Good Life Project - How to Make Amends When We Cause Harm (and we all will) | Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

We all mess up. Sometimes in small ways, but other times big ones. Sometimes privately, other times publicly. We don’t mean to - or maybe we do in the momentum, but feel remorse after the fact. Either way, we all will, at some point, hurt someone. And we may also suffer repercussions. Whether personal, communal, or societal. Question is, what do we do after that? How do we repair the harm, and make amends? How do we find a way back to grace, connection, community, redemption and repair? Is that even possible in all cases? And if so, what are the steps? And what about forgiveness? Does that, and should it, be a part of the process? Turns out, there is a well-defined set of steps, a path, that very few know about.Today, we explore a practical, though not always easy, 5-step path to repair, reconciliation, and redemption based on ancient, universal wisdom, that she details in her newest book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. We talk about each step, why it’s there, how to step into it, and some challenging “edge case” and how to both do the work and set expectations. And, we also talk about forgiveness, with Rabbi Danya offering a powerful alternative take on it.You can find Rabbi Danya at: Website | Twitter | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Jonathan Haidt about the free exchange of ideas, cancel culture, and the line between growth and harm.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have to take the impacts of our actions seriously. We have to assume that other people are as worthy of care and concern as we are. And when we mess up, it is an opportunity for us to learn and grow. And if part of me doesn't want to hear someone saying, ouch, what you're saying is hurting me as a human being, then I might need to look at why that is. Like what is going on with me that I'm shutting down someone saying I'm in pain and you don't want to see it. Okay. So we all mess up sometimes in small ways, but other times in big ones, sometimes privately,

other times publicly. We don't mean to, or maybe we do in the moment, but feel remorse after the fact. And either way, we all will at some point hurt someone. And we may also suffer repercussions, whether personal, communal, or societal. The question is, what do we do after that? How do we repair the harm and make amends? How do we find a way back to grace and connection, community, redemption, and repair? Is that even possible in all cases? And if so, what are the steps? And what about forgiveness? Does that and should it be a part of the process? Well, it turns out there's a well defined set of steps, a path very few know about. And that is where we're headed in today's conversation with Rabbi Donya Ruttenberg. Named by Newsweek as a rabbi to watch and a wunderkind

of Jewish feminism by Publishers Weekly, Rabbi Donya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author of several books and a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and so many others. She serves as a scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women and as a rabbi and educator at Tufts and Northwestern Universities, Hillel International, the Dialogue Project, Ask Big Questions, and Avodah, an organization dedicated to creating leaders for economic justice. And today, we explore a practical, though not always easy, five-step path to repair, reconciliation, and redemption based on ancient universal wisdom that she details in her newest book on repentance and repair, Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. And we dive into each step, why it's there, how to move into it, and some challenging edge

cases, and how to both do the work and set expectations. And we also talk about this idea of forgiveness and how and if it plays a role in the process of redemption. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. We generally ask folks, you know, in the beginning, is there any sort of like unusual interest or quirks or stories? And you happen to share that you wrote down three interests, trees, twilight, and when my kids beat me at cards. And I'm like, I can't just roll past that and not even sort of like ask about it. So all at the same time, like kids beating you at cards during twilight in the trees or i you know i i have never had the uh fortune

of getting to play cards with my children outside in the trees at twilight but that would be perfect um but i like trees i you know oh shouldn't we all? They are magical. They are wonderful. I don't have anything articulate to say about them, except that. For some reason, they just do something. Yeah, they do the thing. And Twilight is that time that is neither day nor night. That is this in-between time. You know, the light is famous for photographers and everyone as being a little enchanted.

And in terms of Judaism, it's a really special time in Jewish law because the rabbis are like, well, it's not day. So the daytime stuff doesn't apply and it's not night. So the nighttime stuff doesn't apply and it's not night. So the nighttime stuff doesn't apply. And for a tradition that really likes to put things in categories, it is confounding. And a couple of friends of mine, Rabbi Reuven Kelman and Rabbi Elliot Kukla have done some amazing work on how the rabbis relate to folks who don't fit neatly

into gender categories and how they are akin to the holiness of folks who don't fit neatly into gender categories being treated by the rabbis of the Talmud as in the same ways as the holiness of Twilight. So I personally just have a very straight up emotional relationship to Twilight, but also an affinity for everything and everybody that doesn't fit neatly into people's preconceived categories and boxes. Yeah, I love that. And I love the notion of Twilight as sort of like being this, you know, like sort of like generalized descriptor for that. Because it's rather than so many descriptors for folks who don't fit any sort of norm, there's an

othering sense in the way that we might sort of view or categorize or name. But Twilight, there's a grace and a beauty to the word that I feel like also really inures to folks who in some way, shape, or form don't fit into those traditional mainstream things. But natural. Yeah. But part of the spectrum of what is and should be. No, no, I love that. Okay. So are your kids beating you in cards on a regular basis now, or is this just the UK? Increasingly. My kids are 13, 10, and 7. So it's just at that age where

they're, you know, it's gone from, you know, mommy's going to maybe purposely not make the most skillful move to my kids are showing me what they've got. And generally playing with my children is great. And that moments, those moments when, when they show me what they've got are wonderful. Yeah. I so resonate with that. It's funny. When I saw you share that, I was like, I had this interesting thing pop into my head. I'm a snowboarder and I've snowboarded with my daughter for 12, 13, 14 years now. And I've been doing it for a very long time and she's 21 now. And a couple of years ago, there was this moment on a mountain where I realized that she had sped ahead and she was waiting for me. And it was like this passing of the baton moment. And I was like, don't let this pass because this is actually significant.

