Yom Kippur: Forgiveness
Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2016/5777
I got a new name! Okay, I got married and decided to change my name.
As friends, family and community learned of my engagement, I began to receive a lot of advice about marriage. Having never been married before, I was happy for any insight and anecdotes. The advice included well-known adages such as: “never go to bed angry,” and “pick your battles.” Others that I had not thought of: “If you have kids, make sure to take vacations without them.” Or ones from blogs: “Never compromise; in every argument someone will have a stronger opinion and that person should win.” One piece of advice I found particularly intriguing comes from “the Notorious RBG” – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. When asked if she has any advice to share with the public, she often quotes her mother-in-law: “In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.” [i]
How I interpret this, and most advice given about marriage or any relationship, is that when living with another person you must be able to ask for and grant forgiveness. It sounds so easy, but both asking for and granting forgiveness is extremely hard. To ask for forgiveness we must admit that we have made a mistake, al cheit, we have sinned, we have missed the mark. None of us likes to be wrong. You can ask Mike: I am no exception. It is painful to admit when we are incorrect. It hurts our ego and our pride. Recently a girl friend of mine sent me a picture that truly depicts this difficulty. It was of her oldest son crying. He had been misbehaving and needed to apologize. Instead of saying “sorry” he lay on the ground crying: “It hurts too much to say I’m sorry.” Out of the mouths of babes can come the most profound statements.
(Last night Rabbi Zimmerman spoke to us about non-apology, apologies, but what does it take to truly ask for and grant forgiveness). It is very hard to say “I’m sorry,” but this very action is critical to enduring relationships and healthy communities. If it were easy to ask for forgiveness, we would not need a designated time in our calendar to ensure that we are performing teshuva, repentance. This process starts during the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. And it continues through the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And for those of us late tax filers, our tradition says that if you need still more time, the window of repentance stays open until Sukkot! To assist us in our repentance, the great teacher Maimonides provides specific instructions on how to perform t’shuva. First, we have to confess, verbally, what we did wrong, and we have to do it in detail. We cannot just say: “I was selfish.” Instead, we are to say, “My husband asked me to play golf with him, but four hours on the golf course sounded extremely boring so I said ‘no’,” or something of that sort. And then, we apologize to the person we harmed. We are to do this openly and explicitly. We are to resolve not to make the same mistake again. If there is anything that we can do now to repair the damage, we are to do so. Then, and only then, our rabbis teach, we have the right to ask for forgiveness.
You see, t’shuvah is more than an apology. T’shuvah is a serious, deep process which is meant, ultimately, to lead to self-improvement. That's why our sages teach that a person knows t’shuvah is complete only when he or she resists committing the same sin again. The ultimate goal is not to obtain forgiveness from someone else, or to wipe away our sense of guilt. The ultimate goal is to become a better person – the kind of person who would not cause this harm in the first place. [ii] When we truly atone for our sins, when we perform t’shuva, repentance, our changed behavior redeems our past actions and enables us to move forward.
This process of t’shuva is very hard. Many people decide to skip it. They have no desire to look into their hearts and souls and uncover the motivations that caused them to bring about such pain. Such heartbreak. Instead, there may be an insincere apology, or nothing at all. There are, however, stories of people willing to engage in this difficult endeavor. The New York Times Magazine recently featured the stories of reconciliation still taking place in Africa, as a result of the Rwandan genocide that occurred in the mid-1990s . Their piece, entitled “Portraits of Reconciliation,” featured pictures of Hutu perpetrators and Tutsi survivors working to rebuild relationships, 20 years after the Hutu murdered almost one million Tutsi.
With the help of a small non-profit organization, the Hutu are engaging in the very notions set forth by Maimonides, (okay they may not know it is Maimonides, but it is). The Hutu learn the true consequences of their actions. They gain understanding of the deep loss and pain they caused. They uncover what actions and stereotypes they need to change in order to move forward. They serve time in jail. They rebuild homes and provide food for the Tutsi. Then, and only then, after many months of counseling, do they formally ask the Tutsi they wronged for forgiveness. The Hutu did the hard work of t’shuva.
One Hutu perpetrator noted: “My conscience was not quiet, and when I would see [the woman that I harmed] I was very ashamed. After being trained about unity and reconciliation, I went to her house and asked for forgiveness. Then I shook her hand. So far, we are on good terms.”
The work of the Tutsi – the victims – is just as difficult. Many of us could never imagine the grace, the understanding, the compassion it takes to pardon someone who murdered our children, our spouse. The women in these stories lost everything. Still, they dug into the depths of their souls and found the sympathy and charity to grant mercy to their enemies. They were able to let go of the anger and hatred that had been controlling their lives. They came to understand that revenge would not give them the peace they could attain with forgiveness.
One Tutsi survivor writes: “He killed my father and three brothers. He did these killings with other people, but he came alone to me and asked for pardon. He and a group of other offenders who had been in prison helped me build a house with a covered roof. I was afraid of him — now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear.”
Rwanda is a wonderful example of what can occur when we have the strength and determination to ask for and grant forgiveness. Musical genius Lin Manuel Miranda expresses the difficulty and reward that comes with this process in his musical Hamilton. (I still have not seen it but I can’t help but use its brilliance!). Hamilton and his wife Eliza have just been through two devastating events. First, Hamilton has an affair and publishes the details of it in order to avoid blackmail. Then, their eldest son is killed in a duel defending Hamilton’s honor. It is hard to imagine that Eliza will ever forgive Hamilton for these transgressions, but Hamilton apologizes and then waits. He says:
I know there’s no replacing what we’ve lost
Just let me stay here by your side
And we learn that for Eliza:
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
And they find their way back to one another.
