Earlier this month, Jews around the world observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It's a day dedicated to an uncomfortable truth: We all get things wrong.
The concept of accepting one’s fallibility — and acknowledging our errors, coupled with atonement — is a common practice of most religions. Catholics have confession, Muslims practice tawbah (repentance), Hindus balance negative action with good karma. Ritual has a purifying and corrective value, but what lies beyond ritual is even more important.
One common misconception is that it's sufficient to acknowledge one's sins and pray to god, and that’s good enough. The teachings of all of these religious traditions is that a vague apology for acts one may have committed and changing one’s ways are necessary conditions of atonement, but they are not sufficient. The uncomfortable part of atonement is not the admission to oneself, but the vulnerability in confronting the aggrieved party to ask forgiveness. Finally, there is restitution. This formulaic way of confronting one’s failings requires that there not only be acknowledgement, but also consequence.
Politicians and admissions
You'd think that person who errs and apologizes has a good chance of being forgiven, and yet apologies in the political world are few and far between. Sure, there's the occasional apology for a Facebook post created in one’s youth, but real acknowledgement of a breach of public trust is rarely seen.
I often wonder why politicians have such trouble admitting to their transgressions: What if Nixon had conceded Watergate was a bungled burglary? What if Clinton had acknowledged he had relations with Monica Lewinsky? This also extends to poor decisions. What if Trump admitted getting out of Afghanistan prematurely was a mistake? What if Biden conceded that the evacuation from Afghanistan was a disaster? And yet, pride forces so many not to simply concede an error, and seek understanding and forgiveness.
Politicians aren’t alone in this, of course. Most of us would rather explain a mistake, minimize it, or point to someone else’s than simply own it. Pride has a remarkable ability to turn four words — “I made a mistake” — into an impossible sentence.
Confronting wrongs
In a business meeting years ago, I had a client who made a derogatory comment about Jewish people. I was shocked but remained silent. To this day, I have regretted my own passivity that day. Perhaps I felt it was not my place to correct a client. Perhaps I thought it was simply a joke. But it has continued to fester. In those days, non-confrontation was my default position. Since then, I’ve learned that avoiding a difficult conversation doesn’t necessarily preserve a relationship. Sometimes it merely preserves the resentment.
We can all become offended, and burdened with resentments of one kind or another. Often, a person may not even be aware of what they've done, and we're doing them a favor by calling out the offense and offering them the opportunity to correct it. Giving someone the chance to understand and respond can be an act of generosity — not only toward them, but toward ourselves. Of course, not every disagreement requires a summit meeting. But when something continues to bother us, silence rarely makes the issue disappear.
How many times have we all seen a petty grudge ruin a friendship or, worse yet, destroy a family? According to a YouGov poll, approximately one-quarter of adults in America are estranged from at least one family member — and some 10% are estranged from a parent or child. There are many reasons for those ruptures, including some very serious ones, and reconciliation isn't always possible — or advisable. But I suspect other relationships have been lost because injuries went unspoken until the silence became its own injury.
Forgiveness will set us free
Then there's the equally complicated issue of forgiveness. Beyond admitting fault and acknowledging harm, I think there's an obligation to forgive. I’m not talking about a dismissive, “I accept your apology.” That’s good, but not good enough. When someone offers a sincere apology, takes responsibility, and changes their behavior, true forgiveness can create the possibility of beginning again. The person who caused the harm has a responsibility to make amends. The person who was harmed gets to decide what happens next.
Sometimes, someone attempts an apology but the recipient can be too pig-headed to accept it. An unwillingness to have the graciousness to forgive another is, to my mind, a sin in and of itself. After all, one isn't being asked to accept the wrongdoing as having been OK; it's enough to acknowledge that perhaps it's time to leave the past behind.
In Jewish tradition, one is only required to ask forgiveness three times. After the third attempt, the person is absolved of having to continue pursuing the aggrieved party. This makes perfect sense to me. One can only try so hard — then it’s just pushing water uphill. It’s unproductive, demeaning, and cruel to expect someone to continue prostrating themselves for a single transgression, much less not to offer some understanding. Of course, there are crimes where forgiveness would be impossible, but some wrongful acts are acts of mere insensitivity, unintended damage, or a minor infraction. When that happens, we should embrace any attempts to start anew.
The philosopher Lewis B. Smedes notes, "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." That line endures because it captures something important: The act of forgiveness gives peace to the person who forgives. In fact, the person who may benefit most is the person who forgives, more than the one who's forgiven.
A turning
The act of atonement in Judaism is seen as a “turning.” I like that image, because asking for forgiveness isn't a static act: it requires turning away and pursuing a different course. But a “turning” also is required of the person being asked for understanding and forgiveness. After all, those who have been harmed no doubt have their failings to confront as well. It's not only the transgressor who is the actor in this image: both parties must turn. One is turning away from transgression, and the other is turning away from resentment. But both are turning toward the redemption of reconciliation.
When he isn’t writing his column Thinking Things Through, Glenn Sonnenberg heads a real estate investment company and serves on several nonprofit boards. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Mr. Sonnenberg also received his J.D. from USC. He began his career as an attorney specializing in real estate and finance. Follow him on Substack here.
