Forgiveness Is a Gift to Us All

S tarting this evening, Jews around the world will observe Yom Kippur — during which they’ll be encouraged to seek forgiveness for transgressions committed over the past year. While an entire day focused on urging people to atone for wrongs might seem like overkill, research suggests that’s not the case. Forgiveness doesn’t always come easily. In fact, recent surveys show that 25 percent of people never or rarely forgive others. And while that figure suggests a majority can and do forgive at times, it doesn’t seem we do it enough. 62 percent of Americans surveyed want to see more forgiveness in their personal lives, and a whopping 94 percent want the country to show more forgiveness as a whole.

Of course, what we want isn’t always what we need; our desires can lead us astray. But while philosophers have long debated whether forgiveness is a strength or weakness, religious thinkers have extolled its benefits for centuries — and modern research increasingly supports them. Research links forgiveness with better health and well-being. Forgiving others lowers depression, anxiety, hostility, and substance abuse, and enhances mental health, feelings of purpose, life satisfaction, and social connection. Put simply, forgiving people helps us flourish. We do need more of it. And that leads to a question: While most faith traditions recommend it, do they offer wisdom to help foster it?

The answer appears to be yes. A study that followed over 5,000 adolescents for a decade found that both attending religious services and engaging in religious practices at home were among the strongest predictors of a tendency to forgive. The point is that it’s the doing of religion that matters, as practicing a faith was more strongly associated with a tendency to forgive than belief alone. Yom Kippur offers a useful illustration of why.

Psychologist Michael McCullough, one of the nation’s leading experts on forgiveness, reminded me that the most powerful force motivating people to forgive is receiving a conciliatory gesture from the offender. But for that to happen — for a person to apologize — they first must admit to themselves that they’ve done something wrong. That, McCullough says, is often difficult: we like to think of ourselves as virtuous rather than as wrongdoers. But during Yom Kippur, admitting sins is ritualized; there’s no escaping it. Traditionally, Jews recite the vidui — a prayer of confession — ten times throughout the day. As part of it, they recite a litany of offenses that they might have committed, including lies, slanders, harms, and betrayals. Repeating that litany throughout the day encourages worshippers to confront failings that might otherwise be easy to ignore.

Yet remembering a transgression doesn’t always translate into atoning for it. And that’s where the brilliance of a Yom Kippur teaching comes in. As Rabbi Angela Buchdahl pointed out to me, the Mishnah teaches that “For sins between a person and God — Yom Kippur atones, but for sins between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until one appeases the other.” In other words, forgiveness for harming another requires seeking their forgiveness, not just God’s. That simple rule means prayer isn’t enough; people must attempt to repair the relationship they’ve damaged to fully atone. In doing so, the offender takes the first step toward rebuilding a social bond.

Of course, seeking forgiveness doesn’t mean it will always be granted. But here too, the rituals and teachings of Yom Kippur lend a hand. On that day, many Jews wear a kittel — a white robe similar to a Jewish burial shroud. They also recite the Unetaneh Tokef — a prayer which lists the myriad ways many of them could perish during the coming year. Together, these ritual elements are a reminder that time is limited — one that nudges the mind to forgive. As a global survey of over 200,000 shows, the propensity to forgive increases as we age, with those over 80 showing the highest levels.

But perhaps the strongest reason to forgive among the faithful comes from a teaching of Maimonides. It states that if a person refuses to grant forgiveness after another has sought it three times, the apologetic offender is released from the sin while the person who refused to forgive now bears one.

While the notion of transferring sin might seem quaint or superstitious to some, the logic, if not theology, behind it applies to all. Game theorists had long debated the best strategy for dealing with other people who have wronged you. In the early 1980s, when the political scientist Robert Axelrod conducted computer-simulated tournaments that pitted all kinds of strategies for deciding whether to trust or cheat people against one another to gain points — strategies like always trust someone, always cheat, cheat 30 percent of the time, etc. — a clear favorite emerged, aptly named tit-for-tat (TAT). It’s a straightforward strategy: Start by being fair, but then just copy what a partner does. If they ever cheat you, cheat back.

While TAT fared well, it had a major shortcoming: People could enter death spirals. For example, if two players were using TAT and one accidentally defected—or one player’s cooperative move was misread as defection—the mistake could trigger an endless cycle of retaliation. The two would never trust each other again; they’d just cheat and cheat back. There would be no chance for relationship repair, and as a result, both parties lose the benefits that come from working together.

But in 1992, the mathematicians and evolutionary theorists Martin Nowak and Karl Sigmund explored a modification. They realized TAT was ignoring a fundamental part of human nature: Sometimes we hurt others by mistake. We’re having a bad day; we forgot a promise; we acted out of character. The key here is that a single transgression doesn’t always mean another will follow. Yet if the two are living by the rules of TAT — I’ll treat you as you treated me — there’s no way out.

Enter generous tit-for-tat: a strategy that is willing to offer forgiveness and a second chance at times. It’s not forgiveness all the time for every case, and it only continues trusting if the partner has changed their dishonest ways. But this simple change — adding an opportunity to forgive offenses by not assuming the worst about each other — created the winningest strategy of all.

If we trade the word sin for reductions in social or economic resources, the truth of Maimonides’s lesson is clear. By refusing to forgive someone who has repeatedly sought it and earnestly changed, we suffer worse outcomes than we otherwise would. Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s required to thrive — a fact that religious thinkers realized long ago.

But while the specific beliefs, prayers, and rituals associated with Yom Kippur are reserved for Jews, the wisdom isn’t. In its practice are principles and techniques that can help any of us forgive. Making it a habit to reflect on our transgressions, even by verbalizing possible ones in the form of a list, can keep us from whitewashing our failings. Remembering that we have limited time to make amends, and that if we don’t forgive those who seemingly deserve it, we too will lose, can help warm our hearts when they feel the coldest. If we don’t forgive, if we hold grudges rather than release them, we don’t just punish the other; we punish ourselves.