For much of Jewish history, the prescribed dance around the phenomenon of teshuvah (“return”, “repentance”, etc.) has addressed the journey of the individual. A person must first show accountability with other individuals before exploring their relationship with the Divine. [1] In our current period of history where not just the individual character of Jews is at play but also the national or communal character of the Jewish people, it may be high time for us examine the question of tshuvat ha’clal (“communal teshuvah”) and accountability that extends beyond our individual selves. 

Like in many aspects of Jewish tradition, the micro and the macro (aka the personal and the communal, or the earthly world and the higher realms) echo and influence each other. Small change is important. Big change is vital. This fractal approach is the bridge between Kabbalistic theology and changemaking on this planet through teshuvah. The mystical concepts of itoreruta de’le’tata (“awakening from below”) and itoreruta de’le’eila (“awakening from above”) describe how “actions from below awaken the heavenly realm,” [2] eliciting a response and exponential mirroring from the Divine. This means that we can leverage our ability to do the healing work in this realm so that greater, broader healing can happen as a Divine reaction to our work. Or as Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) told us, “we draw a picture and the heavens animate it.” [3] Our instincts and our wisdom systems inherently drive us to pursue the broadest possible change. 

Teshuvah does not always happen as an individual or in isolation. For centuries, congregations have gathered on the High Holidays to chant, “Avinu Malkeinu, regal parent, we have sinned before you.” And yet, these deeply embedded chants and cadences, with all their power and first-person plurality, are still a “sum of the parts”— many voices reflecting on their individual deeds together, rather than a group reflecting on communal deeds. It is a community doing teshuvah but it is still far from communal teshuvah. 

What is Tshuvat ha’Clal?

The power of the group is deeply embedded in Judaism. The centrality of the minyan (prayer quorum of ten) in Jewish tradition gives exponentially greater power to the prayers of a group of people acting together. This belief posits that engaging with prayer without the participation of and witnessing by others pales in relation to the power of communal spiritual work. Can this be true of teshuvah as well? Can a community come together and replicate the basic tenets of the teshuvah model, reflecting on its deeds and changing its behaviors?

Tshuvat ha’clal – teshuvah done by the community as a whole — makes its appearance in the Babylonian Talmud through references to the sins associated with the Golden Calf: “For if an individual has sinned, go [learn] from one who has sinned [as an individual, a.k.a. King David] and if the community has sinned, go [learn] from the community that sinned [as a community, a.k.a. the Gold Calf gang].” [4]  While only sporadically addressed in Jewish tradition, for those few who do discuss it, the goal of such teshuvah in modern times is a messianic homecoming of sorts – the minute all the Jewish people do teshuvah (or keep Shabbat), the messianic era will be launched. [5] For this reason, tshuvat ha’clal’s greatest proponents have been those invested in the philosophy of messianic religious Zionism, since messianic times include a mass return to the Land of Israel.

Sadly, much of these ruminations on tshuvat ha’clal have resided in the realm of philosophy inasmuch as they have been sectarian and not used as a method for interpersonal or inter-group tikkun (“rectification”). As a clal, we have few examples of Jews, as a group, looking at another group (or even a subset of the Jewish people) and saying, “we have harmed you.” Perhaps we don’t believe that tshuvat ha’clal really has power. Perhaps we are frightened of the potential consequences of admitting wrong publicly that may contribute to negative thoughts about us. As long as we remain more concerned about ourselves than the other, we are not doing teshuvah. 

But for those of us who believe in the power of teshuvah to not only bring us to a future Messianic era, but also to mystically enact tikkun olam and improve the quality of life on Earth now, many questions arise. How can the Jewish people harness the power of community and its intentions to grapple with our deeds as a nation? How can we even begin to define the boundaries of our community or which subsets of the community we share values with? We all carry biases. We all inflict damage – both intentionally and unintentionally. We do this as individuals and as groups. Tshuvat ha’clal may be just the vessel our community and its subsets need as we grapple with identity on a global stage and in our own eyes. And how we go about communal teshuvah will say a great deal about who we are at this tense juncture in our story. 

