Why I Will Cautiously Accept Kanye’s Apology
Last Thursday, Ye, formerly known as (Kanye West) apologized to the Jewish people. He had a friend named DJ Akademiks post a video on X of his meeting with Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto asking for forgiveness for harming the Jewish people. He told the rabbi that he has bipolar disorder and he’s here to take responsibility for what he did. He noted that when you have this kind of mental illness it’s like having a child who messes up several rooms in the house while the parent is away. He – the part of Ye that is of sound mind – is cleaning up the mess of his child – his mental illness – and asking for forgiveness.
The rabbi explained to Ye that Jews brought teshuva – the formula of repentance with a clean slate to the world. Accompanying the video on Rabbi Pinto’s X account was the following caption: “Rabbi Pinto welcomed Ye warmly, encouraged him with words of Torah and light, and praised his will to move closer to truth. Rabbi Pinto said: ‘A person is not defined by his mistakes, but by the way he chooses to correct them. This is the true strength of man: The ability to return, to learn, and to build bridges of love and peace.’ Ye came with humility to seek forgiveness and a new chapter of repentance and love among human beings. The meeting concluded with shared hope for a future of respect and unity among nations and faiths, grounded in a commitment to truth and peace. Ye and Rabbi Pinto hope to serve as an example to the world of the power of faith and reconciliation.”
In the video, Rabbi Pinto said he could see that Ye was sincere and a good man and he forgave him. Many people disagree with this approach. All over social media, people were commenting that it was too late, that the damage was too much, that the apology was not accepted.
While I don’t have the complete list of Ye’s infractions against the Jewish people, the highlights include announcing on social media in October 2022: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE. The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
Then, this past May Ye released a music video titled “HEIL HITLER (HOOLIGAN VERSION)” on X, featuring Nazi imagery and the lyric “So I became a Nazi, I’m the villain,” continuing a disturbing trajectory of antisemitic behavior that includes selling swastika-themed merchandise and praising Hitler. The video, which quickly amassed over a million views, follows a brief Twitch livestream in which Ye gave a Nazi salute and shouted “Heil Hitler” before being banned within minutes for violating the platform’s guidelines.
So why will I cautiously forgive Ye despite this egregious behavior? First off, forgiving someone and allowing yourself to be hurt by them in the future are two different things. I would not personally get close to him or advise anyone else to – because Ye does have an unstable track record. Just because we forgive someone does not mean we should risk making ourselves vulnerable to them in the future.
When a person does teshuva – the Jewish act of repenting – there is a multi-step process to get a clean slate:
- Regret: Recognize the harm your actions have caused and feel sincere regret.
- Cessation: Immediately stop the wrongful behavior.
- Confession: Verbally acknowledge your mistake and ask for forgiveness from those you harmed and God.
- Commitment: Make a firm commitment to never repeat the sin in the future. This is considered the most crucial step, and it is truly demonstrated when faced with the same situation and choosing not to sin again, notes
Ye did all those things and he did it publicly so that the people he wronged – the Jewish people – could hear his apology. Teshuva is meant to be for all people, not only for the ones with better track records.
Now what is not required but would be a bonus would be for Ye to pull as much antisemitic content from the internet as possible that he contributed to. What would be an even bigger bonus would be for him to use his platform to stand up for Jews. I don’t know if he will be capable of this.
