Teshuvah and the Return to Goodness: Emmanuel Levinas’ Concept of Forgiveness in the Religious Dimension

Abstract

This paper explores Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of Teshuvah or Forgiveness in the Religious/ Judaic Tradition. Levinas wrote the idea of forgiveness in two distinct occasions, in different writings. While the other concept of Forgiveness is named as “pardon” that is written in his major work Totality and Infinity, this paper explores the notion of Teshuvah from the commentary he made in the colloquium organized by the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale in 1963. In addition to the discussion, while the paper is focused on understanding the notion of Teshuvah, it will also highlight Levinas’ ethical responsibility as his form of critique and reevaluation of the Teshuvah from its prescriptive and conditional nature, towards an ethics that is for-the-Other. The discussion of the paper will be as follows, first, it will introduce the main text where Levinas’ mentions the idea of Teshuvah in Towards the Other as to understand how it is written and interpreted by Levinas. Second, is to retell the stories from the Talmud where the lesson on Teshuvah is found and what the ideas are that stem out of it. Third, is to expose Levinas’ critique and commentary of each story. And finally the paper shall conclude as to how the concept of Teshuvah can be understood in a better light as it is complimented with Levinas’ analysis on Ethical Responsibility.