A Lesson in Forgiveness
Podcast: Download (Duration: 11:43 — 10.7MB)
Subscribe: More
The Days of Awe—the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—are considered the High Holy Days in the Jewish tradition—significant moments that even secular Jews may celebrate in some fashion. It’s the New Year, after all.
These festivals are mentioned only once in the Bible and not by their present names, which were developed later in writings of the Talmud (oral teachings that were written down between 200 and 500 of the Common Era). In the Hebrew Bible, in Leviticus 23: 24-25, Rosh Hashanah is described:
Say to the people of the Israel, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work, and you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.
And, then, Yom Kippur in the next verse:
On the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement; it shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire to the Lord.
It is a time of forgiveness, a time of atonement—well, because Moses broke the tablets that the Ten Commandments were written on, and had to schlep back up Mt. Sinai and ask God for another copy. While Moses was gone, his people fasted and repented for breaking the tablets. God forgave them and gave Moses another set.
This, surely, is a lesson in forgiveness.
Anyway, God said that because of their transgression—and he/she forgave them this one time—they had be sure to repent every year. And, so they do.
During the month of Elul, which precedes Rosh Hashanah, one is supposed to consider who you have wronged, and seek the spiritual strength to ask for forgiveness. During the Days of Awe, you are supposed to contemplate how you have wronged God, and then ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur when you fast and do not work. (The offering by fire went out when the Temple was destroyed.)
It is a time when the Book of Life is opened, and it stays open until the end of Yom Kippur. This is the book where God writes down what is in store for each person for the next year. It is when you get the chance to plead your case before God, to offer prayers and hope that you will be allowed to live happily through the next year. The traditional greeting is “L’shanah tovah tikatevu”—May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year.
I used to get a phone call or email from my dear friend Rebecca, an observant Jew, every year during this season, asking me for forgiveness for anything she might have done to hurt me. To tell you the truth, it always made me feel a little weird. Had she done something to offend me? To hurt me? If she had, I couldn’t remember. She was playful and funny and irreverent, by-and-large. I respected her for her faith. (She eventually emigrated to Israel and is well-ensconced with an Israeli husband and young son.) But, forgiveness?
Would I ever, ever, ever call somebody up and ask their forgiveness for something I might or might not have even known I have done or said to hurt them? Probably not. But perhaps I should.
It is now a known scientific fact that holding a grudge, or not forgiving or being forgiven, is bad for our health. In particular, cardiovascular disease of all kinds is found more often in people who have anger or hostility, who blame others for their lot in life. In studies, people of all ages and in all walks of life who learn to forgive generally report improved health all around—fewer dizzy spells, upset stomachs and racing hearts. Turns out that the famous “Type A” personality has health issues not so much from their busy, work-work-work personality, but more from their tendency to hold on to hostility toward people in their lives.
Many years ago, I owned a small, vegetarian restaurant with a friend, Linda. It was a marginal business. We probably started off on the wrong foot when I financed it, and included Linda so she’d have something to do. She was my free-loading, depressed roommate, and I wanted to see her regain her lively self, and, well, pay me her share of the living expenses.
In the first few months, I caught her time and again just writing herself a check. “I need the money,” she’d say. “It’s only 50 bucks.” At the time I was the chef, and she was the waitress, so she did have some income from her tips. I had nothing. We were managing to pay our bills, but there was nothing leftover to pay ourselves. Initially, I let it go; then I asked her to move out of my house. “I can work with you or I can live with you, but I can’t do both,” I said.
She borrowed money from another friend to get a rental, and we continued our business relationship. But when she wrote herself a $500 check without even asking me, I went to our lawyer. On his advice, I changed the locks, went to the bank and changed the documents to drop her from the loan and the checking account, and told her she was all done. It was one of the grimmest periods of my life.
Luckily, I loved having the restaurant, cooking and working as hard as I could to succeed. And about this time Sky, my Thursday produce delivery guy, and I got together. Things were good…for me.
