A friend asked me an uncomfortable question this week. With Graham Platner’s decisive victory in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary, should Democrats simply accept his past controversies and rally behind him in the interest of winning a Senate seat?

It is a fair question. It is also a much bigger question than it first appears.

In business, there is an expression I have always liked: Is the juice worth the squeeze? The phrase sounds almost comically simple, yet buried inside it is one of life’s most difficult calculations. Are the benefits of a decision worth the costs? Most of us perform this calculation every day, weighing risks against rewards, costs against benefits, principles against practical realities.

Politics is no different.

For many Democrats, the answer seems obvious. Control of the Senate matters. Judicial appointments matter. Tax policy matters. Foreign policy matters. The ability to block or advance a president’s agenda matters. If Graham Platner gives Democrats a better chance of winning a critical Senate seat, why dwell on old controversies? Why allow the past to stand in the way of a larger goal?

I understand that argument. In fact, there is something refreshingly honest about it. At least it acknowledges the tradeoff. Every political bargain has a cost. The question is not whether there is a squeeze. The question is whether the juice is worth it.

That question becomes especially complicated when the controversy involves not merely policy disagreements but character, judgment, trust, and the possibility of redemption. Can people change? Can people be forgiven?

Just last week, I wrote about the values within Judaism that are worth preserving and passing on to the next generation. One of those values is teshuvah, the belief that human beings are capable of acknowledging mistakes, changing course, and becoming better than they once were. It is one of Judaism’s most hopeful ideas. A person should not be forever defined by the worst thing they have ever done. People can grow. People can learn. People can change.

But Judaism does not stop there. Teshuvah is not amnesia. It is not the absence of........

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