This is a really beautiful and powerful and meaningful moment right here. And she was just kind of like, we're just having fun. But there was something about it where I picked up on it. I was like, something's just changed. It's wonderful. I didn't realize until my children got there how fabulous it is to see your children be better than you. That is actually the whole point. Probably the reason the word naches was invented, right? Exactly. It's like it applies for certain situations. Okay, that's one of them. Great.

Yeah. So excited to dive into, you've been writing about and doing a lot of work and your new book is on this topic that is so centered in the conversation that we are in, not just the conversation, but in our lives, in popular culture, in society, in politics, in religion, in everyday interactions, in ways that a lot of people are struggling with these days and the notion of repentance and repair. So it's interesting to me. Part of my curiosity is you've been a long time writer, I think seven books before this even, and written a whole bunch of other stuff before that. Why this topic at this scale at this moment for you? So it kind of emerged organically. I have always been a fan

of Maimonides' Laws of Repentance. I've always thought that there was something really wise and true and that he had it right. And a little bit after Me Too broke, a writer that I know emailed me and said, I'm writing a piece about what the path back looks like for men in particular, some of these high profile guys who had been named as perpetrators of abuse. Like, we know what to do when they're named, but then what? What would, are they just gone forever? How do we think about this? How do we make sense of it? And so I wrote up some thoughts

based on what I knew from The Laws of Repentance. And I sent a couple of paragraphs and sent them to my journalist friend. And as this thing happened, maybe a sentence or two of what I had sent in made it into the piece and they were quoting other people and they were sending their thoughts. And then they responded to me, you know, hey, the link is up of the piece. Thanks for sharing your ideas as a response to what I had sent them. So I shared the piece and I was like, I sort of reread what I had written. I was like, oh, hey, this isn't bad. Maybe I'll tweet what I had sent my friend as well as the link to their piece, even the stuff that they didn't use. And so I wrote this thread and it started with, I want to distinguish between repentance and forgiveness and atonement. And then I went through kind of how a Jewish perspective

on doing the work and taking responsibility for your harms and doing the work to change and centering those who were harmed and being accountable to them and repairing to the extent possible the harm that was caused and becoming the kind of person that doesn't do that thing again, like what that would look like given the nature of this abuse. And given the fact that these guys weren't just in a closed situation where the only people who knew about it were the perpetrator and the victim, but this had now impacted an entire public conversation about rape culture and their choices really would affect how we were all thinking about what is acceptable

in terms of sexual abuse, right? And so I just tweeted some, like, here's the thread. And people's responses were just, I'd not expected the intensity of response that I'd gotten. Whoa, wow. Never thought about this. I. Just coming from an American context where the notion is a very bad one, even if it was written by your publicist. We don't know what to ask the harm doer to do. And we don't know how to judge whether or not it has been enough work. And I'm like, oh, we got a system over here. And people are like, well, what about this? Well, what about this? Well, what about this? And so I started answering questions on Twitter. And so then the Twitter thing turned into an op-ed.

And that turned into NPR interviews. And everywhere I went, I got not just questions, but this sort of intensity of questions. Like, I've been a rabbi for a while now. I am used to people coming to me with ethical questions, but there was this sort of this passion, this plugged into this place where people were deeply disturbed by something that happened in college, by something they were reading in the news, by whatever. And they just didn't know what to do. And it was personal and it hurt.

And there was no roadmap. And I kept coming back to like, well, we have a roadmap. There's a roadmap. And the more I started talking to people and working with Maimonides' steps of repentance and holding them up to, well, yeah, well, when we talk about this and when we talk about systemic racism and when we talk about this, it kept fitting and it just was clear that there needed to be a more expansive exploration of the conversation. I'm wondering if part of what caught you by surprise, I'm curious about this, was that this seemed so clear to you.

There just seemed to be this big chasm of understanding about what do we do in this moment. And that was so deep and so wide in conversation across culture that, because it seems like for you, it's rational, it's logical, it's something you know and have known. It's a sensible model to handle this exact situation. But it seems like a lot of what was getting fed back to you was we had no idea something like this existed. Listen, I didn't get, I didn't become religious until I was in my early 20s. So I'm sort of a late bloomer Jewishly in a lot of ways. But I grew up in a, you know, kind of Jewish household. Like, you know, we'd go to synagogue on the high holy days.

