, what does it mean to be courageous? To be courageous is, you know, the risks. Courage is the orientation towards risk. Life, there are slices of life. You you’re going to face risks. And courage means, you know, the capacity to assume and to take on worthwhile, a risk for worthwhile, right? So there is a different transformation being in and that’s not a matter of a day, you know, that’s a matter of practice, a life exactly. But it’s possible and it’s very deep. Right?
And then there is a I would say a broader transformation. I mean, in terms of Maimonides, this and it’s it’s there to say, well, there are different options and the different concerns and the different what is it you’re concerning with could be an action could be a character but then there is a deeper thing which is your all view and disposition towards the world what Maimonides will describe I think the ultimate change for him is from fear to love
Noam: From fear to love.
Dr. Halbertal: From fear to love, and of God and for everything. Okay, so what is fear? Fear is an instrumental relationship, right? We come to the world in a grip of desire and fear and anxiety, right? We desire pleasure and we’re afraid of harm. We’re in a grip of that, which is evolutionary very deep in us, And good for that, right?
But it controls our world world in a way that we instrumentalize People, the world, God, either to achieve pleasure or to avoid danger. Now the question is can we transcend? From the instrumental to the non instrumental because what is love love is the capacity for non instrumental relationship with another is not there for you
Mijal: That’s very deep. I feel like I have to stay with this. I’m like, like, love is a capacity for non-instrumental relationship with another.
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah, and then you would say, you see, because we are in a grip, it’s so dominant in our being, seeking pleasure and avoiding harm, that we see everybody as we might, it might encompass and capture all our mindset, right? But you want the ultimate transformation. If we entered Maimonides, which is great, the ultimate transformation is from fear to love. That’s a big thing.
Noam: So is that why on Rosh Hashanah we read the story of the binding of Isaac?
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah.
Noam: Because what Abraham is trying to do is demonstrate a love of God that is not based on getting anything in return.
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah, that’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful way of putting it right? So, so you would say, it’s interesting how we transfer, how we make this transformation, right? Because it’s so destructive to instrumentalize everyone and everything and by the way, that’s where friendships end. You know, what does it mean to be a friend? To be a when you realize as a friend that you were you’re an instrument and now you cannot provide whatever you provided, and you’re just being left because you’re not useful for anything. That’s such a sense of betrayal of friendship. Maimonides, we don’t have to follow, the Rambam thinks, it’s through knowledge. Al pi daat, ahava, according to knowledge, love. And there’s something very deep about that, to know another person.
Because if you take the family, right, and if I am a child and parents have this anxiety about children, that they’re mere instruments of their children, right, they’re credit cards or whatever. And that has to do naturally because the child depends on the father or the mother, the parents.
And then you ask yourself at what point children move from fear, from that attitude of instrumentalization to love, is when they realize that the parents have their own lives, that they know them for what they are, not merely as instruments.
And by the way, when we know God and the world in a deep sense, we understand that the world is neither against us and for us, that there is a way that it’s just there, and it’s all power and beauty.
Coming back to your question, when we think about what is the scope of transformation involved in teshuvah,, and there is an open-ended question here, because it might start with an action and habit. It might go to your character, your dispositions, because what is a disposition? A disposition is a patterned response to a slice of life, be it risk, be it harm done to you, et cetera. And then there is a whole question of your basic attitude, your basic standing in the world. What are you for? What is your life for? There is that moment of awakening. Am I living, you know, I’m kind of in a grip of fear. This goes deeper and deeper.
So I would say teshuvah, it’s not exclusively either of them, right? And it depends on your concern, on your place, on where you find yourself, etc.
Noam: So I want to switch to a different aspect of these 10 days. I want to get a little bit into forgiveness. You have spoken and written extensively about your four models of forgiveness.
Mijal: ButNoam, just to clarify, you’re talking about like between human beings, right? Because one of the things that I think I’m asking, one of the things that we learn is that let’s say that I harm somebody else, God cannot forgive me. God will not forgive me for the harm I do to somebody else. Part of the work of these days is not only transformation and forgiveness vis-a-vis God, but I would have to actually repair vis-a-vis another human being.
Noam: Yes, correct. Yeah, exactly. So within that, there’s the four types of forgiveness, right? Could you map that out for us? could you map it out also in a way… Maybe we’ll do this together also. I just want to personalize it a bit. I want to figure out how to think about forgiveness right now with these four different models.
Dr. Halbertal: So you’re right, it all starts from what Mijal mentioned that the Mishnah says following, transgressions that a person has done towards his fellow human being. Yom Kippur is not going to atone that person. Until he appeases that fellow human being, which means forgiveness as well.
So what is forgiveness? Forgiveness is a very complicated phenomenon in our life. And in its kind of most basic form, which is not other related in a serious way, it’s where you, it’s autarky, where you free yourself from the need to get back from the other person what you deserve. Say, well, you have harmed me, I deserve that you’re being punished for that. It’s a sort of kind of retribution.
