by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Conversations With Betty: The Challenge of Deep Compassion

Kol Nidre Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5780/2019

Rabbi Mark Glickman

Over the course of my life, I’ve had to face many difficult challenges. There have been educational and professional pressures; the stress of parenting; the frustration of my futile attempts to learn song lyrics; and my anxiety and utter befuddlement as to why long is a monosyllabic word, and monosyllabic is a long word.  It’s all part of what I often describe to my wife Caron as “the burden of being me.”

But in some ways, all of these challenges pale in comparison to the difficulties I’ve faced in trying to engage meaningful dialogue with my friend Betty.

Betty (not her real name) is a woman Caron and I knew from when we lived in Washington State. She’s about sixty – a bookkeeper – with short, stylishly-cut copper-colored hair, a weatherworn face, and a voice a that betrays her many years of smoking. Betty and I are Facebook friends – in fact, I helped her navigate the site a little when she first got on it five or ten years ago – and in her postings, Betty never makes a secret of her politics. Betty’s politics are, to put it delicately, a little different from my own. Her place on the political spectrum is, shall we say, a bit to the right of mine. Actually, Betty’s politics are WAY to the right of mine. In fact, her politics are so far to the right of mine that sometimes their transmission from her to me gets garbled because of the curvature of the earth.

Most of Betty’s political views concern what’s going on in her native United States. Betty, you see, wishes that a certain group of Democratic congresswomen would “go back to where they came from.” Betty bemoans the murderous acts of Hillary Clinton and the demonic corruption of the Obama regime. Betty is terrified of the invasion of rapists and murderers coming over America’s southern border, and is convinced that the “deep state” in her home country is bent on the destruction of western civilization.

Once, Betty shared a post complaining that illegal refugees to America get checks from the government of almost $4000 per month. I looked into it, and responded that, no, it’s not true. First, I noted, there is no such thing as an “illegal refugee”; second, the case she was talking about wasn’t from the United States, it was from up here in Canada; and, third, what really happened is that one refugee family with several children once received a one-time check for that amount of support. “Look,” I wrote, “here’s the article on Snopes [the fact-checking site] with all the details.”

Betty responded by saying that Snopes is a left wing, anti-Trump organization, and she shared twelve YouTube videos to prove it. 

Another time, Betty posted a rap video showing a six-pointed star beneath the words, “Destroy democracy,” with lyrics grumbling about how “today’s Rothschilds” are bringing down the nation. 

“Betty,” I pointed out to her, that’s an antisemitic video.”

“I’m not antisemitic,” she said.

I responded, “Invoking dark images of “the Rothschilds” is a hateful old trope referring to rich Jews. And then there’s that Star of David.”

“The Rothschilds were evil,” Betty said, “Jewish or not. And that’s not a Star of David, it’s a sheriff’s star!”

Once, without comment, Betty posted a video showing hundreds – maybe thousands – of Muslims worshipping on a street in New York or some other American city. “Isn’t it great?” I said. “So many people gathered together in one place to worship God. What a great country you live in!”

“They weren’t worshipping God,” Betty replied. “They were worshipping Allah. And it’s horrible.”

“Betty,” I told her, “Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. It’s the same God as you and I worship.”

“The same God?!?!” Betty said. “Are you blind? There is no salvation in such a religion. It’s Satanic!!!”

“They worship one God,” I said, “we worship one God. There can only be one ‘one God.’”

“How dare you insult me by saying that I worship Allah,” Betty said. “I would never do such a horrible thing!” 

“Betty,” I said, “it’s important not to demonize people just because they’re different than we are.”

“What do you know?” Betty retorted. “You only read half the bible!”

At this point, Caron began questioning why I was even bothering to engage in this conversation.

“Why bother???” I said. “Well, somebody has to call her out! If I don’t, then who will???”

Caron was making an important point, of course. It’s not like I was going to change Betty’s mind. Why bother getting into it with her?

The answer, I think, was that I just couldn’t bring myself to read such horrible things and not say anything about them. Somebody has to call this stuff out. And having seen all the amens that Betty was getting from her other Facebook friends, I figured that if that someone wasn’t going to be me, then nobody was likely to step up.