I had a bat mitzvah. You know, we were not like not Jewish. And, but the, like the one time we'd go to synagogue was the time of year when sermons are about doing the repentance work and cleaning up your mess. So even as a casual user, so to speak of my tradition, I was getting this messaging. And so it was always, even as somebody who's been deeply immersed in secular American culture, like I never left secular American culture. I've always had one foot in it. I was always getting this other perspective. And Jewish culture has its work to do. There are a lot of examples in the book. The Jewish community is still also working on our stuff.

Like, it's not like we're perfect and are, you know, are showing the world the way everybody is full of human beings who are struggling to work on their stuff. Put it that way. And institutions and people with power and all of that. But yeah, we have this model and it's really obvious and clear. And there are some reasons why American culture is lacking this model. And I think a lot of the reasons why this country is the way it is in a lot of the, a lot of the deep-seated problems that we have is because we refuse to engage these models of accountability and repair of harm. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. I want to dive into this model, deconstruct it a bit with you and talk about some of the ways that we can apply it. But before we get there, now you've really piqued my curiosity.

And I think maybe I didn't realize whenever somebody sort of grows up in a tradition and it's more tradition than practice or than adopted theory. And it sounds like I was raised very similarly to you. And then reaches a moment of inflection in life where they're like, oh, you know what? I need to revisit this and actually embrace it in a very different way. And then even center it in my life as like, this is a primary devotion for me. I'm always curious about that moment, that point of inflection. It's like a gradual evolution, whether there was an inciting incident. Do you have a sense of what was it that flipped the switch for you that said, I need to come back to this in a different way and make it more meaningful in my life? What's a nice secular atheist like me doing in a remnant like this?

I'm not an atheist anymore, obviously. So yeah, I was into philosophy and then accidentally in college started studying religion as an atheist, but it was like history and it was philosophy and it was language and the study of why people do things. And it was mythic and it was fascinating. Then when I was in college, my mother died of cancer. We did the funeral Jewishly because we're Jews. And of course, that's what we're going to do. And we sat Shiva. We had that sort of seven day process of staying home and letting people come take care of us and comfort us because of course we were going to do that. And at Shiva, we did the mourner's prayer because the mourner's Kaddish, because of course we were going to do that. And it's traditional for someone to go say Kaddish for 11 months if you've lost a parent. And after Shiva ended, I just went to go say Kaddish every Friday night because I

don't know, because that's what we do. And it wasn't, there was no philosophical argument. It was just like, this is what we do. And after so many years of reading books on ritual theory, I was able to open up the prayer book week after week and kind of go, oh, I see. I kind of get what's going on here. And though I had had this whole story in my head about how God was, you know, a man in the sky with a beard and I rejected that, right? At the same time in grief, I was having what I would now call mystical experiences, right? I was plopped open and had to start.

And I'm describing like a three-year process in a couple sentences. I started to figure out that actually 2,000 years of nuanced theology doesn't think that God is a dude with a beard on a mountain, but something much more interesting. And then the, what is that much more interesting? And it turns out there are a lot, a lot of different ideas. And I sort of went and, you know, found the loose thread and started pulling on it. And then moved to San Francisco after college and ran into a rabbi named Alan Liu and followed him around for five years. And it's his fault that I'm a rabbi. Yeah. I've had such an incredible opportunity to sit down with so many people who've made these profound changes, whether it's faith-related or so many different things. And so often there's some sort of one-two combination of an inciting incident that shatters in some

way, shape or form the model of the world that you knew, followed by some form of teacher or a guy or mentor showing up. And sometimes it's not even somebody who actively takes an interest, but they play a role that somehow keeps that flame of curiosity just enough alive until it becomes this sort of like self-kindling flame within you that starts to just burn inside of you. I'm fascinated by that process because it happens in so many different domains of life. And when it does, almost to the one, everyone who's shared a similar experience shares how profound. And part of my other curiosity is, do you ever think about what might have

happened if this didn't happen? Now, of course, your mom passing from cancer is a horrible thing. And I'm sure you have revisited that. But even going to San Francisco, when you're in a certain moment and not having stumbled upon this one person who somehow kept that flame burning so it turned into something bigger. You showed up there and none of that ever happened. I'm so fascinated by the concept of sliding doors in that way. I don't know. I do know. I think it's correct. People often need something to pop them open and make them open to the possibility that life could be different than what it is. And then they need someone to show them where the path is. Right. Yeah. I don't know, but I read like the stuff I wrote in high school and college and I was looking for something. And even, you know, I finally found Rabbi Lou, who, for everybody listening, he wrote a couple of extraordinary books.