About six months later, I got a phone call from Linda. She wanted to see me. I was wary, but said yes.
Turns out, she had been paralyzed with back pain for six months, pain so severe that she was bedridden. She tried all manner of health care—chiropractic, acupuncture, pain meds, orthopedist—but finally, whoever she went to in the end said to her, “Do you need to forgive someone?” and she realized that she needed to forgive me for removing her from the restaurant.
Once she realized that, her back pain disappeared. Disappeared. She was fine. So she came to tell me, and we hugged and cried a little, and she went on her way. I had no idea I had caused her that kind of pain. In my mind, I was simply doing what I was told to do to try and save the business.
We never know when we might need to forgive, or be forgiven.
I have seen a lot written about forgiveness over the years; it is a popular theological, as well as psychological, topic. My favorite is from Frederick Buechner, who says:
Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back— in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.
OK, OK. I get the message.
But then I heard Dr. Fred Luskin, author of Forgive for Good, on the radio a couple of years ago. At that time I was deeply embroiled in a really ugly family situation with my brothers and my mother. I was spending way too much time being angry. Wolfing down myself. It was pretty unpleasant.
Dr. Luskin said a very simple thing that changed my life: Forgiving someone means understanding that you did not get what you wanted.
Forgiving someone means understanding that you did not get what you wanted.
You mean, it’s about me, not about them? The evil them? Wow.
Given that my family of origin is not Jewish, nor do they have any experience with forgiveness, it became clear that I could wait for hell to freeze over for any of them to apologize to me for what they had done, for what I took to be egregious behavior on their part. But given my experience with Linda, it was clear that they might have no clue, no clue at all that they had done anything to hurt me.
So, it was up to me. Forgiving someone means understanding that you did not get what you wanted.
And I understood that I simply needed to forgive them. I did not have to say that what they did was OK. I did not even need to say it to them in person. I simply needed to sit with the fact that I was royally pissed off because I did not get what I wanted. I needed to sit with the sadness and frustration and anger—and then, let it go. Let it go.
I did not get what I wanted.
What grudges do you hold? Who do you need to forgive? Do you have a grievance story? Is it time to let it go? To understand that you did not get what you wanted?
Yes, some behavior is horrible—sexual abuse, drug or alcohol addiction, physical abuse, neglect, unfaithfulness, and on and on and on. These behaviors are not OK, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not suggesting that any of this should be condoned.
But, it would help you to forgive. Your health will thank you. Your spirit will thank you. Your friends will thank you. But you don’t have to forget. What you have learned may help keep you from repeating the problem. It may allow you to help others. It may make you a more loving and compassionate person. Good can come from all kinds of places.
In an exchange with Jesus in Matthew 19, Peter says: “How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus replies, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
It is not so easy for us Unitarian Universalists. We take the Bible as just one of a multitude of sacred writings. We do not have High Holy Days as the Jews do. We do not have rituals, confession, prayers, litanies of forgiveness, and the like.
We do have each other as companions on the journey. We can say to one another, “You’ve just told me your grievance story again. Have you considered forgiving ______?” We can say, “If I have offended or hurt you, I am sorry.”
Be grateful for what you do have, for the people who love you unconditionally, for your friends who are willing to say “I’m sorry for what I may have done to hurt you,” and for the opportunity to say “I’m sorry” yourself.
And, if all that fails, be grateful for the sunrise and the sunset, the autumn leaves and fall harvest, a roof over your head, the natural beauty of the landscape, and the fact that you don’t have to worry about Ebola or ISIS ravaging your community. There is much to be concerned about, but there is so much more to be grateful for. Open your heart, open your mind to it all. Let go of the grievances and the hurt.
Take some time during the Days of Awe to say “I’m sorry.” And to say “I love you.”
- What is Memory? - April 1, 2022
- Expect the Unexpected - December 1, 2019
- A Lesson in Forgiveness - September 1, 2015
