A thief, according to both Torah law and common sense, must return her stolen property to its rightful owner. But the Talmud describes circumstances in which the Rabbis choose to waive this basic obligation in service of a different goal: teshuva, or repentance, of the wrongdoer. This Elul, we’ll explore several sugyot addressing different iterations of what becomes known as takanat hashavim, or “the penitents’ ordinance,” and we’ll seek to understand how Chazal imagine the relationship between private virtue and civil society.
Shalhevet Schwartz is a student in the Kollel Iyun v’Halakha at Yeshivat Drisha in Kfar Etzion. Before arriving at Drisha, she served as a Research and Program Coordinator at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she focused on supporting the work of the Kogod Research Center, the Institute’s think tank. Shalhevet received her BA from Yale University, where she graduated in 2021 with a degree in philosophy. She spent several summers working in experiential Jewish education at Camp Stone, most recently in the roles of Rosh Moshava (Head Counselor) and Rosh Beit Midrash, and in 2023 taught a weekly Talmud shiur at Columbia University Hillel. She currently teaches a biweekly in-depth Talmud shiur as part of Hadran’s “Beyond the Daf” project.