He unfortunately is no longer with us, but he left behind a couple of amazing books, one of which is called This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. And one is called Be Still and Get Going. I met him at the very end of a very long Bay Area shopping process full of like, I'm not into the non-consensual hugging. And I, you know, I wasn't into this. And this, you know, it was like very Goldilocks. And I think I probably would have just kept going until I found the person or the path or the whatever. And I don't know, I have no idea what that would have been. Yeah. But the seeking was in process. It sounds like. Yeah. I was, I was looking, I was already looking. Which kind of weaves us back nicely into the conversation around repentance and repair also,

right? Because we are, we're all in this mode of seeking, you know, there's, we, we're all in this mode of seeking. We're experiencing harm now. We are doing harm, whether we intend to or not, we are. It's part of the human experience. And we're witnessing harm and being impacted vicariously often and profoundly through that. And there is this model that helps to guide us through it. You shared, it's a model that was developed by Maimonides. So for those who've never been exposed to who this being is, give me like the, you know, like the short form. Maimonides was Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, sometimes called the Rambam,

which is an acronym for Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, was a medieval rabbi, philosopher, thinker, physician, and codifier of Jewish law. And he was born in Spain under one caliphate, and then another caliphate came in and they liked Jews less. And so his family left. He wound up in Egypt. And he took his big innovation, a few, but one of them was that he took a lot of the writing that was in the Talmud, which is an extraordinary compendium of Jewish law, but it's conversations and it's digressions and it's not very linear. And if you're not a scholar, it's really hard to figure out what's going on. So he took all of this stuff that was scattered all over the place and he organized it. And in places where it wasn't clear what the answer is

and you'd have to kind of like really know and reverse engineer to figure out, he was like, just do this. You don't have to read the whole back and forth. Just do this. You know, when it's this time, you say this thing in this way is the answer. Like for people who just need to know what to do, just read my book. If you want to like study the whole conversation, be a scholar, read the Talmud. And it was controversial in his day, but it was a huge innovation in Jewish law. So this book,

the Mishnah Torah, included the laws of repentance. So he took all of this stuff from the Talmud and other rabbinic sources, earlier rabbinic sources. And so he's 11th, 12th century. And he organized them in a way that was more linear and more sort of you could sort of track what's happening. And if you read him carefully, I make the claim that there are five stages of repentance that he lays out. And I think it's pretty clear. The core of my book is sort of going through and taking these sort of five stages that you see and sort of applying them on micro and macro levels. Let's walk through these stages then and tease them out a little bit. And then let's talk a little bit about how some of the different ways that we can explore them in different contexts

in life these days. So walk me through the five. Okay. Step one is confession, aka own what you did. No hedging. No, I really intended to. I know I didn't mean to. None of it. I did this fully. Dan Harmon, the showrunner for Community, when he was talking about his sexual harassment and then retaliation. Dan Harmon, the showrunner for a community when he's talking about sexual harassment and retaliation of one of his employees said basically very clearly in a confession, if I respected women, there would be no way that I could do that. Right. That's like, own it, own your stuff. Name what you did. Name the, it's the end of the gaslighting, right? There's, we're not pretending that something else happened. We don't need to get into the nitty gritty details

of I put my hand in this place. We just need your full culpability. And it has to be at least to the people who were there and witnessed. So if you said something racist in a staff meeting, then at least all of the people who were there and witnessed. So if you said something racist in a staff meeting, then at least all of the people who were there to hear you say it need to hear your confession. And if you can put that confession on Slack,

you can give your confession next week at the next staff meeting. If you're on the ball, you can catch what you said right then and say, ooh, I just heard what came out of my mouth. That was really racist. I am seeing some of my internalized white supremacy coming to the fore. That's not okay. Right? Whatever it is, you have to own it. Step one, own it. And it's praiseworthy to do that more publicly. So naming it on Twitter, telling more people, whatever it is, because then you're asking for accountability. You're telling the people in your

life, in your community that you are struggling with such and such thing, that you have some stuff to work on, that they can help you, that you are going on a journey of change. A person who was harmed can see that you are really doing the thing. It is a validation of their experience. They no longer have to worry or wonder if they are making it up in their own head, or if they have been telling people that this happened and they are not believed, then you are validating for others that in fact, this did happen, right? So let's get it out in the open, confession. Number two, start to change. So you start to do the work because the goal of this is that at the end of the day, you're no longer the person who does the thing. So does this mean therapy? Does this mean rehab? Does this mean you're educating yourself on a

topic that you have some ignorant places? And it's time to go learn a little bit more about trans liberation. Maybe it's time to learn, do some anti-racist education. I don't know. Is it time to call your sponsor? Is it time to come up with some new HR systems and policies because the ones you have aren't protecting people well enough? Is it time to pass some new bills that are going to protect your constituents better? I don't know, but it's start to make changes so that things can be different in the future. Step three is amends. What does the person who was harmed need? I think all of these stages are victim-centric, but note that we're not approaching the person who was harmed until you've already started to do the work so

that you don't have somebody who is not fully cooked on facing their harm showing up. You want them to like already be dealing a little bit so that they're a little more humble, a little bit more educated on their own garbage before they're engaging with you. And then it's what do they need? Do they need you to pay their medical bill? Do they need you to pay back that plane ticket because they missed their flight because of you?

Do they need you to actually they they have good medical insurance. They don't need you to pay their medical bill. What they need is something else. You don't know because you have to ask them, right? You don't make amends at a person. You make it with them. Are you volunteering time for an organization that is the appropriate organization? Are you donating money? Are you becoming time for an organization that is the appropriate organization? Are you donating money? Are you becoming a spokesperson? Are you connecting the person who was harmed to new employment opportunities because your sexual harassment of them harmed them professionally? I don't know.

