During Yom Kippur services, the Yale Jewish clergy stressed the theme of God’s ability to eliminate sin totally. Of course, Jewish tradition emphasizes that God only can do this for affronts to God; affronts to other people, you have to take care of with people, first. Moreover, the prayers admitting sin to God are always said in the plural; this allows everyone to admit sin without embarrassing himself, and also implies that we all pray on behalf of the congregation. But it also suggests the inevitability of sinning against God, especially when you don’t understand the Hebrew sins you’re confessing, especially when your homework before Yom Kippur was to read Augustine.
I say all of this inspired by Shari’s last two posts. I, too, am in love with the popular habit of “thanks god” punctuating sentences. It is simple, religious, beautiful, true. And by thanking God for everything, we realize that repentance – i.e., true transformation of action – can’t be in the sphere of man-divine relationships. It must be in the sphere of man-to-man relationships. Perhaps what we can all do better is not to ask for forgiveness – Shari points out how hard this is – but to forgive when asked. Wouldn’t that transform our lives?
Of course, some people don’t deserve forgiveness, or so we think. We certainly cannot forgive people for crimes of which we are not the victims. (I cannot forgive a tyrant on behalf of his slaves.) But maybe Shari has clued us into a Jewish model for real, quotidian, ethical transformation.
Comments (1)
I have to admit I 'm a little confused. I am not sure what "Shari's model" is. However your discussion brought several thoughts to mind.
First of all-- the use of the plural. Yes, we have been told that we all have sinned and by using th plural no one need be singled out. Also, we can pray that someone else be forgiven ( though not forgive the sin against another). A friend of mine told me that she recently heard a d'var in which the speaker said that she decided to ask forgiveness of a person who had wronged HER. She said something like, "I know we had a misunderstanding last year and that there were hard feelings. I want to apologize for whatever might have been my part of it, or whatever part of it you thought I could have handled better".
Now I have to admit, this is something, I have not only have never DONE, and not only have never even thought of doing, but now that it has been brought to my attention, I have to admit that I still do not think I would ever consider.
I am more the kind who quickly turns to the chapter in Jewish ethics that describes the circumstances under which you may decline from accepting someone's apology AND, I should be embarrassed to say, was relieved to discover that if it was a terrible wrong, and the apology does not seems sincere, you may ask the apologizer to ask again after you have had a chance to make yourself ready to truly accept the apology.
Having admitted these terrible things about myself (in the safe anonymity of the internet) I must also say that I do not have trouble apologizing (sincerely) for mistakes I have made. I feel not only that it is the first step of self improvement, but also it enables me to remind the recipient of the wrong how much I care about him.
I think this last point, enabling us to tell someone that we care about him is often lost in the perfunctory obedience to the apology requirement.
Posted October 1, 2007 9:48 PM
Posted on October 1, 2007 21:48