So, I called my childhood rabbi – a man who also happens to be my uncle, Rabbi Robert Marx. My uncle is in his nineties now, but during the 1960s, he was a leading figure in the civil rights movement in Chicago and elsewhere. He worked closely with Martin Luther King, he was an outspoken advocate for fair housing and other such causes, and in 1964, he founded the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, which now, 55 years later, continues to thrive as a major advocate of social justice in Chicago. 

“Uncle Bob,” I asked, “during your civil rights work, did you engage directly with the individual racists, or did you focus your efforts on larger-scale advocacy.” 

“Oh, I didn’t focus on the individual racists,” he said. “It would have been a horrible waste of time.”

“Really.” I said. “Have you been talking with Caron.”

So now two people had told me not to bother with the Bettys of the world. But what was I supposed to do – stay silent? I’ve preached the importance of speaking up for decades now. Now that it’s in my face, isn’t it more important than ever that I say something? But of course, when I do chime in, Betty deluges me with horrible rhetoric, vitriol, and more ugly YouTube videos than I could watch in a lifetime. I want to speak up; I feel morally bound to speak up; but I don’t know that speaking up with Betty would do any good, and to even try would drain me of enormous amounts my time and energy – time and energy that you people in this room have already claimed for yourselves. 

How could I speak up? And how could I not?

And this, my friends, is what I’ve been thinking about this year.

The sad thing, of course, is that Betty is far from alone. Throughout North America, anti-immigrant sentiment (much of it downright racist) is rising – we saw explicitly in the election debate just last night. Hate crimes are more frequent; politics seem increasingly disconnected from facts; and conflict grows. In other countries, too, authoritarian leadership is on the rise, as the power of populist dictatorships becomes ever more deeply entrenched.  

What is going on? There are many factors contributing to this current climate, of course. Certainly, the economy has something to do with it, as this generation of young North Americans may be the first one in a long time not to exceed its parents in earnings and socioeconomic standing. Technology is changing everything, as machines take over many jobs long held by people, and skills that were once valuable are now seen as outdated and anachronistic. Related might be the new challenges that racial and ethnic privileges are facing, as throughout the western world being white and European no longer brings the automatic social and financial benefits that it once did. Surely, there are other factors as well.

I’m not a sociologist or a social psychologist, though, so I’ll leave it to the experts to explain in detail the causes of what’s going on. All I know is that I’ve got this Betty situation to deal with; and all I know is that talking politics – and talking about anything else of consequence – these days only feels safe once I come to feel assured that everyone I’m talking to agrees with me; and all I know is that there’s a whole lot of yelling out there right now, and that the world feels really divided. 

As my interchange with Betty unfolded, I independently began reading historian Robert Caro’s magisterial, award-winning biography of the former American president, Lyndon Johnson. The four volumes of this work published so far comprise more than 3500 pages, and the fifth volume when it comes out, will certainly put the total well over 4000. Reading so many thousands of pages on a single guy is a fascinating experience. The author, Robert Caro, has been working on this biography since shortly after Johnson’s death in the 1970s. It includes well over 100 pages devoted to the topography and culture of the Texas hill country where Johnson grew up. There are 150 or so pages on the history of the U.S. Senate before Johnson was elected to it, a 75-page mini-biography of one of Johnson’s mentors, 50 pages on a political ally of his, another 75 on a rival, and another hundred or so on the history of the American civil rights movement before Johnson sank his teeth into the issue. 

Reading this book gave me an insight into who this man was as nothing I’ve read ever has done before. Reading it made me stand in jaw-dropping awe of certain elements of Johnson’s personality, and it made me despise others. Most important, however, the biography helped me understand Lyndon Johnson better than I do almost any other figure from history. With the vast amounts of context, knowledge, and insight that this biography brought me, I can comprehend what made him tick far more readily than I could before. Having read his 4,000-page biography, I can better appreciate Lyndon Johnson for the fullness of who he was as a human being. 