I mean, what would be the thing to help sew up this hole in the cosmos that you created, right? What is the thing that you can do to start to make things right? Do you need to spend the rest of your life working to try to make your community safer for victims of abuse because you let an abuser go be a predator for however many years before he was finally caught, right? And so you're going to have to like, this is just going to be like you get what you did and you get the harm now and you're going to have to you're just going to spend the rest of your life becoming an advocate for change because that is the thing to do. Right.

It depends. And then there's apology, which, again, by this point, it's not, oh, I'm so sorry. Definitely not. I'm so sorry. You are feeling sad. It's definitely nothing your publicist wrote. It's not so that third parties who were not involved can feel good about you. It's about the person who was hurt. And by this point, you have been doing the work of owning your stuff, of facing it, of transformation, of doing that work in therapy, of doing the anti-racist education, it's not like I have to check a box apology, but rather you are so filled with remorse that you could have done this to another human being that your regretful heart just wants to communicate to them. And you see them and you see how hurt they are. And you get that you did that. And it hurts you that you were the cause of their pain and you just need to communicate that to them.

Right. That's the apology. It's not about getting you off the hook. Oh, and part of amends is accepting the consequences of harm. Right. Actions have consequences. You can't undo their hurt. So some of the actions have consequences for you, too. Maybe you're not welcome at game night anymore. Sorry. Like maybe you lose that job opportunity. Maybe you don't get that $6 million Netflix deal. Sorry.

Maybe you don't get the public adoration and enjoyment anymore. People don't want to buy your records. Maybe there are legal consequences you have to deal with. And accepting that humbly and understanding that your choices have consequences that are part of your actions and not feeling like you're entitled to the thing because you said sorry or you're like, well, but I. That shows us that you actually get what you did. So that's part of amends. And then there's apology. And then step five, step five is when you have the, when you have the opportunity to do the thing again, you make a different choice. And there is always the chance to have the opportunity to do the thing again. Always have a chance to let your unresolved anger play out some way. You'll always have an opportunity to work out your abandonment

issues inappropriately in a new relationship. You will always have the opportunity to deal in a non-productive manner with your authority issues at work, right? If you don't deal with it, you will always have an opportunity to re-inscribe white supremacy all over your country, right? You can go from enslavement to lynching to redlining, right? Jim Crow, mass incarceration, voter suppression, right? It doesn't have to look like the exact same thing again and again for it to be the same pattern. And just because you're not doing the exact same thing in your interpersonal life, in your institutional life doesn't mean you're not doing the thing if you don't do the work and you will keep doing the thing if you don't do work.

So I have so many questions about these five elements. So we're going to bounce around and go back a little bit. But before we even get into those, one thing that is sort of blatantly missing that I think is actually blatantly centered in sort of like a Western cultural overlay of situations like this is forgiveness. yet in popular discourse about how do we make this better? Forgiveness is often centered. So tell me about this very intentional reversal. I truly believe, and I mostly see it in Maimonides, and I think there's one place where I think he made a mistake in his source selection, and I quibble in the book book about it and it's a little too in the weeds to get into now. But I think more or less Maimonides agrees with me. And I think it's very clear overall in the sources that forgiveness, the forgiveness process is a different path than the repentance process. Like you've got two different people with two different pieces of paper and everybody's got to keep their eyes on their own blue books, as we used to say back in the olden days.

Nobody gets that expression anymore. Oh, I get it. You get it, see? I wrote a whole lot of blue books in school. Hey! Like just keep your eyes on your own page. And in Judaism, the work is on the harm doer to make things right. And if the harm

doer doesn't come to you and come correct, like if they are not doing the work and doing it sincerely, if it seems like they're doing it in a formulaic way, if anybody's pressuring you or trying to coerce you, or it doesn't feel authentic. And all of the words about apologizing are really victim-centric, right? You're supposed to appease the person who was harmed, which would be different for one person than it would be for another. Like, what do you need to appease me in this situation? It's not a checkbox, right? So if they're not coming to you correctly, there's no obligation, no question, forgiveness is off the table. If you were hurt, you can always choose to forgive, right? You can always, if it feels right for your healing process, if you're just ready to get

on with your life and just let it go, beautiful, zygazant, have a lovely day, enjoy, right? You can always forgive. You can choose to tell the harm doer or not. You can choose to tell the harm doer or not. You can whatever. And if you don't want to forgive you, the sources are totally supportive of you. Great. If the person who harmed you comes to you and does a real like is they're doing the work and they're doing it in a deep way. First of all, they're like, and if the person who was harmed rejects you the first time,

then you come back and you bring an accountability team to make sure that you're like doing it right. And they're like, your accountability team is going to like help figure out why you're not apologizing well and what you're messing up. Right. So there's a whole process, a whole back and forth where we're presuming that the person harmed is not necessarily forgiving at the first go. But basically, if the person harmed doesn't forgive after three times, the harm doer is free to go to Yom Kippur and they're off the hook. So this thing of like, I can't go to God and ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, unless you forgive me doesn't exist. My repentance process is not dependent on you forgiving me. That doesn't, that's not a thing in Judaism. So the person harmed gets to like be over here and have their process and deal with their experience of this harm in whatever way, on whatever schedule, definitely if it's permanent

