weirdjews: I don't expect many answers to this toda

Dichroic (

dichroic) wrote in

weirdjews,
@ 2005-10-13 12:53:00

I don't expect many answers to this today, but will post it anyway for you all to see as you come back online, because it is a Yom Kippur issue. In addition to apologizing to others, we forgive them for what they have done to us. Is that forgiveness suppose to extend to everyone who has injured us, or only those we interact with personally? I am having a difficult time wrapping my brain around the idea of forgiving certain politicians who have, in my opinion, injured many people through their actions and inactions. I know this issue must have been discussed over and over before; as much as I despise the people I mention, they don't compare to a Hitler or a Torquemada.

Is there a widely accepted Jewish position on this, or many different opinions?

(Post a new comment)

	dadmirald 2005-10-13 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	I'm probably way off base, but aren't Jews halachically the only people of concern, forgiveness and apology-wise? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dichroic 2005-10-13 08:12 pm UTC (link)
	The principle still stands, though. What if it were 1971, and you were vehemently anti-war? Kissinger was Jewish, wasn't he? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	baseballchica03 2005-10-13 08:47 pm UTC (link)
	I'm not sure, but, as with EVERYTHING else, there are probably 857,000 differing opinions on the subject. ;) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	mokey4 2005-10-13 09:45 pm UTC (link)
	Haha, that's what I was going to say! In Hebrew School they used to say, ask 10 Jews and you'll get 11 opinions (because at least one won't be able to make up his mind)! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	masturbassist 2005-10-13 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	You should forgive everyone. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dichroic 2005-10-13 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	How do you forgive a Hitler, for instance? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	masturbassist 2005-10-14 12:19 am UTC (link)
	The same way you forgive anyone else. What he did wasn't right, but he's still human and capable of mistakes. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	xiphias 2005-10-14 01:02 am UTC (link)
	I disagree. I believe that there are things that are just beyond forgiveness. And Hitler is generally the specific example, in modern times, for that case. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

masturbassist
2005-10-14 01:09 am UTC (link)

But why would you want to carry that baggage around? What does that anger accomplish? You just need to remember what happened and learn how to avoid it, you don't have to apply a scapegoat to it. If fact, scapegoating someone would probably be hypocritical, because that's what the Jews were used as (the difference here is that Hitler is actually at fault), but you shouldn't absolve yourself and everyone else, but the scapegoat, of guilt. Part of forgiving is realizing that it's not entirely their fault.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	angel_thane 2005-10-14 02:48 am UTC (link)
	Of course. Even Hitler was capable of repentance. To refuse somebody the possibility of forgiveness is baseless hatred, which is in and of itself a sin. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sputnik5 2005-10-13 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	Do you forgive them only for what they did to you and only if they ask for forgiveness, or do you have to forgive them for what they did to other people? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	to forgive or not.. rekees 2005-10-13 11:40 pm UTC (link)
	"The Sunflower" by Simon Wiesenthal (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: to forgive or not.. insanebiboy 2005-10-14 06:42 am UTC (link)
	I really enjoyed that book...good point on the issue as well. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	masturbassist 2005-10-14 12:21 am UTC (link)
	I'd say everyone, even fi they don't ask you for it. It's not goo to carry around that extra baggage, and it just feels better to forgive, it's much more relaxing. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	masturbassist 2005-10-14 12:34 am UTC (link)
	I just re-read the question, I thought you were asking about people who didn't ask you. I say forgive them for everything. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	sputnik5 2005-10-14 01:50 am UTC (link)
	I have no idea what the official stance of Judaism is on the issue, but I don't think you can forgive for someone else, and definetely not if, say, the man who signed their death warrant has not repented and is signing more every day. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

zevabe
2005-10-14 03:21 am UTC (link)

We do not believe in forgiving someone of their sins against other people. You need to apologize to the person you wronged. Hitler has a big apology list up in Shamayim. NOt even G-d forgives your sins against anyone but Himself. THat's why you need to apologize to Bob for robbing him blind, before you apologize to G-d for it.
As for people who didn't ask, I'm fairly certain you aren't REQUIRED to forgive them, but if it was small stuff, you probably should. Better for psychological health, makes you a better person, etc.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	sputnik5 2005-10-14 03:38 am UTC (link)
	Are there any rabbinical sources for this opinion, just so I know whom to cite:)? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	zevabe 2005-10-14 03:57 am UTC (link)
	Needing to apologize to the person you wronged -Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, but it definitely has earlier sources G-d not forgiving sins between a man and his fellow-Masechet Yoma (I forget if its a MIshna or in the GEmara) Forgiving those who don't ask-not sure (Reply to this) (Parent)

	masturbassist 2005-10-14 07:50 am UTC (link)
	You don't forgive for someone elses's sake, but if somethign about what they've done bothers you, then you can forgive. (Reply to this) (Parent)

xiphias
2005-10-14 01:17 am UTC (link)

What is "forgiveness"?

