Apologies Help Repair the World

Rosh Hashanah – 5780 (2019)

Happy Holidays! Wishing everyone a good and sweet New Year.

One of the pivotal topics at the forefront of the Jewish New Year is apologizing. In a Nutshell, we usher in the beginning of the New Year with sweetness and hope - we then embark on a (minimum) ten-day journey of self-reflection - apologizing to others - making new and renewed commitments - culminating in the fast day of Yom Kippur - and then 'breaking the fast' in celebrations similar to how we began the New Year...yet now having come through days if not weeks of introspection. We emerge full of new hopes and ideals and exciting plans.

This introspection takes place on an individual level and on a broader community level. How can I do better? What did I do right? What did I do wrong? How can we live together more cohesively? How can we lift each other up?

This time of year there is a lot of apologizing. In short, these apologies fit into the end-game of a clean slate for a New Year. Apologies allow us to repair relationships, but they also sometimes delineate the end of a relationship. Sometimes we apologize to elicit forgiveness that we crave. Sometimes we apologize just because another person is upset and we believe our apology may be what is needed. Sometimes we actually know we wronged someone and we apologize because we feel sincerely that error. And sometimes our apologies serve to allow us to forgive ourselves.

Do we always have to apologize? When should we apologize? What is a meaningful apology? This time of year I often see posts and receive phone calls containing 'general' apologies...which go something like, "Hi, Hava. If I did anything at all to offend or upset you this year, please accept my apology." I think this apology is like a safety-net apology - given out to cover the bases for wrongs of which we remain unaware. It can also serve a s ‘soft’ apology for when we are uncomfortable with actually apologizing. Is this sufficient?

Apologies around the Jewish New Year - are required to be given out from one human being to another. This part is not a choice. We do not get a pass for apologizing instead to G-d - we do not get a pass because we feel badly and are cognizant of our wrong-doing. Apologies are supposed to be directed first-hand to the people we have hurt. In lawyer-speak, no hearsay. This for many is hard to do.

And what are the things for which we should apologize? We should apologize when we have excluded - judged - embarrassed - harmed - manipulated - taken advantage of - spoken ill of - deceived - ignored - let fall - and so many other things we do which result in harm to one another. We apologize for individual wrongdoings, but we also apologize as a community. In some ways this mirrors the idea that we are only as strong as our weakest link. Its goal is to foster community which rises and falls together, and which values uplifting one another.

I don't know all the answers about apologies, but I know they help repair the world. And I know that human beings are capable of genuinely apologizing to one another - because we possess relational qualities which are the foundations of apologies - things like compassion, understanding, truth, empathy, caring, concern. ...When we remove these relational qualities from our personal lives - or from our school and work lives - or from our roles of responsibility (i.e. parent, boss) - or from our politics - or from our religions - we actually remove that which makes us uniquely human. And in removing our humanity, apologizing - hence repairing the world - becomes irrelevant.

In this New Year, I hope we learn to care, to empathize, and to understand much, much more - I hope we learn to apologize more - and I hope we have less need to apologize to one another in the first place. Shana Tova

— Hava

Hava Leipzig Holzhauer, J.D.
Executive Director, Konar Center for Tolerance and Jewish Studies, Nazareth College

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