Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
3 min read
You can forgive even without an apology, even if you’re still in pain, and even if you’ll never reconcile with the person who hurt you.
The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur present an opportunity to align more closely with your priorities and values, and to examine your relationships. Are there people you need to forgive? Are there mistakes for which you need to ask forgiveness?
There are several myths that can make forgiveness seem insurmountable. Here are four central myths about forgiveness to re-examine and practical tools on how to ask for forgiveness.
Forgiveness doesn’t need to depend on anyone else. It would be nice if everyone who has insulted or hurt you apologized to you immediately, but an apology often comes much later than you expect it. Sometimes it never comes. But you don’t need an apology from someone to forgive them.
Forgiveness does not free the other person from blame, but it does free you from resentment. Don’t wait for an apology to free yourself. Forgive the person now.
Many people believe that they can’t forgive if they still feel insulted or betrayed. They think they have to wait until they’re no longer in pain before they can forgive. But in some situations, the hurt will always remain and being free of pain is not necessary in order to forgive. You can forgive while you are still hurt. You can forgive despite the hurt, because anger and resentment only add more suffering to an already painful situation.
Forgiveness is an intentional choice to let go of resentment, and you can let go no matter how much you are still hurting.
Sometimes people hurt you in ways that create barriers to continuing a relationship with them. Sometimes you need to set boundaries that are healthy for you that may preclude any connection with people who have caused you pain. You don’t need to reconcile with someone before you can forgive them. They don’t even need to know that you are forgiving them.
Sometimes forgiveness is a purely internal process in which you let go of your anger so that you can move forward with your life. Forgiveness is like putting down a heavy bag filled with items you no longer need. You will feel lighter. Your life will feel lighter.
The focus of forgiveness is usually on others, but often the most important person you need to forgive is yourself. You are probably harder on yourself than on anyone else. You would never talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself about your mistakes.
It’s crucial to learn from your mistakes, but holding onto regrets from your past can block you from future growth. When you look back on the mistakes that you made this year, figure out what you can learn from them and then forgive yourself. Often, you are doing the best you can with the knowledge and tools that you have at the moment. Let go of the resentment you have for yourself. Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves before we can forgive others.
Yom Kippur is a special time for forgiveness. As you ask God for forgiveness and reflect upon your life, use this time to forgive yourself and others as well. Put down the heavy bag. You don’t need to carry it anymore.
Debbie Gutfreund’s article is stupid and offensive to victims. It dumps the responsibility and burden of forgiveness on the victims of wrongdoing. However Judaism insists (Mishna Yoma 8:9) that it is the wrongdoer’s duty to appease and compensate the victim not the other way round.
Shouldn’t Aish articles be based on Judaism?
Debbie, we're both in Florida and near each other. Let's be in touch.
The author is mistakenly conflating two separate and unrelated areas: the ETHICS of forgiveness with the NEUROSCIENCE of it. You can "forgive" all you want but the trauma in the brain,, for example, cannot forgive. It is neutral; and knows what it knows has happened. Forgiveness doesn't make the experience's neural networking disappear. That takes getting at the "thought" of what happened that affects the "feeling" of what happened.
As well, the author seems to be using a Christian sense of "forgivenes" instead of the psychologically more accurate Jewish sense of "forgiveness" which is akin to understanding the control that event still has on them; just letting it go; getting free of it; untied from it.Can the daughter "forgive" her rapist father? Her brain doesn't and can't.
Thank u, Jane. u just stopped a ton of guilt! I’m rushing for svc [i ain’t Jewish; don’t know the words; just have been led my PAIN to Shiva —my daughter died unexpectedly Aug 1– and now to the holidays, RH and tonite YK.]. Gotta go now. Would love to HUMANtalk 👳🏽☎️ w/u. don’t want to put my info online. I gonna take a chance and tell u this. Ask Cantor Mike Zoosman to give u my contact info.Bye for now. running close. Ubuntu. claire🌻
Just what I needed to read today. Hashem sent it to me in this moment. I was Just grapping with this issue and needed clarity
This was helpful to me. I have tried for years to forgive someone who is no longer here for what they did to me. This gives me the strength to set the bag of anger and resentment aside.
Fairly late in his life, Senator John McCain made a well - publicized trip back to Vietnam, where he visited some of the prisons in which he had been held and tortured. At one point, a reporter asked him if he had been able to forgive the guards who tortured him while he was a prisoner. His response was this: "I can forgive them for what they did to me. But I can never forgive them for what they did to my friends."
We may be able to forgive people for what they have done to us, but we can't forgive them for what they have done to others. Only those who have been wronged can forgive those who wronged them. We frequently forget this.
How true
Thank you Debbie! Beautiful as always
It’s rather like the prayer for the Czar in Fiddler on the Roof: may G-d watch over and keep [all those who hurt me and I forgive although they have not apologized] far away from me!