Remorse Without Shame

Dear friends,

The rabbis in the Talmud are big on accountability. But I'm not sure how they would feel about some of our current societal methods of holding people accountable for their actions. Public shaming, or what they called "taking the color out of another's face in public," is like murder, they hold. Following a nuance in a verse from Leviticus they hold that while we are obligated to reprove our fellow people when they act wrongly, we must do so in such a way that we don't drive them to commit further wrongs. "Make sure to reprove your fellow person, so that you do not carry their sin." (Leviticus 19:17) Not the sin they have already committed, expound the rabbis, but the one you might drive them to by publicly shaming them.

Their instinct recognizes the danger of shame. We all have experienced it. How the understanding that we did something wrong - hurt someone we didn't want to hurt, expressed a position that is offensive to some, let our tongue or body slip in an embarrassing way - spreads through our bodies and drives us to entrench our position and lash out. When we follow the feeling of shame we often end up in violence.

My wife, Erika, who works in the field of Restorative Justice has long been working on the transformation of shame within contexts of harm. Instead of shame, remorse. This week she published a piece on public apologies which analyzes Will Smith's apology to Chris Rock, and the way he spoke about shame. It holds some keys to how we might think about apologizing to those we've harmed, as the season of forgiveness approaches. I thought it apt to share it with you. And thankfully, she agreed! Read her piece HERE.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Misha