Without Repentance, No Forgiveness

An Excerpt of "The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology"

Photo by mark tulin on Unsplash

I used to pity friends who stopped speaking to their relatives or colleagues. I didn’t want to be an angry person, clinging to an everlasting vendetta. Yet, I wasn’t a doormat. I adhered to W. H. Auden’s poetic advice to “Believe your pain” and Rabbi Hillel’s warning, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Still, I’d always forgiven everyone everything. I even forgave my college boyfriend who’d slept with not one, but two of my roommates. I’d also exonerated both of the women after they’d explained they’d been under the influence of magic mushrooms and expressed regret. Clearly I was capable of pardoning anyone if they just said, “I’m sorry.”

But now my long-term therapist Dr. Winter’s inability to acknowledge that he’d betrayed me and apologize felt unforgivable. I googled “forgive.” A billion-dollar Forgiveness Industry popped up: a British charity, a PBS documentary, a Mayo Clinic website. A Lutheran minister in Denver called her Facebook sermon “Forgive Assholes.” A Japanese Apology Agency I saw on YouTube took money to say “I’m sorry” to the clients you offended so you wouldn’t have to. I read pages and watched videos on the personal benefits of granting amnesty, deserved or undeserved.

At the Strand Bookstore, I splurged on used paperbacks touting forgiveness from every persuasion. Promoting radical absolution were an interfaith hypnotherapist, an Amish expert, a reform female rabbi, a Muslim father who forgave his son’s killer. A “New Thought” spiritual leader promoted 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything. A pastor of Christ’s Church in Philadelphia offered Getting Rid of the Gorilla. I read their words with frenzied hope. But unable to relax, enjoy a meal, rest, or focus, my gorilla grew.

I’d always forgiven everyone everything. I even forgave my college boyfriend who’d slept with not one, but two of my roommates. I’d also exonerated both of the women after they’d explained they’d been under the influence of magic mushrooms and expressed regret. Clearly I was capable of pardoning anyone if they just said, “I’m sorry.”…But now my long-term therapist Dr. Winter’s inability to acknowledge that he’d betrayed me and apologize felt unforgivable.

I devoured articles of crimes and cross-fires, where pundits proclaimed that granting clemency—even to someone who wouldn’t say I’m sorry—makes you freer, helps you sleep better, ups your sex drive, lowers blood pressure, decreases stress levels, and increases lifespan. These psycho-babbling promises insisted any offense could be overcome even without a sincere apology. My best college friend Judy, a psychotherapist, ran grief therapy groups on turning wounds into wisdom. Alas, with no repentance from Dr. Winters, my angst would not be calmed. Wounded, I was dumber and more miserable.

Still searching for enlightenment, at Holy Apostles soup kitchen—where I taught a writing work-shop—I spilled my saga to Reverend Liz, the kindest, most forgiving person I knew.

“Christians repent for sins during Lent, the way Jews did at Yom Kippur,” she explained. They were taught to “turn the other cheek” and forgive, as Jesus didn’t wait for an apology; he gave forgiveness freely.

I was more inclined towards the Jewish view that forgiveness was conditional and only following repentance. In the 1969 book The Sunflower, Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal relates how, as a former concentration camp prisoner, he’d heard a dying Nazi confess all of his war sins, including murder. Wiesenthal listened closely, then left without saying anything. Wiesenthal asked theologians, scholars, and authors if they would have shown mercy to the German soldier. To paraphrase: Austrian Catholic Cardinal Franz Konig (there’s no limit to forgiveness of Christ), South African Anglican cleric Desmond Tutu (“without forgiveness there is no future”), Nazi Albert Speer (“I can never forgive myself”), Islamic historian Smail Balić (“compassion for every sufferer”), Buddhist Dalai Lama (forgive but don’t forget), Chinese activist Harry Wu (no, but everyone in your society shares responsibility) and Jewish novelist Cynthia Ozick (hell no).

My own view aligned with the four-word declaration of Eva Fleischner, a New Jersey religion professor: “Without repentance, no forgiveness.”

I was intrigued by an Islamic scholar who felt similarly. Nora Zaki, an astute Muslim chaplain at Vassar College whom I’d met through a student, pointed out that Muslims also saw taking responsibility and action as an essential part of the forgiveness equation. Their God was merciful, but only after the offender’s apologizing, repenting, and changing. In the Quran, she said, a merciful Prophet Muhammad forgave Wahshi who’d admitted to killing the Prophet’s beloved uncle in battle. The prophet did not have Wahshi executed but said, “As much as possible do not come before me.”

I took that as the ancient equivalent of “get out of my face forever.” I really liked the idea that you could forgive someone while still banishing them. Yet what if Wahshi was in denial about his crime? Would Muhammad have exonerated a sinner who didn’t think he’d done anything wrong or hadn’t sought out any absolution from God or anyone?

