Can you count the times you have said I’m sorry? I do not think you can come up with an accurate tally.  Could you think this exercise over and then come up with the number of times you actually meant that you regretted what you said or did?  I do not think so. What I am after here is not to really examine what you mean when you say you are sorry but to think about the lack of apology in the ancient text, the Five Books of Moses or “Tanach” that I read in class most Saturday mornings.

This morning there were thirty-one when the last few straggled in and joined us around the tables in the Library of Temple Sinai of North Dade.  Rabbi Kingsley was our teacher and he had to put up with the usually attempts to distract him and steer the discussion in other directions.  I do not apologize for my being the first to try this ploy.  I really mean it when I ask what seems to me to be questions grounding our portion in problems that we all face in our life in twenty-first century South Florida.

Since reading the portion of the “Bible” that covers the second most important person in Egypt, Joseph, his brothers and father I got to thinking about how (if they lived in our day) they would have been falling all over themselves saying they were sorry for their behavior.  Joseph’s brothers were really stinkers.  But Joseph was really a spoiled self-infatuated brat. The brothers did not kill Joseph but set him on a track where he became all-powerful in the Egypt of his day.  At least, it says so in the Bible. But, none of the characters in this story ever had to say they were sorry. All they did was tell the events as they lived them.  All we have is the story that has come down to us as canon.  It may be interpreted but not changed, even though we might have liked a better or different telling of the tale.

People of little or no power have to fall all over themselves saying they are sorry to their superiors either in matters of work or in the family hierarchy. Apology seems to be necessary for them while those in power can show magnanimity but not necessarily regret for decisions they really should not have made to the detriment for those of lesser power.

Actually, apology, while necessary, does not change what you said or did. Forethought and biting one’s tongue go a long way to avoiding the necessity of saying you are sorry. When you do something wrong and everybody knows it, so should you.