Sorry, Not Sorry

Adina Karpuj (narration): The first thing I noticed about Channa Pinchasi was her blue eyes. They’re striking and beautiful. Questioning.

She’s soft-spoken but firm, open-minded but opinionated.

Channa is a classic product of the old-school B’nei Akiva youth movement: Modern-Orthodox, liberal, an example of the kind of progressive yet observant strong feminists that you can still find in certain corners of Jerusalem. She has four kids and four grandkids (though you’d never guess it if you saw her).

We first met two days before Yom Kippur, which was also two days after she wrote a Facebook post that went unexpectedly viral.

The whole story begins back in the early nineties. Channa was a high-school literature teacher, and what can I say? She really loved her job.

Channa Pinchasi: Getting up in the morning, speaking to young people about [in Hebrew] spirit, about literature, is something that is… is the best thing to do.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Hundreds of students from the Masorti High School remember her teaching them Scottish ballads and Alterman’s The Silver Platter. She was the kind of lit teacher that, in the throes of teenage angst, truly convinces you that you’re not alone in the world.

The kind that makes you turn to Antigone or Crime and Punishment – when you’re freaking out about your acne or have gotten into yet another fight with your “clueless” parents. Students could relate to her, and for good reason.

Channa Pinchasi: I was very young, I was 24. And I was a teacher of students who were 17. So the gap between us wasn’t that wide. And I was so privileged… I felt so privileged to be a teacher.

Adina Karpuj (narration): She taught for 11 years. There were ups, there were downs. But there’s one particular incident that she hasn’t been able to shake for more than three decades. And during last year’s high holidays, she set out to change that.

Channa Pinchasi: I was a teacher of the class that took literature as a major. It was a group of like ten students. And the fact that it was major meant that we met like six hours a week studying in an intense way.

Adina Karpuj (narration): It was a tight-knit group, all young women, who shared a passion for metaphor and plot development, foreshadowing and irony. And at the helm – a young teacher guiding them through the turbulence of being a teenager, but also – of course – preparing them for the bagrut, the national matriculation exam. Part of the test was written, and the other was an oral exam. For that latter portion, students had to pick a card from a deck and answer a question on the spot.

Channa Pinchasi: And one of the students was a bit shy. And a bit introvert. And her pace was slower than mine. And she picked a card and in the card there was a question about a poem. And she was asked to read it aloud. And she didn’t read it right. I tried to correct her but she stick to her  reading. And she answered the question in a wrong way. And I failed her.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Now, this was a huge deal. Not only did it burst the family-like lit-major bubble, but it had real world consequences.

High school matriculation exams are key to getting into university, and your major is typically your highest grade. The one that helps you cover up your modest mathematical achievements, or your inability to distinguish between a past perfect and a present continuous.

The bagrut is quite literally the gateway to higher education, to future opportunities. Everything depends on it, or at least that’s how it feels when you’re 17.

And by failing the student, her student, Channa had effectively closed all kinds of doors on her.

Channa Pinchasi: I went home and in the evening her mother called me begging to change the grade. For her it was a shame that she couldn’t bear.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Channa carefully listened to the mom and considered her appeal. Ultimately though…

Channa Pinchasi: I didn’t agree. I said it’s my professional decision [sighs].

Adina Karpuj (narration): Channa wanted to assert herself – not only to her students and their parents – but also to herself.

Channa Pinchasi: You know you want your voice to be heard. You need the… the confirmation as much as the students need it. And you’re not aware of it. 

Adina Karpuj (narration): She stuck to her guns and failed the student. A few weeks later the year ended. The following September a new crop of students came in, and life went on. Channa never spoke to the student again, but the memory of the unpleasant saga never really left her, either.

Channa Pinchasi: When I look back I understand that as a young woman I stood in the classroom and I was looking for young Channas. Young women who are similar to who am I. And it took many years, until I had children who are different than I am, till I understood that I was arrogant. I wasn’t aware of the fact that I’m standing in a classroom looking for ‘Channot.’

Adina Karpuj (narration): In 2001, Chana left the classroom. She lived in Canada for a while as a representative of the Jewish Agency, and then went on to get a PhD in gender studies. Yet after carrying around this burden for thirty odd years, Channa decided to make amends. To find the seventeen-year-old student, now a middle-aged woman, she had hurt all those years ago, and apologize. But no matter how hard she tried, Channa just couldn’t remember her name. She poured over old class photos.

