Needing Forgiveness

Long ago, before we all had toilets and running water, people used carry water on their own from the local well to a small tub in their house for bathing. If they were fortunate enough to be in a really good location, there would be a river nearby, and they could bathe there.

Rabbi Yochanan was one of these fortunate people. He would bathe in the Jordan whenever he needed it, and come back home for Torah study. Rabbi Yochanan was one of the greatest scholars in the land, and apparently he was good-looking too.

One day, Yochanan was bathing in the river, when all of a sudden a brutish giant of a man popped up beside him, in an uncomfortable sort of way. This man was known as Resh Lakish, and it seemed that he had mistaken Yochanan in his bathing for a lovely young woman. Resh Lakish was not one known for his subtlety in the ways of courtship— in his early days, he was a robber, a bandit, and a gladiator. Not someone you want to meet in a dark alley-way.

Rabbi Yochanan, trying to fend off his aggressor, said, “Thy strength would be more appropriate for studying Torah.” Resh Lakish? “and thy beauty for women.” Still interested.

Yochanan bursted out, “I’ll give you my sister’s hand in marriage if you’ll join me in learning at the yeshiva! (Bava Metzia 84a)” Every girl’s dream. Rabbi Yochanan’s suggestion worked, and Resh Lakish took up both parts of the offer.

Though he started out as Yochanan’s student, he turned out to be of even greater mental strength than physical, and Resh Lakish soon reached such a complete level of knowledge and skill that he became equal to Yochanan in learning. Both Yochanan and Resh Lakish become the two greatest authorities in their times (Yerushalmi Berachot 12c).

And, they become the closest of friends. They would study and debate with each other, and as with many great partnerships, the two together produced far more insights than either one could on his own.

Until, one day, they had to a nasty disagreement, about knives and weapons and their ritual status. When Resh Lakish disagreed with Rabbi Yochanan, Yochanan got irritated and sharply responded, “clearly a robber will know his own tools.” Silence. Remember, this was Resh Lakish’s unmentionable past that was just brought up. Yochanan struck below the belt. Angrily, Resh Lakish responded that he was a master of his arts before he met Yochanan, and a master again now. In other words, he never needed Yochanan, and Yochanan now meant nothing. Yochanan, hurt, pointed out if it weren’t for him, Resh Lakish never would have made it back to God. Yochanan was so upset that he shut down, and refused to speak to his friend.

We’re told that Resh Lakish made every effort to do teshuvah and reconcile with his friend. Resh Lakish even sent his wife, Yochanan’s sister, to try and calm his friend’s anger. Nothing could sway Yochanan. In his despair, Resh Lakish became ill with sadness, and died.

When Yochanan realized that Resh Lakish had died, and that he himself never got the chance to make amends for his own behavior, or to forgive his friend, he became so struck with grief that he lost his sanity.

With no forgiveness, both were lost. Forgiveness is something our tradition takes very seriously.

In the Mishnah Torah, Maimonides teaches,

Even if a person only upset a colleague by saying something barely insulting, he must appease that colleague and ask for forgiveness.

For even the smallest breaches of conduct, we owe an apology and need to ask for forgiveness. He continues,

And should that colleague not want to forgive him, the erring one should bring three friends to help convince his colleague to give him forgiveness, and should this not work, he should try a second time, and a third time.

And if this doesn’t work? This is where things get interesting. Remember, the guy who insulted the other was initial sinner. Maimonides writes,

If the colleague still does not want to forgive him, he may leave him alone and not pursue the matter further. On the contrary, the person who refuses to grant forgiveness is the one considered the sinner (Hilchot Teshuvot 2:9).

We have to work to earn forgiveness when we’ve wronged another, but part of the contract of being human, and being in relationships, is knowing that messing up happens. We all err and make bad choices, and we all will get hurt sometimes. Just as we all anticipate forgiveness for our mistakes, so too must we be ready to offer it. When we refuse to opt into this system of human relationships—when we refuse forgiveness—it is we who become sinners.

The philosopher Martin Buber speaks of God being present when we connect with other people. To Buber, God is the hyphen—the connection—in relationships. When we sever a relationship, through our action, we remove a little bit of God from this world, and when we repair it, we do a tikkun, and we bring God back in. To refrain from forgiving another, in this line of thought, is to prevent something holy from once again happening.

It’s hard enough to forgive when we’ve been hurt by someone close and lost all of our trust. But what about when a person asks for forgiveness for something they have done that is beyond compassion? What about those on death row, asking forgiveness from the families of their murder victims? What about abusers, seeking forgiveness from spouses? And of course, the example that always comes up when discussing whether all human beings are deserving of redemption, the Nazis? What happens when an SS officer repents? Ought he be forgiven?

Simon Wiesenthal, the survivor and Nazi-hunter, explores this very question in his book, the Sunflower. He tells the story of an old Nazi on his deathbed, who asked for a Jew—any Jew— to come to him. The nurse finds Wiesenthal on a work assignment, and brings him in. The SS officer, in his last moments, once again found the Christianity of his childhood and felt what appeared to be serious remorse for his murderous actions, which involved taking part in locking hundreds of Polish Jews into a building and throwing grenades in, shooting anyone trying to escape through the windows. The slaughterer of Jews, the one who refused to recognize their humanity and instead, by his own free will, took away lives in a horrific manner, finally felt bad, at the end of his life, and called for another Jew, as a representative of his people, to set him free, with forgiveness.

If any of us were Simon Wiesenthal, how would we have felt? Would we have offered a dying man forgiveness? Would we have so much anger that we want to see him suffer in these last moments? Or would we simply not know how to respond?