Now what do Lyndon Johnson and my friend Betty have in common? Well, aside from the fact that they both had two arms, two legs, and one head, not so much. 

In fact, now that I think about it, I’m not sure what they have in common, because I don’t know very much at all about Betty’s life – certainly not nearly as much as I know about Johnson’s. I know that she grew up in a small, working-class semi-rural community in eastern Washington State; I know that her father abused her when she was a little girl; I know she’s been married a couple of times, struggled with alcoholism, that she’s got a couple of kids, and some cute grandchildren whose pictures she’ll show anyone at the drop of a hat. 

That’s pretty much what I know of Betty’s story. It amounts to just a fraction of a typewritten page here – far less than the thousands I’ve read about Johnson.

I wonder what would happen if I could read the 4,000-page Betty biography. Maybe it would help me understand something about her father, and give me some insights as to what led to his terrifying abuse. Maybe it would tell the story of the community where she grew up, and help me understand the impact that growing up there continues to have on Betty as an adult. Perhaps it would tell the narrative of Betty’s first-ever sip of alcohol, and give some insights as to its impact up on her – chemically, emotionally, and in other ways, too. Maybe Betty’s 4,000-page biography would bring me to her church, and help me understand how perspectives that I see as so offensive she sees as so deeply religious. Maybe it would introduce me to her friends, and her first love, and her ex-husband. And maybe it would describe how Facebook gave her a voice political voice that she never had in the pre-Facebook era. – the one I find so objectionable.

Unfortunately, however, nobody has written Betty’s 4,000-page biography. The Bettys of the world rarely become subjects of published works of even a fraction of that length. And unfortunately, I’ll admit, I haven’t asked for anything beyond the briefest details of Betty’s life-story. I did a little bit at first, but then when I started reading her Facebook posts, I got so angry that I stopped being curious. 

It occurs to me that this might be the source of the problem. I’ve gotten so angry at Betty during the past few years, that I’ve forgotten to be curious about her. Of course, I don’t have time to read very many 4,000-page biographies, but I’m pretty sure that the closer I can get to knowing somebody’s full story, the more fully I will be able to appreciate where that person is coming from. I highly doubt that knowing Betty’s story will make me agree with her, but maybe knowing where she is coming from would keep me from wanting to wring her neck in frustration.

We Jews, I’ll note, are called upon to learn the stories of others – especially the stories of people who oppose us. Our tradition is full of biographical material about our enemies. Reading the midrash, you can learn all about their backgrounds. Pharaoh, Haman, Amalek, you name the enemy of Israel, there’s all kind of stuff to read describing where he came from. Much of it is imagined legend, of course, but it’s all part of our tradition’s urge to help us understand our enemies. 

And the rabbis? They also provide us with some good guidance here because they disagreed with one another all the time. In fact, having good juicy disagreements is a big part of what being a rabbi is all about.  Last Yom Kippur, I spoke at length about the sacred art of disagreement in Judaism. I spoke of what our tradition called a machloket l’shem shamayim – a disagreement for the sake of heaven. As I reminded you then, according to Judaism, disagreement isn’t necessarily bad. It can actually be quite a good thing, provided that you do it respectfully and kindly. Plus, everyone – every single human being – has something to teach us…even the people with whom we disagree. And one ingredient of respectful disagreement is the act of really hearing what another person has to say. The great rabbi Hillel was so revered, it is said, because whenever he went up against his archrival, Shammai, he always gave voice to Shammai’s argument before his own; he always made sure he understood the opposing view before articulating his own.

Our friend Peter Walker recently pointed me to a teaching from the late Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi about the 23rd Psalm. Psalm 23, Reb Zalman points out, describes God as setting a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Why would God set a table before me in the presence of my enemies? Because, Reb Zalman notes, God wants me to sit down with them and share a meal! Because God wants me to talk with them! Maybe we could talk about our disagreements, but maybe we could talk about the roast beef. Or maybe we could talk about sports, or maybe we could sing old show tunes, or maybe we could tell one another our stories. The point is that God wants us to figure out a way to connect with our enemies rather than just vanquish them.

