Over at Tablet Magazine (where Snarly is a columnist) there is a delightful comic about all the different apologies the artist owes for long-ago incidents. It’s funny and also sad.

Read the whole thing here.

I also loved this story, which reads almost like a modern-day fable. It’s about a Baalat Teshuvah (a not-so-religious Jew who has chosen to become Orthodox) (and I apologize in advance to everyone I’m offending with my insufficient nuance in that description) who gets parked in by ultra-Orthodox Jews in a super-religious neighborhood and has to cool her heels in a parking lot. It’s a writ-small depiction of the many kinds of Orthodox Jews, and about fury and meanness and sexism and forgiveness. It’s an odd and perfectly crafted little nugget, this story.

And finally there’s this, an essay about trying to do the real work of forgiveness and realizing you JUST DON’T WANT TO. We at SorryWatch have always maintained that apologizing is mandatory but forgiveness is not. We do not approve of the “Do you forgive me?” approach to apologies, which puts an unfair onus on the person you’re apologizing to. But here’s my unasked-for advice: If you’re the person who can’t forgive, I say think about why you can’t forgive. If the sin is unpardonable, you can acknowledge that you’ve heard the apology and thank the apologizer (or not, your call), but do nothing further. If the sin is forgivable but you’re still angry, I’d encourage you to think about your fury and whether it serves you. Not the other person. You. If you can let go of seething, you wind up feeling better than if you’d held on to the fury. (You know Buddha’s apocryphal-but-wise line about anger being a hot coal you’re holding to throw at someone else — you get burned too.) Sometimes time and perspective help you forgive. Your forgiveness doesn’t come because the other person has shaped up or because you’ve suddenly become a more open-hearted soul, but because time is a powerful healer. And sometimes you stay angry.

There’ve been a raft of good apologies for heinous sins lately. (We’ll look at some in the coming weeks.) How good can an apology be if it’s apologizing for premeditated and sustained and horrid behavior? I think that’s why it’s important to divorce apology from forgiveness; an apology can be judged on its own purely crafted, well-intentioned, restitution-doing terms, even if forgiveness isn’t granted…or warranted.