Teshuva seems to require both that we transform ourselves into someone new and that we return to who we once were and really are. Looking to a range of classical and modern rabbinic texts, we’ll explore this tension and the ways in which genuine and effectively transformative teshuva requires embracing who we’ve been and who we are in the present. We’ll consider these questions with respect to individuals, communities, and the human world at large.
Alex S. Ozar is rabbi and co-director of the OU-JLIC program at Yale University, where he recently completed a doctorate in philosophy and religious studies with a dissertation entitled “Some Are Guilty, All Are Responsible: A Theory and Ethics of Prophetic Citizenship.” He holds a BA, MA, and rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. His writing has appeared in Harvard Theological Review, Journal of Religious Ethics, Dine Israel, Jewish Quarterly Review, Torah U-Madda Journal, and Tradition, and TheLehrhaus.com.
