Gershom Sholem on Tshuva and Kultur

I am reading the delightful Lamentations of Youth: The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919. August, 1917:

"I demand no return to eastern European Judaism, though not because this would be going backwards. When a person repents (tshuvah) he turns away from his evil ways, in other words, he goes back to the place where his evil ways began. What he doesn't do is continue walking straight ahead. If we Jews need to turn back, and we surely do, we have to go back to the spot in the road where we began. I'm all for regression (though of course not politically or culturally) to the extent that it is an inner necessity. As far as I am concerned, Kultur can go to hell. We can return culturally by approaching the Center. But Judaism's Original Sin is as old as Judaism itself. It began the minute the Torah was not taught but was acted out. [. . .]"