It’s an important teaching. Everything I know about God – or at least everything I think I know – tells me that God wants me to oppose Betty’s odious politics with every morsel of my being. But that’s not all that God wants me to do. God also wants me to get to know Betty – to understand where she’s coming from and why she’s saying what she’s saying. Even though I’m pretty certain that she’s wrong, understanding her story may help me find some truth hiding somewhere in her hate, or it may help me show her how she’s wrong. Until I get to know Betty, I can’t ever hope to even have a chance of engaging in a meaningful dialogue with her.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who died in 1972, was a leader in the field of interfaith relations and interfaith dialogue. Modern religions, he argued, need to avoid falling into religious disputations. Christians, Heschel might have said, will never persuade us Jews that Jesus was the messiah, and we’re never going persuade them that gefilte fish is delicious. What we should do, Heschel suggested, is try to learn from one another rather than persuade one another, to help one another rather than defeat one another, to engage in what his daughter, Susannah Heschel described as not just “theology,” but as “deep theology” – the kind of theology that propels us to go beyond all that separates us and to find the common humanity with which we can all connect.

My friends, this is a time that calls upon us all to do what Rabbi Heschel taught us to do. It’s a time that calls upon us to demonstrate not only compassion, but deep compassion. Compassion calls upon us to welcome the homeless and the refugees into the confines of our own borders; deep compassion calls upon us to extend hands of friendship even to those who would have us turn them away. Compassion inspires us to make the world a gentler and more loving place; deep compassion reminds us that people who reject those values are the way they are for a reason. Compassion beckons us to protect our children and loved ones from needless violence; deep compassion drives us to reach out to the very ones whose actions contribute to the atmosphere that allows violence to grow. Compassion calls upon us to feed the hungry; deep compassion calls upon us to address the real needs and be sensitive to the real stories of those who make the world more selfish.

Of course, we must never allow our compassion – even our deep compassion – to excuse improper behavior. We must stand up to it now just as we’ve always done. But resistance alone will not make our world good, only love will – and real love, genuine love, rarely comes easy. It means that we need to push ourselves beyond ourselves, and acknowledge others around us in the full measure of their humanity.

We read in the Talmud that Rabbi Abba Isi ben Yochanan taught in the name of Shmuel Hakatan that when you look into a person’s eye, you’re really seeing a map of the world there. The white of the eye is the ocean; the iris is the world; the pupil is Jerusalem; and the face you see looking back at you is the holiest of all, the sacred Temple.

To look at another human being is to look at an entire world. That’s true even for the people we disagree with; even for the people who act so objectionably – Betty and all the rest. Let’s look deep into their eyes. Let’s remember that they, like us, each have compelling stories to tell. Let’s learn from their stories, even as we affirm the call of our tradition to stand for what is right and good in all that we do.  We may not agree with them, but when we disagree, we must do so with deep compassion – the kind of compassion that can only enrich us all as we navigate the choppy waters of our lives today.


Shanah Tovah

 

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 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Forgiveness: When to Do It and Why It’s Important

Yom Kippur Morning Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
September 30 2017 – Tishri 10, 5778

 

There’s been a bit of a drought going on around here lately, in case you haven’t noticed. We didn’t have much rainfall at all this past summer, and while the sunny days were nice, the dry conditions affected crops, and they contributed to wildfires, which affected our air quality, and the dryness caused other problems, as well.

Of course, our recent drought is far from the first drought in history. There have been many others in the past, and today I’d like to focus on one of them that happened many centuries ago, because the people who endured that drought learned some lessons that still bear value for us many centuries later.

This particular drought happened in the late first or early second century of the Common Era, and it happened in the land of Israel. It was a horrible drought, and unlike today, Ancient Israel didn’t have plentiful water reserves and hi-tech irrigation systems to get them through the dry times. They needed water to survive, and a drought like this was very perilous indeed. It was a matter of life and death.

The Jewish community proclaimed fast-days. Jewish leaders offered special prayers. Jews did everything they could to curry divine favour and bring the water they so desperately needed.

