Fall is a time for new beginnings. Parents and teachers are used to this time of the year being the beginning of a school year. Many progressive religious groups historically have had a hiatus in the summer. In the days before air conditioning wasn’t practical, maybe even not safe. Today, some continue that practice of a summer break, simply because a lot of participants are on vacation or focusing more on recreation on weekends.
In the Gregorian or Western calendar, the New Year celebration is on January 1. Chinese New Year is based on when a new moon falls, after the winter solstice, so is in January or February on the Western calendar. The Jewish calendar celebrates New Year, Rosh Hashanah, beginning in 2023 on the evening of September 15. Rosh Hashanah is also based on a lunar calendar, so the date shifts on the Western calendar. Ethiopian New Year is in the fall, Thai New Year is in the spring, the Islamic year which is 354 days has a New Year that slowly moves through the seasons and was on July 19 in 2023. Most cultures have had some sense of a new year starting, marking that time.
Often those celebrations have a sense of renewal – the year is new, so opportunities seem new. In our Western cultural tradition, January 1 is for many a time to make resolutions for the coming year. In Jewish tradition, the new year includes a celebration in the home with family and friends, but also reflection on the meaning of our lives, and our active role in shaping our lives and the world around us. Ten days later, on Yom Kippur, there is a full day of reflection on our own part in the wrongs of the world, and it is also a time for seeking as well as giving forgiveness. The commitment on the New Year: The old shall be made new and the new shall be made holy.
The new year is a time for soul-searching – even if you don’t believe in the soul as some kind of separate entity, we can understand that word and idea in terms of our inner best self – a metaphor like heart and mind for quality of existence.
In Jewish tradition, the celebration of the New Year includes the renewal of commitment to better living. And then comes a time to reflect on the wrongs of the world and our own part in those wrongs. The intuition and human experience behind this age-old tradition is this: without repair and repentance, renewal isn’t complete.
It is easy to take an ethical stand and to preach how awful the world is and a vision for a better world. We all fall into that. We feel morally superior when we talk about all those horrible people out there – in the Gilded Age and today, in corporate offices, in government both local and national, in enemies here and in other countries. It is easy to preach both enemies and vision. It is harder to make it happen.
To renew a commitment to better living is more than preaching and complaining or feeling superior. Renewal means we change behavior and do something new. But renewal is not so simple as that. We don’t just decide, then change and start behaving differently. We’re human.
As human beings, we have memories -- including, we know from both experience and science, emotional memories. Suppression, oppression, hurt, remain with us, unless there is repair. And repair requires repentance.
So, to be truly a season of renewal, and setting new paths for the better for self and others, repentance is also necessary.
Repentance is a process, an activity, not merely a state of mind. Repentance carries the sense of regret and even sorrow for having done harm through one’s actions. Repentance also carries a sense of commitment and resolve to be more responsible and humane in the future.
The Hebrew word translated as repentance carries the meaning of both “return” and “feeling sorrow.” The Greek word translated as repentance is about a change of mind or heart. The word in English comes via Old French from a Latin word for regret, and that from an Indo-European root meaning “to hurt.”
Repentance means, then, to feel sadness (“I’m sorry” means “I have sorrow”) for having done some hurt, and means changing one’s mind and heart – and moving to action.
Regret without repair means that those who are hurt or injured by past actions are left with emotional hurt, even trauma, still to deal with, and so renewal won’t really be possible.
What this means is that to renew our commitment to behave better, especially in our relationships, we need to acknowledge with regret if we have done something that was hurtful. That means acknowledging when we have hurt or harmed others. Sometimes that means acknowledging that we have hurt or harmed others without hurtful and harmful intention. We are not above responsibility just because we didn’t have harmful intentions. The impact is as important as the intention.
In parenting and other intimate relationships, including friendships, we will all make errors, we will all hurt others. Being a good parent, friend, or partner is not about being perfect all the time – you will fail at that. It is about being hurtful less often, helpful more often … AND about repairing any harm that you have done.
Lots of psychological research around raising children that says that the most effective parents aren’t any less likely to make mistakes that are hurtful to the children – it’s that those effective parents know how to acknowledge their hurtful behavior, even when it’s unintentional, in ways that the child might be able to hear, and then works to repair the damage and change their own behavior in the future.
We could use more of this in the world of social justice, too. Sometimes, great harm is being done to people, or actions will cause great harm in the long run. Harm that causes physical and emotional suffering and even death. Racism. Sexism. Actions that contribute to climate change.
As just one example: LBGT youth, we know, have a suicide rate mightier than that of heterosexual, gender-conforming youth – as much as 3 times higher. Bullying by other youth significantly contributes to that suicide rate, but parental acceptance or at least neutrality is a known crucial factor in bringing down the suicide risk.
We can apply the idea of repentance to the world of social change. The world will change not simply because people make speeches and write articles about how hurtful things are, or how harmful some people are – though those can help influence acknowledgment of harm and thus is part of social change.
We need here, too, acknowledgment of the harm done, regret for the harm done, commitment to change and then action for change, and repair of the harm that’s been done.
Racism, sexism, harassment, anti-LGBTQIA+ exclusion and discrimination, the exclusion of ableism, how we treat migrants, etc. – these are all very real harms. Justice is more than deciding not to be racist, not to sexually harass, not to exclude or hate or discriminate or allow disparities to continue. There are decades, lifetimes, and generations of damage to repair.
Justice in the world and renewing relationships in the family requires acknowledgment that harm is being done regardless of whether it was intentional, and regret for that harm. Justice and personal renewal both also require repair of the harm that was done, or the disadvantages caused by that harm will mean continued disparity in power and advantage in those relationships, whether political, social, or personal.
Acknowledging the errors of the past, including our own part in those errors, conscious or unconscious, intentional or not, is core to making real change. The intention to change – repentance – is also core. And finally, repairing the harm of past errors leaves room for a different future to really happen.
Picture credit: Photo 73334833 | Autumn New Beginnings © Jacob_09 BK | Dreamstime.com