Summary: <p>Some hypotheticals:</p> <p>After his lengthy prison term, Harvey Weinstein joins Temple Emanuel and wants to come to services. He says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you sit next to him?</p> <p>We receive a generous check from Jeffrey Epstein to be used by the Temple in any way we wish, and anonymously, no need to publish his gift. He writes I now get it. I was wrong. Would you accept his gift?</p> <p>After referring his 4.6 million followers to a vile Jew-hating movie that denies the Shoah, and after refusing to apologize for it, and after refusing to state that he has no anti-Semitic beliefs, Kyrie Irving goes on March of the Living. He goes to Auschwitz. He goes to Israel. He comes back and says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you support the Nets reinstating him? Would you now root for him?</p> <p>Is <em>teshuvah</em> always available to right our wrongs? Or do we ever reach a point of no return where <em>teshuvah </em>is not possible? It is a complicated question, and the evidence of the Torah is mixed. The concept of <em>teshuvah</em> is late, late, late, not until <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/b83502a0-9c3a-4f92-8485-ae163fdfe403.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deuteronomy chapter 30</a>. Before then, the basic concept is that sinners pay the price. Adam and Eve are banished along with a host of other <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/2519bb88-0863-4c1f-be66-15e5f5eed014.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">punishments</a>.</p> <p>And in the reading tomorrow about <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/2b15c7b5-99f4-4594-86dc-d2fb438b5840.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sodom</a>, the categories are <em>tzadik </em>and <em>rashah, </em>translated by JPS as innocent and guilty, also translated as righteous and evil. That is a binary. What about people doing <em>teshuvah</em> and changing their ways? <em>Teshuvah </em>is not on the table in the Sodom story. Why not?</p> <p>There is a famous story in the <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/bec78a18-d327-4021-a6e6-df9745fca483.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Talmud</a> where Rabbi Meir was attacked by brigands. He prayed that they would die. His wife Beruria took him to task. Wrong prayer, she said. Better instead to pray that they change their ways and sin no more.</p> <p>The issue comes to a point in the closing line of psalm 104: <em>yitamu chataim min haaretz u’reshaim od einam, </em>which is translated in very different ways by our <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/5f1c366f-bdd7-4bb1-9dec-e0ff7159b34b.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">siddur</a> and our <a href="https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/a90fa67c-902e-4edf-bcee-3c2f6eef604e.pdf?rdr=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">JPS Tanakh</a>.</p> <p>Siddur: “Let sins disappear from the earth and the wicked will be no more.”</p> <p>Tanakh: “May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.”</p> <p>Are Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and Kyrie Irving human beings who committed sins; or are they sinners?</p> <p>Do we ever reach a point of no return, and if so, when and what is that point of no return?</p> <p>Are we a healthier religion if we teach that there is a point of no return? Watch it.</p> <p>Live with an active awareness of it.</p>
