Why kill a goat, or swing a chicken round your head, or throw crumbs into a river to expiate your sins? Is this mere symbolism, or is there something more fundamental going on? In this episode, we attempt to shed new light upon some very ancient rituals of atonement, and respond to four questions that were left hanging at the end of episode 2.

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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