harm that's going to, you know, like deep trauma kind of stuff, there's no obligation to forgive. And if it's lesser harm, then the sources want to push you to figure out what the block is and why are you being petty? Are you trying to lord something over? What's going on with you that's real? There's no obligation. It's not part of the other person's repentance work, right? We're caring for the person who was harmed. We're not asking them to do labor after they were hurt. Yeah. It's sort of like we're saying this is entirely on us. And if this other thing happens, like that would be great. And it's interesting also that Judaism sort of cars out the path that says, if you actually do the work and then you genuinely

go and you apologize, you do all the five steps and then you seek forgiveness and it's not forthcoming, you seek it again, you go sort of through the steps that it's not that you're off the hook from that point, but it's that you can then sort of like return to source and say, I've done the thing. I will continue to do the thing. And I'm looking to be right with you, however you define you as well. Even though that thing called forgiveness may never come. It's almost like they're too related, but not necessarily dependent processes.

Yeah. And it's the thing that the harm doer has to remember is that their job is to A, face what they've done, B, work to become the kind of person who doesn't do the thing, C, see the person they harmed or people they harmed as real-life human beings who deserve all of the empathy and care and concern and responsibility in the world, and to do what you can, do everything in your power to clean up that hole in the cosmos. And that everything in your power might involve work for the rest of your life. But that doesn't mean that it's work directly at the specific person that you harmed. You go to them. You ask for their forgiveness.

You ask again and again, assuming that it would not harm them to have you keep showing up. And that's a big assuming, right? But if they don't want to hear from you, then you at a certain point have to respect that. of being a harm doer is now someone who makes the world better and is a healer and whose actions in every way reflect this transformative process that you've undergone. And part of that transformation involves understanding and respecting the boundaries of the person who was harmed. And if they say enough already, then you get that, right? This is not about my experience of emotional catharsis. This is part of, part of it may be like having to live with the fact that I don't get to experience the feeling of being forgiven and having to live with that.

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You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. It's interesting, right? Because part of, you share at one point also that this process, you know, we were talking about it being very centered around making good to the person or the group or the community who have been harmed.

At the same time, you also write repentance is in part a kind of self-care. And you use the word transformation a number of times throughout the book, not just in the context of the dynamic or the person who's been harmed, but the person who has perpetrated the harm. So while a lot of this has been around, like let's make good for the beings that have been harmed. It's interesting to hear you also say like, this is also a form of self-care. This is about your transformation. Tell me more about that side of it. I mean, don't hurt other people willfully or accidentally and walk away from that and say, no problem. Like that's not okay, right? That's not an okay way to move through the world. We have to take the impacts of our actions seriously. We have to

assume that other people are as worthy of care and concern as we are. And when we mess up, it is an opportunity for us to look at ourselves and go like, hey, self, what's going on? If I hurt my spouse because I'm habitually picking up my phone instead of paying them attention, even if I didn't mean to hurt them, something's going on in that dynamic that requires some care and attention. Why am I doing that? What's going on? There's some stuff to unpack, some ways that I need to grow and look at myself. And there might be some hard things to see, but I'm going to have to look at it. And if I am spouting ideas about gender that hurt real live, actual trans people, we're saying, ouch, you're destroying my existence and my ability to move through the society in a whole way, even if I just think this is a totally reasonable opinion,

somebody's saying, ouch, then this is my opportunity to learn and grow. And part of me doesn't want to hear someone saying, ouch, what you're saying is hurting me as a human being, then I might need to look at why that is. Like, what is going on with me that I am shutting down someone saying I'm in pain and you don't want to see it? And so this is an opportunity. And when I am better able to open up and see particularly people who are most marginalized by our society and most harmed by our society, most able to see my pettiness, most able to see the places where I'm acting out of trauma, most able to see the reactions and the defenses and the, all of the ways that, you know, I have

built up all of the ways that I'm acting out of fear, because if I actually deal with this, then there may be risk to my reputation or my power or my organization's PR might suffer, right? If we actually go there, this is going to be a significant PR issue or we can't solicit this donor anymore, right? It's an unhealthy place to be and it harms people and it harms me as an individual or it harms us as an organization. And it harms some of our stakeholders and some of our people. Self-care to actually do this work and to try to become the kind of person

who is open and attentive to the places that I'm shutting myself down as an organization to see where we're shutting some of our people down, right? And part of the process of moving towards wholeness and health. Which I think is where we all want to be these days. Centered in the conversation also is a question which keeps coming up for me, because what is the word that we probably said in this conversation more than any other? I think it's probably harm. So the question then for me is, what is harm and who gets to decide what is legitimate

