Plurielles — This issue of Plurielles, a secular Jewish review, is devoted to the question of “Return,” in its various dimensions, beginning with the “return to religion” that occupies a significant place in our current affairs. That is why it seemed useful to us to hear the point of view of a rabbi — a fortiori if that rabbi1 is no devotee of wooden language. Return, in Hebrew, is teshuva. This word also means answer. Ambiguity, or simple homonymy?
Yeshaya Dalsace — I think there is an ambiguity of meaning, and that this ambiguity sometimes allows the word to be used carelessly. Originally, teshuva, as conceived in particular by Maimonides — who wrote the Hilkhot teshuva2, drawing of course on Talmudic sources — is a matter of repentance. Neither answer nor return, but repentance after a transgression. The meaning of return is a contemporary one. It is in this sense that Neher used it, that of a return to one’s sources — apropos of Schoenberg or of Rosenzweig, for example. This is not the case with Maimonides, who above all defines a psychological and moral process. The baal teshuva is the one who, finding himself once again in the situation where he had transgressed, manages no longer to transgress. As long as one has not found oneself in the same situation — a highly theoretical hypothesis, to be sure — one cannot be a baal teshuva.
Plurielles — Here it is a matter of a given transgression, of a determinate circumstance…
Yeshaya Dalsace — Yes, Maimonides gives the example of sexual temptations and the example of forbidden foods. One finds oneself faced with the same situation, the same temptation, but one resists. It is a matter of self-mastery, of discipline. It is not a question of servile obedience to an absurd law. The mitzvot are nothing other than this project of mastery. I even think it has nothing to do with religious belief. On this point, I do not understand secular people, who insist at all costs on linking the system of mitzvot to belief. If there is belief, it is incidental. One can be a perfect atheist and observe the commandments, seek to master oneself, to purify oneself… Does someone who practices an art, any discipline whatsoever, do anything different? A return to the rule, the capacity to take oneself in hand. In this it is a major religious act.
Plurielles — If I speak here of repentance (a translation sometimes criticized, but after all, etymologically, the word repentance literally means return), I do not, then, shock you?
Yeshaya Dalsace — No, why? These terms have been criticized because people saw in them an expression of pious sentimentality; but, on the one hand, that dimension also exists within Judaism, and, on the other, there is far more to it than that: precisely this capacity to do work on oneself.
Plurielles — One has the feeling that this repentance is a permanent requirement, but that there are also, so to speak, “days for it,” a calendar (Yom Kippur, the “Ten Days” of penitence). How are these two dimensions reconciled?
Yeshaya Dalsace — First, yes, a daily requirement: one must make teshuva all the time. Judaism is a very demanding system, so demanding that it is impracticable, that one is bound to fail at one moment or another. Hence, moreover, a guilt-inducing side, which can become pathological, suffocating. But there is a release valve: since one will fail in any case, perhaps it is not so serious; and on the other hand, if one manages to correct, to set one’s practice straight, one tends toward perfection. This is the Jewish ideal of the tzaddik (the “righteous one”). It is necessarily a work of every instant: the daily examination of conscience (heshbon nefesh). Maimonides goes so far as to give methods, recipes, for correcting one’s character.
Now, as for the “calendar”: Judaism gives, in a sense, an instrument to the individual who is not necessarily capable of doing this work every day; and above all, it introduces the collective dimension, which seems to me the most interesting. The individual is carried along by this collective calendar, by the moment shared by all. Judaism does not want to leave anyone behind. The “Exodus from Egypt” is with everyone: no one left out. When God proposes to Moses that he make another people out of an elite, Moses refuses: this is foundational. The collective dimension is crucial. The festival of Yom Kippur is bound up with the existence of the people, of the group. There is also a collective dimension in teshuva: the group too must perfect itself, must amend itself.
Plurielles — In this project of teshuva, is it a matter of amending oneself on the level of acts or on that of intentions? Does Judaism ask anything beyond the observance of rules and commandments?
Yeshaya Dalsace — In fact, both are asked. It is a whole debate in Judaism: do the mitzvot require intention? The majority view holds that they do. If we take the example of someone who gives to the needy, there is the practical imperative, to be sure: we are asked to give, that is the minimum. But we are not quits for all that. Maimonides, in the Hilkhot tzedaka, introduces gradations. I must give, but if I give with good intention, with a kind word, that is preferable. Judaism believes in the human being’s capacity to reach a high moral level.
Plurielles — So teshuva must also bear on conscience, on character, on dispositions of mind…
Yeshaya Dalsace — Yes. Even on one’s energy at work, for example: rising earlier, being more dynamic, and so on. Judaism concerns itself with this aspect too. To be sure, by proposing so demanding a model, there is the risk of crushing or discouraging. Hasidism sought to ward off this risk, to reintroduce joy, so as to avoid falling into a deadening guilt.
Plurielles — Does teshuva concern everyone? One thinks, of course, of the Book of Jonah, read on the day of Yom Kippur, which recounts the repentance of a pagan city, Nineveh. Does traditional Judaism keep in mind that the moral demand on the Nations may exceed the observance of the “Noachide laws”?
