Jews don’t need to repent
On the contrary, repentance is one of Judaism’s foundations. That’s why our own traditional literature—from the Talmud to the Prayerbook to Maimonides to contemporary Jewish thinkers—is filled with teaching on repentance and prayers of repentance. Jews sin like everybody else, and therefore, Jews—just like other human beings—need to repent. That’s why our traditional literature puts such an emphasis on repentance.
If someone hadn’t told me this was an objection, I never would have believed it. Judaism has always emphasized the importance of repentance (Hebrew, teshuvah), to the point that it could even be overemphasized in the previous objections (see above, 3.9, 3.12). Here’s a small sampling of the rich Jewish teaching on the importance of repentance:
- The Talmudic traditions state, “Great is repentance, for it brings healing to the world” (b. Berakhoth 32a); “Great is repentance, for it reaches the Throne of Glory;… for it brings redemption;… for it lengthens a man’s life” (b. Yoma 86a); “Better an hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than a whole lifetime in the world to come” (m. Avot 4:17); “Repentance is more valuable than sacrifices” (Pesikta Rabbati 45); “Repentance is greater than prayer” (Tanna deBe Eliyahu Zuta 7).340
- Moses Maimonides devoted an entire section of his Law Code (called the Mishneh Torah) to the subject of repentance, teaching emphatically that without repentance there could be no forgiveness and giving detailed instructions on what true repentance is and is not.341 So great is the power of repentance that he wrote, “Even a person who was wicked his whole life and repented in his final moments will not be reminded of any aspect of his wickedness as [Ezek. 33:12] states ‘the wickedness of the evil one will not cause him to stumble on the day he repents his wickedness.’ ”342
- One of the Eighteen Benedictions343 recited daily by traditional Jews is a specific request for help to repent: “Bring us back, our Father, to Your Torah, and bring us near, our King, to Your service, and cause us to return in complete repentance before You. Blessed are You, O Lord, who desires repentance.” A religious Jew prays this prayer thousands of times in his or her lifetime.
- Some of the greatest Jewish minds of this century (such as Rav Soloveitchik, the founder of Yeshiva University, and Abraham Isaac Kook, Israel’s first chief rabbi) devoted years to teaching and preaching about the doctrine of repentance, while standard works such as Solomon Schechter’s Aspects of Rabbinic Theology devoted lengthy sections to the subject.344 Therefore, it is not surprising that it was a Hasidic rabbi who said, “If I had the choice, I would rather not die. Because in the World-to-Come there are no Days of Awe [referring to the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur], and what can a person’s soul do without the Day of Atonement? What is the point of living without repentance?”345 And Schechter can point to a well-known Rabbinic tradition regarding Manasseh, the most wicked king in Judah’s history who repented and received forgiveness (see vol. 1, 1.11): “Thus, if a man would tell thee that God receives not penitents, behold Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, he will bear evidence that no creature in the world ever committed before me so many wicked deeds as he did, yet in the moment of repentance I received him.”346
- A secular Jew who becomes traditional is called a baʿal teshuva, literally, “a master of repentance.” In fact, the recent book of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz written to help newly observant Jews is simply called Teshuvah.347 And penitent Jews are accorded the highest respect, as the Talmud states, “Where the repentant stand, not even the completely righteous can stand” (b. Berakhoth 34b).
- In a recent comparative religious study on the subject of repentance, the contributing scholar on Hinduism freely admitted that repentance is generally not viewed as foundational to Hinduism (or other Eastern religions, for that matter), while the Jewish contributor could write,
For Judaism the conception of repentance—regretting sin, determining not to repeat it, seeking forgiveness for it—defines the key to the moral life. No single component of the human condition takes higher priority in establishing the right relationship with God, and none bears more profound implication for this-worldly attitudes and actions. The entire course of a human life, filled as it is with the natural propensity to sin, that is, rebel against God, but comprised also by the compelled requirement of confronting God’s response (punishment for sin) takes its direction—finds its critical turning—at the act of repentance, the first step in the regeneration of the human condition as it was meant to be.348
That certainly underscores the foundational importance of repentance in Judaism, doesn’t it?
