#danya ruttenberg

[nesyanast]

"Jewish law teaches that the person harmed is certainly not obligated to forgive a perpetrator who has not done the work of repentance. And even if repentance is wholehearted and demonstrable, if apologies have been offered and amends made, how and when forgiveness factors in is not always straightforward. Is forgiveness something the victim can choose to do at any point? Definitely. Can it sometimes be a useful part of the healing process? For sure. Is a victim obligated to forgive? Well, as we rabbis are fond of saying, that’s a whole other conversation. It’s worth mentioning that forgiveness isn’t the same as reconciliation—returning to some sort of relationship that will continue into the future. Regardless, I want to spell out that, in Judaism, a person can do real, profound, comprehensive repentance work and even get right with God—experience atonement—even if their victim never forgives them. Repentance and forgiveness are separate processes." On Repentance and Repair by Danya Ruttenberg

[gatheringbones]

[“Swallowing your pride and facing, again and again, the harm you have caused through carelessness, through ignorance, through problematic beliefs, through acting from places of pain and trauma and brokenness, through thinking it’ll be OK, through thinking nobody will find out, through desperation, through opportunism, through all the reasons that cause us to harm one another. Even if we didn’t mean to. Even if we didn’t know better. Even if we were being lazy, or careless, or afraid, even if we were acting out because we have all this hurt inside, or even if we don’t know why we did it. Whatever our intentions. Doing the work to cross that bridge and see, for real, the impact that we had, what it means, and what we need to learn or do, how we need to change and grow, what we need to offer of ourselves, how we can repair, what can be different. It can be different. We know that it can. You know that it can. But the only way out is through. And on that way through, you know—you have seen, here—profound healing can happen. Individual lives and relationships can be transformed.

Communities and cultures can move toward care, accountability, restoration. Institutions can do the work needed to protect the people they serve. Nations can face the truth of what they have done—even if the work is imperfect, messy, or haphazard—and can make the choice to write a new story for tomorrow. Repair is possible. Atonement is not out of reach.

What is needed—and this is, of course, a great deal—is the willingness to do the work. What is needed is the bravery to begin. On the other side of that bridge, on the other side of transformation, is another more whole, more full, more free way of being, one that we can’t fully imagine from here. A way that we must simply bring into existence, step by step. The Talmud teaches, in the name of Rabbi Hama Bar Hanina, “Great is repentance, for it brings healing to the world.”]

rabbi danya ruttenberg, from on repentance and repair: making amends in an unapologetic world, 2022

[oatmilk-vampire]

So was anyone going to tell me about the Expulsion of Jews from Spain or was I just supposed to learn about it from Danya Ruttenberg in her new book On Repentance and Repair because my church recommended it?

[riylcast]

Episode 585: Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

The bad apology has become a major feature of modern American life. “I’m sorry to anyone I might have offended” more often than not boils down to “I’m sorry I got caught.

Are the impacted obligated to forgive? And more importantly, what is the process for earning such forgiveness?

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg draws on the teaching of 12th century philosopher and Torah scholar Maimonides for her latest, On Repentance and Repair, which explores the steps for repairing mistakes, both large and small.

In addition to her rabbinical practice, Ruttenberg is a prolific author an popular online champion of progressive politics. She joins us to discuss her journey and to reflect how far we’ve come as a society – and how far is still left to go.

[hachama]

[a-queer-seminarian]

The "Conquest of Canaan" and Palestine Today

A little bit ago an anon asked about how to deal with parts of the Bible that depict the Israelites violently removing the original inhabitants of Canaan in order to settle in their promised land, particularly in light of how those texts are used to justify the modern state of Israel's occupation of and violence against Palestine today.

I did my best to respond — and then @imusthavebecomesomething replied to let me know that Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg recently explored the same exact questions in her newsletter, Life Is a Sacred Text!

Naturally, she articulated her points much better than I. So I'm back to recommend her piece, which delves into:

the historical context of Israel's founding vs. the political narrative the biblical authors formed around it

the atrocities that narrative has been used to justify (from the Crusades to European colonialism to today's atrocities in Gaza)

why it's still worth reading these stories ("shake them and shake them until the insight falls out")

She ultimately concludes that (the following is an excerpt from her article):

Israelites and Canaanites were likely basically the same peoples, with different customs. They were not "ethnically" different in any way, except that they eventually became a separate "ethnos" in the hiiiighly academic sense of "having a common national or cultural tradition," belonging to different peoplehoods, with different religious-tribal customs, different ideas about what made you an insider and outsider, etc. But were they "ethnically" different, in the way that we use it today? Nauxpe. Nope. Nawp. Which means...

Both Israelites/Jews and Palestinians have existed on that patch of land as far back as history goes, and

Those of us who have wayback Jew ancestry (see above: you can be part of the Jewish ethnos/people without being an ethnic Jew, dig) are related, genetically, to Palestinians. Surprise, surprise? (To whom, exactly??) And it also means that

The "God gave us this land to conquer and encouraged us to genocide the locals" narrative was originally a political fabrication and it has since been used for innumerable horrific political ends, including now.

