Dear Readers, These columns began on my area of America Online, called:  Judaism Today:  Where Do I Fit?   People anonymously sent me E-Mail, and I began to choose one for a public response in my Jewish E-Mail of the Week column. The column has become quite popular and is now syndicated internationally in many Jewish papers and websites.  I hope you find they help you as you think about the Ethics, Spirituality and Peoplehood components of the Jewish way of Life.  I welcome your comments... see the end of the column. Gil PS  Teachers and others, feel free to copy my columns and forward them or use them as you see fit.  Please see the friendly copyright notice at the end.

HOW DO I FORGIVE....?

Dear Gil:

1. How do I forgive someone who's apology does not seem sincere?

2. How do I forgive someone who hasn't apologized?

3. Are we supposed to forgive someone who hasn't apologized? If so, why? Does it need to be communicated to that person or just something we do internally?

Forgiveness is a rather complex concept. Forgiveness seems to have at least two concepts associated with it:

1. Ceasing my feelings of anger, resentment, hostility, &/or hate towards someone.

2. Reinstatement. For example, reinstating a friend who you have broken away from.

It seems to me that there are different types of forgiveness that involve one or both of these 2 concepts to some degree.

A

Dear A:

Now you are a guy who takes the High Holy Days concept of forgiveness seriously and I am assuming you had someone in mind to give so much thought to forgiveness. Our High Holy Day prayer book has forgiveness as one of its central themes. We are told over and over that our God is a forgiving God. This is to be a model for us as well as we review our year of behavior towards others.

Beyond the High Holy Days, forgiveness is an important and admirable concept in Judaism. For proof, you need look no further than the Joseph story in the Bible. Other than murder, can you think of anything worse than being sold into slavery? Yet Joseph finds within himself the ability to forgive his brothers for doing just that...though they didn't apologize. Judaism requires that apologies include changed behavior and Joseph did see this in his brothers and this likely motivated his forgiving them.

More could be said about apologies, but you really ask about forgiveness. Your two concepts associated with forgiveness make sense to me. I would word them a bit differently than you. The first concept is an internal matter strictly involving yourself, your thoughts and emotions. Your second concept is external and deals with your relationship with another person.

As for the internal concept about being filled with "anger, resentment, hostility, &/or hate," this in reality, is a punishment you inflict upon yourself. A wonderful quote I heard sums this up well: being angry is a poison pill that WE take with the hope that our enemy gets ill. WE become the prisoner of our fuming feelings towards another. So I agree with you, part of forgiving requires us to stop our negative emotions -- I'd called it releasing ourselves from our own jail.

The external concept is different as it involves another who must be a willing participant. I'd restate it as deciding whether to continue or renew a relationship with the person with whom we've had a conflict. This is a decision that can be made a bit more objectively. To make the decision, I think you must ask yourself: what is really at the core of the conflict and who is the other person.

If the core of the conflict is something permanent like an irrevocable business or marital issue or a personality trait like jealousy or arrogance (yours or theirs) then continuing the relationship may not be possible. Having said that however, I would add that almost nothing is irrevocable. Compromises after the fact can often be made and people can change -- even deep personality traits.

Another mitigating factor about continuing the relationship is the second question I asked: who is the person? If your problem is with a relative (and typically family members because of closeness hurt each other the most) then continuing your relationship takes on a different weight. You only have one life and one family and they will always be your family -- this is the reality. For these reasons ending a relationship with family has no equal in sadness and pain and is to be avoided...though time may be needed for forgiveness to truly happen, as the Joseph story shows.

With all of this in mind, I would respond to your 3 questions by saying, in each case ask yourself: What am I doing to myself by not forgiving? And, how much do I care about our relationship? I'll close with an inspiring teaching from the Talmud that offers me guidance especially to your third question:

"If you have done your fellow a slight wrong, let it be a serious matter in your eyes; but if you have done your fellow much good, let it be trifle in your eyes. And if your fellow has done you a slight favor, let it be a great thing in your eyes; if your fellow has done you a great evil, let it be a little thing in yours eyes."

In this spirit, I apologize for any wrong I may done toward any of my readers and wish you and all of my readers, a Shana Tovah of forgiving, forgiveness, health and happiness.

Gil

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Thanks,
Gil