Repentance and the Reversal of Time: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Temporal Philosophy

This article discusses the dominant understanding of the concept of repentance in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the original interpretation he offers of this religious idea. It explores how his interpretation of the way repentance operates upon the human soul is based on Max Scheler’s thought regarding remorse, while adding another layer of meaning grounded in Henri Bergson’s philosophical conception of time as “durée”. Against this background, the article argues that Soloveitchik’s identification with the notion of time as “durée” stems both from a philosophical perspective that runs through significant parts of his thought, and from a personal biographical stance and his understanding of the religious experience of the talmid chacham (Torah scholar)—one who internalizes Torah study and dialectical reasoning in essential life concerns. This stance structures both the mental experience that enables repentance, contingency, and reversibility in time, and the homiletical–intellectual performance that affirms and constructs a Hegelian dialectic between past and present, ultimately forming a synthesis that is repentance.