When they were little, my kids loved a PJ Library book called The Hardest Word by Jacqueline Jules. It’s about the Ziz, an enormous bird from Jewish mythology which the Talmud describes as so huge, the contents of its egg once drowned 60 cities and broke three hundred cedar trees (Bavli Bekhorot 57b). Nothing quite so traumatic happens in this children’s picture book, thank God. Instead, the Ziz is flying along one week before Yom Kippur when he accidentally knocks over the tallest pine tree in the world, destroying the children’s vegetable garden behind the synagogue!
Oh no! In the story, the Ziz is a bit of a shlemiel, but usually he’s able to fix his clumsy mistakes. This time, sadly, he cannot. The children use the vegetables to decorate their sukkah each year. There is simply no way, even for a mythological beast, to repair the damage he’s caused. Feeling guilty and bereft, the Ziz flies off to Mt. Sinai to ask God what he should do? God instructs the Ziz to search the whole earth and bring back “the hardest word.” After bringing back scores of words – “goodnight” from a child who doesn’t want to sleep, “spaghetti,” from another who can’t pronounce it, “rock, rhinoceros, Rumpelstiltskin!” – the Ziz eventually learns that “sorry” is, in fact, the hardest word.
This is a children’s story, so we might think that while saying “I’m sorry” is really hard for kids, adults (being more mature) would be much better at it. Guess what? We’re not. It seems simple, doesn’t it? Who of the parents among us has not said plainly to our children, “if you do something wrong, say sorry.” Why, then, is it so very hard for grownups to follow our own advice? Part of the problem is that we don’t always know which situations call for an apology.
In Ezra Klein’s interview of Salman Rushdie last year, Rushdie was reflecting on the journey he went through in the immediate aftermath of Khomeini’s fatwa, long before he survived the near-fatal knifing at Chautauqua in 2022. “About a year or a year and a half into the story, when I was very, very depressed and didn’t see how it would ever end,” he said, “I thought maybe what I had to do was to reach out to the Muslim community and try and apologize. And I did, and it rebounded very hard in my face. And actually, my sister, whom I love and is closer to me than anybody else in the world, called me when she heard me making these apologias. She said, ‘What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?’ And I thought, you know, ‘Yes, I have.’” Of course, Rushdie didn’t have anything to apologize for – certainly not any more than Toni Morison, George Orwell, or Margaret Atwood owe an apology to Moms for Liberty.
The truth is, apologizing when we shouldn’t have to or apologizing when we’re not really sorry can make a situation worse. Think of times in your life when you said “no” to invitations, dates, or other social engagements. Maybe you tried to let people down easy: “I’m so sorry, but I just can’t make it next Tuesday.” “Sorry, but I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.” A UT-Austin/Dartmouth study (“The Impact of Apologies on Social Rejections,” Frontiers in Psychology, 2017) found that when social rejections are accompanied by apologies, the rejected party often ends up feeling worse, not better. This is probably because saying “I’m sorry,” before saying no to a hang out, date, or group collaboration, compounds feelings of rejection with guilt for the rebuffed party. It’s sort of like saying, “it’s not you, it’s me.” Most people know intuitively that if someone says, “it’s not you, it’s me,” it’s most definitely you!
A bigger problem, though, is that many of us don’t know how to apologize. Authors Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy suggest six steps to a good apology. (Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies, p. 28):
1. Use the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize.” (“Regret” is not apology!)
2. Say specifically what you’re sorry FOR.
3. Show you understand why the thing you said or did was BAD.
4. Only explain if you need to; don’t make excuses.
5. Describe the actions you’re taking to ensure this won’t happen again.
6. Offer to make up for it, which is to say, try to make a repair.
Notice that saying “sorry” is a component in our greater pursuit of accountability or teshuvah. Don’t worry if you can’t remember all the steps. You can find them on the authors’ website: sorrywatch.com. But, on this Yom Kippur, I think we need to consider something deeper at work. It’s not only that many people don’t know how to apologize. What I’m most concerned about is that our society seems to be moving away from apology as an agreed-upon norm. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody to good,” says the old proverb. At least in the public discourse, apologizing is becoming decidedly uncool.
Part of the problem is that to the extent Americans enjoyed a social contract honoring apologies and encouraging forgiveness, that contract has frayed and many people are now reluctant to apologize. There are two countervailing trends at work. The first comes out of justice and accountability movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter which instigated a culture of public calling out and very public, online apologies. Many of these apologies were necessary, but the public and permanent nature of social media also taught observers that admitting an error means your acknowledgement of that error will exist forever in cyberspace, incentivizing some against taking responsibility. The Viddui is punctuated again and again with s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement – after apologizing and doing real teshuvah, the sinner is meant to attain a clean slate. But if some aging tik-tok video or facebook post becomes a demerit for every future relationship or job interview, why bother to apologize?
