Another human being’s suffering is not magically erased because the person who caused it says that they didn’t mean to do it. ― Danya Ruttenberg
Repentance is a word that lands with all the grace of a slab of concrete.
Like cubicles in HR, it lacks fun and rainbow sprinkles, and exudes an aura of monotone dread. If you’re sitting on that squeaking pink-beige chair in the HR cubicle, you know your day is going to suck. Best outcome: Lots of paperwork. Worst? Silver handcuffs for embezzlement, maybe, or a tumble of consequences that leave you unhoused and hungry in short order.
And with that cheerful intro, this year’s Unitarian Universalist common read is Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. Ruttenberg is a rabbi, and her book concerns the teachings of Moses ben Maimon, a 12th century Sephardic Jewish philosopher and physician.
Specifically, Ruttenberg deals with Maimonides’ ideas about repentance, which involves five steps:
- Naming and owning harm, otherwise known as confession
- Starting to change, so you don’t repeat that harm
- Making restitution and accepting consequences
- Apologizing
- Making different choices or, to steal a line from a different religion, “go forth and sin no more”
Repentance is not the same as forgiveness, which may be granted or not at any point in the process. It is also not the same as atonement, which involves getting right with the Divine; repentance involves the harm we commit against other people or communities of people, either intentionally or unintentionally.
In other words, asking the Divine for forgiveness cannot replace repairing the breach with actual human people. God or Goddess or the Gods cannot dissolve our obligations to the human world – including both our ancestors and our descendants. And yes, we are on the hook for the crimes of our ancestors, including genocide and enslavement, because the legacy of those harms continues to exist – and will continue, until and unless we do the actual work of repentance.
This may seem unlikely reading for a Pagan priestess, but – spoiler alert – I loved it. I absolutely sucked down that book during the course of several days, and I recommend that you read it, too.
Because repentance is the real message we need, both spiritually and societally. And it may not be the message you think it is.
Dear Jesus, please forgive me for slapping toddlers and stealing candy
I’m sorry you feel that way. – Every asshole ever
I suppose, like many Pagans, my view of repentance is colored by American cultural Christianity. This image is intimately tied with shame and belief, captured so well by the Chick tracts left in the Rail Trail bathroom. My tongue-in-cheek synopsis:
I must confess to the Lord Jesus Christ that I am a sinner with absolutely no inherent worth, and on the bullet train to hell. If I accept that I am a worthless piece of shit and say the magic words professing Christ as my lord and savior, and never, ever go against what the pastor or priest says, then I can go to the Happy Place when I kick it. The Happy Place is all that matters. If I want God to love me, then all I need to do is think Happy Thoughts about God 24/7.
Repentance, in the Chick tract context, is about embracing shame as your core identity and erasing the self. Because “faith, not works” has become the core of many strains of Protestantism, the impact of harmful actions on fellow humans isn’t worth considering; only your belief in God matters, evidenced by obedience to your betters. Those who are victims of harm are pressured to unilaterally forgive those who commit harm – i.e., “turn the other cheek” – rather than hold them to account.
Apologies in this context are paradoxically superficial and sacred. “I am sorry” comes from “I am sorrowful” – in other words, “I feel bad that you feel bad.” The prioritizing of faith over works means that intent – the inner experience of the perpetrator – is more important than the actual act, either the act of harm itself or any act of redress. Therefore, “I feel bad that you feel bad” is considered enough to erase the harmful deeds – abracadabra!
I’m sorry, we’ll pretend that nothing bad happened: No sirree, no Indiana pastor raped a 16-year-old girl on his office floor. I confessed to the congregation and the Lord forgave me. The account book is closed. Next.
Question this, and you instantly become the offender: But I said I’m sorry! I prayed and Jesus forgave me!That’s where the sacredness factors in: Forgiveness is a holy obligation, and withholding that forgiveness is somehow a worse sin than the actual wrongful act that was committed.
It makes sense that this philosophy developed in the capitalist, militaristic West. By conflating repentance and atonement (the God stuff), we dissolve our social bonds in acid. “Right belief” and intent are the only things that matter – and which are determined entirely by our individual efforts. We have no obligations to our fellow beings, either to avoid harming them or to repair harms already committed.
So, it’s A-Okay to keep slaves as long as you’re right with God. “Kill the Indian and save the man” makes perfect sense because your side was blessed by God and theirs wasn’t. Forgiveness is just another commodity that the strong beat out of the victimized.
It’s okay: I feel bad that you feel bad. Next.
But that’s not what repentance originally meant – not in Judaism, not even in Christianity.
“Repent” comes from the Latin repenitire, which essentially means “to really regret.” The latter part of the word comes from the Greek poinē, or punishment – the same root as the word “pain.” So, pain and penalty lie at the heart of repentance – the English word for it, at any rate.
In Hebrew, the word is tshuvah, or “returning,” with the sense of coming back to where we’re supposed to be spiritually speaking, Ruttenberg points out.
The word translated as “repentance” in Greek scripture is metanoia, which means “to change one’s mind or thought.” Metanoia is a fascinating concept. It’s the name for the act of prostrating before God – on your knees, forehead to the floor. It’s a term in the Hellenic art of rhetoric for modifying a statement just uttered, to strengthen or soften it or improve its accuracy. In psychology, metanoia is a psychological breakdown, followed by reintegrative healing; you’re built back in a more adaptable, open way.
From my understanding of Christian scripture – my admittedly Pagan, dilettante understanding – metanoia is essentially a conversion experience. It changes you – not just your intent, but your sense of self and your conduct.