Channa Pinchasi: Looking for something that will ring a bell, that will help me.

Adina Karpuj (narration): But alas…

Channa Pinchasi: I didn’t find it. I have a picture in front of my eyes of a sad look. Or something in the shape of her dark eyes. But it didn’t connect to the picture.

Adina Karpuj (narration): So, she did what people do.

Channa Pinchasi: I wrote a post on Facebook that tells the story.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Then, she logged off and went about her day.

Channa Pinchasi: My imagination was that it’ll take two or three hours and she’ll write me privately and I’ll call her. Maybe we’ll sit in a café. I imagined something very small, contained…

Adina Karpuj (narration): That, however, is not exactly how things panned out.

Channa Pinchasi: It was out of control.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Almost immediately, thousands of people liked, shared and commented on Channa’s post. Some commended her apologetic initiative, her vulnerability, her courage. “You’re fantastic,” they wrote. “A real role model.” One woman wrote that Channa had inspired her to ask for forgiveness from someone she herself had hurt long ago.

But there were other voices too. People called her attention-seeking and fake. They questioned her real motives. Her sincerity.

Commenter #1: She should have done this thirty years ago. All you people praising her just can’t see the truth.

Commenter #2: She’s more interested in likes than she is in finding this girl.

Commenter #3: A one-woman show designed to get compliments on how great you are, that’s what this is.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Others were just plain old mean.

Commenter #4: Why should that student’s life now change just because this bitch decided she needs some attention?

Commenter #5: “Ha! Are you sure you’re only looking for one student you hurt?”

Commenter #6: I can’t call you my teacher because you didn’t teach me anything. And neither can I forget you because you treated me with arrogance and disregard.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Channa was stunned. She felt…

Channa Pinchasi: Too exposed. That the public can take bites of me. It was the sense of losing control.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Soon the nature of the conversation shifted, and the comments took on a life of their own. People – most of whom didn’t even know Channa – started sharing anecdotes of having been wronged by teachers. It was as if the post had inadvertently kicked off open season for thousands of disgruntled students to revisit old wounds. Report cards were being issued all over again, and this time the teachers were flunking miserably.

Commenter #7: I will never forgive my third grade teacher. She would call me “retarded” and make me stand in the corner. Up until a few years ago I still had nightmares about her.

Commenter #8: My teacher told me nothing would ever come of me in front of my entire seventh grade class. That I would turn out to be a hairdresser. I never understood what was so bad about being a hairdresser, but the way she said it – as if it were a curse – made me recoil. I’m not a hairdresser, but decades later, every time I get my hair cut or colored, I think of her.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Because Israel’s a small place, within a few hours…

Channa Pinchasi: Every TV channel in Israel called me offering me to make it a reality, and they’ll find her and film us meet, blah blah blah.

Adina Karpuj (narration): But Channa wasn’t interested in any of that. All she had wanted was to make a private apology before heading into Yom Kippur, unburdened. And suddenly, that wish of hers had morphed into a brutal, and very public, debate.

Channa Pinchasi: The viciousness of the responses just meant that the issue of school, of relationships with teachers, are so deep in us as a society that decades after we graduate if we had a bad experience – and most of us did – it’s a wound that doesn’t heal.

Adina Karpuj (narration): In the spirit of the fast-approaching Day of Atonement, Channa began to reflect on why this post had struck such a sensitive chord. Why scars from a time when you’re dealing with puberty, grades, and just figuring out who you want to be in the world can run so deep.

Channa Pinchasi: A Jewish source says that the teacher is just like a parent that prepares you to life, that plants in you the values, the way to behave. And the comparison between a parent and the teacher explains why, as students, we take what teacher says so seriously, even though many times educational system can be very problematic.

Adina Karpuj (narration): As her post gained more and more traction, it seemed like the only person who didn’t like, share or comment on it was the very student she’d set out to find.

Channa Pinchasi: So who knows? Maybe it was nothing for her, which I don’t believe that that’s the case. Maybe she’s abroad. Maybe she’s too angry. Maybe she died [in Hebrew] God forbid. 

Adina Karpuj (narration): That’s where things stood when Channa and I spoke in the studio. We said our goodbyes, and two days later Yom Kippur 5783 began.

