The Importance of Apologies

Sincere apologies, it would seem, are our nation’s fastest diminishing resource. A few weeks ago, many of you may have watched one of the oddest and perhaps most unsatisfying endings to a U.S. Open tennis match, as Serena Williams strenuously and rather inelegantly objected to the linesman’s call of a foot fault violation. For her unsportsmanlike conduct she was penalized the point, which was match point, thus losing the match, and additionally fined more than ten thousand dollars.

More disappointing than the outburst, which, given illustrious predecessors like John “You’ve got to be kidding me” McEnroe, was not in itself unprecedented, was her subsequent non-apology apology. This was her statement:

Everyone could see the passion I have for my job. Now that I have had time to regain my composure, I can see that, while I do not agree with the line call, in the heat of battle I let my emotions get the better of me and handled the situation poorly. I would like to thank my fans and supporters for understanding that I am human, and I look forward to continuing the journey, both professionally and personally, with you all as I move forward and grow from this experience.”

What is missing? The words “sorry” or “apology” never actually appear. Admittedly, a day later she amended her press statement, apologizing to her opponent, the USTA, and tennis fans everywhere, but by then the damage had been done.

It is not only our athletes who seem to have trouble apologizing. I am sure everyone in this room recalls this summer’s incident in Cambridge involving the professor and the police Sergeant, also known as “Gates-Gate.” Aside from the particulars of the incident, the real story, of course, happened when our President weighed in on the matter. Realizing that his intervention had unfortunately ratcheted up a local incident to a national level, he felt compelled to weigh in a second time. Most people remember this next speech for introducing the concept of “a teachable moment” into the vernacular. I was struck by what it lacked. President Obama stated:

I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically – and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley. I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved.

Again, what is missing? How in the world could we expect either the professor or the officer to apologize if the President himself could not bring himself to utter the words “I’m sorry”? Our world is full of non-apology apologies. Democrats and Republicans, scholars and athletes, Popes and plain folk all acknowledge but don’t apologize. Somewhere along the way the ordinary act of saying “I’m sorry” with sincerity has become beyond what we can be expected to do.

This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuvah. It is perhaps the most sacred Shabbat of the Jewish calendar, nestled between the New Year and Yom Kippur. These ten days are all about saying “I’m sorry.” We acknowledge our shortcomings and frailties, we admit them to others as we ask their forgiveness, we apologize. According to Jewish tort law (Bava Kamma 8:7), if one injures a fellow, one can pay damages, medical bills, and every other mode of compensation, but one is not forgiven until one has given an apology. So too with our interpersonal offenses. The rabbis make very clear in Mishnah Yoma (8:9), the Mishnah that deals with Yom Kippur, that the key to unlocking the power of these days lies in a well-placed apology. Yom Kippur alone does not grant atonement, there are no magical properties to the day. The success of Yom Kippur hangs on our ability to arrive at shul tomorrow night, having made apologies to our loved ones,
family, and community. Each one of us should be able to look back on the week gone by having issued apologies. If you can’t, well the only good news is that you still have 36 hours.

There is a wonderful book called On Apology by Aaron Lazare, a distinguished psychiatrist who is Chancellor and Dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. In the early 1990’s, Lazare became intrigued by the process of apology. Lazare lists the numerous ways that we avoid saying those words. Let me offer a few:

We apologize, but do it without sincerity. The words come out, but they are hollow and tinny and reflect no contrition. With four young children, I know this apology well. I tell them to apologize to each other. They say, “I’m sorry,” with an abject lack of sincerity. It is a start, but as adults hearing it, we know that it may be better to say nothing at all.

As adults, more often we employ what I call the flow-of-traffic defense. I am just doing what everyone else is doing. We justify our own inadequacies by pointing out other people’s shortcomings. As Camus wrote, “To justify himself, each relies on the other’s crimes.”

