(טו) וַיִּרְא֤וּ אֲחֵֽי־יוֹסֵף֙ כִּי־מֵ֣ת אֲבִיהֶ֔ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ ל֥וּ יִשְׂטְמֵ֖נוּ יוֹסֵ֑ף וְהָשֵׁ֤ב יָשִׁיב֙ לָ֔נוּ אֵ֚ת כׇּל־הָ֣רָעָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר גָּמַ֖לְנוּ אֹתֽוֹ׃ (טז) וַיְצַוּ֕וּ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֖ף לֵאמֹ֑ר אָבִ֣יךָ צִוָּ֔ה לִפְנֵ֥י מוֹת֖וֹ לֵאמֹֽר׃ (יז) כֹּֽה־תֹאמְר֣וּ לְיוֹסֵ֗ף אָ֣נָּ֡א שָׂ֣א נָ֠א פֶּ֣שַׁע אַחֶ֤יךָ וְחַטָּאתָם֙ כִּי־רָעָ֣ה גְמָל֔וּךָ וְעַתָּה֙ שָׂ֣א נָ֔א לְפֶ֥שַׁע עַבְדֵ֖י אֱלֹהֵ֣י אָבִ֑יךָ וַיֵּ֥בְךְּ יוֹסֵ֖ף בְּדַבְּרָ֥ם אֵלָֽיו׃ (יח) וַיֵּלְכוּ֙ גַּם־אֶחָ֔יו וַֽיִּפְּל֖וּ לְפָנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ הִנֶּ֥נּֽוּ לְךָ֖ לַעֲבָדִֽים׃ (יט) וַיֹּ֧אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֛ם יוֹסֵ֖ף אַל־תִּירָ֑אוּ כִּ֛י הֲתַ֥חַת אֱלֹהִ֖ים אָֽנִי׃ (כ) וְאַתֶּ֕ם חֲשַׁבְתֶּ֥ם עָלַ֖י רָעָ֑ה אֱלֹהִים֙ חֲשָׁבָ֣הּ לְטֹבָ֔ה לְמַ֗עַן עֲשֹׂ֛ה כַּיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּ֖ה לְהַחֲיֹ֥ת עַם־רָֽב׃ (כא) וְעַתָּה֙ אַל־תִּירָ֔אוּ אָנֹכִ֛י אֲכַלְכֵּ֥ל אֶתְכֶ֖ם וְאֶֽת־טַפְּכֶ֑ם וַיְנַחֵ֣ם אוֹתָ֔ם וַיְדַבֵּ֖ר עַל־לִבָּֽם׃
(15) When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!” (16) So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death your father left this instruction: (17) So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’ Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father’s [house].” And Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him. (18) His brothers went to him themselves, flung themselves before him, and said, “We are prepared to be your slaves.” (19) But Joseph said to them, “Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? (20) Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. (21) And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your dependents.” Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
Q: Does Joseph's response indicate forgiveness? Or something else?
Different "kinds" of forgiveness (from Source Sheet by Irwin Zeplowitz)
Rabbi David Blumenthal explains in an article that appears to draw on commentaries on the ethical teachings in the book Tomer Devorah.
The most basic kind of forgiveness is "forgoing the other's indebtedness" (mechilá). If the offender has done teshuva, as described above, and is sincere in his or her repentance, the offended person should offer mechila; that is, the offended person should forgo the debt of the offender, relinquish his or her claim against the offender. This is not a reconciliation of heart or an embracing of the offender; it is simply reaching the conclusion that the offender no longers owes me anything for whatever it was that he or she did. Mechila is like a pardon granted to a criminal by the modern state. The crime remains; only the debt is forgiven.
The second kind of forgiveness is "forgiveness" (selichá). It is an act of the heart. It is reaching a deeper understanding of the sinner. It is achieving an empathy for the troubledness of the other. Selicha, too, is not a reconciliation or an embracing of the offender; it is simply reaching the conclusion that the offender, too, is human, frail, and deserving of sympathy. It is closer to an act of mercy than to an act of grace. A woman abused by a man may never reach this level of forgiveness; she is not obliged, nor is it morally necessary for her, to do so.
The third kind of forgiveness is "atonement" (kappará) or "purification" (ahorá). This is a total wiping away of all sinfulness. It is an existential cleansing. Kappara is the ultimate form of forgiveness, but it is only granted by God. No human can "atone" the sin of another; no human can "purify" the spiritual pollution of another.
- How do you understand the difference between mechila, selicha and kappara? Use examples to better illustrate the differences.
