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Leap of Faith: Do we believe in the power of redemption?
Everyone is talking about movie The Drama and it has spearheaded an interesting debate
New film The Drama has everybody talking after raising a number of issues around redemption that are core to both our shared humanity and our Progressive Jewish tradition.
In the movie, a bride-to-be (played by Zendaya) reveals, a week before her wedding, something huge that changes the way her groom (Robert Pattinson) and everyone else, sees her, possibly forever. Their relationship is thrown into jeopardy. Is that our worst nightmare – to share a shameful secret and then not find redemption for it?
It also raises the question of what, when and who can we forgive.
The response feels quite obvious. If regret is truly there, then one is obligated to consider it. If it isn’t, well… no-one can expect redemption if they haven’t owned, truly owned, the harm they have wreaked. Apologies have to be real and thoughtful, motivated by regret.
Progressive Judaism will always use tradition as a foundation and then respond with contemporary relevance, details and ethics.
Maimonides’ advice from his Hilchot Teshuva has stood the test of time.
1. To name and own the harm done
2. To change and transform from what has been done
3. To offer restitution for the consequences of one’s actions
4. To demonstrate a readiness for different choices
People make mistakes, but without owning them and committing to be better, the regret is flimsy and insubstantial. When the regret is real and all four steps have been followed with genuine remorse, it’s on us to accept – to acknowledge that change can happen. Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone.
It is forbidden for a person to be cruel and not appeased, so when someone feels terrible, makes amends and wants to put things right, it’s incumbent on us to give them a second chance.
The broken tablets that Moses threw at his disobedient people were deposited in the Ark, taught Rabbi Yosef, alongside the new ones, as a reminder of human frailty (BT Bava Batra 14b). Believing in each other’s power to change and grow is a belief in our fellow human, and this belief is at the heart of Progressive Judaism.
I hope The Drama won’t change my mind on this when I see it.
Rabbi Rebecca Birk is at Finchley Progressive Synagogue
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