Permanent link for On Forgiveness, by Franklin Specter, Kaufman Campus Intern on October 31, 2023

“...the wise forgive but do not forget.” - Thomas Szasz

Recently, I chose to look into how Judaism tackles forgiveness. After struggling with someone recently, I thought it would be important to reflect on the situation. Forgiveness is a value I hold dear - living with forgiveness and embracing the wholeness of its caliber offers me a lot of peace from day to day. Opening Google Chrome and typing into the search bar, I was hoping to find a cool story about forgiveness. Instead, I came across an article written by Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar titled “A Story of Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” written a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it less for the biblical (torah-lical?) text, and more so for the new perspective it offered to me on forgiveness. It was a much better find than just a cool story.

In the middle of the work, Rabbi Kedar starts a paragraph with “Memory goes to the very foundation of our tradition.” I believe this statement applies to humans in general, and all their cultural mechanisms. From viking funerals to a native American burial, there’s an honor in conducting ceremonies to remember someone’s passing. Memory serves many feelings, and forgiveness is one of them. Later in the paragraph Kedar says “The evil and offensive ways of the world are remembered so that we may learn to do better, that we may hold the victims in a loving space in our hearts, that we may be wiser in identifying when evil begins to lurk in our midst. No, we do not forget,” following that later with my key takeaway from the article:

“Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves.”

As I said, forgiveness offers me a lot of peace, but never before have I thought of forgiveness as a gift to myself. I think this gift can be given to others as well if they choose to embrace forgiveness. Thinking about the larger world, and my seemingly small problems in relation, I think it is important for forgiveness to be given to one’s self and others more often. Forgiving in the day-to-day will let us all take a look at a bigger picture and work together. Given this post, I can leave those who take time out of their day for me with one last thing to think about: Going forward, how will you use the phrase “Forgive and forget”?

 

Franklin Specter, Kaufman Campus Intern

Posted on Permanent link for On Forgiveness, by Franklin Specter, Kaufman Campus Intern on October 31, 2023.