Shabbat Greetings
I had a fight with a friend this past year. I gave some feedback on something he did that I thought would be helpful. He took it in a way I didn’t intend. What I said offended him. He didn’t talk to me for a while and when we did, wow, I heard a lot of honest critique. There were things I didn’t understand about how my words were heard, what incidents from the past related in ways I didn’t imagine. I so wanted to apologize for the hurt I had caused in a way that would heal the relationship, but I knew it had to be done in a way that demonstrated what I learned and would focus on my friend’s needs not mine.
In any relationship, we have the potential of doing harm in small and large ways. We all cause harm and we all have been harmed. Sometimes the harm can be repaired. Sometimes it can’t. Some offenses are so serious they require significant repentance and repair. Sometimes what we have done might be less ok or very much not ok based on power differences in the relationship. Some things we’ve done might be invisible to us and we are not aware of the impact of our words or actions. Then there are the kinds of harms we forget about, or compartmentalize and don’t deal with, and life moves on, perhaps with a tinge of regret here and there and the years pass. Some harms we’ve done are not so easy to put aside and they keep us up at night as they did for me with my friend.
On thi Kol Nidre night and tomorrow with Yom Kippur, it is all about forgiveness and how our tradition guides us when someone has wronged us. It is also to acknowledge when we are the ones who have done the wrong, and what we’re supposed to do. When we do make amends and apologize effectively, we have, in the process, helped to make ourselves better. This is teshuvah. Literally it means “return” and is translated as “repentance.” It is the process of turning or returning to who we are supposed to be, purely in the image of God with fewer blemishes. With so many opportunities for harm in any relationship, the possibility of return is redemptive. It is so necessary for relationships to work that we teach in the midrash, “Teshuvah was created [even] before the creation of the world.” (Gen. R. 1:4) It was embedded in the blueprint of our world.
Teshuvah is separate from forgiveness, but when there is forgiveness from the person or people we harmed, we might even experience atonement, at-one-ment, as it says in Psalm 51, as if we have a new spirit, a clean slate. The psalmist says, “Create a pure heart in me, O God. Renew a true soul within me.” We feel a sense of shalom, wholeness. That is what we desire, but the focus of teshuvah involves hard work. It is sensitive to the person who was hurt and centers their needs. We, as the ones who did the harm, need to do our own work first.
In fact, in the five traditional steps of teshuvah, making an apology doesn’t happen until step four. Introspection and change are needed before asking the person harmed for forgiveness. And to be clear, this shouldn’t always happen. A victim’s needs are paramount. When the harm is beyond the pale, the perpetrator may cause more harm by apologizing even after teshuvah. The wronged person may have gone through enough therapy or self-work and might need separation. Discerning whether a harm is unforgivable is not easy; that is not the kind of situation I am addressing, though my heart breaks for all who have suffered from such trauma.
Afterall the goal of teshuvah is transformation. When we do the work of starting to change the behavior that caused the harm, we imagine the final and fifth step, that is when you find yourself in the same kind of situation where you once caused harm, and you choose not to repeat it. The first three steps involve introspection, learning, and when appropriate, talking to the person harmed to find out what they need. This prepares us for the apology, step four. Often when one apologizes too soon it’s to manipulate the situation. It’s to keep the anger of those offended at bay. And most of all, the offender has not done the internal work to understand what they have done and hasn’t thought of the repair that might be needed. So, parents and teachers out there, when we tell kids to say, “I’m sorry” immediately after the wrong, that’s not the Jewish way. And by the way, guilty as charged. To my now adult kids, Aly, Joe, and David, I’m sorry. Whoops, just did it again, skipping steps 1-3.
Whenever an apology happens, it is important that step four be done well. We all have heard public apologies that make us cringe. Then there have to be apologies for those apologies. A good apology is not, “I’m sorry that you were hurt by this perfectly reasonable thing that I did.” I’m reminded of a cartoon in the New Yorker. Someone rushes into a restaurant, where his date is sitting down already eating, saying, “Sorry! Traffic was awful – and I left so late!”
If you have gone through the first three steps of teshuvah, the apology will not be for show. It will not include the word “but” in the middle. It will focus on what the person confessing did wrong and how they have and will continue to make things right. It will allow for quiet and true listening to the person who was wronged to share whatever they choose. We might not succeed. Our tradition teaches that we shouldn’t think that if we tried to apologize once, we’re off the hook. If the apology was not accepted, we likely didn’t yet find the right language or setting. We are told to try again in a different way, even bringing witnesses to our apology to show how seriously we are taking it. And to show the high standard of teshuvah, we are supposed to try a third time. After this, we are freed from this step of apology, albeit not with a sense of wholeness and a pure heart.
The fifth step can happen with or without forgiveness. If the teshuvah is complete, it has transformed us. When we are confronted with the opportunity to commit the same harm, we do not do so. These five steps of teshuvah can be transformative and healing:
1. Naming and owning harm; 2. Starting to change the behavior that caused the harm; 3. Restitution; 4. Apologies; and 5. Making different choices
When I apologized to my friend for the hurt that I caused, I examined what I had done and what I needed to change. Together we also recognized how some of the hurt was from unconscious storytelling. We had a real and honest conversation. And I’m happy to say that my friend forgave me.
We are worthy and we have done wrong. We need to own up to our mistakes, make amends, and apologize, and then not commit the same harm again. When we do, may we merit a pure heart and a true soul.
SHABBAT SHALOM AND G’MAR CHATIMAH TOVAH