Saying Sorry: On the Meaning of Forgiveness and Forgiving

This week’s installment in our Saying  Sorry series comes from Dr. Dalia Marx,  assistant professor of Liturgy and Midrash at the Jerusalem campus of HUC-JIR. Marx’s expert understanding of liturgy brings us back to a fundamental question in the process of teshuvah, the relationship between the forgiver and the one asking for forgiveness.

It takes two to forgive –one who requests forgiveness and one who grants it. Forgiving is a two way process – it is a inter-personal social act, aimed at mending an injured relationship. In this sense, forgiving is a speech act, a thing we do with words, as John L. Austin put it. The intention is not enough; it has to be clearly articulated, as Dr. Rick Sarason taught in his blog post. At the same time, forgiving is a self reflective ongoing process. Even when we know we need to forgive, some times our soul is reluctant to do so.

Dr. Dalia Marx

Forgiving is both an act and a process, an interpersonal affair and a personal matter. What do we do when we know that we should forgive but still are resistant to doing so? Can it be that granting forgiveness (to somebody) and forgiving (in our hearts) are two completely different things? Don’t we sometimes doubt that we can forgive those who wronged us, truly forgive them?

Furthermore, forgiving is possible only when there is injustice, injury or insult. Paradoxically, grave injury begs magnanimous forgiveness but at the same time makes it harder for the offended party, who may feel that it is unjustified, to forgive,. Can this paradox be mitigated? More so – this depicts an alienated world, a world in which each side of the equation is alone in dealing with his/her own perspective of the unfortunate encounter.

Yotam Benziman, an Israeli philosophy professor, suggests a useful direction. He claims that one cannot nullify the pain, and that regretting and repenting will not “make things right”. Instead of “forgiving and forgetting”, Benziman suggests a “dialogic forgiveness”. The offender is dependent on the offended for forgiveness because s/he can’t forgive her/himself (although there are those who claim that this is possible). The offended party must forgive the offender precisely because s/he offended him/her. This specific bond is unique to this relationship – both carry the burden of it and no one else is part of it.

The Hebrew term לבקש סליחה (asking for forgiveness), reflects the dependence of the offender on the offended party for forgiveness; one can’t force forgiveness, one may request.

Benziman’s proposal rejects the New-Age notion according to which “we are all in charge” and therefore “we are all guilty”, and consequently “no one is [really] guilty”. The relationship between the parties is not egalitarian but it can be,  if the offended agrees to relate to the offender as an individual, – one who chose to do wrong and now chooses to atone for it and to make things right.

סליחה, forgiveness is possible only between two individuals who believe that we have the ability and the responsibility to make choices.

Saying Sorry, What Does it Mean? More than Righting a Wrong

Often we think of saying sorry in terms of how it can right the wrongs that we have committed.  This week’s This week’s installment in our occasional summer series on saying sorry suggests that there is much more at stake when we engage in teshuvah. Dr. Aaron Panken, Assistant Professor of Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature at HUC-NY challenges us to think about how saying sorry can change the person who says it.

Dr. Aaron Panken

Most of us are probably familiar with the rabbinic dictum that privileges repentant sinners above even those who are wholly righteous. It first appears in a passage in Bavli Berakhot 34b:

And Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: all the Prophets themselves prophesied only regarding penitents, but as for the wholly righteous, “no eye has seen, only God alone” (Isa. 64:3). He disagrees with Rabbi Abbahu, for Rabbi Abbahu said: In a place where penitents stand, even the wholly righteous may not stand, as it is written: “Peace, peace, to one who was far and to one who is near” (Isa. 57:19) – first to the one who has been far, then to the one who has been near all along.

Rabbi Yohanan’s opinion (as cited by the Amora Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba) is somewhat opaque at first glance. Rashi understands his interpretation of Isa. 64:3 to mean that all the good predictions and comforting statements found in the Prophets apply to those who will repent. This is eminently reasonable, as the prophetic voice is so often aimed at those who are behaving rather badly, and the impetus of reward has always been a favorable way to encourage sinners to cease their sinning.

However, Rabbi Yohanan’s message can also be read in a strikingly different way. Rereading his interpretation of Isa. 64:3, he could be saying that there is no such thing as a wholly righteous human being – in fact, “only God alone” can secure the position of the tzaddik gamor – the completely righteous being. Thus, his statement may be indicating that the Prophets spoke to sinners, and, in so doing, they spoke to everyone, because, in truth, we are all sinners, and there is no one who can do without a prophetic call to justice now and then. This implies, then, a recognition of an essential human characteristic – we all commit sins of some sort, and only God alone has the quality of being wholly righteous.

Philo Judaeus (Egypt, 20 BCE-50 CE) shared a similar position to Rabbi Yohanan regarding God and righteousness in his On the Virtues 1:176-7:

176 Now those blessings which are of the greatest importance in the body are good health, without disease; and in a matter of navigation, a successful voyage, without danger; and in the soul, an undying recollection of all things worthy to be remembered. And the blessings of the second class are those which consist of re-establishment, such as a recovery from diseases; a long wished for escape from and safety after great dangers encountered in a voyage, and a recollection which ensues after forgetfulness; the brother and closest relation of which is repentance, which is not indeed ranked in the first and highest class of blessings, but which has the principal in the class next to the first.  177 For absolutely never to do anything wrong at all is a peculiar attribute of God, and perhaps one may also say of a God-like person. But when one has erred, then to change so as to adopt a blameless course of life for the future is the part of a wise person, and of one who is not altogether ignorant of what is expedient.

Philo drives home the point of the second reading of Rabbi Yohanan’s statement: God has cornered the market on righteous perfection. Rather than hoping for complete righteousness (an unachievable and inherently frustrating goal for mere humans), individuals in search of righteousness ought focus solely on changing where they have erred, and heading toward righteousness as best they can, without any expectation of ever completing the process in its entirety.  Further, to Philo, those who have sinned and repented are second-class, when compared to those who have never sinned.

Contrast this with Rabbi Abbahu’s comprehension: he views the repentant sinner as having a better position than even the most righteous of humans. After all, one who has repented has (as it were) sampled from both buffets, and even with intimate and personal knowledge of the delights of sin, has taken hold of the path of righteousness. In this strong act of casting off sins, the one who was far (from perfection, from righteousness, from God…) can now become near (to perfection, to righteousness, to God…).

Saying sorry involves, of course, the recognition that the act we committed caused hurt to another. But, for Rabbi Yohanan and Philo, repentance also involves a deeper self-understanding: that we are not perfect, that we are not better than others, and that we, as limited humans before an unlimited God, simply will not be able to achieve such righteous perfection. To Philo, though perfection will ultimately evade us, such re-establishment of ourselves for the better is wholly honorable and the right path to a brighter future. Coupling this with Rabbi Abbahu’s divergent idea of the exalted position of the penitent gives us hope and encouragement toward self-improvement and the relief that can come from conscious turning from sin.

From wherever we begin, saying sorry is the first step to bringing ourselves from far to near – closer to the way we ought to be.