And, what if he does it again, you ask? To that question, let me direct you to a passage about Ishmael we read during the High Holidays – a time when Jews are asking God for forgiveness and hoping for His mercy:
God heard the cry of the boy, and a messenger of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. (Bereishis 21:17)
On the words, “where he is” Rashi offers the following commentary:
According to the actions he is now doing shall he be judged and not according to what he may do in future. Because the ministering angels laid information against him, saying, “Master of the Universe, for him whose descendants will at one time kill your children with thirst will You provide a well?” He asked them, “What is he now, righteous or wicked?” They replied to him, “Righteous.” He said to them, “According to his present deeds will I judge him.” This is the meaning of what is written: “[For God hath heard the voice of the lad ] in that condition in which he now is” (Genesis Rabbah 53:14). Where did he (Ishmael) kill Israel with thirst? When Nebuchadnezzar carried them into exile — as it is said, (Isaiah 21:13, 14) “The burden upon Arabia … O ye caravans of Dedanites, unto him that is thirsty bring ye water! etc.” When they were bringing them near the Arabians the Israelites said to their captors, “We beg of you bring us to the children of our uncle, Ishmael, who will certainly show pity to us”, as it is said, “O ye caravans of the Dedanites (דדנים)”; read not דדנים but דודים, kinsmen. — These indeed came to them bringing them salted meat and fish and water-skins inflated with air. The Israelites believed that these were full of water and when they placed them in their mouths, after having opened them, the air entered their bodies and they died (Eichah Rabbah 2:4).
What the midrash that Rashi quotes is saying is that when God heard Ishmael’s cries of dehydration, he saw him as he was then – innocent and needing salvation. Though God and his angels knew that one day Ishmael’s descendants would kill the Jewish people through thirst, it didn’t matter back when Ishmael was suffering. At that point he was innocent and couldn’t be held accountable for the future.
So even when we know that someone will sin in the future, the Jewish approach is that we judge the person for where they are now. Again – it does not mean to allow yourself or your loved ones to become endangered. Put up healthy boundaries with someone with an inconsistent track record. I will not engage with Ye personally (not that there are any opportunities to) but from afar, I will accept his apology and pray that his medications and mental health plan work effectively. Jew hatred is a mental illness. If Ye is trying to cure himself of it, I will pray for his recovery.
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This is one of those times JITC is .56% wrong [as opposed to the 99.44% it’s right.]
The Yishmael ba’asher hu sham moment would NOT have made a dent in shamayim no matter HOW sincere his teshuva was at that moment [and it wasn’t even really because of the thirst per se — his own mother tossed him aside like the trash and said “I can’t do this anymore” — you think that before they ended up in the desert they didnt try other places but Yishmael’s terrorisic — yes, terroristic, he wasn’t just OTD — reputation didn’t precede him? Avraham Avinu was a rather prominent figure — so was going to get blamed for the sociopathic 19 year old? Hagar] — it likely would NOT have been accpeted except for one thing: G-d had promised “great nation” status for Yishmael to Avraham just before he kicked hin out of the house. THAT’s the “ba’asher hu sham” that tipped the scales. Without that – he’s deservedly toast. [The “metzachek” term is a textual clue/code to his rampant sociopathy and the ongoing clear and present danger he posed to a 5 year old Yitzchak. However bad you imagine it was, it might be worse].
Point is — the “ba’asher hu sham” moment is a LOT more covenantal than penitential.
If Ye REALLY was going to do teshuva — he’d basically be yeshev badad veyidom, up to and including erasing almost his entire digital ouvre. He’s rich enough that he can pay someone to do it for him. Maybe Elon Musk. We have to stop being so “frum” about forgiving our enemies – especially since he’s done this cylce more than once already. Shav al kiyo. The 4. commitment proved false, canceling out 1-3 — tovel vsheretz byado.
We MUST stop being afraid to label our enemies as such and humiliate them into silence. We MUST stop being afraid to “lose” people — in Egypt on the cusp of redemption we “lost” 80% of our own during Choshech. We MUST stop being dan repeat offenders with huge profiles lekaf zechus. There comes a point where even Bruriah would tell us to pray yitamu chotim as about to chataim. No chotim, no chataim.
Thanks for your comment. Ye’s social media accounts have been wiped of all antisemitic content. And his Heil Hitler song is hardly on the Internet anymore. It looks like he worked on cleaning up as much as he could.
I disagree with your take on the Yishmael story. I believe we read it on Rosh Hashana because we are asking God for forgiveness, while in the back of our minds know that we will sing again. How could we possibly ask the Master of the Universe to cleanse us of our sins when we likely do many of them again? Because God judges us for where we are in that moment of contrition, not for the future mistakes that will make. If that is want we ask of God, I think it’s hypocritical for us to expect more than Hashem does.