At one point, according to the Talmud, the great Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus stepped forward and began to pray. He prayed not one prayer, not two or three prayers – instead, Rabbi Eliezer offered fully twenty-four prayers to God, pleading for rain to help his community survive. And after his final prayer, Rabbi Eliezer stopped speaking, there was a moment of silence, and then…nothing happened. Everyone looked outside, and saw to their great dismay that they sky was just as blue as it had been for weeks.

Then, Rabbi Eliezer’s student, Rabbi Akiva, stood before the congregation, and said, “Avinu Malkeinu, Parent and Sovereign, ein lanu melech eleh atah, we have no Ruler but you; Avinu Malkeinu, Parent and Sovereign, rachem aleinu lema’an sh’mecha, have mercy upon us for Your sake.” (Yes, the origins of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer that we recite during these Days of Awe can be traced back to this very moment.) Immediately after Rabbi Akiva finished praying, the skies darkened, and the rain began to fall.

As soon as they realized what had happened, all the rabbis who were present began murmuring about what they had just seen. Evidently, God had been quite ready to heed Rabbi Akiva’s plea, but not Rabbi Eliezer’s. Had old Rabbi Eliezer lost his touch? Was he over the hill? Was there something about his twenty-four prayers that God didn’t like? Could it have been that God just liked the fact that Akiva was so much more concise than Rabbi Eliezer? Maybe, they wondered with horror, God actually likes the concise rabbis far more than the long-winded ones.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long for a definitive answer, because soon a divine voice spoke to them from the heavens. “It is not because Akiva is any greater than Eliezer that his prayer was answered,” God said. “Instead, it’s just because Akiva is a forgiving person, and Eliezer isn’t.”

Because Akiva is forgiving. Now I’ve spoken about forgiveness from this bima before. Many of you will recall that last year I gave a sermon about forgiveness. Not all the sermons I deliver from up here hit home – far from it. But evidently there was something about that particular message that resonated with many of you. Several people came up to me in tears afterward, and shared the way it touched them. It was actively discussed at the Yom Kippur afternoon study session last year, and I’m told that it’s gotten a lot of hits on our website, too.

What was it that I said in that sermon? Well, don’t worry – I’m not going to redeliver it in its entirety today. But, in short, what I suggested was that, in Judaism, forgiveness might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. I said that, during the Days of Awe, Judaism has us focus not on forgiveness, but on atonement – not on letting people off for their misdeeds, but rather on atoning for our own. I said that Judaism takes issue with the teachings of other religions and all the modern psycho-drivel suggesting that we should forgive everyone who has ever wronged us, and I went on to say that Judaism teaches us to forgive only those people who have earned our forgiveness, that we should only forgive those who are repentant. Those who haven’t apologized, I said, don’t deserve one whit from us in the forgiveness department, and we shouldn’t forgive them until they have sincerely apologized and made right the wrongs they did to us.

Forgiveness has its place in Judaism, I argued, but that place is a far more limited one than many people today would have it occupy.

And then comes this story about Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer, telling us that the only reason that God listened to Rabbi Akiva’s prayer was that he was forgiving, and I’m sure that right about now, many of you are wondering just what in the world is going on. Does Judaism consider forgiveness important, or doesn’t it?

Well I still stand behind every word that I shared with you in last year’s sermon – forgiveness should be reserved only for those who repent of their sins. But today I’ll confess that, although last year’s sermon was correct, it wasn’t complete; it was the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Today, I’d like to remedy that by filling out more of the picture.

In order to do so, I’d like to loop back to the story of Akiva and Eliezer. The text praises Akiva for being more “forgiving” than his teacher, but, in this context, I wonder what that word – forgiving – really means. Reflecting upon it, I think that the word as the rabbis used it in this Talmudic story could mean a few things, and that looking at the possibilities can help us complete our picture of forgiveness in Judaism.

One possibility is that, when the Talmud tells us that Akiva was more forgiving, it meant to say that he was more tolerant of people’s foibles than Eliezer was. Maybe Eliezer was the kind of guy who just didn’t have any time or patience for people when they fell short, while Akiva was more easygoing. Maybe Eliezer corrected people’s grammar all the time, while Akiva didn’t seem to mind if you said “irregardless,” or “me and” or “sherbert.”

