GEN520 The Jewish way to expiation for sin is remarkably universal and democratic. God is available to everyone. As the Book of Jonah reminds us, you don’t have to be Jewish to do teshuvah.  Even the Ninevites, citizens of the capital of the hated Assyrian Empire, gave up their evil ways when Jonah called into account. Then, to Jonah’s intense annoyance, God promptly forgave them.  Jews still read this story every Yom Kippur afternoon to remind us that God listens to the sincerest supplications of gentiles as well as Jews. And this narrative also makes plain the Jewish belief that every human being, without needing a “professional” clergy or special rite, can do teshuvah by directly asking for God’s forgiveness. Our tradition teaches that people are capable and God is caring. As the rabbi said: “The only intercessors with God a person needs are repentance and good deeds” Shabbat 32a “Even if your sins are as high as heaven, even onto the seventh Heaven, and even to the throne of glory, and you repent, I will receive you” Pesikta Rabbati 185a, in Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, cf. 44.7 Scholars debate the reason that this belief achieved its prominence in rabbinic teaching.  Did we ask for forgiveness in the wake of the Temple’s destruction, blaming this massive catastrophe on our grievous sins?  Or was it developed as a conscious tenet to counter beliefs in an emerging Christian church?  An early midrash states the rabbinic view succinctly: “And Cain went out” [this verse].  On his way Cain met his father Adam [neither of them, of course, were Jews]. The latter, surprised to see his son, asked: ‘What has happened to the judgment of death that God passed upon you for killing Abel?’ Cain replied, ‘I repented, and I am pardoned.’  When Adam heard that, he smote his face and said, ‘Is the power of repentance as great as that? I did not know it was so’” Leviticus Rabbah 10:5. In contrast to Jewish teaching as it emerged at this time, classic Christian doctrine teaches that people are born as sinners, an inheritance from what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. That being the inevitable human condition, people cannot reconcile themselves to God on their own. But out of God’s abundant love for humanity, God sends the Christ into history. His self-sacrifice thus saves people from their sinful state.  Judaism teaches that God’s love for people is so great, they only need to show God a genuine desire to turn away from their sin, and God will accept them.  Indeed, the rabbis do not hesitate to suggest that God, so to speak, also participates in our repentance: “A king’s son was sick, and the doctor said that if he would eat a certain thing, he would be healed.  But the son was too frightened to eat it. His father said to him, ‘So that you may know that it will not harm you, I will eat of it.’  God said to Israel, ‘You are ashamed to repent; behold, I will be the first to repent,’ as it is written: Thus says Adonai, Behold I will turn’ [Jeremiah 30:18] Pesikta Rabbah 44:7.  Are we exaggerating the rabbinic love of teshuvah? If so, we stand in good company: “R. Levi said: If the Israelites would but repent for one day, they would be redeemed, and the Messiah, the son of David, would come straight away, as it says, ‘Today, if you would but hear His voice’ [Psalm 95:7]” Song of Songs Rabbah 5:2 BOROJMV 273-4