- Which of these, if any, was Joseph using?
- How do you feel about this understanding of forgiveness? Does it make it easier to fulfill the obligation to forgive?
(ב) רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל־עוֹלָם
(ג) הֲרֵינִי מוֹחֵל
(ד) לְכָל־מִי שֶׁהִכְעִיס וְהִקְנִיט אוֹתִי
(ה) אוֹ שֶׁחָטָא כְּנֶגְדִי
(ו) בֵּין בְּגוּפִי בֵּין בְּמָמוֹנִי
(ז) בֵין בִּכְבוֹדִי בֵין בְכָל אֲשֶׁר לִי
(ח) בֵין בְּאוֹנֶס בֵּין בְּרָצוֹן
(ט) בֵּין בְּשׁוֹגֵג בֵּין בְּמֵזִיד
(י) בֵין בְּדִבּוּר בֵּין בְּמַעֲשֶׂה
(יא) בֵּין בְּגִלְגוּל זֶה
(יב) בֵּין בְּגִלְגּוּל אַחֵר
(יג) לְכָל־בַּר יִשְׂרָאֵל
(יד) וְלֹא יֵעָנֵשׁ שׁוּם אָדָם בְסִבָּתִי
(2) Master of the universe!
(3) I hereby forgive
(4) anyone who has angered me,
(5) or sinned against me,
(6) either physically or financially,
(7) against my honor or anything that is mine,
(8) whether accidentally or intentionally,
(9) inadvertently or deliberately,
(10) by speech or by deed,
(11) in this incarnation
(12) or in any other
(13) any Israelite [is forgiven],
(14) may no one be punished on my account.
- Asking God for forgiveness and granting others forgiveness permeates our liturgy. How might you feel or behave differently if you were to recite these words of forgiveness before bed each night?
- The Hebrew, as it includes the various categories of deeds to be forgiven, mentions beyn b'gilgul zeh beyn b'gilgul acher - whether in this incarnation or in another. How does this affect your forgiveness prayer?
A Prayer for the Days of Awe- NY Times
By Elie Wiesel, Oct. 2, 1997
Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time. How long can we go on being angry?
More than 50 years have passed since the nightmare was lifted. ..
Oh, they do not forgive the killers and their accomplices, nor should they. Nor should you, Master of the Universe. But they no longer look at every passer-by with suspicion. Nor do they see a dagger in every hand.
Does this mean that the wounds in their soul have healed? They will never heal. As long as a spark of the flames of Auschwitz and Treblinka glows in their memory, so long will my joy be incomplete.
What about my faith in you, Master of the Universe?
I now realize I never lost it, not even over there, during the darkest hours of my life. I don't know why I kept on whispering my daily prayers, and those one reserves for the Sabbath, and for the holidays, but I did recite them, often with my father and, on Rosh ha-Shanah eve, with hundreds of inmates at Auschwitz. Was it because the prayers remained a link to the vanished world of my childhood?
But my faith was no longer pure. How could it be? It was filled with anguish rather than fervor, with perplexity more than piety. In the kingdom of eternal night, on the Days of Awe, which are the Days of Judgment, my traditional prayers were directed to you as well as against you, Master of the Universe. What hurt me more: your absence or your silence?
In my testimony I have written harsh words, burning words about your role in our tragedy. I would not repeat them today. But I felt them then. I felt them in every cell of my being. Why did you allow if not enable the killer day after day, night after night to torment, kill and annihilate tens of thousands of Jewish children? Why were they abandoned by your Creation? These thoughts were in no way destined to diminish the guilt of the guilty. Their established culpability is irrelevant to my ''problem'' with you, Master of the Universe. In my childhood I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything from you.
Where were you, God of kindness, in Auschwitz? What was going on in heaven, at the celestial tribunal, while your children were marked for humiliation, isolation and death only because they were Jewish?
These questions have been haunting me for more than five decades. You have vocal defenders, you know. Many theological answers were given me, such as: ''God is God. He alone knows what He is doing. One has no right to question Him or His ways.'' Or: ''Auschwitz was a punishment for European Jewry's sins of assimilation and/or Zionism.'' And: ''Isn't Israel the solution? Without Auschwitz, there would have been no Israel.''
I reject all these answers. Auschwitz must and will forever remain a question mark only: it can be conceived neither with God nor without God. At one point, I began wondering whether I was not unfair with you. After all, Auschwitz was not something that came down ready-made from heaven. It was conceived by men, implemented by men, staffed by men. And their aim was to destroy not only us but you as well. Ought we not to think of your pain, too? Watching your children suffer at the hands of your other children, haven't you also suffered?