Yeshaya Dalsace — Judaism does indeed consider itself a kind of model, but it takes nothing away from others. It has never said that the Nations should be content with the Noachide laws, which are only a minimum, the minimum that constitutes humanity. From this perspective, Jews too are “Bnei Noah,” “sons of Noah.” Not to apply them would be to be a barbarian. That said, that within each civilization there should arise a discipline as meticulous — among Buddhists, among Christian monks, for example — as in Judaism, there is no doubt about it. It is in no way a matter of denying others their moral capacities. Teshuva exists among non-Jews.
Plurielles — In the Book of Jonah, the example is set by “pagans,” which is in itself remarkable; on the other hand, this teshuva is nonetheless made before the Eternal, within the horizon of the God of Israel. When you speak of other forms of moral or ethical discipline, we are already in another horizon.
Yeshaya Dalsace — This question must be contextualized. In the texts of Antiquity, the problem of paganism is immorality — a caricatural representation, perhaps, for that matter. Nineveh, moreover, in the Jewish tradition, is less paganism than power, pillage, murder. What is clear is that the inhabitants of Nineveh heard the message and returned to the right path. Another fundamental theme in the story of Jonah: from the moment God does not punish, He runs the risk of making Himself ridiculous. A God who does not punish — one is never sure He exists. Jonah does not want to be the messenger of a divinity that can be mocked. But here we are perhaps moving away from the theme of teshuva. And yet… We also find here the theme dear to Y. Leibovitz: to make teshuva is to expect nothing in return. In this regard, let us grant that the repentance of the inhabitants of Nineveh, who repent because they are afraid of being destroyed, is not necessarily the summit of teshuva; but it is better than nothing!
Plurielles — A final halakhic question. Are there transgressions for which teshuva would not exist?
Yeshaya Dalsace — Yes, there is the unforgivable. Murder, in particular. There is a passage in the tractate Yoma that shows that, for transgressions against one’s fellow human being, there is no automatic forgiveness, that one must make an approach toward the other. But for murder, since the other is no longer there to forgive, what happens? The murderer must accept that the crime is irreparable. To be sure, he can make teshuva, decide never to kill again, bitterly regret it, but what he has done remains irreparable.
Plurielles — But teshuva is not the reparation of evil.
Yeshaya Dalsace — No, but it also implies this idea of reparation. The one who makes teshuva is also asked to take on what is irreparable in his acts. Having regretted, or correcting oneself, is not enough to correct the past. One recalls that question of forgiveness, as Heschel formulated it with regard to the Shoah: one cannot forgive in the name of others, in the name of the dead. There, it is the extreme example, but there are others. In Judaism, to humiliate, to vex, to shame another is assimilated to murder. And who is to say, indeed, that having been humiliated once will not provoke in the individual a resentment for life? Judaism seeks, and this is what is interesting, to go to the very end of the chain of consequences.
Plurielles — Let us turn to the ethical aspect. We have spoken of the baal teshuva. Today this word has taken on a particular, somewhat different dimension: it designates the one who, coming from a secular culture, returns to Judaism, in a global way — the one who makes return to religion, sometimes in a very… ostentatious manner. How do you see this new acceptation?
Yeshaya Dalsace — The phenomenon has always existed, ever since Moses! Moses is the very archetype of the one who, born far from his religion, returns to it. One can relate this aspect to the notion of tinok shenishba, the Jewish child taken away and raised among pagans, who knows nothing: can he be reproached for not doing what he does not know? Obviously, some examples are more famous than others: the Marranos, Spinoza’s family — and perhaps even Spinoza himself…
Plurielles — Still, one cannot present Spinoza as a baal teshuva.
Yeshaya Dalsace — It is not so clear. After all, his last work is a Hebrew grammar…
Plurielles — That is perhaps not enough to make him a baal teshuva… even Protestants wrote Hebrew grammars!
Yeshaya Dalsace — Granted, but in a different spirit. Spinoza remains worked upon by Judaism. Just as much as Herzl. It is not said that Spinoza, in other circumstances, with another community, could not have lived as a Jew… His Judaism did not disappear.
Plurielles — Certainly, but the remnants of Judaism are still something other than the return to Judaism.
Yeshaya Dalsace — All right, but I take a borderline example, deliberately. Take Herzl’s trajectory: it too is a trajectory of teshuva; after all, he devoted his life to it, exhausted his strength on it, nothing obliged him to do so.
Plurielles — From Moses to Herzl, that is a very broad prism. Should we conclude that you refuse to reserve the term baal teshuva for the Jew alone who makes return to the Torah stricto sensu?
Yeshaya Dalsace — Absolutely. That would be to reduce the notion. This notion implies — and here we are indeed within return — a return to what is lost…
Plurielles — Placing memory, culture, religion on the same plane…?
Yeshaya Dalsace — Yes. It is one and the same identity-driven endeavor, in which one seeks to reconnect with what one has moved away from. In this sense, the notion is complex.
Plurielles — But one can imagine that a rabbi would privilege the religious form of teshuva.
