Guest book review by Heidi Toth who lives, works, writes and runs in Flagstaff, Arizona, with her dog. She is earning a degree in religious studies from Arizona State University, writes midrash about the Hebrew Bible, and is an introvert in an extroverted church.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair examines the process of repentance—both what it should be and what it often looks like—through the lens of the teachings of the 12^th-century rabbi Maimonides. This book was published last year, so her examples are recent: #MeToo, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, school shootings, the transformation of white supremacist heir extraordinaire Derek Black, the debates around “cancel culture”—a phrase as poorly named as “fake news,” and more. Having lived through these, thought about them, debated them, and watched the ongoing events brings relevance to her teachings that I often find lacking in scripture. Ruttenberg writes in such a way that I felt as if she was in the room with me, talking to me, sharing stories, inviting me to change, to think, to practice empathy, to be better.

Repentance is almost certainly not a new subject for everyone reading this—having grown up in the LDS Church, I regularly heard lessons on it—the steps, the importance of it if I want to be forgiven. As a missionary, I gave that lesson countless times to investigators. This book is not a Preach My Gospel lesson. Ruttenberg sets aside forgiveness, unity, and reconciliation and focuses on the act of repentance as a way to heal victims and transform perpetrators—even when those perpetrators are entire organizations or even nations. It is not easy, she reminds the reader repeatedly, yet at no point does her message feel hopeless.

There is so much I want to share from this book—enough to fill a sermon, a lesson, or a month of book club meetings. I’ll share the concepts that stood out most to me and my thoughts as I considered them and encourage you to read the book and look for your own sparks of inspiration.

The steps of repentance

Ruttenberg’s steps will look familiar to most of us:

1. Naming and owning the harm caused. This should be an earnest, honest confession, not avoiding blame, minimizing harm, or defending ourselves with our intentions (26).

2. Starting to change. Note that she says, “Starting to …” The entire process of repentance is how we change. This is the first step down the path to becoming a person who, next time, will make a different choice. (32).

3. Restitution and accepting consequences. This should be meaningful and earnest (36). Restitution to a victim may include paying therapy bills, staying away from places where the victim will be. It may be reparations. It should not include complaining about what a sacrifice this is to the perpetrator or asking for something lesser because the harm “wasn’t that bad.”  

4. Apology. Note that this is not the first step. That is because real apology needs to happen after the perpetrator has done the work to understand the harm caused. It needs to be victim-centric and is not a box that can be checked off. Ruttenberg tells the story of a man who calls a woman at 1 a.m. because he’s going through the 12 steps and needs to apologize for what he did. “What he did” was rape her and then interrupt her out of the blue just to make himself feel better. If hearing from a perpetrator will further harm the victim, an apology must be done differently (41).

5. Making different choices. This is why we engage in repentance. Repentance will never transport us back in time to before we hurt someone; it will never undo the harm done. “The work of repentance demands curiosity, care, and a willingness to face hard things with bravery and honesty. While we can’t undo the past, we can address the present with integrity and endeavor to create a future that is much more whole than anything we can imagine from here” (19).

What’s wrong with unity?

Ruttenberg challenges the ideas of unity and reconciliation—not because either is inherently bad, but because so often they are sought at the cost of real justice and recognition of the victim. She references the aftermath of the American Civil War, when in their zeal for unity and reconciliation, Northern preachers ignored the need for justice or reparations for freed slaves (9). Or consider it in families, when abuse is covered up, ignored, or downplayed to make offenders feel welcome because everyone getting along, no matter how superficially, is more important than honesty, healing, and protecting victims.

Put aside unity, put aside reconciliation, even put aside forgiveness—Ruttenberg’s book calls us to full, complete, no-asterisks, victim-focused repentance. That may result in any of those things, but that cannot be our aim.

Calling an organization, or a nation, to repentance

I live in the United States; I think many of the readers of this site do as well. I hope we are all aware of the wrongs committed by our nation—often in the name of Christian nationalism. A few rise to the top—African slavery and its continued effects on Black people in this country; settler colonialism and the millions of Indigenous people dead, their land stolen, their culture destroyed, their descendants still experiencing the negative effects—and how those sins have never been made right.

I also thought of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What have we done that has never been made right? Have we truly gone through the repentance process for the racist policy that excluded Black men from the priesthood and Black men and women from the temple? I would argue that we haven’t—we have started it, with the revelation that ended the ban in 1978, and with more recent talks and acknowledgments. But my sense has been that the message has been one of, “We know this hurt people, but it’s in the past, so let’s move on.” (I should note that I am a white woman and am not speaking for Black people in the church; for a nuanced discussion among Black Latter-day Saints, see this SL Tribune article after a talk President Oaks gave in 2020.)

So how does an organization or a nation repent? Ruttenberg had a few examples of it done earnestly if imperfectly. She wrote about Germany after the Holocaust—the immediate aftermath fell short, but as time passed—decades, even—the country made changes. Later generations faced the truth of what had happened. Individuals confessed what they had seen and done. They created a society that was more welcoming of refugees (128-9). This process, almost a century later, is ongoing.

So what could the United States do? It could tell the truth—the horrible, unvarnished truth in which American settlers are not the heroes—of the slave trade, slave ownership, and settler colonialism. That is the first step, and given the arguments about textbooks and statues and Confederate flags, even that seems impossible. The rest of the steps seem completely out of reach. They are not, Ruttenberg says: “Of course [a country] must try to do this work in all the ways that it can. . . . Repentance does not unbreak what has been broken so much as interrupt the cycle of repeated harms” (138). Our church could do the same—it could truly acknowledge the damage, it could stop telling people to get over it, leaders could make a concerted effort to call Black, African and other people of color into leadership positions and ensure they speak regularly at General Conference and other events. We could ensure that Black students feel comfortable at BYU.

We do this to become better. Repentance makes us better. It will make our nation, our church, and us as individuals better when we acknowledge and make amends for harm caused. It will transform us into a nation, a church, a people who will make better choices next time.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I’ll finish with words from Rabbi Ruttenberg that keep running through my brain because they explain so beautifully why repentance, rather than being a punishment, is a gift that allows everyone to be transformed into a more complete person: “It’s an act of concern. And facing the harm that I caused is an act of profound optimism. It is a choice to grow, to learn, to become someone who is more open and empathetic” (58).