Let’s be clear. I know a lot about the topic of forgiveness. It was a chapter in my rabbinic thesis. I got an A in the class Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Jewish and Christian Thought and I passed another class entitled Forgiveness. (that professor only graded such a topic pass/fail!).
Forgiveness is tough. It became really clear to me as I read Gated Grief. It became increasingly clear as I sat through the various presentations that were offered last week at the domestic violence conference specifically on this topic.
Today is not only the 12th day of the Omer but it is also Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. How can we forgive? Should we forgive? Can we ever forgive such atrocities? Simon Wiesenthal wrote a powerful book, the Sunflower, which wrestles with that very question. During the war when he was interred as a Jewish prisoner in a forced labor camp, he was brought to a dying SS officer who demanded precisely that–to forgive the SS officer for burning Jews alive in a synagogue. Wiesenthal spends the rest of his life wrestling with what he did. Read the book, it is important!
What I learned is that Jews and Christians, probably others have a way of using the words just slightly differently–and then expecting each other to understand. That is why I wanted people at the conference to wrestle with real texts of our various faith traditions. How I understand a passage may be very different than how someone else who is Christian understands the very same text.
We heard from the Baptist minister using the Holman Bible Dictionary that forgiveness is “an act of God’s grace to forget forever and not hold people of faith accountable for sins they confess; to a lesser degree the gracious human act of not holding wrong acts against a person.” Later in the day we heard the Merriam Webster definition: “To stop feeling anger toward, to stop blaming, to stop feeling anger about, to forgive someone for, to give up on resentment of or claim to requital.” Those are very different working definitions.
We differentiated between forgiveness, amends and reconciliation. And to be clear, according to that speaker, is “not forgetting, reconciliation, excusing, or tolerating abusive/controlling behavior. And it is NOT required. It is optional.”
Looking at the story of Luke Chapter 5:17-25 where Jesus heals the paralyzed man, we learn that it is really a story of healing and forgiveness. The Lutheran bishop suggested that forgiveness is really the freedom to move forward. However, he cautioned that there are really two outcomes of forgiveness. Reconciliation when the abuser admits his wrong doing, makes amends and his behavior changes so that the abusive behavior is not repeated. He has mended his heart and his actions. This enables a victim to eventually to set the offender free–but only once the offended one feels safe. Another outcome is release, where the offender is confronted with the truth but he cannot or will not acknowledge guilt, feel remorse or change. The offended is set free from the responsibility to forgive. Maimonidies, the twelfth century Jewish philosopher would counsel a similar thing. The two who were together can now lead separate lives–maybe even from a different zip code.
Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go. And while I heard the theme song of Frozen which seemed so apt, it seems too easily said and not easily done. Hope of letting go of a better past. Hope of a better future. Getting rid of the if onlys. Getting rid of anger. Letting go.
The Lutheran bishop argued that there is a price of non-forgiveness. “No one gets to the Promised Land without leaving Egypt.” I would say, “We need to leave the narrow spaces of Egypt to reach freedom and the hope that comes with it.” That is the gift of Passover which we just celebrated. That is the gift of forgiveness.
I can buy into a lot of this. Until I listen to a survivor say that all domestic violence victims need to forgive or they have not fully healed. That made me angry. How dare she. She can speak for herself but cannot speak for all the women I have worked with. Until I remember the Holocaust. Simon Wiesenthal argues that according to Judaism only the wounded party has the power to forgive the offender. So Wiesenthal couldn’t forgive the SS guard. The only people who could were dead. We who survived am not obligated to forgive the Germans, and we certainly don’t have to forget what the Germans did. Then we are doomed to repeat what they did. And repeat the world seems to do. Breaking these cycles of violence seems to be almost impossible.
What then can we do? The question that Rabbi Harold Kushner asks is not why do bad things happen to good people but when. How do we respond when bad things happen to good people? What is our responsibility when we are free? If forgiveness makes us free, what are we free for? The Lutheran bishop argued compassion, justice, gratitude, outreach. I would concur.
We have a responsibility, those of us who survived, the Holocaust, domestic violence, other trauma, to be compassionate, to work for justice, to be grateful. To figure out what this thing called forgiveness is. To break the cycles of violence. To work for a world without genocide, without domestic violence. It is a daunting task.
When I think of Africa, I think about Darfur. I think about Sudan. I think about Rwanda. I wonder what my people’s cry of “Never again!” means. I think about ethnic violence in Kenya, in the slums of Kibera. Can we prevent another Holocaust? I think I must learn to speak out. Pirke Avot teaches, “Ours is not to ignore the task, neither are we free to ignore it.”