Forgiveness. Can you imagine? They are going through the unimaginable.
Around the world we see countries that have done the unimaginable. They have found a path to healing through forgiveness. We can look to South Africa where in place of trials, Nelson Mandela created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Here, victims and perpetrators were allowed to tell their stories. Through restorative justice, not revenge, the wounds healed and the country moved forward. We can look to Ireland, where after over 30 years of fighting a peace agreement was reached that included a power-sharing government with political forces that had been aligned with armed groups on each side of the conflict. We can look to the work that is being done by individuals in Israel. The Parents Circle-Families Forum (PCFF) is a grassroots organization bringing together Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict. They believe that a process of reconciliation is a prerequisite for achieving a sustained peace. In each one of these cases, people on both sides of a conflict come together, face one another, look into each other’s eyes and see the humanity of their enemy. In these powerful moments and through much hard work, fear and hatred gave way to compassion and tolerance. We can only hope and pray that this same peace will come to countries currently engaged in civil war.
There are also times when we choose forgiveness, not because we have been asked, but because we understand that the hatred and fury we hold in our hearts is debilitating to us, while not affecting the perpetrator. Nelson Mandela teaches this lesson well. As he was leaving prison after 27 years, he is quoted as saying: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” He understood that he would only be free if he could release the shackles of anger. Otherwise he would be grasping a hot coal with the intent of harming another, but he would be the one who got burned. [iii] Through forgiveness, Mandela accepted the reality of what happened to him and found a way to live in a state of resolution. He was able to identify, fully feel, express and then release his rage and his pain, and find healing.
The people of Charleston, SC, also found their way to forgiveness. Last summer, you may remember, a gunman open fired in a church basement there. Nine people were murdered and five survived. Given the racial tensions in Charleston, the city could have erupted into riots, but instead, led by the survivors of the Emanuel Nine, Charleston erupted in grace. Within 36 hours of the killings, and with pain racking their voices, family members stood in a small county courtroom to speak the language of forgiveness [iv]. It happened suddenly when Nadine Collier, the daughter of murdered Ethel Lance spoke at the bond hearing. She remembers being “angry and mad” because her mother had “more living to do.” At the same time, racing through her head were lessons she had learned long before: “You have to forgive people, because when you keep that hatred, it hurts only you.”
It was this courage of the Charleston survivors that brought about an outpouring of all races and ethnicities, who filled the streets with unity. As a result of their grace, “within days of the shooting, the most contentious public symbol of South Carolina’s Civil War past, the Confederate flag, was finally removed from the state capitol” [v]. It was a truly remarkable feat of forgiveness that brought with it much healing. Collier’s ability to forgive the pain and loss that she endured brought peace to her city. As the Dalai Lama says: world peace can only develop from inner peace.
Right here in Minnesota, we show our own ability to forgive with our unwavering support of the Minnesota sports teams who seem to break our hearts over and over again. Yet despite all of the (and I quote), “agony”, “dashed hopes” and dare I say “failure,” Minnesotans continue to bounce back and forgive!
And still, I must acknowledge that there are times when forgiveness is not possible. Abuses endured that can never be pardoned. Some of these have been making the headlines recently – in the political debates, on college campuses and beyond. We pray for the victims of such violence, those sitting here with us today, and those outside this sanctuary. We pray that they are able to find peace and healing despite the fact they may never be able to reconcile why or how this happened to them. We wish that the sharing of stories through social media will show them they are not alone, and will give them courage to speak out. We hope that accounts of unimaginable forgiveness will give those in pain strength and fortitude as they carry their burden.
The work of repentance and forgiveness is hard, but it is important and worthwhile work. We are blessed with only one soul in this life. It is for us to determine how to fill it. Will we fill it with self-righteousness and arrogance? With anger and hatred? With retribution and revenge? Or will we work toward reconciliation and understanding, compassion and sympathy, peace and harmony? As we begin this New Year, may we work to elevate our lives and our relationships to new heights. May we use this time to bring to mind the mistakes we have made, the offences we have committed, the times we have missed the mark. May we take our transgressions and turn them into opportunities for engagement and renewal. May we engage in teshuva, in repentance, in order to return to our true and best selves and move forward into the New Year with deeper and more meaningful relationships. May we find the strength, the courage and the resolve to forgive those who have wronged us.
The rabbis teach that the Torah begins with a bet – and not an aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet – for a reason. It is because Bet is only open on one side, to the future. May this season of repentance, of possibilities, and of new beginnings, give us all the strength to imagine forgiveness in order to move forward into a bright and meaningful future.
Gamer chatima Tova. May we be sealed in the book of life.
[i] Ginsberg, Ruth Bader. Ruth Bader Ginsbergs Advice for Living. New York Times October 1st, 2016.
[ii] Lew, Alan. This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared.
[iii] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/buddha104025.html
[iv] Time Magazine. How Do You Forgive a Murderer. David Von Drehle and Jay Newton-Small and Maya Rhodan. http://time.com/time-magazine-charleston-shooting-cover-story/
[v] Ibd.