As she listened to the familiar melodies of Kol Nidre, Channa wondered about her student, and where she might be in the world. About why it was that she couldn’t remember more about her, and whether the student was thinking about Channa, too.

I was also doing some soul searching. After all, I was drawn to the story out of pure self-interest. I hoped to play the role of Jonathan Goldstein on Heavyweight: Swoop in armed with my microphone, find the lost student, help them get closure and – of course – document it all for posterity. Between the Avinu Malkeinu and the Amida, I wondered whether I really was all that different from those sensationalist TV stations.

A couple of weeks later, I got a WhatsApp message from Channa. She had an update, and I invited her back into the studio to tell me more.

Channa Pinchasi: I think I was, you know, on my Outlook or on a Word document and suddenly something jumps from Facebook. And, like all of us, I switched the window.

Adina Karpuj (narration): It was a new chat on Facebook messenger.

Channa Pinchasi: The minute I saw the name, and I looked at the profile and the picture on the profile, I knew, I knew that it’s her.

Adina Karpuj (narration): The woman, now in her early fifties, had written two, simple words…

Channa Pinchasi: [In Hebrew] I forgive. I forgive you.

Adina Karpuj (narration): With tears in her eyes, Channa wrote back immediately. The former student was relatively curt in her reply. She mentioned she had a good job, a few kids. She brought up her disability, one that had made her a slower learner all those years ago – something Channa was surprised to hear, and something the student had thought Channa knew. Channa read the short message over and over again.

Channa Pinchasi: I was very emotional. And I wanted to hear more, to see how did she experienced it, and what happened to her. So I tried to say, “here’s my phone. Give me your phone number. Let’s talk.”

Adina Karpuj (narration): Channa imagined they’d now meet, exchange “sorrys” and “I forgive yous” and catch up over a cup of coffee.

Channa Pinchasi: But she wasn’t interested. She didn’t respond.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Silence. Channa was disappointed. With all the attention her post had generated, being ghosted felt like a huge let down. But after thinking it over a little – and like the true teacher she is – she decided to approach it as an opportunity for growth.

Channa Pinchasi: It’s a lesson – good enough closure is something that we have to learn to accept. The kind of closure that you get is very different than the movies or the TV shows that we see. And that was an important lesson to respect where she was and what she needed. And that’s fine. It’s fine. Life is not an American movie. And I respect that.

Adina Karpuj (narration): There was no sappy ending. No magical resolution ripe for my greedy microphone. But Channa doesn’t have regrets. She’s not sorry she put herself out there, even if it did mean being so publicly attacked. The way she sees it…

Channa Pinchasi: This is the definition of a life worth living. To be able to learn and to acknowledge parts of me that I wasn’t aware of. And to deeply accept that I was rigid, that I was self-centered, that I was interested in my own power, that I didn’t see who is in front of me.

Adina Karpuj (narration): Like Channa, I’m the kind of person who has a hard time letting go. I ruminate – often replaying little exchanges and events in my mind, sometimes years after the fact. It usually happens at night: I’ll wake up from a weird dream and there it is – that comment I’d kill to take back, the reaction I wish I could surgically remove from my memory.

That is, until Yom Kippur rolls around. For me, this time of year feels like a good opportunity to just go ahead and look my regrets in the eye. To be less bashful and more intentional about them. To see if there’s anything that can still be done. It’s hard – the kind of hard that makes me draft, and write, and re-write text messages to people I haven’t talked to in ages.

Now, I never sat in Channa’s classroom. But I feel that she did end up teaching me an important lesson: That with a bit of luck, and even decades down the line, repentance is worth a try. After all, there’s always a small chance you’ll get a simple, two-word message back: “Ani solachat.” And sometimes, that’s really all you can ask for.

Anonymous 1: It’s kind of scary you know, because it’s so dark here. OK, but it’s fine.

Yochai Maital: You can put your earphones on and we’ll start.

Mitch Ginsburg: So this is your space. I don’t see you, I don’t know who you are.

Adina Karpuj: Welcome to the confessional.

Mitch Ginsburg: Welcome.

Yael Ben Horin: Welcome to this confessional.

Adina Karpuj: In this space, you are invited to be radically honest.

Yochai Maital: You’re invited to be radically honest.

Adina Karpuj: Tell the mic, please, what it is you’re not sorry about.