Akiva’s wife was named Rachel – maybe Akiva didn’t make a big deal about it when Rachel ran a little late, or got grouchy, or overcooked the chicken. Eliezer’s wife was named Ima Shalom – Peace Mamma. Maybe he was the kind of guy who did make a big deal the things that Akiva let slide. Maybe to him, punctuality, good cheer, and well-cooked chicken were important, and for Ima Shalom to demonstrate anything less was simply unacceptable.

And maybe Akiva’s tolerance, and Eliezer’s lack of tolerance, went even deeper. Maybe, as Akiva interacted with people, he sometimes found real moral or ethical shortcomings in them, but still made room for those flawed people in his life. Maybe he had friends who were unfaithful to their spouses, or maybe he saw people cheating in business, or maybe he even felt the personal sting of gossip, and still was able to find in his life room for the people who did those things. I can’t imagine that Akiva would have ever sanctioned such behaviour. To the contrary – he must have railed against it wherever he saw it. But maybe, even as he told these people that what they were doing was wrong, Akiva was still able to stay connected with them.

When the text says that Akiva was forgiving, in other words, maybe what it meant to say was not that he forgave anything people did wrong, but rather that he acknowledged that nobody is perfect, that that he was able to see the good in people even when they weren’t being all they could be.

Well just like the people in Akiva’s life, you’re not perfect either – none of us is. (We’ve reminded you of that often during the past few hours, haven’t we?) But even though you’re flawed, you still have enormous worth as a human being. You know this about yourself, I hope, but do you remember that this is true of other people, as well? Even the people you love most will disappoint you sometimes. Your friends, the members of your family, the people you like at work. Every one of them has a tendency to fall short from time to time. Can you love them, anyway? Is your heart big enough to make room for all of those imperfect people who populate your world? I certainly hope so.

Again, I’m not saying that we should forgive everyone for everything they do wrong. No, last year’s sermon still holds – we love best when we hold the people we love up to the highest moral and ethical standards we can. But even if you haven’t forgiven them, can you still make room for these flawed people in your life? And even more to the point, can you still make room for them in your heart? Sometimes, of course, the answer will be no, because sometimes people do things that are so horrible that we need to cut them off. But if the answer is always no – if every flaw in everyone we encounter merits a total cutoff, you’re going to end up being one very lonely person. Do you have the strength, do you have the generosity of spirit, to make room in your life for other people even though they’re not perfect? For their sake, and for yours, I certainly hope so.

So maybe, in telling us that Akiva was forgiving, the Talmud was trying to teach us an important lesson about human frailty and imperfection. But maybe it was trying to say something else either in addition to that or instead of it. Maybe it really was trying to tell us something about forgiveness.

As I said, Judaism insists that we forgive only the repentant sinner. That means that if somebody harms us, and they want us to forgive them, they have to go through a process we call teshuvah to earn that forgiveness. And teshuvah is far from an easy process to undergo. It demands that the wrongdoer admit what he or she did wrong, change their behaviour, apologize, compensate the victims, and maintain their changes over the long haul. In other words, if you’ve done something wrong, you have to own up, change up, ‘fess up, pay up, and keep it up. It’s difficult work, because it involves changing yourself, and making yourself vulnerable, and working hard for a long, long time to be better.

And I’ll remind you, that if you’re the victim of someone else’s wrongdoing, you don’t need to forgive the person who harmed you unless that person is going through that teshuvah process. At the same time, the flipside is also true – and this is something that I didn’t emphasize last year. If the person who wronged you is undergoing teshuvah – if he or she really is remorseful and is committed to changing and righting the wrong that he or she has done, then Jewish law tells us that you have to forgive that person, even if you don’t want to. You don’t necessarily need to be friends with him anymore, but you need to forgive him…like you forgive a debt.