You’re no longer the person who slaps toddlers upside the head to steal their lollipops. And you know this because you are no longer slapping toddlers and stealing lollipops. You’re not even tempted by the kind with the bubblegum in the middle.
Where Christianity fails and Judaism succeeds, however, is the making of amends: You try to repair the damage you have done to the toddlers you slapped. Individually, you may make sincere efforts to pay for their therapy and buy them new lollipops. This may not be possible: The babies may have grown up and moved out of the area or be too traumatized by your presence to accept a lollipop. So, you find other ways to address the breach: You give money and time to organizations that prevent violence against toddlers. You give away Tootsie Pops every Halloween.
Maybe some of those toddlers, now old enough to have mastered language, offer you forgiveness. Even so, you cannot erase this stain on your identity: Once upon a time, you were such a sugar junkie that you stole candy from babies and were willing to resort to low-level violence to accomplish this. You’re open about that fact, even though that means you face permanent consequences, such as never landing a job in a daycare.
That’s repentance.
Light as a feather – or it’s crocodiles for you
I have not committed sin I have not committed robbery with violence. I have not stolen. I have not slain men or women. I have not destroyed the grain…. – The Papyrus of Ani
Reading about repentance, I was reminded of an even more ancient concept from North Africa: Ma’at,variously translated as “truth, order, harmony” and other pretty nouns. Similar constellations of ideas were preserved in the Vedic Ṛta, and later Indic concepts of dharma and karma – or collective (dharma) and individual (karma) action.
In ancient Egypt, Ma’at was both a concept and a Goddess, often appearing winged and with an ostrich feather on her head. In essence, Ma’at was the embodiment of ancient Egyptian law – not just legal pronouncement, but morality, ethics and the sacred. When you died, your heart was weighed in the scales against her feather; if the guilt in your heart outweighed the feather, you became crocodile chow for the Eater of the Dead.
After death, the soul – I forget which one; the ancient Egyptians believed in seven or eight individual souls – recited what’s known as the “negative confession.” Apparently, these confessions varied from person to person, and could be quite lengthy.
I have not reduced measures. I have not stolen the god's property. I have not told lies. I have not stolen food. I was not sullen. I have not committed adultery. I have not caused (anyone) to weep….
One version I have seen ended with the words: I am pure. I am pure. I am pure.
The negative confession shows the link between atonement – getting right with the Divine – and confession, and the importance of avoiding harm both to individuals (no killing or stealing), human community (no trashing the canals or screwing with weights and measures) and the sacred (no masturbating in the temple! Yep, that was a real rule as outlined in the negative confession, so I guess it was a problem).
But what if you performed one of the illicit activities? How could you turn the situation around before the Eater of the Dead snacked on your heart? I don’t know offhand, but in other ancient cultures, you would have engaged in ritual acts of purification.
That includes ancient Israel, a contemporary* of Egypt and not that far as the vulture flies. (*Egypt is ridiculously, dazzlingly old, with more than 4,000 years of recorded history. When Cleopatra reigned as pharaoh, the pyramids were already 2,000 years old.)
In ancient Israel, repentance and atonement were ritual acts, conducted with blood and goats by the high priest in the holy of holies. It’s not that strange for the times; in many ancient communities, priests and priestesses used animal sacrifice as a means of expiation or ridding the community of impurity. The sacrifice of piglets, for example, was part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and bull’s blood was used in the rites of Mithras. The ritual of the scapegoat is famously found in the Old Testament, but also throughout the ancient Middle East and in parts of Greece.
Rites of purification are found the world over, including the Roman Lupercalia. The intent is to clean and reconsecrate the shrine, to return the city and people to the wholeness of the holy, and therefore ensure future health and abundance. Pagans still do versions of this today, typically with salt, water or the smoke of burning herbs to drive off all that keeps us from engaging with the sacred.
Of course, times and rituals change. The fall of the Second Temple in Israel ended the ancient atonement ritual conducted there by the high priest, transforming it into a true community rite of shared repentance. Pagans these days are more likely to whip out the salt than the bull’s blood.
The act of purification – ridding ourselves of influences that separate us from the Divine – persists in spiritual practice because it performs a necessary role. We can consider the large-scale work of repentance – owning where we have failed, making amends and changing ourselves and our course – in a similar light. Like the sting of smoke and salt, the work is rarely pleasant.
Repentance is a humbling reminder that we are not perfect. Despite our best intentions, we are going to fuck up and cause harm. Sometimes, we don’t have the best intentions. Sometimes, we are born into systems of harm.
We can choose to sink deeper into miasma in a perpetual Sith cosplay, or distract ourselves with the shiny, or armor ourselves with angry justifications, or strongarm our victims into “forgiveness.” Or we can choose the path of metanoia: addressing our harms in both our deepest selves and in human community, allowing ourselves to be utterly changed by this work.
Repentance is not accomplished by magic words, intent, thinking happy thoughts or offering constant words of praise to a particular deity. Empathy without action – I feel bad that you feel bad – is just another form of selfishness.
I’m not exactly sure how to land this sphinx, other than to say that we – Pagans, Christians, atheists, everyone – need to find our way back to metanoia because that’s the path to transformation. The self isn’t evil, but we have tilted so far to individualism that we have lost a sense of the common good. In fact, we publicly exalt the doers of harm – and then shrug and say, “What can you do?”
A lot, actually, if you start with yourself.
Be generous as long as you live
What leaves the storehouse does not return;
It is the food to be shared which is coveted,
One whose belly is empty is an accuser;
One deprived becomes an opponent,
Don’t have him for a neighbor.
Kindness is a man’s memorial
For the years after the function
— The Instructions of Ptahhotep
White Cat Grove 
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