We Jews have many names for ourselves.
We are called b’nei Yisrael, the children of Yisrael, the one who wrestles with God.
We are called rachmanim b’nei rachmanim, the merciful ones who are the children of the merciful ones.
We are also called Jews, from Yehudim. Historically and politically this makes sense, since the tribe of Yehudah gave its name to the Kingdom of Judah, the southern kingdom that emerged after the tragic fall of King Saul. which in turn gave the name to the land of Judea. But what of the spiritual meaning of this name? Do we want to claim this, too, as we have claimed the spiritual ancestry embedded in the names God-wrestlers and rachmanim?
There is good reason to claim that we are Yehudim during Elul and at all times of the year because Yehudah is the first recorded person to make full teshuvah to another human being.
As the liturgy continually reminds us, Yom Kippur atones for our sins with God, not with people. It does not atone for the ways we have harmed or alienated our family, friends, community, and natural environment. For those acts, we must make teshuvah, and it is Yehuda who guides the way.
It’s a great story, and Yehudah is no hero in the ordinary sense. Nor is he an anti-hero. He is a hero of the spirit.
As Genesis 38 tells it: Yehudah married off his son Er to Tamar. Er died. Following the law of levirate marriage, Yehudah gave her to his son Onan, to bear sons in Er’s name. We know what Onan did. Onan died—or God killed him as punishment. Yehudah, fearful that his daughter-in-law is an incarnation of what we now call the vagina dentata, refuses to let her marry any more of his sons. But he lies to her (and perhaps to himself, intending to marry her to his next son, just not yet), telling her to be patient and wait and he will do the right thing. He doesn’t. And he doesn’t. And he doesn’t. So Tamar takes it upon herself to set the law of God in motion. She dresses up as a sacred prostitute and stands along the road her father-in-law is traveling. He sleeps with her. She cleverly asks for a token. He tries to fob her off with the promise of a lamb. She demands his seal and cord, and his staff in addition. To his credit, Yehudah sends her the promised lamb. He makes good on his obligation to her, though it would have been easy to let it slide. He is a man of his word, if not master of his desires.
When his lackeys report that his daughter-in-law has “played the harlot” and gotten pregnant, he says, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” He is a man of justice. Sin must be punished. Tamar whips out his seal and cord, saying, “I am with child by the man to whom these belong.”
Yehudah’s response is miraculous. He could have denounced her as a liar. Who would have challenged him if he had had her burned, a woman already responsible for the death of two good men? a woman without a man, a widow, less than nothing? He could have equivocated, masked his responsibility by invoking general principles, or deflected the attention of himself back to her by focusing on the act of her harlotry. Instead, this is his response: “She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he was not intimate with her again (v. 26).
I love Yehudah for this. What he does in response to her confrontation is a blueprint for true teshuvah in relation to others. He does not deny or minimize the harm he has done. He accepts full responsibility for the action of his that has brought about this state of affairs. He does not blame her, he doesn’t even mention what she has done that is wrong. He is convicted of his own sin, shoulders his own burden of responsibility. He sets himself and her free in this moment. But his teshuvah, his turning from evil to good, from alienation to love, is not yet complete. Convictions alone, realizations alone, and words alone do not make for teshuvah. These must bear fruit in changed action, sustained over the rest of one’s life. And this is what we are given to understand by the narrator’s comment, “And he was not intimate with her again.” He now acts as a true father-in-law, he defends and protects his dead sons’ wife, the woman he has wronged in so many ways. He does not use her for his own purposes, as he might easily have done. He acts toward her in justice. He cannot undo what he has done. She will bear sons to him. But he transforms death and destruction to life and justice.
This is the courage and creativity of teshuvah. This is what it means to be a Jew.
This is the territory of teshuvah--messy, downright ugly, lurid, mean, dangerous, and miraculous.
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