harm on a level that triggers the need for redemption and repair? And I think in a lot of contexts, a lot of folks would probably sort of agree like, yeah, that was legitimate and that it's subjective. And the person who experiences gets to actually say like, this is my lived experience and I feel harmed. Something else is coming into my mind as I think about that though. And I wonder if there are also more complex moments. Jonathan Haidt, social scientist, positive psychologist, and a professor at NYU wrote

this book called Coddling of the American Mind, where he was sort of lamenting a bit about what's happening on campuses in the US. And he was essentially saying that there is an environment now where simply being presented with an opposing point of view is being perceived as being unsafe, is being perceived as causing harm. And he was saying the place where discourse around important issues where people agree in a strong way, often an adversarial way, where you used to be able to sort of like have these conversations and people are uncomfortable and they may feel, I really don't like being in this conflict, but if I stay in it, maybe it will lead to some sort of, if not agreement, then at least understanding of other points of view that people are sort of like taking a stance of saying like, I feel harmed, opting entirely out of these conversations. And then also there's the whole other issue of sort of like publicly canceling

the person who has sort of like expressed the opposing point of view. And I wonder in dynamics like that, like, are there these more complex situations where it's not quite so clear what harm is and when this whole model gets triggered? as, you know, kind of going with the dictionary, like to cause hurt, injury, damage to someone or something. Harming someone is not, and abuse is a, is sort of an intentional and focused subset of harm. It is true that disagreeing with someone is not the same thing as harming them, except that we have to be really careful when we talk. But it's difficult to say that as a blanket statement because social power is a real thing. And you can't talk about any of this without talking about power also. I mean, it's got to be in the conversation.

You know, somebody shows up and is like, here is my totally rational opposing viewpoint that slavery should be reinstated. Like, that's not neutral. That is not a power neutral statement in this country. And I'm sorry, I work in abortion justice. The harm, the abuse, the injury, the damage that has been caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade and statements about gender, statements about access to care, statements about whether or not Griswold v. Connecticut, which is about contraception access should be overturned or not. Like they're not value neutral and we can have conversations about them, but who is having the conversations and in what context really, really matters. A disagreement between a male Dean and a female student is not a power neutral disagreement. A disagreement between an armed cop and an

unarmed black motorist is not a value neutral disagreement. So what the conversation is and who is having it and what the context is really, really matters. Debates about whether or not certain categories of human beings have a right to exist, for example, fall into a different category for me. Trans people's existence is constantly debated right now as bills legislating their existence out of existence and as bills legislating their existence away are being passed. And Florida just passed a bill saying that trans adults on Medicaid can't get gender affirming access. They are forcibly detransitioning trans adults, right?

So for one person to say calmly, it is just my opinion that you shouldn't exist. Like that's not a power neutral conversation in our context at all. And certainly today. So I think we have to nuance it. And I think when we talk about what harm is, I don't believe that every instance of harm has to have a power dynamic to it, right? Human beings can harm each other irrespective of their identities and positions and roles. And I think we can look around and have a power analysis when we're trying to figure out what's going on. And I don't think there's a one size fits all answer to this question.

Yeah, no, I so agree. And I think there's just no way to remove power dynamics and stakes from the conversation. And I think the risk of saying, here's a model for anything, whether it's for this or anything, it's really people look at it and say, okay, so now we have this crystal clear black and white type of system of rules. I check these five boxes and boom, this is done. Yes, and. Here's a great model. And we live in a world that is entirely made up of shades of gray. And so let's acknowledge that. And let's acknowledge that. There are going to be a whole bunch of scenarios where it's crystal clear and like we all kind of know. And then there got one person who is harmed, it's one thing. When you have a mass group of society who has been either directly harmed and then another

mass group of society who is invested and witnesses this, they have this vicarious harm at the same time. And it's like, how do you even weigh that? And is the process of repair and repentance the same for sort of like the ripples of harm that go out from like the center, like most pointed source? I mean, it's funny because on the one hand, you're right. I mean, you cannot say here's this magical five stages here, check the boxes, because then you immediately get formulaic. And then immediately the whole thing goes out the window because the minute you try check the boxes, because then you immediately get formulaic. And then immediately the whole thing goes out the window because the minute you try to check boxes, you know, I've got the story in the book of this male rabbi who did wrong to his female

rabbinical student. And he tried to check the boxes and it was like, you know, she rightly was like, I'm completely not having it. But you can know your Maimonides and do it in a formulaic way. It doesn't, that's not going to get you there. You have to actually want to change, which means being invested in rethinking how power is playing out. But yeah, I really, the more I have been working with this and in the process of writing this book and applying these stages to more and more complex situations, including the work of national repentance, which is so messy, right? The more stakeholders you have in any situation, the messier it's going to be. Really believe that even in situations where it's like, it's clear there's harm, but it's like so many

different pieces and it's not clear how to name what's going on. And maybe multiple people have been harmed in different ways and maybe everybody's wrong. I don't know. I really believe that step Step one is the key, right? Tell the truth, confession, own it. And the more we can get the full facts of everything that happened, just lay it out. Everything. What happened? Who knew what, when, what choices were made, you know, who authorized what raids on what, where, right? Like let's get everything. Every, if we're talking on what where, right? Like, let's get everything, every, if we're talking about national issues, like lay out every document, every order, everything on every side with every party,