Yochai Maital: What are you sorry about?

Mitch Ginsburg: Something that you regret or something you’re sorry about.

Adina Karpuj: What it is you don’t remotely regret having done. Be raw. Be honest. I’m here to listen without judgment, and will ask some questions to help you along. I’m listening. The floor is yours.

Mitch Ginsburg: The floor is yours.

Yael Ben Horin: So, the floor is yours.

Adina Karpuj: What is troubling you? What would you like to get off your chest?

Anonymous 2: OK…

Anonymous 3: [In Hebrew] Oy, this is hard.

Anonymous 13: I’m going to start crying soon.

Anonymous 5: I guess I often say I’m sorry and I don’t really mean it.

Anonymous 6: Most of the things that I’m doing, I’m not sorry about, even if they did some damage, because shits happen.

Anonymous 7: [In Hebrew] I hit him.

Anonymous 9: I am not sorry for calling a very close friend “a heartless bitch.”

Anonymous 10: I always looked for ways to get back at my father because I felt like he wasn’t a great father. He just wasn’t very present. I don’t think he was so excited to be a father.

Anonymous 8: [In Hebrew] I won’t apologize to you. I won’t apologize and I won’t ask forgiveness. You hear me?

Anonymous 11: And I didn’t really want to, like, continue speaking to him.

Anonymous 7: [In Hebrew] I didn’t do the right thing, but it felt good.

Anonymous 12: I’m trying to be avoiding meat but I’m not upholding that.

Anonymous 7: [In Hebrew] It at least feels like I’m not a sucker.

Anonymous 13: Like, a few months ago, he told me that… that’s it’s totally normal for a man to be attracted by another women. And it’s really hurting me.

Anonymous 15: [In Hebrew] I’m sorry I didn’t make the time to write a play that I’ve wanted to write for a long time.

Anonymous 14: I’m really sorry I made aliya.

Anonymous 12: I don’t regret taking the plunge that I took to come to this amazing country.

Anonymous 14: I got a free flight here and got an envelope full of money leaving the airport. And I have friends and colleagues who were expelled from this land. Whose grandparents can’t return to their homes. It like doesn’t make sense and I carry around quite a bit of guild about it. I feel like this is my home. I also love my life here. That’s why it’s complicated.

Anonymous 16: I have many regrets.

Anonymous 30: [In Hebrew] That I don’t observe the Sabbath. Like religion is really close to me, but still I don’t keep the Sabbath and I continue to do it.

Anonymous 9: I am very very sorry that I killed my hamster’s baby. I had to pee that night. 2am and I have to pee. A book fell because of me, and in the morning, I pick up the book and baby hamster is dead under the book.

Anonymous 17: I have an issue with my sister-in-law. I don’t like her that much but I pretend that I do. I’m afraid that I’m going to snap and be really rude and then like make things awkward.

Anonymous 18: I was dating this woman on and off, we were living together. She loved me so much. I moved and I didn’t bring her with me. I don’t know, I thought I’d find someone better. Whatever. She would contact me every once in a while and I could tell she was kind of waiting for me, pining for me.

Anonymous 19: [In Hebrew] A true friend doesn’t look at looks. She needs to look at personality, at the heart.

Anonymous 21: When I learned that she died, I wanted to know more, so I looked some more on the internet. There were things that made me think that she committed suicide. The last post she published on Facebook: “I guess this world is not for me” – something like that. And I kind of wish that I called her before.

Anonymous 22: I have betrayed, whether it’s smoking or whether it’s drinking.

Anonymous 23: [In Hebrew] She accidentally pulled my bag so I shouted at her, but I forgot to say sorry. So she’s not my friend anymore. Yiscah, do you want to be friends again?

Anonymous 13: He wanted first a boy, but I was born.

Anonymous 10: There was a safe in our basement. I probably took at least $1,000 over the course of a few months. And I always used that money to buy weed or coke.

Anonymous 18: She told me she was dying. She had cancer. And at the time, I was kind of close by, I could have easily gone to visit her before she died. And I was afraid, so I just texted back and forth with her and I never went to see her. And she did die. And I feel like she was heartbroken.

Anonymous 25: [In Hebrew] You don’t destroy a household just because of a few seconds of anger.

Anonymous 13: And I was hiding it from everyone that I’m not dating.