There's way more in her actual article, which is absolutely worth reading in full — so here it is!

[demongrocer]

I found this post meaningful / useful today. Sharing in case others do as well

[rotzaprachim]

trying to take more of a Shabbat + time off my phone this Shabbat (which is hard because in some ways constant stream of news and tumblr is time that is not Alone my Thoughts, in many ways scarier these days) but gd media is such a thing right now. Anything light and fluffy seems fake, focus on unrelated nonfiction often is sides of more trauma or hard to focus on, and worst of all is everything to do with usamerican action adventure/starmarvelwars where violence is just part of the marketable commodity. Idk. I want to be detached from this. Stop living in my brain for a while in this way. Everyone telling me to let my heart be lighter

[dowsingfordivinity]

Be like trees

In the early 1990s when I was first starting out on my witchy path, I was taught that, whilst the Age of Aquarius (or whatever you want to call the post-capitalism world) is at hand, the old order won’t just disappear: it will fight tooth and nail to retain its grip on power. We are seeing that now: the genocides happening everywhere, the right introducing anti-trans laws, the overturning of Roe…

[thatwritererinoriordan]

Jewish friends! Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg has found gelt made from fair-trade chocolate.

Non-Jewish friends: You are also welcome to eat this fair-trade chocolate!

[nesyanast]

"In a spiritual context, tshuvah is about coming back to where we are supposed to be, returning to the person we know we’re capable of being—coming home, in humility and with intentionality, to behave as the person we’d like to believe we are."

On Repentance and Repair, Danya Ruttenberg

[gatheringbones]

[“The reason to do repentance work is not because you are BAD BAD BAD until you DO THESE THINGS but because we should care about each other, about taking care of each other, about making sure we’re all OK. Taking seriously that I might have hurt you—even inadvertently! even because I wasn’t at my best!—is an act of love and care. It is an opportunity to open my heart wider than it has been, to let in more empathy, more curiosity about how my choices or knee-jerk reactions have impacted you, have impacted others. To care about others’ perspectives. To let your experience matter, deeply, to me. To look at another person—or a community, or a team of people—and say: Where are you? What are you feeling and experiencing now, and how might I have (even unwittingly) brought you pain or difficulty? And to care about making that as right as I can. It’s an act of concern. And facing the harm that I caused is an act of profound optimism. It is a choice to grow, to learn, to become someone who is more open and empathetic.

It’s also important to remember that sincere repentance work isn’t the same as self-flagellation—in fact, the latter can become a convenient way to stay stuck in inaction. We probably all know at least one person who, when told they have done something harmful, will go deep into their feelings and their reasons and the ways they were acting out of their pain, and they feel so bad and they know that it’s so not OK and on and on. And yet—they don’t focus on the needs of the person they hurt, and they don’t do the work to change.

It’s also useful to note that accountability and punishment are not the same thing. (Sometimes being accountable involves facing significant consequences, to be sure, but they are two distinct concepts.) As Danielle Sered notes in her powerful book Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair, “Forms of punishment that do not include the human reckoning of accountability and the human grappling of remorse rely exclusively on extrinsic motivation—a threat from outside. One of the effects of accountability is to help foster people’s intrinsic motivation, which manifests in part as remorse.” That is to say, we can think of punishment as coming only from the outside, and accountability as inviting or pushing people to do the work from within.

Accountability can feel vulnerable, scary, and even painful, but it has integrity and allows us to move forward. It moves us out of avoidance, blame, and denial, and into the reality of what we’ve done—we finally face it bravely and begin to learn and grow from the experience. It’s not always easy or comfortable, but it’s crucially important—for us, for those we’ve hurt, and for anyone we meet in the future.”]

rabbi danya ruttenberg, from on repentance and repair: making amends in an unapologetic world, 2022

[wherekizzialives]

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, is an excellent source on this subject, in case anyone would like some further reading.

I think one of the most important things most goyim don't understand about Judaism is that there's a process for forgiveness, but forgiveness isn't required. And even then, the process of teshuvah requires more than just a simple apology.

It requires that one recognize that they have done something wrong, it requires that one regrets those actions, it requires that one strives to do better, it requires that one changes themselves to be a better person as to not repeat the mistake, it requires one to face the person they have wronged, admit their misdeeds, and declare their intention to do better.

If the offender's apology isn't serious enough, they repeat the same offending deeds, or something else happens where it's clear the apology was not sincere or the offender hasn't taken concrete steps to become a better person, forgiveness isn't required.

And even in the case where the apology is seen as sincere enough, the minimum required amount of forgiveness is "mechilah," which simply forgives a debt (physical or metaphorical) that is owed because of the offending actions. But the crime still exists. The crime is still there.