There are several things that "forgiveness" includes. One is that it is reparing an interpersonal breach. If you have a community, and two or more people in that community are fighting, that is a breach which harms the community as a whole. One thing that we do in Yom Kippur is try to repair those breaches, which strengthens everyone. When you see people talking about how forgiveness is mainly between Jews, this is, I believe, mainly what they're referring to: the rules about forgiveness mainly applying to Jews date from a time when one's community was mainly Jews -- but, if you look a little deeper, you notice that people tried to do the same thing with Gentiles who were part of their community, too. So it's really a COMMUNITY thing, not a specifically Jewish thing.

Then there's a second thing with forgiveness -- a metaphysical "let no one be punished on my account" thing. We do that almost as a quid pro quo -- a sort of sacrifice. We tell G-d that we forgive all those people who hurt us, as, in a sense, a sacrifice, which, in trade, we ask that G-d forgives us -- "I forgave all the other humans, therefore, you now forgive me, in trade."

And there's a third part. When we forgive someone, besides fixing a breach in a community, it also fixes a breach in our own soul. Ongoing anger, ongoing hatred is a hole in our own soul. And we forgive others not only for THEIR metaphysical benefit, but even more, for our own spiritual benefit.

Forgiveness is an act of healing in our own soul. Can we forgive those who have hurt many people? Well, no, we can't -- we don't have that power. I can't forgive, say, Mohammed Atta (one of the 9-11 hijackers) for killing, say, Liam Colhoun (who worked in the World Trade Center), because I'm not him. Only Liam Colhoun could forgive Mohammed Atta for killing him, and he can't, because he's dead. I can only forgive people for what they've done TO ME.

Let's say that I worked for Enron (which I don't and never did), and lost my job when Enron went bankrupt. Could I forgive Ken Lay for his mismanagement and fraud that screwed the company? Well, I could forgive Ken Lay for the loss of my job, but I couldn't forgive him for the loss of anyone else's job. I could only forgive him for what he did to me.

Would it be a good idea for me to do so? Well, yes, if I could manage it. Not so much for the metaphysical benefit to Ken Lay's soul of having one fewer lost jobs on blackening his soul -- although it would do that -- but more for the healing that it might be able to bring to my own soul.

(Reply to this)

tiferet
2005-10-14 05:05 am UTC (link)

I think it is important to remember that children love the idea of justice but adults pray for mercy. If we were to be held accountable for every wrong thing that we have done, we couldn't begin to atone. We do things that hurt other people without meaning to all the time. Sometimes we don't even know it. I spent hours last week talking to someone who is really a close friend and was shocked at the way I'd hurt her without meaning to.

As I've grown older I've grown to appreciate G-d's forgiveness more and more. Before I can pray for anyone else to receive the fullness of their well-earned comeuppance, I have to ask myself: would I be ready to accept the same judgement?

There are certain politicians, and they may be the same ones, that I would like to see lose the power they have to harm others, but I can't righteously pray for them to come to harm themselves.

On the other hand, it is never ever inappropriate to pray that someone else will realise the need to do teshuvah and turn away from doing wrong, because there's not a one of us that doesn't have something in their lives they could improve.

(Reply to this)

sethg_prime
2005-10-14 03:34 pm UTC (link)

(1) When you forgive people on Yom Kippur, you're forgiving them for sins they may have committed against you, and a boneheaded or malicious action by a politician, even one that harms a large number of people, is not necessarily a sin of this nature.

(2) If I'm remembering Maimonides' Laws of Repentance correctly, strictly speaking, you only have to forgive someone if they publically ask your forgiveness three times. (There are various exceptions that I'm not going to go into because I don't remember them all.) How many politicians do this?

(3) I think, although I'm not 100% sure, that if a victim forgives the offender for some wrong, the offender still has to repent. So if, say, you were a Holocaust survivor and your old concentration-camp commandant asked you to forgive him for his evil deeds, he would have to have genuine remorse for your forgiveness to be worth anything (in the metaphysical sense that

xiphias mentions above).

(Reply to this) (Thread)

dichroic
2005-10-14 05:14 pm UTC (link)

Re#2, it happens so rarely that it's worth noting when it does. The one example I can think of offhand is George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama who made the "Segregation now, segragation tomorrow, segregation forever" speech in 1963. In later years he publicly said he had been wrong and went around apologizing to black groups for his role in the fight against civil rights.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	dichroic 2005-10-14 08:31 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks, y'all. I think I understand the principle much better now. (Reply to this)

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