The Gift of Apologizing

Kedoshim, 5784

I read an interesting article in The Atlantic this week. It was about whether or not it is good for kids to parents to force them to apologize after they’ve done something wrong.  There are two sides to this debate: one side says that forcing kids to apologize when they don’t want to teaches them to lie to get what they want, to be less emotionally honest and in-touch with themselves, or shame them into not wanting to apologize. The other side says that forcing to children to apologize, even when they don’t mean it, helps them to model behavior they should perform, and is often appreciated by the child they are apologizing to. As I am about to be a parent myself, I paid particularly close attention to this article. I definitely don’t want to mess up or damage my future children. But one thing I considered as I was reading the article was what we teach our children to do, not when they have done something wrong, but the reverse: when they are the party that has been wrong, and have not yet received an apology or acknowledgement. What do you do when someone has been mean, cruel, unfair, and you know it, and they have done nothing about it?

There’s a very famous verse in the Torah that appears in this weeks’ parsha: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ. You shall love your fellow as yourself. It was even a song I sang growing up. Rabbi Akiva says it is one of the most important principles of the Torah. It is important stuff. But not many of us are aware of the context of the verse. לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא Do not hate your brother in  your heart, for you should rebuke your neighbor, and not sin because of him. Rashbam explains that if someone has done evil to you, we should not continue to act pleasant while harboring a grudge in our heart, but let them know they have hurt us, so we should no longer sin “in our heart.” Therefore, the Torah says, לֹא־תִקֹּם וְלֹא־תִטֹּר אֶת־בְּנֵי עַמֶּךָ וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ, “you shall not avenge or bear a grudge against the children of your people, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving your neighbor, or your fellow, as yourself is not just a nice platitude then. It is what God wants for us after we have been hurt by someone.

Notice that it does not say forgive your neighbor after being hurt by them, but love your neighbor. And the best way to express love in the scenario where you are the injured party, we are told, is not to pretend that everything is ok, and put on a false face, but to express clearly and plainly that we were hurt. That opens up the possibility of healing, to giving the person who hurt you the opportunity to apologize. The ability to apologize, the ability to do teshuva, is a gift. After all, the rabbis wonder, how can one truly love your neighbor as yourself? Not just on the level of being nice, but really, truly, loving someone else the same way you love yourself? It is impossible. So, Ibn Ezra explains, it does not mean literally loving your neighbor as you love yourself, but wanting what is good for your neighbor, the same you want only good for yourself. And what is the good in this scenario? Telling your neighbor, point blank, that you were hurt. Rebuking them. Making them feel uncomfortable! And then giving them the opportunity to do teshuva, and apologize. Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. But you have given them a gift by giving them an opportunity.

One thing that struck me when reading that article in The Atlantic was that research has found the biggest obstacle for getting anyone to apologize, child or adult, is the feelings of discomfort that apologizing brings up. Nobody likes being in the wrong, and very few people, of any age, like admitting they are wrong. Yet I wonder if we might be able to help decrease those negative emotions by reframing apologizing not just as an obligation, but as a gift. When we do apologize, when we work on repairing our relationships with others, we open up a door to a more profound, successful, cooperative relationship in the future. When we give others the opportunity to apologize, we help open up that same door. It can be uncomfortable for both parties: to admit that we are angry at our friend, and to admit to a friend that we were in the wrong. But it is the ultimate expression of love for one another.

That is what I am hoping to teach my child about apologies: that yes, they can be unpleasant. But that they are a gift! A gift given by the person we hurt that we are able to apologize. And when someone hurts them, the best thing they can do, the best act of love, is to let that person know they’ve been hurt and give them the opportunity to apologize. That is what it means to love your fellow as yourself.

So what is the challenge for you today? We’re told all the time to be better about apologizing and teshuva, that’s pretty standard sermon fodder. But when you’ve been hurt, its just as important to let the person who hurt you know, and give them the opportunity to apologize. And yes, I recognize that in many cases that is easier said than done. If someone has hurt you, you often don’t feel like talking with them at all, let alone about the thing they did to hurt you. But as Rabbi Akiva said, loving your fellow as yourself is one the greatest principles of the Torah. If it was easy, there wouldn’t be reason to emphasize it so much. But giving the gift of letting others apologize is one of the greatest acts of love we can do for each other. So whether we need to apologize, or let others know we’ve been hurt, let us all show a little more love to each other, repair our relationships to one another, and forge stronger connections.