Yeshaya Dalsace — Yes and no, it depends. If it is to fall into a kind of caricatural ritualism, I see no depth in that; whereas there are forms of secular teshuva that, by their spirituality, are well worth superficial religious forms. Judaism is more complex than a mere religion. “Repentance” is not the exclusive province of the religious. Perhaps the secular Jew will not make teshuva on such-and-such a dietary point because it will mean nothing to him, but he will do so on another level. There is no reason to establish a hierarchy between the one who puts the tzitzit back on and the one who, for example, takes up studying Yiddish with passion.
Plurielles — Let us speak of the one who returns to religion properly speaking. What sometimes happens normally engenders, at other times, real dramas, conflicts, even family ruptures, forms of acute intolerance…
Yeshaya Dalsace — There is a perversion there. The foundation of Judaism is living together: making sure the family stays united. Without which there is no Israel — a problematic that greatly interested Léon Ashkénazi, by the way. Now, in the name of ritual, some sacrifice this living-together. There is here a pathology of teshuva, nourished by nostalgia for a world that, in any case, was not what one believes. Between traditional Judaism and the return to the ghetto, there is an enormous difference. Beyond the technical questions — the modus vivendi to be found with others, the accommodations, and so on — I reject this sort of obsession with purity, this “neo-Qumranism.” One shuts oneself into a “cave,” which gives us the illusion of being protected, outside time; one wants to return to a golden age, before the Enlightenment, before secularization, and so on. Now, this is an unhealthy disposition of mind, incapable of providing answers. Judaism went through a period of secularization, for all sorts of reasons, but it is not by returning to pre-modern forms of Judaism that one will find an answer. This phenomenon is perhaps, moreover, not destined to last.
Plurielles — Considerable ethical problems sometimes arise. We have seen Jews of the “return” who, after their divorce, no longer wanted to know their children born of a non-Jewish woman…
Yeshaya Dalsace — That is a moral and psychological pathology. And if I am told that such a man is following a rabbi’s advice, I will say that one gets the rabbi one deserves! As in the Pirkei Avot: “make for yourself a rabbi” — which can mean “find yourself a master” but also “choose your rabbi.” On this question you raise, that of the child’s status, the model, for me, is Abraham, who, when God announces to him the birth of Isaac, asks “what will become of Ishmael?” and does not rest until he has received the promise that Ishmael too will found a great nation… Tradition will even add that Abraham will stay in contact with Ishmael. In the case you raise, it is a failure of the individual and of the system. It is a “profanation of the Name” (Hillul Hashem). The one who is incapable of taking on his past, his children, claims to reconnect with tradition, and in reality profanes it.
There is in some people the will to find an answer, a ready-made answer. Now, the answer is found within oneself. Let one draw inspiration from a master, from a tradition, of course; but the work is done inside each person. Religion, spirituality, is an inner endeavor that demands depth, not this caricature. Secular people often caricature religion, but religion sometimes caricatures itself. How often one sees ignoramuses dressed up as rabbis! Dress is highly significant. This need to show oneself, this mania for dressing sometimes even outside the ancestral sartorial traditions… Sephardim who think themselves obliged to dress in the Eastern European fashion — that makes one smile. I do not judge individuals, but the phenomenon. Some people seek to be accepted in certain circles, to show their credentials: there is something sad about it, at times.
Plurielles — One is often struck by this renunciation of critical spirit, or by a fixation on purely external aspects of religion, such as the rules of modesty.
Yeshaya Dalsace — A revealing aspect, indeed. In Israel, there is currently, in certain milieus, an ostracizing of women. There is hardly a week without an incident. A bus line that can no longer pass without being stoned in Mea Shearim, other lines used by the Orthodox where men and women are separated, the singing of women that becomes a problem. Why this focus? To be sure, Judaism has taken an interest in modesty (tzniut); these rules must be studied with intelligence in order to know how and how far to apply them. The sociological context in which these texts developed is one of fairly strict separation of the sexes. But at the same time, the Talmud shows the existence of relations, of contact between the sexes, whose boldness sometimes astonishes us. The fixation observed today on certain false problems is revealing of an emptiness. It becomes a reason to exist. It is, in my view, the marker of a profound failure of those milieus. This phenomenon of radicalization is an admission of failure.
Plurielles — Which brings me to the last question. When you are spoken to of the “return of the religious,” how do you envisage it? With confidence? With distrust? Do you see in it a promise or a threat?
Yeshaya Dalsace — One must not caricature. The phenomenon of secularization had negative consequences for Judaism and its survival, that is certain. The phenomenon of return is, in this sense, positive. There are today many more places where one studies, more Jewish places and books, more people who know the texts, Hebrew. For all that, there is a flip side, caricatural aspects, as we have said. But over the long term, there will be a swing of the pendulum. At the level of Jewish culture, these past hundred and fifty years have been a roller coaster: so many revolutions, upheavals — assimilation, Zionism, the Shoah! We are passing through a zone of turbulence, but what is interesting is to know whether the plane will keep flying, and how. I, for my part, remain optimistic about Judaism’s resources and its power of renewal. I am sure it has not said its last word, and that this last word will not be one of sectarianism. I am sure that from these phenomena interesting things will emerge, but not necessarily in the short term: it may take a few generations…