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Phone: 074-7800643
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Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
R. Kook’s very different interpretation of Teshuva leads us onto a different path.
In the Torah portion of Bereshit, God confronts Adam after he has sinned in the Garden of Eden and asks him: “Where are you (ayeka)?” (Genesis 3:9). Jewish exegetes and scholars have understood God’s question in diverse ways. I would like to briefly explore the highly innovative interpretation of R. Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook.
But to understand his approach we must first briefly probe his conception of repentance and sin.
His portrays repentance (teshuvah) as a deeply personal psychological journey in which we discover and reconnect with our true, authentic self. For Kook, teshuvah is not just about returning to God; it is also about returning to nature, the Jewish people and returning to what he calls the “essential self” (ani azmi).
Kook’s unique understanding of repentance dictates his innovative conception of the nature of sin. Sin is the alienation of the person to his true self and teshuvah is the discovering and developing of what is unique about us. Rav Kook then views the paradigmatic sin of Adam as involving the alienation of the human being from what is unique about him or herself.
As he writes, “We have sinned along with our ancestors—the sin of the first man, who became estranged from his own self, who turned to the opinion of the serpent, and lost himself. He did not know how to give a clear answer to the question ‘Ayeka?’ because he did not know his own soul, because his true sense of self had been lost to him, through the sin of bowing to a foreign god.” (Eight Journals 3:24).
Thus, for Kook, God is asking of Adam “who are you?” and not “where are you” and demanding that he realize that it is incumbent upon him and each human being to develop their unique and authentic selves and thereby connect to God.
image: Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, 1924 (Library of Congress Collection, via wikicommons)
Prof. Ari Ackerman is the President of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies.
President Ackerman is Associate Professor for Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Education. Prior to his elevation to president, Ackerman held the (David) Golinkin Professor of TALI Jewish Education. He received his PhD in Jewish thought from Hebrew University and was a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University. His most recent book is a Critical Edition of the Sermons of Zerahia Halevi Saladin (Beer Sheva University Press, 2013). Prof. Ackerman’s new book on creation and codification in the philosophy of Hasdai Crescas – Hasdai Crescas on Codification, Cosmology and Creation (Brill Press, 2022) is newly published. President Ackerman lives with his family in Jerusalem.
