Forgiving Those We Cannot Forgive

Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our Saturday morning service on February 15th, when Rabbi Steven delivered a personal sermon on the important nuances of teshuvah — repentance. Repentance and repair are core Jewish values, but what do we do when reconciliation is not possible?

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Perhaps you have also had this experience, but sometimes I go to therapy and don’t have much to talk about. I think this might be a “good sign,” or at least an indication that I’m doing alright. I understand that people often seek out therapy when they are in crisis (in fact, it was a crisis that initially got me in the door – more on that later), but I believe that therapy is something we should do even when things feel okay, like seeing your doctor or going to the dentist. And so I go every week, even when there isn’t anything weighing on my mind – which is how I found myself sitting across from my therapist on Monday, playing the staring game (the only staring game that I know of that is billable to insurance). After some silence, he asked me what initially brought me into therapy. Since we’ve only been working together for a year, he didn’t know when or why I first started seeing a therapist.

I’ve been in therapy for the better part of two decades, which is surprising because I don’t feel old enough to have been a functioning adult for that long (but I am) and because it’s hard to believe that the reasons I started seeing a therapist happened so many years ago. 2005 was a tough year marked by major life transitions and unexpected losses that culminated with the death of my stepfather, just a few months before my 18th birthday.

Every year, synagogues across Chicago – in partnership with JCFS – choose a Shabbat to highlight a topic related to our mental and emotional wellbeing from the bimah, and this year the topic is estrangement. I’m going to share a bit about that. So this is a content warning, since I’ll be touching on death and estrangement.

In Judaism, how we remember the dead can be traced all the way back to the actions of Abraham (the very first Jew). In Genesis, we read: V’yavo Avraham lispod l’Sarah v’livkotah, and Abraham came to eulogize his wife Sarah and weep for her. From this verse, the rabbis derive two practices. First is hesped, or eulogy, where we share the praiseworthy qualities and notable achievements of an individual. The second is bekhi, or lament, where we mourn what was lost with their passing. When Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote the Shulchan Aruch several millennia later, he clarified that we must be honest when remembering the dead – but should always err toward the positive. Or put another way, if you don’t have anything nice to say it’s better to not say anything at all. Our tradition takes this injunction so seriously, we are told – in II Samuel – that when the people don’t give King Saul a sufficiently respectful eulogy (and let’s be honest, he was not a great monarch) they are struck with famine for three years.

Remembering someone in a positive light can be a source of comfort for their loved ones, a way of ensuring that their memory is, in fact, for a blessing. Yehi zichrono livrachah. People are complicated, of course. We are not always our best selves. But I believe that, for most folks, the small annoyances fade to the background as we call to mind all the ways they shaped us for the better.

But then there are the people in our lives who are a little more complex. The ones who were difficult to deal with. The ones who left unfinished business. The ones who hurt us, intentionally and unintentionally. The ones we could not, or maybe should not, forgive. My stepfather, Matt, was one of those people. In some ways, his death closed a few wounds – but it left others open, with no clear path toward healing. Which is why, in late 2005, I found myself at the student counseling center asking if I could start seeing a therapist.

When my stepfather died, we hadn’t spoken for a couple years. Our estrangement began when I came out. He wanted me to go to conversion therapy and, to her credit, my mother said absolutely not – and since they were already divorced, there was really no reason for me to see him anymore which in some ways made sense and in other ways was strange because he had stepped into the role of “dad” for over a decade of my life. Matt was the one who taught me “guy stuff” like how to wear a tie or shave my beard or put on cologne. He was the one who sat me down to chat about puberty, and did his best to talk about sex even though he severely missed the mark with what information would be relevant to my adult life. He was always there to provide direction and always showed up to celebrate my accomplishments.

But he was also mercurial, prone to fits of intense rage. He could be cruel and domineering. For most of my childhood, I was scared of him – and I learned to make myself small to avoid attention, to maintain peace at all costs.

As children we are taught that, ideally, estrangement ends with reconciliation. First, the one who has done wrong seeks repentance. Then, the one who was wronged offers forgiveness. (I think about the exchange, facilitated by a teacher or parent, between two children on the playground: The adult says, “Say you’re sorry.” And the child says, “Sorry.” Then the adult says, “And what do you say back?” And the other child says, “I forgive you.”). This seemingly simple give-and-take is what we call the process of teshuvah, which literally means “to return” but is probably better thought of as returning to the best of who we are by repairing what we have broken. But we know it’s more complicated than just saying sorry. In his laws of teshuvah, the medieval philosopher Maimonides outlines several intermediary steps between action and absolution. First we must recognize that what we did was wrong (as my therapist says, awareness is the beginning of change) and stop doing it. Second, we confess – out loud! – that what we did was wrong. Third, we evaluate the impact of our actions and make amends. Fourth, we don’t do it again.

And what about the person who was wronged, what are they supposed to do? Maimonides writes, “It is forbidden for that individual to be ill-natured and unforgiving.” After the wrongdoer has sought forgiveness (and been rebuffed) three times, he teaches that the fault is no longer theirs – but belongs to the person who was unwilling to accept their apology. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, in her book On Repentance and Repair, writes that Maimonides was probably concerned with the way that holding grudges can negatively impact our emotional and spiritual wellbeing. But, she clarified in an interview, “Even if the person who apologizes has done the deep work of repentance, and has begun to become a different person, the harmed person doesn’t owe them forgiveness.” It is good to forgive, but there are circumstances where it is not always possible.

So what do we do when teshuvah is no longer an option, where we can neither seek repentance nor offer forgiveness? Death is not the only closed door to reconciliation (and I say this recognizing that there are some relationships that should not be mended), but it is a firmly shut one. After someone dies, they no longer have the ability to change. There is no restitution for the harm that they have caused. They certainly can’t say that they are sorry – and there’s no way to say “I forgive you” in return. Of Maimonides’ laws of teshuvah, the only one that is ensured after death is that they won’t do it again.

