Oshri Cohen on His Regrets: “That’s What’s Beautiful About Judaism”

“There isn’t a person who hasn’t made mistakes along the way. Only completely righteous people haven’t, and it’s hard to be completely righteous.”

That is how Israeli actor Oshri Cohen reflected on mistakes, regret, and the opportunity Judaism gives us to take an honest look at ourselves.

Mistakes are an almost unavoidable part of being human. We make the wrong decision, say something we wish we could take back, hurt someone unintentionally, or look back years later and realize that we would handle a situation very differently today.

For Cohen, however, Judaism offers a powerful framework for what we do with those mistakes afterward.

“There Are Things I Regret”

In a conversation with Erev Tov, Cohen was asked about regrets in his own life.

“Of course, there are things I regret,” he admitted. “I haven’t made that specific list yet, but I’m sure there are.”

Rather than seeing regret simply as something negative, Cohen connected it to the Jewish practice of taking stock of our actions.

“And that’s what’s beautiful about Judaism,” he said, “that once a year, there’s a kind of self-reckoning you need to do.”

The idea of cheshbon hanefesh, an honest accounting of our actions, occupies an important place in Jewish thought. It asks us to stop moving long enough to examine ourselves: Where did I get things right? Where did I fall short? Is there someone I hurt? Is there something I need to repair? What do I want to do differently going forward?

That process is not meant to trap a person permanently in guilt. The purpose of teshuvah is change. Recognizing a mistake gives us the opportunity to take responsibility for it, make amends where possible, and choose a different path the next time we face a similar situation.

Why Asking for Forgiveness Matters

Cohen also spoke about the importance of asking others for forgiveness, describing it as something that affects not only the person who was hurt but also the person seeking to make things right.

“And not only so that they will forgive you, but first and foremost so that you forgive yourself,” he said, “because in the end it’s a closed circle. You need to feel good about yourself in order to feel good about the world and put that out into the world.”

His words touch on something many people struggle with: what happens after we recognize that we have done something wrong?

There is an important difference between excusing our behavior and refusing to remain defined by it. Judaism does not ask us to pretend our mistakes never happened. When another person has been hurt, teshuvah can require acknowledging the wrongdoing and seeking their forgiveness. But taking responsibility also means believing that we are capable of becoming better than the person who made that mistake.

Otherwise, regret can become a place where we remain stuck rather than a force that helps us grow.

We Are More Than Our Mistakes

Perhaps that is one of the hopeful ideas contained within teshuvah: our past matters, but it does not have to be the final word on who we are.

A mistake can become a reason to repair a relationship. Regret can make us more careful with another person’s feelings. A painful realization can change the way we behave in the future.

Self-reflection is valuable not because it gives us another opportunity to criticize ourselves, but because it gives us an opportunity to change.

Cohen’s comments offer a simple reminder: We will not always get everything right. What matters is whether we are willing to look honestly at what went wrong, ask forgiveness when necessary, learn from it, and move forward differently.

We cannot rewrite what we did yesterday. But Judaism continually reminds us that we can still decide who we want to be tomorrow.