But we also live in a time when leaders, put simply, behave badly, and there’s plenty of evidence that children and adults alike take cues from our leaders. Leaders behaving badly is, of course, nothing new. One model Jewish leader, King David, had many flaws as you know. And yet, when Nathan the prophet confronts him about his sin with Uriah and Batsheva, David admits responsibility, a key component to any worthy apology:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר דָּוִד֙ אֶל־נָתָ֔ן חָטָ֖אתִי לַ֑ה’
David said to Nathan, “I stand guilty before the LORD!” And Nathan replied to David, “The LORD has remitted your sin; you shall not die.”
As you know, this is my final High Holy Day cycle at Beth Am. My very first Rosh Hashanah, fifteen years ago, I shared a teaching in the name of Rav Yosef Be’er Soloveitchik who observed that both King Saul and King David committed great sins in their lives. Why then was Saul rejected, and David hailed as progenitor of the messianic line? Soloveitchik explains that it was simply David’s ability to acknowledge his mistake and ask forgiveness. “A great nation is like a great man,” said Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism, “when he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers.”
Failed leaders like King Saul abound, and politicians were modeling stubbornness and sometimes shamelessness long before this political moment. In 1988, Vice President Bush declared, “I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what the facts are” (p. 177). President Clinton did apologize for the Tuskegee experiments, but never directly to Monica Lewinsky. It’s been 850 years since King Henry II of England donned sackcloth and walked three miles to publicly confess his guilt in the death of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. Henry allowed himself to be beaten with rods by bishops and eighty monks before spending the night in vigil at Becket’s tomb. Can you imagine the leader of our country doing that? Me neither.
In fact, when Trump was running for president the first time, he was interviewed by Jimmy Fallon (I’ll try not to dwell on the irony of him talking to a late-night comedian). Fallon asked him back in 2015, “Have you ever apologized, ever, in your life?” Trump answered, “I fully think apologizing is a great thing, but you have to be wrong…. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.” As we well know, much less than taking responsibility for his sins, Donald Trump consistently wields his unapologetic nature as a cudgel against anyone who he perceives has slighted him, from Jimmy Kimmel to Jim Comey. Trump, of course, was an acolyte of Roy Cohn, the McCarthyite thug, perpetrator of the 1950’s Lavender Scare, whose philosophy was: never apologize, that every punch, deserved or not, was to be met with a harder counterpunch.
This attitude of the President’s was on full display during Charlie Kirk’s funeral last week. The penultimate speaker was Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk who somehow found it in her heart to forgive her husband’s murderer. While I hesitate to cast judgment on a grieving widow’s impressive capacity for grace, from a Jewish perspective, it’s hard to argue that Tyler Robinson, thus far unapologetic, is deserving of such forgiveness. But Trump, who spoke last, didn’t seem to care much about the young man who pulled the trigger. He was too busy declaring war on the “radical left.” And then, he apologized. Charlie Kirk, said the President, “did not hate his opponents…. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” said Trump, “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want what’s best for them. I’m sorry. I am sorry Erika.”
We live in a time when leaders have been supplanted by influencers, an “attention economy” in which indignation and grievance feed the algorithm, which demands (and monetizes) greater outrage. But apologies, write Ingall and McCarthy, “are evidence of a society that cares about itself, a society that honors other people’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings as precious. In tiny ways and larger ones, apologies move us toward justice.” But it has become en vogue to mock apology as weakness or blusterfully eschew accountability. Salman Rushdie calls shamelessness “the weapon of our time.” If so, how do we fight back? Jewish tradition, this season of teshuvah, of accountability, provides our answer. Don’t give up on apology. Do it more and do it better.
Hevre, we are a society in crisis. The prevailing winds, those “ill winds,” have been blowing us in the wrong direction for some time. But, as mid-19th Century spiritualist Cora L. V. Hatch said, “…you could not direct the wind, but you could trim your sail so as to propel your vessel as you pleased.” How many of you know how to sail? I’m no expert, but I learned to sail as a kid at Jewish summer camp in Oconomowoc, WI. And many a July I can be found skippering a 22 ft. Ensign or a single-handed Laser on Lake Walloon in Northern Michigan. What’s interesting about sailing is that you can travel in just about any direction. This is called your “point of sail.” For example, if you’re traveling with the wind, you’re in a run or broad reach. But you can also sail against the wind. This is called a beat or a close haul. There is actually one direction in which you absolutely cannot sail. Any idea? You can’t sail directly into the wind. If you turn your craft into the wind without enough momentum, your sails luff and you’re in irons. You’re stuck.
