Are we supposed to remember our sins forever, even after we’ve repented? Or, should we forget them? The Talmud seems to say one thing, and Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, seems to say another. In this episode of Teshuva and Time Travel, we address this question, and reconcile this conflict, generating the surprising conclusion that, according to Rav Tzadok, repentance has the power to rewrite your past in radical ways.

When we repent, there is a sense in which we’re seeking to undo damage done. It’s almost as if we’re trying to undo the past. How seriously should we take this metaphor? Is the past something that can be undone? In Teshuva and Time Travel, Samuel Lebens – a philosopher at the University of Haifa, and adjunct faculty member at Pardes – will lead a tour through classical Jewish texts on the nature of repentance, and explore them though the lens of contemporary philosophical reflection on the nature of time.

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