Forgiveness

It’s open season for asking for and granting forgiveness if you are Jewish.  That’s a big part of the upcoming High Holy Days, where we are told to make amends with our fellow man before coming before God.

As part of our Selichot (penitential poems and prayers) celebration today, we had ongoing discussions with our rabbis about forgiveness and what it means.

Here are a few random thoughts that emerged:

The Jewish tradition treats gossip like murder in turns of its severity because of its potential to destroy another person’s character.

Forgiving does not mean forgetting.  Touching the scar tissue from a grievous injury, hurt, or betrayal will always cause us to remember.

Forgiveness is usually a slow process of gradually releasing your hatred and bitterness toward someone who has injured or wronged you and again beginning to wish that person well.

Reconciliation, if it occurs after forgiveness, requires the rebuilding of trust.

The Jewish word for sin is “chet”, which means “to miss the mark.”

Sins between one person and another require not only forgiveness, but also appeasement.  If a person is sincerely asked three times for forgiveness and refuses to grant it, Rambam says he is to be then considered the sinner.

This led to the question of whether there were sins that were too grievous for forgiveness.  Would we be obliged to forgive a penitent Adolf Hitler?  The answer was no.

We talked about whether it is more difficult to ask for forgiveness or to grant it.  In my own case, asking is by far the harder of the two.  I’ve had a lot of experience this year with someone I know know quite well but continue to anger.

We talked about the cathartic effect of forgiving people even after they are dead and gone.  Holding onto anger is never a good thing.

We looked at why we might be reluctant to ask for forgiveness:  Perhaps our asking might be rejected.  We might lose something that powers our ego in making amends.  It might seem like a sign of weakness.  

I’ll be thinking back over the past year to see whom I may have wronged in preparation for this time of asking for forgiveness.