Anonymous 8: [In Hebrew] And today you want a relationship. I don’t know what I want anymore. But something inside me said “I can’t anymore. I just cannot anymore.”

Anonymous 22: I just want to thank those who love me and who have loved me for, for not giving up on me.

Ofer Carmel (narration): The minute we got into the taxi, I had a bad feeling. It wasn’t because the driver asked me impatiently to buckle the kid’s safety belt after I already had, or because he muttered something that sounded like a curse when I said we wanted to go to Ramat Gan. I take a lot of taxis, so I’m used to the tempers, the impatience, the armpit stains. But there was something about the way that driver spoke, half-violent and half on the verge of tears, that made me uncomfortable.

Lev was almost four then, and we were on our way to Grandma’s. Unlike me, he couldn’t have cared less about the driver and focused mainly on the tall, ugly buildings along the way. He sang “Yellow Submarine” quietly to himself with lyrics he made up, the words sounding almost like English. He waved his short legs in the air to the rhythm. At one point, his right sandal hit the taxi’s plastic ashtray, knocking it over onto the floor. Except for a chewing-gum wrapper, it was empty, so no trash was spilled. I had already bent to pick it up when the driver braked suddenly, turned around to us and, with his face really close to my son’s face, began screaming. “You stupid kid. You broke my car, you idiot!”

“Hey, hey, are you crazy or something?” I shouted at the driver. “Yelling at a 3-year-old because of a piece of plastic? Turn around and start driving, or I swear, next week you’ll be shaving corpses in the Abu Kabir morgue, because you won’t be driving any public vehicle, you hear me?” When I saw that he was about to say something, I added, “shut your mouth now and drive.”

The driver gave me a look that was full of hatred. The possibility of smashing in my face and losing his job hovered in the air. He considered it for a long moment, took a deep breath, turned around, shifted into first gear and drove.

On the taxi’s radio, Bobby McFerrin was singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” But I felt very far from happy. I looked at Lev. He wasn’t crying, and even though we were stuck in a traffic jam, it wouldn’t take long to reach my parents’ house. I tried to find another ray of light in that unpleasant ride, but I couldn’t. I smiled at Lev and tousled his hair. He looked at me hard, but didn’t smile back. “Daddy,” he asked, “what did the man say?”

“The man said,” I answered quickly as if it were nothing, “that when you’re riding in a car, you have to watch where you move your legs so you won’t break anything.” Lev nodded, looked out the window and then a second later asked, “and what did you say to the man?”

“Me?” I said to Lev, trying to gain a little time. “I told the man that he was absolutely right, but that he should say what he has to say quietly and politely, and not yell.”

“But you yelled at him,” Lev said, confused. “I know,” I said, “and that wasn’t right. And you know what? I’m going to apologize now.”

I leaned forward so that my mouth almost touched the driver’s thick, hairy neck and said loudly, almost declaiming, “Mr. Driver, I’m sorry I yelled at you, it wasn’t right.” When I finished, I looked at Lev and smiled again, or at least I tried. I looked out the window. We were just easing out of the traffic jam onto Jabotinsky Street; the hard part was behind us.

“But Daddy,” Lev said, putting his tiny hand on my knee, “now the man has to tell me he’s sorry, too.”

I looked at the sweaty driver in front of us. It was clear to me that he was hearing our whole conversation. It was even clearer that asking him to apologize to a 3-year-old was not a really good idea. The rope between us was stretched to the breaking point as it was. “Sweetie,” I said bending down to Lev, “you’re a smart little boy, and you already know lots of things about the world, but not everything. And one of the things you still don’t know is that saying you’re sorry might be the hardest thing of all. And that doing something so hard while you’re driving could be very, very dangerous. Because while you’re trying to say you’re sorry, you can have an accident. But you know what? I don’t think we have to ask the driver to say he’s sorry, because just by looking at him I can tell that he’s sorry.”

We’d already driven into Bialik Street. Now there was only the right turn onto Nordau and then a left on Simtat Habe’er. In another minute, we would be there. “Daddy,” Lev said as he narrowed his eyes, “I can’t tell if he’s sorry.”

At that moment, in the middle of the incline on Nordau, the driver slammed on the brakes again and pulled up the hand brake. He turned around and moved his face close to my son’s. He looked Lev in the eye and, a very long second later, whispered, “believe me, kid, I’m sorry.”