Hey there, I'm Leah Libowitz, and welcome to Rootless. I have a quick question for you. Can you forgive?

Not talking about forgiving someone who had done something mildly irritating, like say something nasty in the heat of the moment.

Talking about forgiving someone who done something terrible, like take a life. Can you forgive such a

person? Should you? Does forgiving that person mean going soft and sacrificing justice

for some ephemeral yet ultimately hopeless feeling? Or does it mean the opposite? Breaking cycles

of violence and rage and hopelessness simply by believing in the possibility of a divine

miracle, the miracle of people truly repenting and coming together, replacing hate with love.

These days, these questions aren't merely theological or theoretical. They're urgent guides to

life. And they urge us to reconsider before we let anger and despair

wash over us as so many of us so often do.

Last year, I had the privilege of joining a group of Jewish and Christian writers and thinkers

and theologians to discuss these questions.

And after two years of a lot of talking and a lot of arguing, we finally signed a joint statement,

published this month in First Things Magazine.

I have the pleasure of being joined this week by Rusty Reno, the magazine's editor,

and the mighty force behind this initiative to talk about where Christians and Jews see things

differently and where we can align, and about the one bit of spiritual homework that can make all of us much, much happier.

Rusty, welcome to the show.

I'm glad to be with you, Leo.

It is an absolute pleasure.

Look, I don't even know how to start this conversation because I could start on my own end,

telling everyone and telling you how much it meant to me

...