But just because it won’t happen again, doesn’t mean that we who bore the brunt of their behavior don’t continue to bear the consequences of their mistakes. I was struck by a verse that we read in the Torah this week, a few words buried within the second of the Ten Commandments (which prohibits idolatry). Ki anochi Adonai elohecha, for I am Adonai, your God, eil kana, an impassioned God, pokeid avon avot al banim, al shileishim, v’al ribei’im l’sonai, who will visit the sins of parents upon their children, upon the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me. To bear punishment for the wrongdoing of those who came before us seems incredibly unfair. Yet this is how the world works. This is true on the macro level: as the world warms and the foundations of democracy crumbles, it will be the job of each successive generation to make amends for the shortcomings of their ancestors. And this is also true on the micro level: for those of us who are marked by the wounds of others’ mistakes, we know that the pain inflicted in a relationship does not always stop with that relationship’s end.

Are we always destined to be conduits of the bad behavior of those who came before us? Reflecting on the verse we just read, Maimonides offers a fairly bleak view. Actions have consequences – and if the person who has done wrong doesn’t seek restitution, someone else will need to pay the balance on their behalf. I thought about this often when I began to make therapy a weekly practice. It seemed so unfair that I was living in the shadow of someone else (someone who wasn’t in my life anymore), and that it was on me – my time, my energy, my effort – to find a way through that darkness. Justice would see the wrongdoer bearing sole responsibility for teshuvah, not passing it along to the victims of their poor choices.

But that’s the point of the verse, writes the medieval commentator Avraham ibn Ezra. We are not simply the passive recipients of wrongdoing, forced to bear this harm forever, but individuals empowered to change ourselves and the cycles of behavior we have inherited. When I was studying to be a social worker, I became interested in family systems theory. Developed by Dr. Murray Bowen in the late 1950s, he proposed that we can look at the family as a system of interrelated parts (and here I believe we can think expansively about how to define a family). A family is any group of people bound by roles and rules, some stated explicitly and some covertly understood. The behavior of one person affects all others, who are forced to adapt accordingly. The goal, Bowen taught, is to make people “systems experts” who can recognize, disrupt, and heal unhealthy patterns within the family unit. Or, in the words of ibn Ezra, the opportunity for teshuvah is not contained within the life or lifetime of a single person. Yet lacking awareness and the will to change, the consequences of their actions will be borne – if not perpetuated – by their children, by the third and the fourth generations.

This is not to say that we bear responsibility for the bad behavior of others. But it is a reminder that we are not destined to carry the consequences of it – even when reconciliation is no longer possible. Each of us has the ability to break the cycle. It will take work. It will take time, energy, and effort – perhaps decades of it. And that may not be fair (unfortunately, fairness was never a guarantee of being alive – something we should probably take up with God when the time comes). But even if we cannot dictate the circumstances of our lives, change is still within our power. And thank God for that.

For some of us, breaking the cycle will look like forgiving the one who caused us harm – this is not necessarily the kind of forgiveness that needs to be offered directly to the person in question (if they’re still around), but more of a decision to step out from the shadow that they have cast over our lives. It is a way of saying that we refuse to live in reaction to that relationship. Eva Mozes Kor, who survived Auschwitz as a child, taught that this kind of forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting about what happened or condoning wicked deeds, but, she says, “everything to do with the need of the victims to be free from the pain inflicted upon them.” She writes, “It is a means of self-liberation and self-empowerment.” Forgiveness is a way of turning away from the events of the past (and the people who caused them) and turning toward the possibility of our future, and our future alone.

For some of us, forgiving those who did us wrong is not possible – because the harm was too great, or the trauma was too severe, or because the gesture of forgiveness without the person present does not feel healing. And that’s okay. As Rabbi Danya reminds us, “Harmed people can heal without forgiving.” Or at least without forgiving their wrongdoer. Because I think that forgiveness can also be something we offer to ourselves, an act of patience and grace as we work to undo the cycles that have constrained us.

One of the things that I worked on in therapy was how to stop seeing the habits I developed to navigate my relationship with my stepfather as “good” or “bad,” but rather as necessary adaptations to survive an impossible situation. And so when they manifest in and disrupt my adult life, it’s not that they are wrong – it’s just that I don’t need them anymore. If you know me, you know that I have a soft spot in my heart for Marie Kondo. I appreciate the way she approaches clutter without judgement, how she recognizes that the objects which crowd our homes once served a purpose – even if that purpose was a moment of irresponsible indulgence. And so like well-loved (and well-stained) t-shirt or the sweatshirt that looked amazing at the store but less amazing at home, I found myself looking at the habits of making myself small, of avoiding conflict, of maintaining peace at the cost of my own wellbeing and saying “Hey, I understand where you come from. And I’m grateful for how you helped me make it through a really hard time. But I don’t need you anymore.” Letting go of what was once important but no longer serves us can be its own kind of teshuvah, allowing us to shed the past so that we can turn toward who we might become in the future.

And in the space that remains after we let go of old habits, we have the opportunity to create new patterns of behavior. Because there is another verse that follows the one we read earlier, one that says v’oseh hesed la’alafim l’ohavai u’l’shomrei mitzvotai, that God will show kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my ways. While we may have inherited the consequences of things done by those who are no longer here, who are no longer in our lives, we have the ability to refuse this bequest and create something new to give to those around us, something much more powerful, more enduring than pain – which is love, for each other of course, but above all for ourselves. To choose compassion where another was cruel. To create safety where another caused harm. And in the place of estrangement to find ourselves in the embrace of community, one that we have helped create – because here, in this family, you are not alone.