A Model of Tshuvat ha’Clal

For the past quarter century, I have been honored to reside on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil Watuth nations, in a place known to many as British Columbia, Canada. Canada as a country has been undertaking experiments in teshuvah over the past years that have the potential— if we could really listen— to teach the Jewish people much we have yet to see about communal teshuvah and its potential to heal us as a nation. [6]

Over the past two decades, Canadians have begun their engagement with a painful and difficult process of “Truth and Reconciliation” with First Nations, those indigenous people who lived and cared for this land for 15,000 years before Europeans arrived. [7] European colonialism nearly wiped out these nations with violence and disease and these efforts at an honest and practical accounting with national misdeeds is a real-time experience of communal teshuvah in action. Revolving around the horrific residential schools which systematically tore apart indigenous lives, families, and communities, the Truth and Reconciliation process is a first step in national teshuvah, offering a model for communal teshuvah that could help us as Jews (re)think about what teshuvah can mean as a nation, as we grapple with nation-sized woes. 

As a Canadian national teshuvah endeavor, the Truth and Reconciliation Process set the intention of working with “courage and determination” to establish “a new and respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians… restore what must be restored, repair what must be repaired, and return what must be returned.” [8]

Among the core principles of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are several that resonate with much of our tradition’s understanding of the teshuvah process and can inform our development of tshuvat ha’clal. Each has the ability to highlight elements of what our communal teshuvah could look like. Among them are the following:

1. “Reconciliation is a process of healing of relationships that requires public truth sharing, apology, and commemoration that acknowledge and redress past harms.” Perhaps it is time to discuss how much of teshuvah— particularly communal teshuvah— needs to happen in the public eye. While the medieval rabbinic giant Maimonides (12th century) stated that “it is very praiseworthy for a person who repents to confess in public and to make their sins known to others,” [9] private teshuvah remains the dominant approach in our society. As public teshuvah may even include publicly grappling with our shortcomings, the risk of our critics hearing us openly wrestle with our failings is not to be minimized. By overtly stating that we have harmed, we begin a process of return – both to ourselves and to those we have harmed. Might this feed the biases of those who already view us poorly? Perhaps. But the path of return is littered with obstacles. There seems to be no other way to accountability and repair.

2. “Reconciliation requires constructive action on addressing the ongoing legacies of colonialism that have had destructive impacts on Aboriginal peoples’ education, cultures and languages, health, child welfare, the administration of justice, and economic opportunities and prosperity.” The Jewish tradition holds that teshuvah must be specific and forward looking – future action must look dramatically different than past action. In fact Maimonides defined complete teshuvah as “a person confront[ing] the same situation in which they sinned …and, nevertheless, abstain[ing] and not commit[ing] it [again].” [10] The ethical process of teshuvah must be rooted in concepts of justice, a leveling of the playing field, and a realignment of distorted power structures. Tzedek (“justice”) and teshuvah walk hand-in-hand, particularly when it has moved beyond the individual. Throughout the high holidays, we invoke “tzedakah va’hesed” (justice/charity and grace) in our prayers. But if we truly want this from above as we pleadingly chant, we need to model it first down here. This is a case study in Kabbalistic itoreruta de’le’tata (“awakening from below”) - driving the next steps in justice at a broader level by the steps we take here and now. 

3. “The perspectives and understandings of Aboriginal Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers of the ethics, concepts, and practices of reconciliation are vital to long-term reconciliation.” Harm’s impact is inter-generational, as is the healing from it. Leaning into respect for historical traditions and wisdom is a vital honoring step towards reconciliation. Destroying lives and communities destroys centuries of depth; we must acknowledge that recovery could take very long. If our teshuvah doesn’t address this loss by preserving precious wisdom, its potency will be short-lived. For true change to hold, communal teshuvah cannot be a short-term process.

4. Reconciliation requires political will, joint leadership, trust building, accountability, and transparency, as well as a substantial investment of resources. Judaism has long held that teshuvah cannot be just talk. Our relationships must shift. If our teshuvah does not shift our relationship to how power and resources are wielded (even in personal teshuvah), it will be made more of air than earth. The process of Truth and Reconciliation, when working at its best, is designed to foster alliances, reallocate power, and build relationships where they have been broken. This healing – on earth as it is in heaven – calls for all our resources. 

The Canadian national and local efforts at truth and reconciliation offer the Jewish community a real life model of how to go about our own communal teshuvah. While efforts in this realm are also underway in other countries (for example, Chile and South Africa), the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation process is essentially unparalleled. [11] This process is not about negotiating peace or other vital efforts to end oppression that are needed in so many places in the world. It is about accountability, owning up to shared deeds and statements, standing honestly before others and oneself to say, “what we have done was wrong and inflicted harm, pain, and loss.” 