Should you need any further proof that Jews need to repent, and should you need to see firsthand just how many Jews recognize their need to repent, I would suggest you go to a religious Jewish bookstore a few weeks before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and look at how the books on repentance sell like hotcakes. During this season, Jews become acutely aware of their need to repent as they consider their deeds in light of God’s judgment.349 This emphasis on the foundational importance of repentance is simply the logical continuation of the biblical call to turn from sin and get right with God. In fact, the message of the prophets of Israel can be summed up with one word: Repent!350
Sadly enough, we Jews, having been given the great privilege of receiving the Torah, have failed to distinguish ourselves by our national obedience to God’s laws. To the contrary, we have often distinguished ourselves as being especially obstinate, and so, of all peoples, repentance has been crucial—and precious—to us. As expressed by the late chief rabbi of the British Empire, J. H. Hertz, “The Rabbis proclaim the cardinal importance, well nigh the omnipotence, of Repentance in the spiritual life of man.”351
340 These sayings were selected from Reuven Alcalay, ed. and trans., with Mordekhai Nurock, Words of the Wise (Israel: Massada, 1970), 410–12 (for the most part, using the translation as given there).
341 Sefer Maddaʿ, Hilchot Teshuvah, The Book of Knowledge, Laws of Repentance.
342 1:3, as rendered by Touger, Laws of Repentance, 12.
343 This daily prayer is called the Shemoneh Esreh, literally, “Eighteen,” or the Amidah, literally, “standing,” because the prayer is recited in a standing position due to its importance.
344 See Pinhas H. Peli, Soloveitchik on Repentance (New York: Paulist Press, 1984); Abraham Isaac Kook, The Lights of Penitence, Lights of Holiness: The Moral Principles, Essays, and Poems, ed. and trans. Ben Zion Bokser (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1978); Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, chapter 18, “Repentance: Means of Reconciliation” (313–43). Schechter concludes his discussion by saying, “For repentance is as wide as the sea, and as the sea has never closed and man can always be cleansed by it, so is repentance, so that whenever man desires to repent, the Holy One, blessed be he, receives him” (343, with reference to Pesikta deRav Kahana 157a and Midrash Psalms 65:4). Cf. also the works cited in vol. 1, 1.11, n. 36, and note Urbach, The Sages, 462–71, “The Power of Repentance”; Byron L. Sherwin, In Partnership with God (Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1990), 119–29.
345 Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg, cited in Simcha Raz, ed., Hasidic Wisdom: Sayings from the Jewish Sages, trans. Dov Peretz Elkins and Jonathan Elkins (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1997), 301.
346 Numbers Rabbah 14:1, cited in Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, 319 (see 318–19 for another important tradition regarding Manasseh’s repentance). Schechter also makes reference to the notorious Israelite king Jeroboam, of whom it was said that “the Holy One, blessed be he, laid hold of him and said, ‘Return (in repentance), and I and the son of Jesse [David] and thou shall walk together in Paradise.’ ” However, because of his arrogance—he didn’t want to be second to David!—he refused to repent. See ibid., 319–20, with reference to b. Sanhedrin 102a.
347 Adin Steinsaltz, Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew, trans. Michael Swirsky (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1996). Note that teshuva means repentance because it speaks of a return to God; hence repentant Jews are said to “do teshuva.” Cf. also Chaim Nussbaum, The Essence of Teshuvah: A Path to Repentance (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1994).
348 Jacob Neusner, “Repentance in Judaism,” 60–76 (here, 61–62), in Repentance: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Amitai Etzioni and David E. Carney (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). For the Hindu perspective, see Guy Beck, “Fire in the Atman: Repentance in Hinduism,” 76–95; for the Jewish perspective, see Neusner’s article; cf. also vol. 1, 1.11.
349 Cf. S. Y. Agnon, ed., Days of Awe: A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days (New York: Schocken, 1995).
350 A good summary is found in 2 Kings 17:13: “The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.’ ” See also Zechariah 1:1–6. For an older but still important discussion of the root shuv in the Hebrew Bible, see William L. Holladay, The Root Šubh in the Old Testament (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1958).
351 Hertz, Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 562.
Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 2: Theological objections (208). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.