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Following Wiesenthal’s story were a number of responses written by his colleagues and friends, on whether he did the right thing in refusing forgiveness.

Most of the Jewish responses agree that Wiesenthal did the appropriate thing. First, this Nazi never did anything to actually counter his awful actions to prevent more from happening in the future, and he clearly had not learned anything about his crime of dehumanizing Jews. There was no Teshuvah! By calling for a Jew, rather than a Jewish person with a name, to forgive him, he was still considering us as objects instead of souls. Second, Wiesenthal would not have had the ability to forgive him for his acts. In our Yom Kippur liturgy, we read that for sins against God, Yom Kippur atones, but for sins between man and man, Yom Kippur cannot atone until that relationship has been repaired. God can’t step into a conflict between people until all offended parties have been appeased. Yes, the Nazis were making Wiesenthal’s life particularly awful, but Wiesenthal was not a victim of this particular Nazi’s actions. Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “No one can forgive crimes committed against other people. It is therefore preposterous to assume that anybody alive can extend forgiveness for the suffering of any one of the six million who perished” (Simon Wiesenthal. “The Sunflower.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/3zAdz.l).

There are two other perspectives, though, that I wish to highlight. One is from Rabbi Harold Kushner. He writes,

Forgiving is not something we do for another person, as the Nazi asked Wiesenthal to do for him. Forgiving happens inside us. It represents a letting go of the sense of grievance, and perhaps most importantly a letting go of the role of victim. For a Jew to forgive the Nazis would not mean, God forbid, saying to them “What you did was understandable, I can understand what led you to do it and I don’t hate you for it.” It would mean saying “What you did was thoroughly despicable and puts you outside the category of decent human beings. But I refuse to give you the power to define me as a victim. I refuse to let your blind hatred define the shape and content of my Jewishness. I don’t hate you; I reject you.” And then the Nazi would remain chained to his past and to his conscience, but the Jew would be free (Simon Wiesenthal. “The Sunflower.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/3zAdz.l).

For Kushner, forgiveness isn’t just about repairing relationships and helping others move on. Sometimes the relationships ought not be repaired, and sometimes the violations of decency are simply too great to allow someone the gift of peace. Forgiveness, is something we do in our hearts as a means of letting go, of refusing to be trapped by someone’s past actions. Forgiveness is letting go of that bottled anger without necessarily making someone undeserving feel better. Forgiveness, for Kushner, is a means of soul-cleansing and self-empowerment.

The other perspective is from the great rav of Buddhism, the Dalai Lama. He teaches,

 A few years back, a Tibetan monk who had served about eighteen years in a Chinese prison in Tibet came to see me after his escape to India. I knew him from my days in Tibet and remember last seeing him in 1959. During the course of that meeting I had asked him what he felt was the biggest threat or danger while he was in prison. I was amazed by his answer. It was extraordinary and inspiring. I was expecting him to say something else; instead he said that what he most feared was losing his compassion for the Chinese (Simon Wiesenthal. “The Sunflower.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/3zAdz.l).

What the monk feared most was that those who mistreated him would cause him to change at his very core—to become less forgiving, less trusting, and more hateful. That they would take not only his freedom but also his soul. He does not say anything about forgetting and trusting. The Dalai Lama points out that one ought to remember the atrocities to help prevent future occurrences. But, he understands that to hold on to anger changes us, embitters us, and hardens our hearts. How many of us, who have been hurt once and not forgotten, bring baggage into our next relationships and take even longer to trust?

To forgive need not be providing the offender with a clean slate. Forgiveness need not be withheld because we aren’t ready to allow the offender a lightened heart. Forgiving others is necessary, because it allows us to be open and free.

This is not to say that I think that Wiesenthal did the wrong thing. He was completely right, in my opinion, in being unable to forgive that Nazi. For all the reasons I mentioned.

Fortunately, most of us, in our high holiday work of soul cleansing and reparation of relationships, are not being asked to forgive Nazis. Some of us may be lucky enough that we can forgive all those in our lives who have wronged us, some of whom may be actually asking us for mercy. Some of us, though, may feel so hurt and wronged, from wounds fresh or old, that we cannot possibly think of letting the offender off the hook.

Remember, when a person has honestly done everything they could to make amends to us, then, as Maimonides taught us, we must be ready to forgive. Not necessarily to forget, but to forgive.

Imagine how better the Talmudic story could have turned out, had Yochanan let Reish Lakish back into his life.

For those who still hold sway over our emotions and memories, for those for whom we have harbored anger and fear, and for those who have shaped other relationships in our lives because of the ways we were hurt, it behooves us to find forgiveness.

Not because they deserve it, but because we don’t deserve the alternative. No human being deserves anger and fear. We all are at times broken vessels— but some of these cracks can be mended, and we all have the tools.

Forgiveness is a means—a process of recovery—for taking up life once again.

Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation, but it does allow for a place where trust might one day again be earned.

Most importantly, forgiveness is something that we will all at some point need. Just as we hope to receive compassion for our errors of judgment, so too will we need to offer it to others.When we truly understand our own nature, and human nature, we realize that forgiveness is something that we all need. There’s a French proverb, “Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.” All understood is all forgiven. (Points inspired from Bruce Bode’s writing “On Forgiveness,” http://www.americanrabbi.com/on-forgiveness-bruce-bode/.)

Forgiveness is not easy, but it is so important. Moshe, nearing the end of his life, tells us that we have a choice between life and death. He says, choose life. Choosing to forgive means choosing to live.

As we proceed through these Aseret Yamei Teshuvah, these ten days of repentance, in improving ourselves for this coming year, may we find all find it within our power to choose forgiveness, and to once again, take up our lives in wholeness and peace.