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And that's something
that ideally

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is negotiated with the
person who was harmed, right.

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You don't make
amends at a person.

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You make them to the
person and with the person.

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And what would feel
like the correct amends

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to one individual
may feel different

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than a totally different
individual who has experienced

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the same kind of injury.

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So restitution can be financial.

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It doesn't need to be financial.

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It can be direct with the
victim but also indirect

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with a community
or with a cause.

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Once I've moved
through and I've really

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started to work these
steps, I've confessed,

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I've started to change, I've
made amends, at this point

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when can I expect to return
to the way things were.

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When can I go back to my
position, my job, my status,

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my honor, my relationship?

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Part of the amends
process is accepting

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that actions have consequences.

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Things are different
than they were before.

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It's just a fact, right.

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The person who was
injured doesn't

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get to automatically go back
in time and neither do you.

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And the really critical
piece of this work

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that a lot of
people struggle with

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is that you don't get to
just punch the buttons

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and say now everything is
better, so I'm back, right.

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And it may be that
if you are doing

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this work in a deep
and sincere way

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that people will see naturally
and organically that you

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are on their team, right.

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The person who was not
invited to game night

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might be invited
back to game night

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as a result of their
very sincere actions.

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But somebody who is
coming into that space

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with the entitlement, right,
"OK, give me my status back,

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of course, I am earned--

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I have earned it because I
have checked those boxes,"

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is somebody who does
not understand the harm

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that they caused.

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Moving to the fourth step
of t'shuvah, how would you

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describe apology, which is
remarkably late in the game?

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And there's a reason
why apology is so late.

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So you have already done--

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this is the end of
the process, right?

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You've already done
basically just about as much

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as you can to try to sew
up that hole in the cosmos

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that you yourself created.

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You have owned
what you have done

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beginning to and continuing
to try to change and grow

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and transform.

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You have done what you can
to repair in whatever way

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that you can.

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And by now, hopefully
you've gotten it.

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You've gotten the memo.

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You've gotten that there's
another human being

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that you hurt.

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And so hopefully by
now it matters to you.

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You see that there's
another person there.

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And the apology is not
about checking a box

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and getting off the hook.

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It is about communicating
to another person

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that you are sorry
that you hurt them.

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And Maimonides uses very
victim-centric language

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in the apology.

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He talks about you need
to appease them, right,

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it's like l'fayes otam.
[to appease them].

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Like, it's about-- it's not
about saying certain words.

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It's about what would be the
thing that would appease--

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care for this person.

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And so it's got to be from
this open, flowing heart that

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sees the other person and
wants to have them feel better.

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What happens in the case of
the apology encounter that

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would cause further
harm to the victim?

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What happens if that apology
is actually unwelcome?

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So it's difficult, and
it's a complex dance

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because we know that
we need to apologize.

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And in a victim-centric
model, again, it's

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not about a cathartic
experience for the perpetrator.

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I've heard so many
examples of somebody

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being ambushed at
the last minute

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or called in the
middle of the night.

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And it's, like, the experience
of the person who is harmed

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is not on the harm-doers mind.

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And that's not healing, right.

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That's not repair.

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And so we need to
step way, way back

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and have the humility to
know that sometimes we

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don't get our
cathartic experience

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and that living
with that has to be

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one of the consequences
of our actions.

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And that's just
part of the work.

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My rabbi, Rabbi Alan Lew,
zichrono livrachah, his memory

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be for a blessing, used to
say how could the person get

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to exactly the same situation.

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And then he would
answer in his, kind of,

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Brooklyn accent like "If
you don't do the work,

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you will find yourself in
exactly the same situation,"

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right, that our unresolved anger
that we don't address, that we

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don't deal with will
insert itself somehow

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maybe not in that
exact situation

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and with that same person.

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But our anger will blow up
in some place somewhere.

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Our unaddressed
fear of commitment

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will explode in another
relationship somewhere

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along the way, somehow,
somehow, right.

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Our whatever issues that are
playing out in the workplace

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will somehow go through.

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Like, our internalized
white supremacy

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will somehow manifest
in another way, right.

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The systems and structures
in our HR department

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that manage to effectively
bury this complaint

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are going to find a way
to harm someone else if we

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don't address the systems.

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So when we don't do
the work, we continue

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to find ways to
manifest the harm.

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And it may look different,
but the patterns

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are undeniable, right.

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We go from first contact
to the Trail of Tears

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to Wounded Knee to the
Dakota Access Pipeline.

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We go from slavery to lynching
to redlining to Jim Crow

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to mass incarceration and
voter suppression, right.

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It doesn't have to look
exactly the same for it

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to be the same harm.

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And when we don't
do the work, we

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will find ourselves back there.

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When we think
about institutions,

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when we think about nations,
the work of confession,

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the work of starting to
change requires rethinking

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some of how things have been.

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And that is scary.

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And that is threatening.

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And it doesn't always
require that suddenly we

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are dismantling everything
that has ever existed

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and creating something
new from the ground up.

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It sometimes just requires
shaping new systems

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and creating better
more whole systems.

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And it's a vulnerability.

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It opens us to
vulnerability, right.

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When we make
ourselves vulnerable

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and own the harm
that we have caused,

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we can create new
futures for ourselves

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and for everyone who is hurt.

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And for institutions and for
organizations and nations

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and individuals, it's scary
but it offers a new path

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of wholeness for everybody.

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