As we Jews now enter the High Holidays again, preparing ourselves to pray for a year of peace and happiness for our people and all people, let us make up, Master of the Universe. In spite of everything that happened? Yes, in spite. Let us make up: for the child in me, it is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.
President Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
With malice towards none, with charity towards all, let us go forward to bind up the wounds of the soldiers on both sides.-and to care for their widows and for their orphans.
Rabbi Jack Reimer
It is tempting to nurse a grudge, believe me it is.
And yet the Torah tells us not to do it---above all—not at this season the year.
Who does it hurt, when you hold on to a grudge---your enemy or you? Isn’t it better for us to get on with our lives, and not let the one who has hurt us continue to control our lives and pull our strings and drive us crazy?
(י) אָסוּר לָאָדָם לִהְיוֹת אַכְזָרִי וְלֹא יִתְפַּיֵּס אֶלָּא יְהֵא נוֹחַ לִרְצוֹת וְקָשֶׁה לִכְעֹס וּבְשָׁעָה שֶׁמְּבַקֵּשׁ מִמֶּנּוּ הַחוֹטֵא לִמְחל מוֹחֵל בְּלֵב שָׁלֵם וּבְנֶפֶשׁ חֲפֵצָה. וַאֲפִלּוּ הֵצֵר לוֹ וְחָטָא לוֹ הַרְבֵּה לֹא יִקֹּם וְלֹא יִטֹּר.
(10) It is forbidden for person to be ill-natured and unforgiving, for he must be easily appeased but hard to anger; and when a sinner implores that person for pardon, he should grant him pardon wholeheartedly and soulfully. Even if one persecuted him and sinned against him exceedingly he should not be vengeful and grudge-bearing,
Susan Schnur, "Beyond Forgiveness" (2001)
Forgiveness, in and of itself, is a gendered issue.
The statements "I'm sorry"" and "I forgive you," then - the mene mene tekel ufarsin (lit. numbered numbered weighed divided, from the Book of Daniel) of the High Holiday season - fundamentally are meant to correct for male socialization. They are pro-social code words meant to restore connection and interpersonal harmony. ...
Which brings us to female socialization, and the fact that women are systematically steered towards maintaining connections, even at great personal cost.
We females, indeed, know that we say "I'm sorry" to a fault - even when we're the ones being victimized! Forgiving is easy for us; it's not forgiving that's the struggle. We are over-socialized to stay connected, to "make peace," to make sure nobody is offended, to forget to ask if we ourselves are offended. Indeed, this is perhaps the core of our gender socialization.
In the theological abstract, then, mandating "forgiveness" at this penitential season - that is, having male scholars and liturgists enshrine forgiveness as moral canon for their world of male worshippers and their male God - is a corrective, necessary response to the demands of the male ego in conflict with the communitarian goals of society. But asking women to enact compulsory forgiveness is an injury of of a whole different color.
Judaism's liturgy and theology need to support women in our work towards responsible not forgiving, when that's appropriate, so that we can come to believe that the world, indeed, won't explode as a result of our failure to "make constant nice-nice." For many of us, not forgiving is more difficult than forgiving, and having Judaism support us in our authentic journey towards emotional resolution would be a deeply religious experience.
Or, if we're "attached" (after all, that's what we do) to the canonical idea of forgiving, maybe we can ttry something refreshingly new this High Holiday season: forgiving ourselves. For many martyring women, this would definitely count as extremely high-level forgiving. Exhorting people to forgive, to put it another way, might be an important civilizing prod for men, but it's harassment for some women, a victimization dished out from our religious heym (home), from the very place that we need also to feel embraced and understood and, indeed, forgiven.
Karyn Kedar, Bridge to Forgiveness (2007)
Forgiveness is a spiritual state, a way of being in the world that is sustainable with work and practice. Forgiveness can be about the other, but not necessarily. It can be about reconciling with whoever has offended you. But not necessarily. It is always about finding what you have lost, restoring a sense of wholeness, redeeming your inner light. It is always about an internal process of loss and acceptance, pain and understanding, anger and blessings, love and faith regained.
While you do not, cannot forgive evil, you must shift your focus from the offender, and the offense he or she committed, to the deep and undying desire to regain equilibrium and control over your life. Forgiveness is not what you grant another person. Rather it is a state of mind. Forgiveness is actually a decision about how to live.