Think about a time when someone hurt you, and then came seeking forgiveness. How often did you feel that they weren’t doing it “right,” or in the way you’d anticipated – and because of that, you found it impossible to accept their overture? And what about a time when you were the one apologizing, but your sincere efforts were not accepted? How hurt and angry were you?
Each party may be sincere, and yet they remain far apart. Why? Because reconciliation is not only about our own sincerity. It is about appreciating the sincerity of the other person, even when the apology itself comes in a form that doesn’t match our expectations.
Imagine that what you require to be reconciled with someone distant isn’t defined only by your needs, but by their capacities as well.
The capacity for reconciliation is to relationships as oxygen is to human life. Without the first, it’s going to be pretty damn hard to sustain the second. What do I mean?
Every relationship has its moments of rupture, and the notion that “love means never having to say you’re sorry” is a recipe for disaster. Lasting love and real relationships are based on the partners’ capacity to reconcile after those inevitable, though hopefully rare, ruptures. That kind of reconciliation is a two-way street, even if the rupture had a one-way origin.
Real reconciliation and relationship repair often require more than the “wrongdoer” earnestly seeking forgiveness, and the wronged party being passively open to accepting the mea culpa. In fact, such attempts at reconciliation often leave both parties feeling even more distant from one another.
Reconciliation requires appreciating the context of the other person’s life – and how that context shapes their attempts at repairing what’s broken. Reconciliation is about being able to receive an apology which may not be exactly the one which you want, but one that’s defined by the life context of the one offering it.
Imagine that what you require to be reconciled with someone distant isn’t defined only by your needs, but by their capacities as well. Are they stretching to make things better (not given who you are, but given who they are)? That’s reconciliation as a two-way street. And as with all two-way streets, the possibilities for moving forward are vastly greater than sticking to streets marked: “ONE WAY, DO NOT ENTER.”

Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”