In this Jewish season of apologies, thoughts on saying ‘sorry’ [column] | Local Voices

We often apologize with a performative, “I’m sorry” with a shrug and a smile. “Oops! My bad!” We’re not in the middle of a Britney Spears song (“Oops! … I Did It Again”). This is real life and real apologies take work. Those apologies seem absent from our daily life in America today, and dare I say, from many national leaders around the world too.

For Jews, though, this is the season of apologies. We start Yom Kippur tonight, our Day of Atonement, and we are ever mindful of what our sage, Hillel, said 2,000 years ago: “Repent one day before you die.”

At the heart of our service are long lists of sins. It’s noteworthy that all are in the first-person plural, “For the sin which we committed.” As far back as the days of Isaiah, though, we learned that prayer and ritual were not enough. Only the sincere pursuit of justice would atone for our sins. Does that mean that an apology is meaningless? Let’s explore.

I had the chance recently to facilitate a conversation for the Jewish community here in Lancaster with Marjorie Ingall, co-author of the book, “Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies.”

Ingall and her co-author Susan McCarthy identify six-and-a-half steps to a good apology:

1. Say you’re sorry.

2. For what you did.

3. Show you understand why it was bad.

4. Only explain if you need to; don’t make excuses.

5. Say why it won’t happen again.

6. Offer to make up for it.

6 1/2. Listen.

Of course, to get to the point of an apology, we have to have some vague sense that we did something wrong. In our liturgy for this season, we begin by puffing our chests and declaring ourselves as being saintly. The atonement begins when we say that we are “arrogant and stiff-necked,” and then we turn and acknowledge, “but we have sinned.”

Arrogant and stiff-necked. When we hear someone else’s pain, can we learn to say, “Did I do something to cause this?” When we disagree with someone, can we teach ourselves to say, “I should check this out. Maybe I’m wrong.” When long-held truths are challenged, maybe even truths that are shared by the vast majority, can we open up the possibility for growth?

Let’s look at two biblical passages. The first is in Genesis 18. God is preparing to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and all the people living in those cities. Before doing so, God says, “The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave! I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether according to the outcry that has reached me; if not, I will take note.”

Those verses turn our commonly held theology upside down. Is the omniscient God saying, “I better double-check my facts. Maybe I got it wrong?” God can question God’s own judgment, and we, often in the name of religion, dig in our heels, saying that there is only one truth and, of course, it’s the one we hold. That’s arrogance!

And then there’s Moses — defender of justice, liberator, lawgiver, prophet and confidante of God’s. The Torah identifies Moses as the humblest man on Earth (Numbers 12:3). Moses lost his patience with the people and disobeyed God — and when Moses was punished, he accepted his punishment. How I crave humility like that in leadership today.

We are arrogant and stiff-necked. We are not saintly, and we have sinned.

In the Ingall/McCarthy book, there is a story about actor Hank Azaria. When he was faced with the inherent racism in a white person playing a role caricaturing a South Asian in the television series, “The Simpsons,” he eventually apologized and no longer played that role. There were people upset that he apologized, rationalizing that “it’s just a TV show” — translation, “What’s the big deal?”

Azaria’s apology was acknowledged by South Asian comedian, Hari Kondabolu, who posted this on Twitter (now X): “Hank Azaria is a kind & thoughtful person that proves that people are not simply ‘products of their time,’ but have the ability to learn and grow. Nothing. But. Respect.”

I wish all of our Jewish readers a “shanah tovah,” a good year as we enter 5784, and for all, I pray for awareness, sincerity, humility, a time of learning and growth.

Jack Paskoff is rabbi at Congregation Shaarai Shomayim in Lancaster. Email: jpaskoff@shaarai.org.

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