And you say, well, I free myself from the need or grip of that desire. And regardless of whether you have been transformed or not, I’m not tied to that resentment. There is a tradition of autarky here.
Mijal: So let’s say somebody stole my idea at work in a way that I’m not. And so this will be me saying they might not have apologized. They have not done repair. But you know what? I do not want to be held in grief to my anger. I forgive them merely because I want to be free.
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah, and in some ways I’m not seeking, I free myself of them in a way because seeking retribution is continuing engagement with them. It’s self-liberation.
Noam: Can you is the downside to forgiveness is autarky that you don’t continue a relationship with that person?
Dr. Halbertal: It’s not restoring relationship to what it was.
Noam: You liberate yourself. You’re not holding onto it.
Dr. Halbertal: And it’s not the kind of what we call the Talmudic Jewish conception of forgiveness. It has a line, a very interesting line. I mean, there might be an aspect of it in the lo titor, right? There is lo titor, the lo tikom. And netira, litor comes from keeping. Lintor is lishmor, is to hold the graduate, which then.
Mijal: Like to hold a grudge in our heart. We have a prohibition against holding a grudge.
Dr. Halbertal: And then comes revenge, you know, because if you’re… And you might say, well, that’s… you might call it mekhila maybe, but it’s a way of… it’s not about restoring relationships, it’s actually about freeing yourself from resentment, revenge, retribution, etc.
And then there is what I would say, forgiveness as empowerment. That goes very deeper into the process of forgiveness, which is, and you see it in different practices, I think that South African Committee for Truth and Reconciliation actually exemplified that, which is that part of the harm that’s done to a person is besides the actual harm, he has been put helpless and in the hands of another person who has harmed them, relational, you might say, domination in the act of harming. And we understand that. It’s very deep. Besides the loss that you have, and that’s also serious. And forgiveness is actually the reversal of that, in the sense that, and that was so powerful about that process of truth and reconciliation is, well, now you are at my hand.
The harming party comes to the harm party and says, well, I am at your hands. So it’s kind of a reversal of the power structure here. By the way, it might be very trivial. You might say someone, I don’t know, shoves you in the street and says, well, slicha, forgive me. And basically what he says, I’m at your hands.
It’s a you have the power to forgive. Yeah, which means that you are holding something over the part of part that injured you.
Noam: You’re asserting your own dignity.
Dr. Halbertal: Exactly and and for that you have to overcome the legal system. It’s interesting because the legal system they personalizes Because it doesn’t since he doesn’t have doesn’t believe in revenge. It doesn’t believe in forgiveness either, right? so So the power of the sub is if we want to seek a model for that model in the South African process That was about well, we are we are putting aside the judicial legal system and if the harming party have come and says well we have done so and so and we are at your hand.
Mijal: There’s something that feels a little bit Jewish about that because we have this the phrase at she had set cover on until you appease Exactly, which means which means that if I if I hurt you know, I’m right. So I have a responsibility especially in these days to come and I have to actually work hard to appease you right so you in a sense are empowered to grant me forgiveness. Now the rabbis said you can’t make that exaggerated there’s a limit to how much I need to ask you need to also consider forgiving me but there’s something there.
Noam: The balance of power kind of
Dr. Halbertal: It’s powerful, forgive, right? You might say there is a giving here if you want to analyze the language here. But it’s very powerful. And you’re right, there is an element here in all acts of forgiveness.
And by the way, part of the problem of asking forgiveness is the difficulty is that you put your faith in the hands of someone else. You I recognize that my standing, my faith is in your hand. So that’s the second. We would call it forgiveness as empowerment. Then there is a third, if, I mean, just by way of structuring the phenomenon of forgiveness, we would say forgiveness as understanding, where…
And I think it happens many times where you, and that has to do with reconciling, reconciliation, that engages reconciliation, change in the reconciliation. And how reconciliation happens? Well, it happens through, I would say, in different modes, but what captures them is one is that you realize that the other is not defined by the act that they did. Say, well, they have lied, they’re not liars, etc. And that has to do with repenting and not repeating. And you can, by forgiving and by that person asking for forgiveness and regretting, etc, you can realize that you can relate to that person not through the act they did.
And it’s very powerful, right? You say, well, that the act doesn’t define them. There is a whole person there that I can reconcile with. And there is another thing which is a recognition of what I would call a joint vulnerability. Sometimes when you’re capable to forgive and you realize that you’re vulnerable to the same problem, we’re sharing in that vulnerability. And that’s understanding.
By the way, one issue that we ask in that respect is the unforgivable in the sense of that structure, right? Because there are acts that you cannot separate the one who did it from whom they are.
Noam: I was thinking about that. So then that’s where forgiveness as autarky comes in then.
Dr. Halbertal: Yeah, or maybe the other has to convert if you want to say in a series you cannot say well someone murdered in cold blood but he’s not a murderer.
