Return and Renewal ― Reflections on Teshuva and Spiritual Growth

The process of repentance, teshuva, presents each of us with both challenges and opportunities. While self-scrutiny, confession, and commitment to change are among the most difficult human undertakings, the very process of renewing and reconnecting -to ourselves and to God - is a gift that can fundamentally repair us, our communities, and society at large. In his annual discourses on repentance, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein zt'l set out to make the elusive path of teshuva more navigable. Return and Renewal collects twelve of these public lectures, adapted for print by Michael S. Berger and Reuven Ziegler. In these essays, Rabbi Lichtenstein marshals a broad array of Jewish sources, along with classics of the Western tradition and his own sensitivity to the human condition, to examine the psychological, emotional, and spiritual elements of sin and repentance. By exploring the habits and impulses that may prevent enduring change or abet it, Return and Renewal provides a high-resolution map of our spiritual lives as we embark on our journeys of religious growth.

Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein (1933-2015) was born in Paris, France, and escaped the Nazi occupation with his family, arriving in the United States in 1941. After studying at Yeshivat Rabbi Chaim Berlin under Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner, he earned his rabbinic ordination at Yeshiva University and his PhD in English Literature at Harvard University. While at Yeshiva University, he became a close disciple of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who was later to become his father-in-law. After serving as a Rosh Yeshiva and Rosh Kollel at Yeshiva University for several years, Rabbi Lichtenstein made Aliya to Israel in 1971 and joined Rabbi Yehuda Amital at the helm of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shevut. Under their joint leadership over four decades, Yeshivat Har Etzion grew into a major center of advanced Torah study, graduating thousands of alumni - including hundreds of educators and community rabbis - and exerting a strong influence in Israel, the United States, and other centers of Jewish life.Committed to intensive and original Torah study, Rabbi Lichtenstein also articulated a bold Jewish worldview that embraced elements of modernity within the framework of a Torah life. In recognition of his outstanding scholarship and contributions, Rabbi Lichtenstein was awarded in 2014 the State of Israel's highest honor, the Israel Prize, in the category of Torah Literature. Alongside his genuine Torah greatness and the breadth and depth of his philosophy, he was renowned for his deep humility, nobility and love of humanity.