#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]

[“Many times, when people are told that they have caused harm, a defensive, self-protective impulse kicks in. We often deny either our actions or their impact, particularly if we have caused great harm—or if we believe that doing a harmful thing is the same thing as being a bad person. If someone interprets the statement “You said something racist” to mean “You are an irredeemably racist person,” they might well resist the critique, seeing it as a condemnation of their whole self. But walking the path of antiracism is riddled with mistakes and new learning; acknowledging the mistake of saying something racist does not mean we are irrevocably racist, doomed to this fate. It’s rather the opposite, no?

Doubling down and getting defensive makes it much more likely that you’ll just keep doing the thing. If you can’t face and work to repair your mistakes, you certainly won’t learn from them. This all-or-nothing mentality elides the fact that we are all imperfect people, that we all do things that cause harm, that we all have repair work to do—even if we mean well, even if we too have been hurt, even if, even if, even if. When we respond to someone offering us the gift of rebuke—and it is a gift—we have the opportunity to learn and grow and rectify our errors.

Defensiveness, however, shuts out the possibility of attending to the pain we have caused. And we miss the chance to work on becoming the kind of person who does not cause pain in the future—not because we have been silenced or shamed, but because we care, because it matters, and because we don’t want to be the kind of person who causes pain.”]

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

[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]

[“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

[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…

[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.

[vaspider]

I'm going to rescind my previous statements about recordings and images. Personally, I'm still going to record state violence when it happens, but previously benign images ... not anymore. Unless the people in your images have fully and knowingly consented to every image, every time, just... don't take them.