COMING FROM a non-observant family of Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel, a country where many people tend to lead secular lifestyles, I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious environment. In fact, I can count on fewer than five fingers the times that I stepped foot in a synagogue during my childhood.
But one aspect of the Jewish faith that has always appealed to me is its introspective morality. Every fall season, we look back on the past year in advance of Yom Kippur, determine whom we have wronged, and try to atone for our interpersonal sins with sincere apologies.
Around the time of Yom Kippur last year, I felt that I had unintentionally offended an old friend of mine. I decided to make an apology.
Without too much thought about the medium, I made the apology through a Facebook message. Although the apology was accepted, I later questioned whether I had handled this the right way.
In the fast-paced world we live in today, in which many social interactions are conducted online, can apologizing on social media be considered true atonement? JNS surveyed Jewish religious leaders across denominations on the subject.
JEWISH BLOGGER and social media expert Rabbi Jason Miller strongly argues against technology-facilitated atonement.
”I’m a fan of face-to-face communication or, when not possible, a phone call. It’s important for people to hear your voice when you apologize. Sending an email, text message, or Facebook message is a good start, but it’s not sufficient for the performance of teshuvah (atonement),” Miller says.
Yet Miller acknowledges that our communication preferences change as new technology emerges, which means that what our society considers acceptable for sincere communication, like asking for forgiveness before Yom Kippur, also changes.
“There was a time when it wouldn’t be considered appropriate to perform teshuvah over the phone,” Miller says. That changed as people moved farther away and there were not opportunities for face-to-face communication.
Even so, Miller maintains that face-to-face communication should remain the preferred mode of teshuvah, because it is much more difficult to ask for repentance in person.
“In fact,” according to Rabbi Joshua Rabin, director of kehilla enrichment (organizational development) at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, “people often tend to apologize via social media because sometimes it’s just easier to type a message to somebody than to look them in the eye.”
Rabin says that these days, when more and more people use technology — whether it’s text messaging or social media — to communicate with each other about important things, it actually is all the more reason why a face-to-face personal apology is the most meaningful thing you can do.
“But there’s one exception: If the wrong you committed was actually through social media.”
”If you were to write a really nasty tweet about somebody . . . I think that any teshuvah process should involve you actually apologizing through that medium to begin the process, because thats where the wrong was committed,” Rabin says.
RABBI RONI Handler, director of community learning for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College also believes that if the sin being atoned for is directly connected to social media, theres actually something really powerful about stating that [apology] online.
”But it shouldn’t be that we just state it and then go back to our regular behavior,” she adds. ”That, in fact, is not doing teshuvah according to any Jewish scholar.
“In the Reconstructionist movement,” explains Handler, ”we value community a lot, and obviously the face-to-face community is really special and powerful . . . But we are always thinking about other ways in which we can connect as well. I don’t know that [social media] should replace face-to-face connection, but we do recognize that . . . there are a lot of different ways to connect.
“There is a lot that can end up being misconstrued in writing. Something that people might be writing quickly because theyre running out of the door, might come out as curt or angry. When one is making teshuvah, having the proper intention is so important. If the relationship that you have is one that you feel an email could be sufficient [for an apology] . . . then in that case maybe that would be okay,” Handler says.
Rabbi Esther Lederman, however, believes that the medium is less significant than the intention of the apology.
“I’ve had very meaningful exchanges by chat and email, although I am also someone who prefers to communicate with a person by voice,” says the director of communities of practice at the Union for Reform Judaism.
But Lederman cautions against making a mass apology on social media because forgiveness in the Jewish tradition must be sought directly from the person you have hurt and is also about repairing the relationship, which can’t be done anonymously.
Lederman says she fears a world in which technology will replace the real human to human contact that is necessary for sacred engagement.
“If this occurs,” she says, ”What is the point in gathering together as a community at an appointed time? I believe there is a sacred purpose to that and I don’t want email, Facebook, or Twitter to ever replace this.”
THE SOCIAL media editor of Chabad.org, Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, emphasizes that the most important aspect of atoning for interpersonal transgressions is understanding that forgiveness in Judaism centers on how the aggrieved person receives the apology. If that person feels they were apologized to in the right way, then the medium becomes less significant.
”When we wish to truly convey the emotional impact of our words, we must make sure we truly understand how they will appear,” Lightstone says.
That appearance, in turn, will differ depending on whoever is receiving the apology.
“To some, nothing short of a phone call before Yom Kippur would be considered a serious and honest form of asking forgiveness,” says Lightstone.
”To others, the very thought of a phone call would be considered unnecessary and even socially awkward. It takes a true understanding of who your friends are to really know the best way to reach out.”
Lightstone, therefore, is unlikely to consider my aforementioned decision to apologize to my friend via Facebook as invariably wrong, as long as the apology was truly accepted.
“If I’m able to truly convey my heartfelt remorse with an emoji and a short message, and I know that the person receiving it will be fully comforted or even prefer that text [over a phone call or face-to-face apology], then I’m happy to do so,” Lightstone says.
