Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa is visiting the United States this week, doing his best to look like someone who has repented from his past as an Al Qaeda leader. At the same time, Jews are absorbed in the meditations of the “ten days of repentance” from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. Sharaa’s visit gives us a timely and important insight into our understanding of the value of repentance.
The Talmud asks which deserves more credit: repentance or avoiding sin in the first place? It discusses this question in Berachot 34b, but it doesn’t answer it. It stresses the importance of avoiding sin, but also voices the view that repentance is more important: “In the place where penitents stand even the wholly righteous cannot stand.” President Sharaa’s visit can give us insight into why it is important to understand both positions.
We don’t yet know if Sharaa has in fact repented, but Joe Jajati, a Syrian-born Jew, described a meeting with Sharaa in New York City as “very emotional and inspiring.” The Trump administration is giving the Syrian leader the benefit of the doubt, meeting with Sharaa, removing sanctions, and encouraging talks between Syria and Israel. Jihadis also think that Sharaa has changed; they’ve made multiple recent attempts to kill Sharaa. So, it is at least plausible to credit Sharaa with having repented.
Would Sharaa have merited more credit by staying as a private citizen and having nothing to do with the Al-Qaeda affiliated organization that deposed Bashar al-Assad? In the words of President Teddy Roosevelt, by doing so Sharaa would have remained an “average citizen” with “an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results.” Instead, Sharaa became a “man in the arena.” As Roosevelt said, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again.” Sharaa sinned, but if the effort to form a civil society in Syria is successful, Sharaa’s repentance will merit credit far greater than that of an uninvolved righteous citizen.
When reading controversies in the Talmud, one is tempted to wonder which side will turn out to be correct. But life is often more complicated, not just in the Talmud but also in science. Sometimes both positions are correct, but in different situations. In neuroscience we have a classic example in the dispute that raged between Sir Henry Dale and Sir John Eccles about whether synapses use chemicals or electrical connections. It turned out that the views of both Dale and Eccles were correct: there are now many known examples of chemical synapses and other examples of electrical synapses.
We should take the same attitude towards the Talmud’s two views about repentance. In most cases there is more credit in avoiding sin in the first place. But Sharaa, by becoming the “man in the arena,” provides an existence proof that there can be greater credit for having repented.
Michael Segal is a neurologist and neuroscientist and a frequent and valued commenter here at The Editors.
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