like make it all public, put it all online, whatever. Like the more transparent and the more truth-telling and the more televising it or the more whatever that we can get, the more parties can be shattered of their illusions that they didn't know or really we were the good guys or whatever, I believe, and maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong. I'm a rabbi trying to apply philosophy to really difficult, complex situations, I really believe then figuring out step two will become clearer, right? What needs to happen next and where

starting to change needs to happen will become a lot clearer once we understand what happened. I don't think we necessarily have to have the five-point plan all laid out in advance. I think that I think they're the right steps. I really actually believe this and I'm like not a 12 steps to happiness kind of a person. I like my first book was pretty excoriating, pretty much excoriating those that method. Like I don't believe in this stuff, but I've come to believe in Maimonides.

Yeah. I mean the notion of, of really focusing on the first, but especially with these sort of like really big, large scale, like national repentance, societal levelides. Yeah. I mean, the notion of really focusing on the first, but especially with these sort of like really big, large scale, like national repentance, societal level things is powerful. Your own words, you write in the book, critical role of confession is in its potential to liberate victims of great harm. It marks an end to the denial of their experience and an affirmation of the legitimacy of their suffering, which I think

sometimes we don't realize that that is like this secondary source of harm is the, you know, like the masculine gaslighting that tends to happen around these same things, you know, causing like, you know, like even more collateral harm on top of it. And, and that's part of the, what seems to be a fairly straightforward yet brutally hard hard for some, especially on a national scale, that first step of owning the harm you've done, the confession, it addresses this secondary thing also and says, this has all been real. This is not only has the act that caused harm, but the recognition that the suffering has been real and legitimate is powerful. And I agree, it feels like if you can get to that level, how you actually operationalize

or implement the next four steps will start to become clearer. I wonder if almost it's the thought of when I look at these five, I can't even begin to conceive of what would go into to be able to actually fulfill these five steps in this model. So I'm just going to back away from the whole thing. I almost wonder if it's almost easier, more effective to just say, let's just focus on the first one. That's doable.

It's going to be hard and require vulnerability and fear and risk, and it's going to lead to some things, but that first one is doable. Let what needs to happen for the next four reveal themselves after that. What's your take on that? Yeah. I mean, I think that's so much of it. I don't think you have to, I don't think you can necessarily, if you're doing this well, I don't think you can know. Like, I don't think from causing the harm, you can be like, well, this is what the amends are going to be like, because you're not cooked enough, right? You have to first do the like terrifying, vulnerable, exposing,

icky feeling of confession. And as somebody who's become a real believer in the system, I don't do this a lot. And it's such a horrible feeling that the dread of not wanting to write or say or whatever, but usually I'm a writer, so you tend to write and post or whatever, but like, I mean, usually I'm a writer, so I write, you tend to write and post or write and send confessions. But the amount of avoidance I do and the amount of procrastinating I do about like crafting this stuff, I'm like, I know I have to and I don't want to. And then I finally start to write it. It feels horrible writing it. And then I feel some relief and then I feel just fear and terror and I don't want to post it and I don't want to write it. It feels horrible writing it. And then I feel some relief and then I feel just fear and terror and I don't want to post it and I don't want to post it and I don't want to post it and

I'm avoiding it. And then it's out and there's this huge relief and I feel so much better. It feels so much clearer. And then what happens next starts to open up, right? But you can't until you get through all of the emotional process that has to happen for step one. You can't see it. So one step at a time. Exactly. Which is a pretty good way to lean into life. I think a lot of ways. It's such a powerful model and it's so needed at this particular moment in time. And I think a lot of us are really visiting, not just how have I been harmed, but also how have I caused harm? How have I caused harm? And we're trying to figure out what is the morality in this? I've always considered myself a good person and yet I have caused harm and I'm going to cause harm again. How do I quit

myself with a simple framework that lets me understand that I'm human. I have, and I will. And here's at least like a process that lets me understand what actions to take when it happens. And part of that process, which I think is so powerful is it requires you to do your own work, not just to repair and repent, but to change, which each cycle through you would hope over time lessens the likelihood that you do the same type of harm or over time, you become just more aware of all the different ways that you might actually cause harm. And it lessens it more like a systemic basis in the way that you move into the world and relationships so needed at this moment in time. And I loved learning about this methodology. My only exposure to Rambam before this was, I think, what a lot of people have seen,

sort of like the notion of Rambam's ladder, like the levels of giving. So it was fun to also learn this whole different body of work around it and then to get your lens, your synthesis of that work. So coming full circle in our conversation in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, to do what we can to love the people in our lives, to do what we can to show up in our community and our world, to fight for justice, to better enjoy the beauty and the joy that is offered to us in each moment. And as part of all of those, to understand that we're human beings and we screw up and we have the opportunity to learn and grow and to become compassionate healers in the process each time. Thank you. go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this

conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how

we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Flight Risk. to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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