Covering “Sin”

אֵין הַתְּשׁוּבָה וְלֹא יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפְּרִין אֶלָּא עַל עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַמָּקוֹם

Teshuvah and Yom Kippur only atone for sins between man and God;

— Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Sefer Madda, Repentence 2

First, a note: If you have grown up in a majority Christian culture like the United States or most of Europe, you might not realize that “sin” isn’t understood the same way in all cultures or religions. In Hebrew there are three different words that are commonly translated as “sin”. The one in this quote is “averah”. The root of this word is the same as the root for “the past” (he-avar) and “crossing” (ovehr). One way to parse this word instead of calling it sin is “an act which crosses the line [of decency, goodness, the law, etc]”. (see Jastrow)

Second note: Yom Kippur is translated as the “Day of Atonement”, but the word “kippur” comes from the root “כפר” which means to bend or to cover. (see Jastrow)

Third note: Teshuva is often translated as repentance. The Hebrew word holds more meaning in it than the English word does, though. Teshuva is a turning away from a behavior, and it is also an answer for that behavior. Teshuva in its fullest sense can be both repentance and repair. (see Jastrow here and here)

It struck me as we studied this text in class that this idea of “covering sins” is something that Christians talk about in the context of salvation through Christ. In at least some¹ Christian frameworks, the blood of Christ is what covers all sins, all crossings of the line of the law or goodness. While I do not ascribe to that belief system, I can see the value of being able to clear the whole account and start fresh. Guilt can be paralyzing. For some, the belief that they’ve already messed up too much leads to a nihilistic sense that there’s no point in trying to be good.

The negative side of covering sins, though, is that it can lead to a lack of accountability. When you hurt people, you need to do something to repair that harm. You can’t just say, “I’m forgiven, you need to move on!”² Unfortunately, a lot of people do just that these days, whether within a religious framework or a secular one. Think of the HR person who says something along the lines of, “We sent him to a diversity training. You need to stop holding a grudge about his past statements, be more professional, and just work with him.”

This text says that you can only cover the harm in your relationship with G!d by turning away from your misbehavior and fasting on Yom Kippur. It goes on to explain that if you want to atone for a harm that you’ve done to another person, you have to pay reparations and ask forgiveness. Not one or the other. Both. Not just that, but you have to do everything you can to appease the person that you harmed.

Maimonides’ bar for restorative justice is quite high:

Even if a person only upset a colleague by saying [certain] things, he must appease him and approach him [repeatedly] until he forgives him. If his colleague does not desire to forgive him, he should bring a group of three of his friends and approach him with them and request [forgiveness]. If [the wronged party] is not appeased, he should repeat the process a second and third time. If he [still] does not want [to forgive him], he may let him alone and need not pursue [the matter further].

In class someone asked, “But why is there covering at all? How is that justice?” And that, dear reader is the difficulty that I see arise again and again when restorative or transformative justice is brought up as an option.

What is enough punishment for any given crossing of the line? What is Justice?

I think that this is the wrong question to be asking, though. I think that the question we need to ask is “How do we keep our community safe?” The question of Justice asks us to figure out how to balance the scales. The question of community safety asks us to figure out how to create Wholeness.

The word for Peace in Hebrew is שלום and it comes from a root which means “whole”. (see Jastrow) The same root is used for the word “to pay” לשלם. It’s like the corporate speak, “Don’t worry about the money you are spending on this right now. We’ll make you whole before it’s over.” To have Peace you must be Whole. When you trade, a fair balance between the things traded makes sure that everyone remains Whole. So, from a purely transactional perspective we might say that someone needs to pay for the harms that they’ve caused in order to make everyone Whole again. The problem with that is that harms between people do not happen in a vacuum.

Someone who has enough food is unlikely to steal food from a store. Sometimes a thief just can’t pay back money for the thing that they have stollen. That’s not an option, unless you make them Whole by giving them a way to make the money to pay their debt. If someone who has enough steals, there is some other kind of brokenness in them. We’re all broken, something less than Whole, and we all have things that we need to heal. This is a key aspect of Transformative Justice: We need to make sure that the perpetrator has a route to Wholeness so that they are able to repair the harm that they have caused.

Sometimes “covering of sins” is a way to make someone Whole so that they can move toward repairing the harm that they’ve done. If a felon can’t get a job because of their criminal record, how will they ever pay the fines or reparations that they owe? This very problem led California to make a law that employers can’t ask about your criminal record on a job application unless the crime being asked about is directly related to the work you are applying for. That law threads a delicate needle: how do you hide the “sins” in general without giving someone access to easy targets if they have not “turned from” that bad behavior.

The quoted text at the top of this post speaks only about the relationship between G!d and a Person. This is a magical thing, a thing outside of the normal rules of human society and even physics as we know it. For the places where you’ve crossed the line against G!d you need only do the spiritual work. It’s comparatively easy. Stop crossing the line, don’t eat for a day, say some prayers, and you’ll be fine. G!d is already Whole. The only one you need to fix is yourself.

Transformative Justice is a thing between humans and a thing between a single human or a group of humans and the community that they belong to. No human is Whole, so there is a whole lot more work to do.

This little ramble is part of a series of posts about Transformative Justice as I think about the various texts I’m reading — both Jewish and secular — about repentance, repair, and communal responses to harm. I hope that you’ll join me in this study and share your thoughts, too!

1. I am aware that there is a diversity of Christian beliefs across denominations and even individuals, and I am not trying to flatten that here.
2. Many Christian thinkers have written about this problem, too. One example that comes to mind: The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were written within a Christian framework and highlight the need to do repair work and ask forgiveness wherever possible.