A conditional apology: Janet Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, this one is all over the place: “If anyone was offended by what I said, I apologize.” It is the oldest trick in the book. And it is particularly offensive because it shifts the blame. The offense is no longer objective but merely a matter of perception. If you are offended, well that is your issue, but not my intention, in fact, many people may not think my action to be offensive – is it really my fault that you do?

A vague apology – I apologize for whatever I did. This one was made famous by Trent Lott some years ago, to apologize for a “poor choice of words.” Again, non-specific, like Serena Williams’ speech, it gives the appearance of contrition, but falls short of the mark.

The passive apology – this is the most famous, especially in political circles. “Mistakes were made.” My mistakes, not necessarily; mistakes, whom do they belong to? Not sure.

I have given you five, but I could give you fifty ways to not say sorry without apologizing. No matter which technique – each one is equally unsatisfactory, each one a mode by which we avoid what we know we have to do. We don’t apologize because we think it is a sign of weakness. Our egos, our vanity, our pride, stop us from acknowledging that we were wrong and someone else was right. Moreover, when we do apologize, there is no promise of forgiveness. It is a leap of faith, and a baring of the soul. Worse than lowering ourselves in the estimation of others is the possibility that we could then have that fact lorded over us. But more than that, to apologize with sincerity, in true contrition, forces each of us to realize our own shortcomings, to admit our own guilt and shame for past misdeeds – and that is a very hard thing for any of us to do.

This leaves us, of course, with the real question. Why are apologies so important? Why do they matter as much as they do? First and foremost, apologies are important because they acknowledge a wrong that one has committed. Did you ever wonder why any support group always begins with my name is so-and-so, and I am a gambler, an alcoholic, or whatever. Because the first step in any rehabilitation process is being honest about who we are, even in our faults.

Lazare writes that a critical reason apologies are so important is that an apology is an assurance that the offended party is not at fault. Too often, the offended party questions whether they were somehow responsible for the offense. To say “I am sorry” to another person relieves that person of their concern of culpability. Apologizing has a restorative effect on both the offender and the offended.

There are other reasons, but I think the most important reason to apologize is also the most basic. We need to apologize because a sincere and well-placed apology is the key to reconciliation and healing. Not because it admits fault or makes one party feel superior to another. Apologies are important because they signal shared values in a way that enable a relationship to proceed forward. To use a trivial example, when you apologize to someone for running late for a lunch date, what you are doing in essence is identifying a common value – being on time – and acknowledging that good friends or colleagues, in a perfect universe, show up to lunch when they say they will. You apologize, because on that occasion you fell short of this ideal or standard that you share in common with your friend.

To not apologize is to say that you don’t share a value system with another person. To use Lazare’s language, apologies, “remind us that people can make mistakes and recover from them, that values once ignored can be reestablished, that a relationship can be healed. We breathe easier knowing that our original estimation of the offending party was correct after all; our trust was not misplaced.” An apology bears with it incredible potential for healing. In a topsy-turvy world it tells us that there is a right and wrong, all is not relative, and while each of us may fall short, we all know that there is an identifiable bar to which we aspire.

There are some people in this world who think that apologies are a sign of weakness. Personally, I think that apologies are a sign of strength. It is incredibly hard to take responsibility for an error in judgment. It is hard to admit faults to ourselves and even tougher to admit them to others. But if you can’t, if you can’t bring yourself to utter the words “I’m sorry,” then the path of teshuvah, of repentance, will be forever closed to you.

The midrash explains that on the eve of the very first Sabbath of creation, after creating the sun, the moon, the stars, the beasts of the field, and the fish of the sea, God went through a final punch-list of items before entering the first Sabbath. Each item God checked off makes intuitive sense, like the rainbow, the manna, the Garden of Eden. One item stands out from others in the list. The midrash explains that before that Sabbath, God did not rest until teshuvah, repentance, had been created. God knew that the world could not exist and humanity could not endure, unless we had the ability to say,
“I’m sorry.”

There is ultimately one reason why saying I’m sorry is so important, because it is through an apology that we can create and maintain our world – the world in which we live, the world that we seek to create in the year to come.