David Bashevkin on Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

According to Jewish tradition, the holiday of Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—marks the “birth” of man on the sixth day of creation. But what else was created along with him? According the sages of the Talmud, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge on the very same day they were made, bringing the capacity for sin latent within them out into the world. Sin, in other words, is part of God’s original creation.

In this season of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we welcome Rabbi David Bashevkin to the Tikvah Podcast. His new book, Sin-a-gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought, helps us think about the nature and origins of sin. Rabbi Bashevkin and Jonathan Silver discuss what it means to think of sin as part of the fabric of creation, the relationship between sin and free will, and how we should think about the sins and failures of the individual versus those of the community.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof and "Above the Ocean" by Evan MacDonald.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We are broadcasting this conversation during the Yamin Nora'im, the days of awe.
0:13.4	In the Jewish consciousness, these are days of intense devotion and personal introspection,
0:19.0	an occasion for Hashbon Hanefesh, an accounting of the soul.
0:23.5	When we think about our shortcomings and our failures, we think about sin, and that is the
0:29.1	subject of today's conversation. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
0:34.8	We think of sin in the Hebrew Bible as a pollution or a corruption of the human
0:40.0	condition. But our guest today, Rabbi David Bachevkin, argues that sin was created with
0:45.8	man, that sin is a part of the human condition, that sin is part of God's creation.
0:52.3	David is the author of a new book on sin, Synagogue, and in our conversation, we try and
0:58.2	think about sin in the context of human freedom, biblical sins committed by individuals
1:03.6	and those committed by communities, and the role that sin and failure can play in moral uplift.
1:10.5	If you enjoy this conversation, you can
1:12.6	subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you leave us a
1:18.3	five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our
1:24.6	other podcast episodes at TikTokFund.org. And of course, if you
1:29.3	want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website, tikfafund.org, and follow us on
1:35.2	Facebook and Twitter. Here now is my conversation with David Bischewkin. David, welcome to the
1:41.0	Tikva podcast. Such a joy to be here. Thank you so much. Let's just begin at the
1:45.2	beginning, even before the book starts. Why did you want to write a book about sin and failure?
1:50.4	The book is called Synagogue, which a lot of people hated that pun. It's spelled S-I-N.
1:55.8	You know, normally you think of shul of the synagogue. But the suffixagued means to grow or to lead. And I think the book
2:03.9	came from two very clear places. One was there was a point in my life specifically in my 20s
	...

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