Now I share this, not to show off my knowledge of sailing terminology. (Ok, a little bit to show off). But mostly I share this because I think it’s a great metaphor for the art of apologizing. Contrary to the prevailing winds, blowhard politicians, or braggarts in the Manosphere, apologies are not weak. Apologizing is, in fact, one of the most courageous things we can do. Sorry is, after all, the hardest word, and hard things are what brave people do. Here’s the thing about sailing though: The point of sail called a run, in which your boat is traveling completely with the wind, is boring. Yes, it’s the most efficient. You’re moving quickly. In a race or trans-Atlantic voyage, you want the wind at your back. But, sort of like being in a hot air balloon, you don’t really feel the movement. The most exciting point of sail is a beat, a close haul, when you push a boat whose sails have a high aspect ratio at closer and closer angles to the wind. This is called “pointing higher.”
Pointing higher in a strong wind is when sailing gets really fun, leaning off the port hull, over the water, feet tucked under the hiking strap, one hand on the tiller, the other firmly gripping the sheet off the winch, the cool spray catching your back as the craft heels against your weight, your body and the mast forming a “v” with the starboard hull almost kissing the surface of the deep. Pointing higher. It’s one of the most liberating experiences I’ve had.
You know when else I feel that kind of liberation? When I’ve done something wrong, and I finally figure out I blew it, and I ask for and receive forgiveness. The weight of sin can be imperceptible until we unburden ourselves of it. And the reason I think it’s so liberating is that the practice of apology, if done right, brings us closer to one another and to God. One of my favorite teachings (Tanya Igerret HaTeshuvah) imagines we, each of us, are connected to God with a thick cord. When we sin, the cord is severed. When we do teshuvah, the angel Gabriel comes and ties a knot. On Yom Kippur, we’re reminded that sinning is a lifelong enterprise, but so is repair. And the beautiful thing is that each one of our cords, riddled with a lifetime of knots, is necessarily shorter, meaning that we are closer to God
מקום שבעלי תשובה עומדין, צדיקים גמורים אינם עומדין
“Where those doing teshuvah stand, not even the totally righteous can stand” (Berakhot 34b). Those who sin and make amends are closer to heaven, they point higher.
What’s the relationship between apologizing and teshuvah? The first is a component of the second. The relationship between apology and atonement is not unique to Jewish tradition, but in every framework, the goal is to point higher. Writer and disability justice advocate Mia Mingus suggests there are four steps to accountability: self-reflection, apologizing, repair, and finally changed behavior. The Ho’oponopono Prayer also has four components: I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank You. I love you. I wish I could tell you I learned this from Miriam who, as usual, is in Hawaii right now. But I didn’t. I got it from watching “The Pitt.”
Within the Jewish tradition, we look to Maimonides who delineates eight steps to Teshuvah.
1. Recognize your harmful behavior and actions
2. Feel remorse
3. Stop the harmful behavior and distance yourself from it
4. Undertake the work necessary to transform yourself
5. Verbally confess the harm you caused (and be specific)
6. Make amends or restitution
7. Apologize and ask forgiveness from those you’ve harmed
8. Resolve to do better. Make better choices.
The interesting thing about the Rambam’s framework is that apology comes not first but actually toward the end of the process. You might wonder why? In a study called “Better Late Than Early” (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2004), Oberlin psychologist Cynthia Franz found “study participants had the most positive feelings about the apology they received after having a chance to express their annoyance and irritation…. It was important to them that they felt heard” (Sorry, Sorry, Sorry. P. 21). The harmed party feeling harmed is exactly why we should focus much less on public social media apologies and more on the interpersonal. For most of us, most of the time, it’s about picking up the phone, sending a note, sometimes sending a text or DM, or just sitting down face to face over coffee and saying, “I’m sorry.”
Which method is best is situational (and to some extent generational). But if I were to leave you with one final thought on this Yom Kippur, it’s this: Don’t let the perfect apology be the enemy of the good one. Sorry is the hardest word for a reason. The inertia of inattention, lack of introspection, anxiety about getting it right can go a long way toward keeping us from doing better in the coming year. The goal isn’t perfection. Point higher. The wind can be shifty. Keep pointing higher. Influencers may try to convince you that saying you’re sorry is weak. Ignore them and still point higher. Remember, apologizing, like sailing, is a process. As Rabbi Alan Lew z”l writes, “Transformation does not have a beginning, a middle, or an end. We never reach the end of Teshuvah. It is always going on. We are awake for a moment, and then we are asleep again. Teshuvah seems to proceed in a circular motion. Every step away is also a step toward home” (This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. P. 154). Or put differently, the wind may push us this way and that. But if we can set our sails, grab the tiller, and point just a bit higher, we’ll make it back to shore.