And EVEN THEN, one is not halachically obligated to offer mechilah. They may be morally obligated to as a sign of good faith, but in no way are they required to.

This is Jewish forgiveness. It is a process that takes time, energy, and trust. Sometimes, it's not granted, but when it is, it's granted because there is faith that the offender will become a better person and not repeat the crimes of their past, at least not intentionally (although that is a whole other topic).

[ifimakemybedinhell]

this is excellent, but ngl it's worth the read just for footnote 8 on dr michael cook's theory about judas, damn

[shadowweaver06]

Just found out that Neil Gaiman and Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg are gonna have a discussion about her latest book ('On Repentance and Repair') on FB live in a few weeks and of *course* I'm gonna pop on go on and listen to that conversation.

(I am a big fan of books and topical writings by them both, so I am very excited to hear this discussion - Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite fantasy authors, and Rabbi Ruttenberg's educational tidbits on Twitter and one of her earlier books was entirely foundational to the beginnings of my explorations into Judaism).

I'm probably more excited than I should be but I'm really interested in this conversation.

[traincat]

i was trying to explain to my mom how the harry potter game is antisemitic (we are not jewish) and she didnt really seem to get it. she was like "i mean if they were wearing yarmulkes i would be like yeah, the goblins are supposed to be jewish". do you know of a good source that i could send her that would break down the jewish stereotypes and how they arent just coincidence? if you dont have a good source dont worry about it but i saw you reblog stuff about it so i thought you might. thank you for your time!

I have a few resources I'm linking in my reply here, but I'm probably not going to be answering other questions about this because, to be honest, as a Jewish person in fandom, it's stressful. I'm reblogging stuff about Hogwarts Legacy because I'm Jewish and the antisemitism in the game is vile to the point where it feels irresponsible for me not to address it in some way, and because it ties into a lot of the other antisemitism I've personally faced in fandom when speaking about anything Jewish. I feel like your mother may have some trouble grasping the antisemitism because she seems to be viewing Judaism solely as a faith, when Judaism is an ethnoreligion -- a religion, an ethnic group, and wide and varied culture, and so stereotypes about Jewish people don't have to involve religious symbols and very often involve specific physical features, ie, big noses. The goblins in Harry Potter are short, ugly, and they have huge noses -- these are all features commonly associated in antisemitic caricature with Ashkenazi Jewish men. The idea that the goblins would only be valid caricatures of Jewish people if they were wearing a specific piece of clothing is troubling because it invokes the yellow stars Jews were made to wear by the Nazis. (For the record, my uncle wears a yarmulke full time, but the other men on my mother's side of the family do not. This does not make them less Jewish.)

But if your mother needs a symbol associated with the Jewish faith to help her understand, it's been noted that the game features a "goblin horn" that is very clearly a shofar, an important piece of Judaica which is used for religious purposes. (There's also a link between the date the horn is given in the game and a very brutal pogrom; more info in the twitter thread linked. If you want to get an idea of how virulent antisemitism is in fandom, the response to this thread and others like it are A Lot.) Like I can't say enough how blatant this is, and the reason it's getting by so many people are 1) a lot of non-Jewish people are at least on a base level, if not actively antisemitic themselves, basically okay with antisemitism, because antisemitism is so present in our culture and 2) uneducated on Jewish matters.

It's also important to note that in the Harry Potter world, goblins are specifically bankers. This is how they are first introduced to readers and this is their primary association in world: the goblins are literally guarding the gates on huge piles of wizard gold. This is an antisemitic stereotype, as Jews are often perceived as being money grubbing and greedy, as well as "secretly controlling" the greater world's wealth. More info in this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism. This thread by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg also breaks down the connection between the "greedy Jew" stereotype and the historical precedent for Jewish moneylenders, a profession that was foisted on them because it was distasteful to Christians: https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1057333224538624001. Harry Potter is not unique in these depictions. There is an example of this in, say, Star Trek, where the Ferengi are a race of greedy, money-obsessed aliens who have exaggerated "ugly" features and who are often depicted as oversexed, especially when it comes to women of other, more classically attractive alien races (this is another antisemitic stereotype of Jewish men). But the Ferengi are also all played by Jewish actors, and in the show where they feature most, Deep Space 9, they're protagonists. So while the Ferengi are rooted in antisemitic stereotypes, the involvement of Jewish creatives and their role in the story makes it a more complicated, nuanced situation. This is not what is happening in Hogwarts Legacy.

It's not a coincidence that the goblins in Harry Potter have always been depicted as bankers right from book one. While you can theoretically separate the series from Rowling's transphobia (although, y'know, you shouldn't), the antisemitism is baked into the series. Hogwarts Legacy just takes it to a whole other incredibly overt level. The point of the game is violence against Jews, and we see that because it's revealing just how many people out there are fine with demonizing Jews specifically and the level of violence Jewish people often face in fandom when they speak out about antisemitism.