Amy, a Chasidic colleague, was more specific about a Jew’s method of atonement. “For us, forgiving is a duty and a mitzvah. Jewish law requires a person to ask heartfelt forgiveness three times,” Amy said. “If the injured party won’t respond, the sinner is forgiven and the non-forgiver has to seek forgiveness for not forgiving.” But the request had to be inspired by true regret. I felt vindicated when my lawyer cousin Danny reminded me that admitting guilt and expressing remorse were often the deciding elements of criminal verdicts in the eyes of the law. Yet my issue was more about feelings than legality. A Buddhist yogi friend warned, “If you lost your foundation and feel ungrounded, those emotions could show up in your spine, a body part ruled by the root chakra, the body’s first power center.” Too late.

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Despite being skeptical of interstellar predictions, I phoned the wildly provocative Jungian astrologer (a.k.a. Stargazer) I’d known through Dr. Winters years earlier. “Forgiveness is overrated. Holding a grudge can be protective—so you’re not a perpetual victim getting hurt,” Stargazer said. “I blame all the Pluto in both of your seventh houses for shadowing love with abandonment and betrayal.”

Stargazer’s left-field advice always surprised me. “So I should never speak to him again?”

“Just be grateful you were betrayed by your shrink and not your husband. And you’re not done killing Winters off. He needs a proper burial.” Stargazer used his typical hyperbolic metaphors. “Then the death can lead to rebirth.”

Now that sounded Biblical. But it was impossible for me to reconsider trusting Dr. Winters if he didn’t offer any explanation or regret. I wasn’t in the mood to be a martyr. I became entranced by the website SorryWatch.com. I followed on Facebook and Twitter as two middle-aged female authors of the book “Sorry Sorry Sorry” from analyzed public and newsworthy faux pas for “signs of defective, weaselly, and poisoned apologies.” They broke it down to such categories as “Royal Apologies,” “Belated Apologies,” “Performative Utterances,” “Twitpologies,” and “Apologies Not Accepted.” I already saw how a passive-aggressive “Sorry if I hurt you” could deepen a rift. I heard the echo of Dr. Winters’s words: “I hope you’ll forgive the imaginary crime you envision I’m committing.” That aggressive-aggressive tone made me want to commit an actual crime.

I felt better when my husband came home, but he was immersed in work. He thought I was, too. I was actually just scrawling notes all over the book On Apology by Dr. Aaron Lazare. I read his section “Forgiveness Without Apology,” where people forgave to be free from anger, resentment, and grudges. Without remorse, Lazare wrote, reconciliation was unlikely. I underlined the elements that he felt were needed when somebody apologized fully: 1) acknowledgment and taking responsibility for your mistake, 2) explaining why it happened, 3) showing it won’t happen again, and 4) offering reparations for healing. Lazare traced this formula back to Maimonides, the twelfth-century scholar. This philosophy, I could wrap my head around.

I already saw how a passive-aggressive “Sorry if I hurt you” could deepen a rift. I heard the echo of Dr. Winters’s words: “I hope you’ll forgive the imaginary crime you envision I’m committing.” That aggressive-aggressive tone made me want to commit an actual crime.

I called my parents’ smart new Conservative rabbi, Joseph Krakoff, to see if he sanctioned this approach. He shared his theory on The Jewish Apology: “I personally don’t feel any apologizing has officially taken effect until the offending person is in the same situation again and acts differently, showing they’ve learned and changed.”

“What if someone who wronged you doesn’t even feel you’re owed any apology?” I asked.

Rabbi Krakoff told me that in his hospice work, when a family gathered around someone very old or ill, he led them in an end-of-life prayer they all shared: “‘You are forgiven. I forgive you. Please forgive me. I love you.’ Sometimes the best way to get someone to say they’re sorry is to say it yourself,” he said.

Sounded too kumbaya to me. “Any old coot ever yell ‘I have nothing to apologize for?’” I asked.

“Yes, actually,” he said. “A difficult father told his oldest child, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I did the best I could.’ The daughter gave me a look that said ‘See what I’ve been up against for forty years?’”

“So it was a stalemate?”

“No. I told him that I couldn’t make him do something that wasn’t in his heart, but it was a good way to end peacefully,” Rabbi Krakoff recalled. “The next day he told her, ‘I’ve thought about it. I still don’t think I did anything wrong, but I’ll say the prayer because the Rabbi says it’s a better way to leave the world.’ Even saying those words begrudgingly meant a lot to his daughter.”

That could have been me, my real and my fake father.

As I hung up the phone, I checked my email and found the copy of an old therapy bill receipt I already paid. On the bottom Dr. Winters had scrawled: “I’m sure you’ll write about this.”

He sounded like the caustic father he was supposed to be replacing. Despite Dr. Winters’s sarcastic prediction that I would use our falling out as material, I couldn’t type a sentence. For someone normally busy at the computer ten hours a day, it was paralyzing. I wasted hours flat on the floor holding my iPhone above me, anxiously refreshing my inbox, awaiting an apology from the person he used to be.