Whether we are speaking of Canada or Israel/Palestine, this is about what is needed to live together on the land, where no one is leaving. The world does not get fixed without teshuvah and when teshuvah happens as a group, its power tentacles out and starts building bridges where chasms existed. We in Canada are fortunate to live in a country that has prioritized its national teshuvah, with all its stumblings, discomfort, and difficulties. This process of Truth and Reconciliation is extremely imperfect and will need to evolve and shift as we target real harm, real needs, and real change. The process has not finished, but it has begun. If we believe politically or mystically (or in a melding of both) that repair is necessary, then we need to stand — together.

Jewish Communal Teshuvah 

The past century has catapulted the Jewish people into unprecedented swathes of nationalist identity. Driven at first by persecution and desire to survive as a people, this surge of nationalism culminated in the formation of the Jewish state of Israel. With little forethought or experience in these areas, enormous questions arose about the nature of Jewish sovereignty, boundaries, and ethical accountability. To what extent have we been true to our values? Do we even know what they are? How much can we own up to the pain we have caused others because of our fears and hurts? How much have we lost the ability to connect with allies and to hear people who think differently than us? How can we do better in managing our sense of alienation and threat? This is not just about us as individuals – it is about us as a people. And these questions address not only the actions taken by a Jewish country and those living there, but also those taken by Jewish communities in the Diaspora supporting it or objecting to its actions.

The actions of a nation-state are by their very nature large in scope and impact, and thus carry large responsibility. As human history has shown us, it is rare that a nation will act with public accountability for its deeds, for this demands the willingness to pause, to dedicate resources, and to find the humility to see that things may need to change. It involves naming that we have erred. It may feel like we are diminishing ourselves in our eyes and in the eyes of others. We may feel like a frai’er (Israeli slang for “sucker”). We will however become a higher version of ourselves as a community.

What would the Jewish versions of Truth and Reconciliation look like on a communal level? At this point in history, it is difficult to imagine that we could do teshuvah as a full global community. However subsets of our community have begun to and will increasingly rise to the need, offering public statements of culpability and an intention to do better. 

Teshuvah does truly raise all ships, bringing heaven and earth closer to each other, in the most holy of collaborations. Can we as a community grow more silent so that we can listen to others? Can we do it without interrupting or correcting them? If we cannot, teshuvah will not occur. Prat (individual) and Clal (communal) need each other, and if we are seeking union and wellbeing, both levels of teshuvah, imperfect as they may be, are called for. As the mystics know, the power of leaning into these efforts can transform worlds. 

Endnotes:

[1] Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides (1138-1204), offers one of the most important platforms for the consideration of Tshuva. He writes of three stages - regret, confession, and commitment to not repeating the misdeed. Prayer and intention alone only suffice regarding misdeeds “between a human and the Divine” (without a human experiencing harm). When damage has been inflicted on other humans, repentance must include restitution for the harm and receiving of forgiveness from the victim. Misheh Torah, Repentance, chapter 2.

[2] Zohar, Lekh Lekha.

[3] Nachman of Breslov, Likutei Moharan Pt 2, 4:3.

[4] Avodah Zara 5a.

[5] See R’ Avraham Yitzhak Kook’s Orot HaTeshuvah for an extensive discussion of this topic. 

[6] Some might ask me, as a relative newcomer to this land (only 21 years here), what does Truth and Reconciliation with First Nations have to do with me? After spending my first twenty years in the United States and the next twenty in Israel, I arrived in Canada in 2001—knowing almost nothing about the region—as I continued my search for a place that felt both sane and welcoming. So, what is my responsibility to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation process? To a large degree, it is about the benefits I experience here - but at whose expense? The very systems that have allowed me to arrive and flourish as an immigrant are the ones that have historically impeded and continue to impede indigenous people from having thriving lives. So, it is about us and our culpability in an unjust reality, one that has not ended for the indigenous people of this land.

[7] Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission operated from 2008-2015 to document the history and lasting impacts of the Canadian Indian residential school system on Indigenous students and their families. Spending $72 million on the effort, the process included interviews with 6,500 individuals and seven national events. Its final 2015 report included 94 calls to action.

[8] What We Have Learned: Principles of Truth and Reconciliation; The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015. www.trc.ca. 

[9] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Repentance, chapter 2.

[10] Mishneh Torah, Repentance, chapter 2.

[11] The teshuvah process undertaken by Germany after the Holocaust is worthy of study in its multiple generations of evolution. From financial restitution to personal and communal rituals of apology to a myriad of other elements – communal and individual— we have what to learn (and at times replicate) there as well.