Maybe that’s what Akiva did. Maybe the text was trying to tell us that when someone wronged him, and then genuinely apologized and tried to make things right, Akiva was willing to forgive that person. That guy who backed up into his car, and left a note with his phone number on it, and paid for the damages, and apologized and improved his driving? Maybe Akiva forgave that guy, and that’s why they called him forgiving. Or maybe it was because he forgave Rachel, who used to be so snappy at him when he got home in the evenings, and who finally realized what she was doing, figured out how to hold things in check, and apologized. Maybe it was because he forgave her, too. Maybe, when people who wronged Akiva did their teshuvah, Akiva was the kind of guy who let them off the hook.

No, we shouldn’t forgive anyone unless they repent, but when they do repent, then we need to forgive them even if we don’t want to. In fact, Judaism teaches that if you remain adamant in your refusal to forgive a repentant sinner, then not only does God clear them of their sin, but God also adds their misdeed onto your account. Refusal to forgive a sin when the person who committed it is repentant, in other words, means that you get to own whatever it was that they did wrong.

People can hurt us so deeply sometimes. And often they don’t own up and do what they need to do in order to fix it. But sometimes they do, and when they do their teshuvah – when they’ve truly righted the wrong they committed – then the obligation to forgive falls upon the shoulders of the victim. And when that happens, sometimes we won’t want to forgive, because we still hurt, but they’ve done their work, and we should forgive them anyway.

Knowing that we’ve been wronged can actually be of comfort sometimes – it helps us remember that we’re OK morally, and that the perpetrators were the bad guys. Having to forgive those very same people can be hard, because it means letting go of our feeling that they still owe us.

You were wronged. The other person comes to you sincerely apologetic, changed, begging your forgiveness. Can you find it within yourself to tell them that you forgive them? I certainly hope so.

There’s a third possibility as to what the Talmud meant when it said that Akiva was forgiving, too. Maybe the Talmud was simply trying to say that Akiva didn’t bear grudges very often. People did wrong by Akiva, for all of us fall victim to the misdeeds of others sometimes. But maybe Akiva was the kind of guy who did what he could to put these things behind him.

The Torah tells us specifically, “Lo tikom v’lo titor. Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge.” (Lev. 19:18) What’s the difference between taking vengeance and bearing a grudge? The rabbis explained it often in the ancient literature. If you ask your neighbour to borrow his axe, and he says no, and then later he asks you to borrow your shovel, then if you were to respond to him saying “You wouldn’t let me borrow your axe, so I’m not going to let you borrow my shovel,” that’s taking vengeance. On the other hand, if you respond to him saying “You wouldn’t let me borrow your axe, but I’m much better than you, so unlike you, I’m going to be generous and let you borrow my shovel,” that’s bearing a grudge.

When somebody wrongs you, the question is this: Are you going to let their misdeed continue to define who you are, or are you going to put your memories of what they did to you into a place where they don’t control you, where they don’t define you? Maybe by calling Akiva forgiving, what the Talmud really meant to say is that Akiva didn’t let his memory of being wronged continue to weigh upon him. Maybe the Talmud was attesting to Akiva’s ability to avoid letting past misfortunes determine his behaviour.

It all comes down to this. As much as you might want the people around you to be perfect, they never will be. They all have faults; they all have foibles. They may be really good, but they, like you, are striving for a perfection that nobody can ever fully achieve. It’s fair to expect them to grow; but can you love them along the way, even when they still have improvements to make? It’s important never to forgive them until they repent, but can you actually go ahead and give them that forgiveness when they do? It’s normal to feel hurt when they let you down, but do you want that hurt to continue to define you? Can you, like Akiva, approach these complexities of life with a spirit of forgiveness, settling for nothing less than full repentance, while striving for love and connection even without it?

Akiva made room in his life for people even though they were imperfect; he forgave people when they earned it; he remembered his pain, but didn’t let it define him. His model was a model that we all should strive to make real today.

It’s been dry out there, my friends. We thirst for love, we long for connection with others. Maybe if we can be forgiving like Akiva was, then when such thirst plagues us, our prayers too, will be answered with love and true human connection.

Ken yehi ratzon. So may this be God’s will.

Shanah Tovah.

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