On Repentance and Repair Quotes

“Before we even understand what repentance is, we’re instructed to name, out loud, the harm that we have caused.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Another human being’s suffering is not magically erased because the person who caused it says that they didn’t mean to do it.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Swallowing your pride and facing, again and again, the harm you have caused through carelessness, through ignorance, through problematic beliefs, through acting from places of pain and trauma and brokenness, through thinking it’ll be OK, through thinking nobody will find out, through desperation, through opportunism, through all the reasons that cause us to harm one another. Even if we didn’t mean to. Even if we didn’t know better. Even if we were being lazy, or careless, or afraid, even if we were acting out because we have all this hurt inside, or even if we don’t know why we did it. Whatever our intentions. Doing the work to cross that bridge and see, for real, the impact that we had, what it means, and what we need to learn or do, how we need to change and grow, what we need to offer of ourselves, how we can repair, what can be different. It can be different. We know that it can. You know that it can. But the only way out is through.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“People don’t change easily, and they don’t heal quickly. Perpetrators sometimes need to take some time to work on the ways they’ve acted out of brokenness, to try not to hurry along a process that needs space, care, and slowness in order to do it properly.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“If we want to build a world that determines appropriate consequences for harm, that centers the needs and healing of those most impacted, and that helps the perpetrator transform into an agent of healing, repair, and ongoing renewal, we have tremendous cultural and systemic work to do.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“[W]e all know that sometimes people mean well but cause harm nonetheless—out of ignorance, out of carelessness, out of deeply ingrained ways of thinking they haven't examined, out of an emotional reaction that got the better of their lofty intentions, or ... well, the list goes on.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Almost all of the people who have allegedly been “canceled” continue to thrive professionally, and almost all who were publicly condemned for their speech or actions had opportunities to show evidence of real repentance work but chose not to.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“A ruler had a child who had gone astray on a journey of a hundred days. The child’s friends said, “Return to your parent.” The child said, “I cannot.” Then the ruler sent a message to the child, saying, “Return as far as you can and I will come the rest of the way to you.” In a similar way, God says, “Return to me and I will return to you.”16 We don’t have to get all the way there. We just have to start walking.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Sometimes forgiveness comes after the permission to never forgive is finally granted. And sometimes forgiveness never comes. And that’s OK too.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“That for deep, indelible harm, forgiveness never needs to be part of the equation if it never feels like the right thing. And that lack of forgiveness does not mean that there has not been healing. Forgiveness and healing are not the same thing.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Repentance is not dependent on receiving forgiveness—the perpetrator can do the work and free themselves of their obligations regardless of their victim’s response.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“What if forgiveness . . . is actually a way of wielding bolt cutters and snapping the chain that links us? Like, it is saying, what you did was so not OK that I refuse to be connected to it anymore . . . Free people aren’t controlled by the past. Free people laugh more than others. Free people see beauty where others do not. Free people are not easily offended. Free people are unafraid to speak truth to stupid. Free people are not chained to resentment. That’s worth fighting for.18”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“What is now, is not what must be. We can find ways of addressing harm and seeking justice that are themselves just.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“When harm happens, we must ask, “To whom am I responsible?”65 And we must be willing to extend our sense of responsibility beyond those with whom we have an immediate sense of identification or kinship.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“when a person commits a criminal act, “People say, ‘He acts like he has no relatives.’” Flies-Away regards the law as a tool not to punish, but rather to bring people back into their communal context and to help them heal.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Ultimately, systems cannot force repentance. Systems absolutely can hamper the work or foster it.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Treating the victim as an object . . . by sidelining her in the judicial proceedings in a contemporary state prosecution—reenacts the original offense against her humanity.”25”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“They want, she suggests, validation that what happened to them is wrong. They want answers as to why this harm came to be, why they were targeted—to help them build a coherent narrative, to make sense of what happened to them. They want some power and control, to have a say in what happens as a result of the harm caused to them—a necessary corrective after the experience of powerlessness and trauma. They want their voices to be heard. They want the resources needed for their healing and safety. And, Sered notes, “Every single survivor we have spoken to has wanted one thing: to know that the person who hurt them would not hurt anyone else.”22”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Prison ultimately causes a measurable, statistically significant increase in crime and violence; locking people in a system defined by these drivers of violence does, indeed, increase the likelihood that they will cause greater harm in the future.19 Imprisoning people doesn’t necessarily make our society safer.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Holding someone accountable isn’t built into our carceral system. The district attorney never wanted me to be accountable, he wanted a conviction. Two different things.”10”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“the critical role of confession is in its potential to liberate victims of great harm—it marks an end to the denial of their experience and an affirmation of the legitimacy of their suffering. It can offer answers, context, information about what happened or why that might be key to healing, and it can bring something too long hidden into the open.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Confession empowers those who were harmed by validating the truth of their experience, and also empowers those who were unaware, by giving them the opportunity to demand change from their government and society.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“public relationships are what we hold in front of each other, with each other. Those public relationships are how we model the world we want to live in.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“a peace where there has been no rebuke is no peace.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“The victim’s job is to take care of their own spiritual health; the ally’s job is to get into the trenches with the perpetrator.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Maimonides continues: The one who sees their fellow stooping to sin or following an unrighteous path is obliged to return them toward the good, and to let them know that they are actually sinning against themselves in pursuing wicked deeds . . . The one who rebukes their fellow . . . it is essential that the rebuke be administered only between them both; and they should speak to them calmly, employing soft language . . . If [the person doing harm] receives it attentively, it is well; if not, they should rebuke a second, even a third time.23”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“most public shaming is horizontal and done by those who believe they have greater integrity or more sophisticated analyses. They become the self-appointed guardians of political purity,”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“Certainly, we all, when we mess up, want to feel forgiven and absolved. But real repentance demands that we concentrate not on our own emotional gratification but rather on repairing, to the best of our abilities, the hole in the cosmos that we have created.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“To be contrite at our failures is holier than to be complacent in perfection.13”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

“facing the harm that I caused is an act of profound optimism. It is a choice to grow, to learn, to become someone who is more open and empathetic.”
― Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World