This is a text from the Babylonian Talmud, the compendium of Jewish biblical interpretation, law, lore, and ethics that was completed around the year 600 CE. It is the major source of our understanding of Jewish values and practices. This is from the tractate Taanit, which is mostly about public fasts.
Similarly, Rav Adda bar Ahava said: A person who has a transgression in their hand, and they confess but do not repent for the sin, to what is it comparable? To a person who holds in their hand a dead lizard, which renders one ritually impure by contact. As in this situation, even if one immerses in all the waters of the world, one's immersion is ineffective for them, as long as the source of ritual impurity remains in their hand. However, if they have thrown the lizard from their hand, once they have immersed in a ritual bath of forty se'a, the immersion is immediately effective for them.
What are your impressions of the text?
What is the comparison between confession without repentance to ritual immersion with a dead lizard? What does it say about confession without repentance?
How do you draw the distinction between "confession" and "repentance"?
What is your lizard?
What are some of our communal and societal lizards?
(*Forty se'a is the standard size of a ritual bath, or mikveh, and is about 150 gallons.)
This text is from the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides, a leading Jewish philosopher and rabbi, who lived in the 12th century. The Mishneh Torah is a law code in which Maimonides attempts to gather all of Jewish law in a single source.
Anyone who verbalizes their confession without resolving in their heart to abandon sin can be compared to a person who immerses themself in a mikvah (ritual bath) while holding the carcass of a lizard in his hand. Their immersion will not be of avail until they cast away the carcass. This principle is implied by the statement, [Proverbs 28:13], "One who confesses and forsakes sin will be treated with mercy." It is necessary to mention particularly one's sins as evidenced by Moses' confession, [Exodus 32:31]: "I appeal to You. The people have committed a terrible sin by making a golden idol."
What does Maimonides add to the text from the Talmud?
What are the meanings of the two verses from the Bible?
Why might Maimonides reference the biblical story of the Golden Calf here?