{"id":62360,"date":"2019-09-25T11:26:21","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T16:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=62360"},"modified":"2019-09-25T11:29:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T16:29:26","slug":"our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should)"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a movie released this year called Official Secrets<\/em>, which I haven\u2019t seen and don\u2019t intend to see. It stars a bunch of people I\u2019ve never heard of and Keira Knightley, whom I\u2019ve heard of but never seen anything she was in. (IMDB says she was in The Phantom Menace.<\/em> I did<\/em> see that but Knightley was 12 and not yet famous.) So why am I writing about this? Because of the movie\u2019s plot.<\/p>\n

Official Secrets<\/em> tells the story Katharine Gun, a British translator, who is portrayed in the film by Knightley. In 2003, Gun leaked a top-secret memo to the British newspaper the Observer<\/em> about a spy operation ordered by the NSA to determine the position of six UN delegates on the proposed invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not Gun whose story concerns me today. It\u2019s Nicole Mowbray (portrayed in the film by someone named Hanako Footman).<\/p>\n

At the time of Gun\u2019s whistleblowing, Mowbray was working at the Observer<\/em> in a junior position. In between tasks like booking flights for foreign correspondents and taking care of visas, she was given the hard copy of an email to type into the computer system. \u201cI wasn\u2019t given any other information,\u201d Mowbray recounted<\/strong><\/a>. \u201cTheir only instruction: \u2018Don\u2019t make any mistakes.\u2019\u201d A few days later, this leaked email was the Observer\u2019s<\/em> top story, and international news.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: Mowbray \u201ccorrected\u201d the memo\u2019s spellings from American English to British English as was her standard operating procedure. The result was that this threw the memo\u2019s authenticity into question. After all, if it actually originated in the US, why would it say things like \u201crecognise,\u201d \u201cemphasise\u201d and \u201cfavourable?\u201d There was certainly basis for people to suspect that the email was a fabrication. Mowbray had not only jeopardized Gun\u2019s actions, she had inadvertently created \u201csomething of an international incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Happily, Mowbray was not dismissed despite the magnitude of her error\u2019s repercussions. \u201cSomehow, I managed to put the disaster behind me,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe senior editors forgave me, and I remained on the foreign desk for three years.\u201d All\u2019s well that end\u2019s well, right? Eh, not quite.<\/p>\n

Here we are, 16 years later. Imagine how Mowbray must have felt upon discovering that not only were they making a feature film of Gun\u2019s story but that her own faux pas was to be included. According to Mowbray, the revelation caused her to experience some sleepless nights, and the movie\u2019s ultimate release didn\u2019t exactly help matters. \u201cI knew it would be hard to watch my mistake unfold, but when it came, it felt like being punched in the throat. I felt the shame all over again\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

How relatable is Mowbray\u2019s story? While most of us probably haven\u2019t caused an international incident, we\u2019ve all made mistakes. We\u2019ve intentionally done things that we regret and would never do again. It might have been in high school, in college, or yesterday, but our errors, and our errors in judgment, are always waiting for us, ready to embarrass us all over again. Most of our mistakes and indiscretions are not summer blockbuster-worthy but there\u2019s always the possibility of running into an old friend who will open the conversation with, \u201cHey, remember that time when you\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

All this puts me in mind of the Biblical Achan. In Joshua chapter 7<\/strong><\/a>, the Jews were easily defeated by the much smaller army of Ai. God informed Joshua that it was because Achan ben Karmi of the Tribe of Judah looted consecrated property from the conquest of Jericho. This caused God\u2019s presence to depart from the army of Israel, resulting in 36 needless deaths. When confronted, Achan confessed not only to looting from the spoils of Jericho but also to having done so in battle during the time of Moses. The Talmud in Sanhedrin (43b-44a) tells us that, despite his actions, Achan secured a place for himself in the Next World through his confession.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d I hear you protest, \u201cAchan was still executed for his crimes!\u201d That is true but that\u2019s because our actions have consequences. We can change our actions going forward but we can\u2019t change the past. We can do teshuvah, we can square things with God and with our fellow man, but we can\u2019t scrub our mistakes from human memory (or from social media). The possibility of embarrassment for indiscretions, youthful or otherwise, persists. But that doesn\u2019t have to define us.<\/p>\n

In fact, our mistakes can prove useful. As Mowbray wrote, \u201c(W)hile I wouldn\u2019t recommend carrying the burden of a catastrophic (error)\u2026 through one\u2019s career, it did provide a salutary lesson in attention to detail.\u201d We can learn from our mistakes. We can take the lessons of who we were and use them to help define who we want to be. The Talmud teaches us (Yoma 86b) that when one repents from fear of sin, his sins are transformed into errors but if one repents from love of God, his sins are transformed into mitzvos. We can simply mitigate our misdeeds (which is already a pretty good deal!) but we also have the potential to turn them into full-blown merits (which is an unbelievable opportunity!).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all made mistakes and we\u2019ve all committed misdeeds. The question is, what do we do next? We can continue to beat ourselves up and wallow in our shame but that doesn\u2019t do anyone any good. We can move forward with our lives and hope that others don\u2019t dredge up the past too often (which is probably what most of us do). Or we can embrace the lessons learned from our missteps and use them to define who we’re going to be moving forward.<\/p>\n

How we proceed is up to us.<\/p>\n

\n

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including\u00a0The Tzniyus Book<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Taryag Companion<\/a>. His latest work,\u00a0The God Book<\/a>, is available from\u00a0OU Press<\/a>\u00a0as well as on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a movie released this year called Official Secrets, which I haven\u2019t seen and don\u2019t intend to see. It stars a bunch of people I\u2019ve never heard of and Keira Knightley, whom I\u2019ve heard of but never seen anything she was in. (IMDB says she was in The Phantom Menace. I did see that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":62361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nOur Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There was a movie released this year called Official Secrets, which I haven\u2019t seen and don\u2019t intend to see. It stars a bunch of people I\u2019ve never heard of and Keira Knightley, whom I\u2019ve heard of but never seen anything she was in. (IMDB says she was in The Phantom Menace. I did see that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-25T16:26:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-09-25T16:29:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"279\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/\",\"name\":\"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-25T16:26:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-09-25T16:29:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg\",\"width\":500,\"height\":279},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c\",\"name\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\"},\"description\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including The Tzniyus Book and The Taryag Companion. His latest work, The God Book, is available from OU Press as well as on Amazon.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/author\/rabbi-jack-abramowitz\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life","og_description":"There was a movie released this year called Official Secrets, which I haven\u2019t seen and don\u2019t intend to see. It stars a bunch of people I\u2019ve never heard of and Keira Knightley, whom I\u2019ve heard of but never seen anything she was in. (IMDB says she was in The Phantom Menace. I did see that","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/","og_site_name":"OU Life","article_published_time":"2019-09-25T16:26:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-09-25T16:29:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":279,"url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/","name":"Our Mistakes Need Not Define Us (But Maybe They Should) - OU Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg","datePublished":"2019-09-25T16:26:21+00:00","dateModified":"2019-09-25T16:29:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/our-mistakes-need-not-define-us-but-maybe-they-should\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shutterstock_1484579666.jpg","width":500,"height":279},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/","name":"OU Life","description":"Everyday Jewish Living","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c","name":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz"},"description":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including The Tzniyus Book and The Taryag Companion. His latest work, The God Book, is available from OU Press as well as on Amazon.","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/author\/rabbi-jack-abramowitz\/"}]}},"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62364,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62360\/revisions\/62364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}