Getting Better

One of the basic tenets of Judaism is teshuva, repentance; that (nearly) all sins can be washed away if we truly regret our actions and work on becoming better. 

But cancel culture doesn't allow for redemption. If you make a mistake, you are a horrible person and deserve to be driven out of society. There is a desert island with your name on it, bub. 

According to this article by Ginia Bellafante, Abraham Foxman (the former director of the Anti-Defamation League) advocates the Jewish way. 

“Now what you’re seeing is one wrong picture, and you are finished for life,” Mr. Foxman told me recently. This is an outcome he finds regrettable. “All my life I was lucky enough to fight prejudice and anti-Semitism,” he said. “If you don’t believe you can change people’s hearts and minds, why bother? If you are not going to try and change hearts and minds, why are you in this business at all?”

For Mr. Foxman, the “business” to some degree involved fielding calls for help from lawyers and agents representing celebrities and other public figures who had incurred the world’s wrath with lapses in sensitivity — with dangerous remarks or derogatory caricatures about Jewish people. When those crisis managers sought an E-ZPass to exoneration — a perfunctory public apology, a donation made to the appropriate charity — Mr. Foxman was not eager to intervene. But when someone showed a willingness to do the hard work of self-interrogation, to delve into the history of oppression and marginalization, Mr. Foxman was there to take the lead on resurrection.

“You have to be able to restitute,” he said.

 I was thinking just the other day (before reading this article) what if someone held something against me for something I said when I was 5, when I was 10, when I was 15, when I was 20, when I was 25, when I was 30, I would be mortified. And sorry, so so sorry. I say stuff constantly that I regret, that came out wrong.

Some people are clueless. Some people are unexposed. Some people might say hurtful things from a place of hate, but as long as his pitchfork stays in his garage he shouldn't lose his job, nor should his children suffer for his words. One day, he could get better, as long as hate isn't visited upon him in return.