Noam: I don’t exactly the value of forgiving it that there are I’m trying to think of personal examples, but there are there people in my life and maybe the reverse that What they’ve done There’s is gonna be very high when I go through your models I’m like, I don’t know that I don’t that I think that they’re not just that they it’s just that they lied, but they’re not a liar I don’t know that I think that I think that right
Dr. Halbertal: But they, again, because forgiveness in particular, and we’ll come to it in Jewish tradition to a certain degree when we come to the fourth model, is dependent upon regret and repentance.
But the third one, the forgiveness is understanding the whole idea is it becomes, it’s very empathic. There’s lot of empathy in this one.
Empathy comes with regret. You would say, well, how do I know this person is a slide, but he’s not a liar? Well, because he regrets that, right? Because he’s not repeating it, because et cetera. that act doesn’t define that person, doesn’t color the whole self. So that might be possible here.
And then there is the fourth model, is actually, it’s very powerful in the Christian idea of forgiveness, which is forgiveness as grace, where forgiveness comes before regret and repentance.
Mijal: Like turning the cheek.
Dr. Halbertal: Right? You just forgive for a complete act of grace. Exactly. Now, is it humanly possible how this was very interesting? But the idea, unlike autarky, it’s to transform the aggressor.
Right, through the act of… You transform. And that’s something very powerful, very complicated, very complex. You might say, is there a place for that within the Jewish tradition? So one way to say, and this is Yom Kippur, is that the moment of grace within forgiveness, is for the harm party to make themselves available for repentance and regret. There is an act of grace that repeats forgiveness. It doesn’t complete it.
Mijal: So Professor Halbertal, I have so so many follow up questions, but I’ll just ask one. What would you say Jewish ethics and though, and of course, there’s so many opinions, would have to say, if you’re confronted with someone who harmed you, that feels no regret. And I’m gonna give you two examples.
One I heard from a lovely student of mine, of friends that expressed antisemitic things. And in the context of Israel and this and that, and they are not in a place where they changed their minds or are going to regret it. A different example is, let’s say, somebody that you do business with that treats you unethically and takes advantage, and you know that, the next time, that it’s a pattern of that. So they are likely to continue doing it. Do you have to, what would you advise going into Yom Kippur?
Dr. Halbertal: Well, I think one aspect of it really, which is the Torah prohibits revenge, right? So that passion of revenge, just harming, retributive revenge. Revenge, retribution is for God, if we want to say that, right? And also not being defined by that person. We might say there is an expectation of autocracy, or becoming, becoming not defined by that, right? Including lo timtor. Not holding a grudge. That’s an important thing. But you don’t have to forgive without genuine regret. And not only that, we have to remember forgiveness becomes an easy, unserious trope, business. And this is why in cases of harm, it involves compensation. There might be, by the way, a public aspect to it, right? If someone has made the antisemitic remark in front of other people, etc.. Because the private exchange can be then things that is denied. There is the reality of witnesses to that act gives it, makes it a social fact in the world.
So clearly, there is no normative expectation of forgiveness. But here is another but. And that’s a point maybe to where our conversation leads. There is this mishnah. The mishnah in Avot says, eizeh hu gibor, who is the hero? The one who conquers yitzro, his passion, right? So heroism is not about just subduing your enemy, but it’s about the self. But then there is another version of this Mishnah in Avot d’Rabbi Natan that I like. It’s fascinating. It says, Ez hu gibor? The one who can transform the enemy into a friend.
Now you might say in that condition, right, you would say, can I change that person perspective? Not because, not because I forgave that person in some ways if I forgave that person I don’t need to change that person perspective and What does it mean to change that person perspective?
Because sometimes, by the way, particularly in case of antisemitism and other things, or in case of an employer, that employer might repeat it to other person, people. Usually, employers who behave to one employee this way, they behave to other employees. So there is now a responsibility. You might say, well, can I change that person? Can I make the enemy a friend?
And that’s an art. It’s an art. It involves subtle modes of reproach, conversation, etc. That’s the work of the prophet, you might say, right? That’s what prophets do, right? That’s what Jonah did, right? He came and said, look, you think you can go on this way? He said to them, one verse, in 40 days, your city is destroyed upside down, said, well, you go on like that there is a path of self-destruction here etc. So here it’s not about forgiveness right because you didn’t forgive but it’s about realizing your power to transform that person and sometimes we, it’s very important to engage in that, besides your own wanting to you know to reconcile, etc. There is a social reality at stake here that might be calling for it.
Mijal: Wow, we can keep doing this for a few more hours, but I think Professor Halbert, your words are bringing me back to the beginning of our conversation in which you, I think you expressed that the underlying kind of like principles of these Days of Awe that we are going towards is that we matter, that our actions matter and that we have the capacity to change them. So, thank you so much for that reminder and for…
Dr. Halbertal: Thank you. Thank you for the conversation, your questions, your dialogue. Maybe it is part of that process into itself, right? So thank you. Shana tovah.
Noam: Thanks, Professor.