Leningrad Codex carpet page, 1010 CE · public domain

Judaism

Tradition·Founded c. 1000 BCE·est. ~15 million worldwide

Judaism → 8 branches

Branch
Core tenet of Judaism

Repentance is always open, and it is work.

Teshuvah is a turn, not a mood. Maimonides sets the test: the same temptation, the same opportunity, and a different choice. Sins against another person God does not forgive at all until that person has been asked — three times, and then the debt passes to whoever is refusing.

Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Maimonides gives teshuvah ten chapters of the Mishneh Torah and defines it with unusual precision: complete repentance is the same person, in the same situation, with the same opportunity and the same desire, who does not do it again. The steps are recognising, regretting, confessing aloud, and resolving. The hard part is the division of labour — Yom Kippur atones for what is between a person and God and does nothing whatever for what is between a person and another person until that person has been approached, which is why the weeks of Elul are spent on awkward conversations. If the wronged party refuses three times, the tradition transfers the obligation to them. Nothing is unforgivable in principle: the Talmud holds that where the fully repentant stand, the completely righteous cannot. The movements differ about almost everything else and not about this.

From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited

Yom Kippur atones for what is between a person and God. For what is between a person and another, it does not atone until the other has been appeased.

Mishnah Yoma 8:9 (rendered)

The line that turns the holiest day of the year into a fortnight of phone calls.

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