In the days leading up to Yom Kippur, tradition urges Jews to ask one another for forgiveness for wrongs and slights committed in the past, and likewise to forgive those who approach them with contrition. Yet, notes Joshua Berman, nowhere does the Tanakh state explicitly that one person has forgiven another. The Hebrew word meaning to forgive is in fact only used when God is doing the forgiving. Berman explains:

To understand how the Bible thinks about rupture and repair in human relations, we must begin by noting the stories where something akin to forgiveness is, in fact, expressed, but only nonverbally: through a kiss.

The best example of this is in the book of Samuel. David’s son, Absalom, murders his half-brother, Amnon, and the king declares him persona non grata. Desperate for an audience with the king, Absalom employs various advisors to appeal to the king, who finally acquiesces. Absalom enters the throne room and prostrates himself, at which point Scripture says, “and the king kissed Absalom” (2Samuel 14:33). Nowhere else does David kiss any of his other sons. This is the kiss of clemency and reconciliation. But has David forgiven Absalom for the murder of Amnon?

The world of the Bible places a premium on reconciliation. . . . Introspection begets remorse. Remorse begets apology. Apology begets forgiveness. When the full cycle is closed, there is deep cleansing. There is redemption.

But so often, for so many, those early stages of introspection, remorse, and verbalization are too difficult to navigate. The biblical narrative gives a more clear-eyed view of imperfect people in an imperfect world. And here the takeaway is that the bonds that connect us are of paramount importance. Sometimes we need to forget about forgiveness and do things the biblical way—to kiss and make up.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.