Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Psychology

ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR

Danya Ruttenberg

Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

A crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm - from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unresolved issues.

Our culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narratives instead of the perpetrator's recompense for harmed parties. As survivor communities have pointed out, these emphases have too often only caused more harm. But Danya Ruttenberg knew there was a better model, rooted in the work of the medieval philosopher Maimonides.

For Maimonides, upon whose work Ruttenberg elaborates, forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which a person who caused harm is obligated. He laid out five steps: naming and owning harm; starting to change/transformation; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices. Applying this lens to both our personal relationships and some of the most significant and painful issues of our day, including systemic racism and the legacy of enslavement, sexual violence and harassment in the wake of #MeToo, and land rights, On Repentance and Repair helps us envision a way forward.

Rooted in traditional Jewish concepts while doggedly accessible and available to people from any, or no, religious background, On Repentance and Repair is a book for anyone who cares about creating a country and culture that is more whole than the one in which we live, and for anyone who has been hurt or who is struggling to take responsibility for their mistakes.

Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author, educator, and rabbi. She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Time, Newsweek, and many other publications, and contributes regularly to The Washington Post and The Forward. She has also been featured on NPR numerous times, as well as in USA Today, NBC News, CNN, MTV News, Vice, Buzzfeed News, Upworthy, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Al Jazeera America, Reese Witherspoon's podcast How It Is, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Available products
Book Published 2022-09-13 by Beacon Press

Comments

Danya Ruttenberg's ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR has won the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice. Read more...

When you read Danya Ruttenberg's brilliant book, you see with fresh eyes that there is a huge omission in contemporary culture: we don't have a road map for how someone who's done harm can change and make amends to others, nor do we discuss why this is necessary for both individual recovery and societal well-being.

In this time of increasing polarization, and a "cancel culture" in which people who make serious infractions or even minor missteps are thrown out like trash, there seems to be no path to reconciliation, or re-integration. I am grateful for the wisdom that Rabbi Ruttenberg brings to this topic, because sometimes when the wisdom of the day offers no path to healing, the wisdom of the past is the best source of hope.

A modern and impressive blueprint for confronting and engaging the effects of harm and the potential for reconciliation.

Danya Ruttenberg's deep thinking and social compassion are a welcome antidote to the toxic individualism pervading our daily lives. On Repentance is a vital contribution to any conversation about how to ethically and empathetically navigate the complex and compressed times we live in.

A must read for anyone navigating the work of justice and healing. Rabbi Ruttenberg weaves together stories and insights that prompt big questions for every person who aspires to build bridges and help shape a more just and inclusive nation and world.

Ruttenberg's book sets out guidelines for full-hearted repentance - the kind of atonement that people should do, but often don't.

Excellent, necessary... Her careful and thoughtful writing frequently includes the voices of others, centering the needs of victims and holding the words of perpetrators to account.

In a time of war, poverty, violence, and pitched political and personal battles, are we able to face the harm we cause, allow, or even excuse? We must, says Jewish author, essayist, op-ed writer, and social activist Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. She points to a guide who might steer us to transforming ourselves and our society - the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides - in her new book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World... The book releases just weeks Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. But Ruttenberg says Maimonides' advice holds true for anyone of any faith or none who seeks to wipe their soul's slate clean. She writes in the book that you can "pray and weep and pour out your heart (to God), but it's not going to do a dang thing until you've actually done the work... You must own the harm you have caused, you must do the work to change, you must make amends, apologize, and, if the opportunity arises, you must make different choices next time." PW talked with Ruttenberg about why she sees this transformative process as hard, hopeful, and essential. Read more...