Rav Pinto can take it upon himself to forgive Kanye, but he cannot forgive in the name of the Jewish people.
Only time will tell how sincere Kanye’s apology is…
Nope – still not even the RH paradigm we think it is:
1 – the Angels/midas hadin kevayachol “misspoke” here, just as they/it did at the Yam Suf when they/it wanted us drowned. G-d response to them was NOT about forgiving Yishmael – it was as it were H pulling rank: “I just promised Great Nation status to his father. Future considerations are therefore irrelevant. So what now?” So they were cowed into the momentary assessment where Yishmael was dying horribly of thirst in the desert having been literally tossed aside like the trash like by his mother and as midas hadin they were stuck. Had to say “tzaddik”. And then when they tried again — the opposite, to wipe out the Hebrews in the Red Sea — they tried to make up for it by singing and G-d silenced them – the thing they keep forgetting to teach us is that WE say Az Yashir — which includes an explicit celebration (more than one, in fact) of the Egyptians drowning in the Sea. (And Rashi notes that G-d created extra angels to INCREASE the suffering of the Egyptians as they drowned, prolonging their agony.).
There’s even more — I’m gonna drop a few midrashim about this in a reply below the comment that Yishmael died a tzaddik, because the consensus in the midrash is that he really did not — but the point is this and in theory it can’t be emphasized enough, except that there’s an even BIGGER contemporary proof — EVEN WHEN G-D OSTENSIBLY GRANTS FORGIVENESS TO OUR SWORN ENEMIES — NOT ONLY ARE WE NOT REQUIRED TO, WE MAY BE OBLIGATED NOT TO. By Him. 3500 years of daily non stop recitation of Az Yashir should be proof enough (and a silencing slap in the face of “but those drowning Egyptians etc”.
Further – you mention “how we can not forgive when the Master of the Universe” etc … Andrew Cuomo said something lehavdil infinite havdalos about commuting the sentence of the cop killer Judith Clark because someone else (no need to mention names) would have forgiven her…and then after she got out of jail she was proudly photographed at a pro Hamas rally in GCT a week after 10/7. Let’s just say this notion of “how can we not forgive when … “ isn’t Jewish.
We have NO RIGHT TO FORGIVE OUR ENEMIES. It’s merachem al haachzarim.
Jon – you are wrong. I even disagree with Allison. Ye fully apologized and we fully accept it. Yismael ended up becoming a Tzaddick due to the fact that Avrohom loved Yishmael and Yismael likewise knew that his father, Avrohom, never stopped loving him.
The Heil Hitler song is still up on YouTube etc so the whole thing is fake. If you genuinely did tchuva for that, you would take that stuff right down.
It is not on any of Ye’s platforms. One person uploaded it to YouTube to keep a record of it, but put a disclaimer before hand. It seems like he wiped the Internet of this content as best he could.
Thank you for writing this piece. I cant imagine or understand the damage that Kanye would have caused by his bipolar disorder to the Jewish community.
We need to do our best to understand the pain others experience. Kanye is not perfect, and is one of the most scrutinized people out there. If he got into his head that X people are the problem, he likely was looking for an escape from the pain of divorce, mother passing, loss of all real friendships, and a world that only wants you for what you can give them.
No excuses for antisemitism, but those with mental illness need to be healed in order to see God’s truth.
God Bless 🙌 🙏 ❤️
Also note – we read Gen 21 on RH. It means we read the whole chapter. It means we read how Sarah kicked Yishmael and Hagar out of the house and G-d told Avraham to listen to Sarah. It tells of how close Yishmael was to dying and what kind of mother Hagar was. Takeaway: G-d forgives on his Plane. We don’t (in fact Rashi notes that Avraham was disgusted with Yishmaels tarbus raah enough that he sent him away with minimal provisions – as if he knew Sarah was right all along even without the Divine directive). It’s possible Yishmael never saw his father alive again. We leave it to G-d whether or not to forgive Ye. I will say it again: I posit we are not ALLOWED to.