From the desk of Rabbi Alex Greenbaum

Dear Friends,

While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which we had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to, and obtain absolution from a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the war had ended, he wondered: had he done the right thing? Wiesenthal asks, "You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, “What would I have done?” The book called The Sunflower proceeds to ask this question to 53 distinguished men and women, Jewish and non-Jewish, for their responses. I ask, "Are there sins that are unforgivable?"

At the end of Godfather 3, Michael Corleone says to the Cardinal Lamberto, "I killed; I ordered the death of my brother. He injured me. I killed my mother’s son. I killed my father's son." He then breaks down in tears. The cardinal replies, "Your sins are terrible, and it is just that you suffer. Your life could be redeemed, but I know that you don't believe that. You will not change." So what does the cardinal do? He prays in Latin, absolving Michael. I was having breakfast with my Christian colleagues one morning and what I heard was that we must forgive, that we can't hold on to our anger, that we must forgive because God is forgiving. But where in our Torah is God so forgiving? When we do something wrong, God immediately punishes us. The punishment doesn't even seem to fit the crime. I can not think of one time where we do something wrong and God blindly forgives us. Where does the Torah show us a God of unlimited forgiveness? In Judaism, justice comes before forgiveness.

I once taught a class to a church bible group, as I was teaching about the Jewish view of forgiveness, a woman raised her hand and recounted a story about her daughter who was viciously attacked. Her priest told her that she must forgive the perpetrator. I told her that Judaism would never say this. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame, said, "If asked to forgive, by anyone for anything, I would forgive, because God would forgive. If I had suffered as so many had, it might be much more difficult, but I hope I would still be forgiving, not from my own small position but as a surrogate for our Almighty and All-forgiving God."

After 9/11 I had a congregant tell me she is having trouble finding forgiveness in her heart for the terrorists. I told her that it was okay, she is Jewish. First comes justice, then only after do we worry about forgiveness. A Nazi is on his deathbed and he asks for forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal made up his mind and without a word left the room. What would you have done?

Do we have compassion for the Nazis? Should we? One Holocaust survivor once told me it is so hard to hold on to such anger. "It is not for them I need to find peace, but for myself, to live." Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that “The blood of the innocent cries forever. Should that blood cease to cry, humanity would cease to be. Perhaps the issue is not forgiveness, but rather how the victims and their descendants can live without bitterness or vengeance, without losing their own humanity, when they hear the cry of the blood of their families. Rather than asking for forgiveness, the descendants of the Nazis should continue to hear the cries of Jewish blood, and thereby preserve their own humanity."

16 months ago, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls said of the killer on the day of the murder: "We must not think evil of this man. I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive." Is this beautiful or a betrayal? Herbert Marcuse taught philosophy at Columbia University, Harvard, and Brandeis and said, "I believe that the easy forgiving of such crimes perpetuates the very evil it wants to alleviate." God demands justice and so do we.

In Judaism, forgiveness is not free. Forgiveness is dependent. And our actions are accountable. Sidney Shachnow, an inmate in the Kovno Concentration Camp said, "I doubt very much that my God would grant him forgiveness." Simon Wiesenthal did not have the moral right to grant forgiveness. This is the key to Jewish forgiveness. Rabbi Amy taught us years ago that when we wrong a person, we can't go to God for forgiveness. We must ask the person we've wronged first and only then can we be forgiven. But, sometimes it is too late. There is no third-party forgiveness. The perpetrator needs to repent and ask forgiveness from his victim before he can be considered for, or be entitled to, forgiveness. Some crimes are unforgivable. The dying Nazi will never be able to ask his victims for forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal could not grant forgiveness, he did not have the moral or Jewish right to do so.

So, what do we do with our own unresolved anger towards our family and friends? When we forgive, is it for them or for us? Rabbi Zelig Pliskin writes, "If a person wrongs you, do not silently hate him. Rather it is proper to ask him "Why did you do such and such against me?" By calmly confronting a person and telling him how you feel about what he has done, you will frequently be able to bring about a reconciliation." How and why do we forgive each other? Rabbi Harold Kushner writes one answer in Why Do We All Come At The Beginning Tonight?

"Kol Nidre is the only service of the year that everyone makes sure to get to at the beginning. They don’t understand why. They don’t know why they have to be there in time for Kol Nidre, but they come. I think I know why it is important to be there at the start. Because at some level that we may or may not comprehend, we need to hear the Hebrew announcement that comes right before Kol Nidre: By authority of the court on high, and by authority of the court on earth we hereby declare that it is permitted to pray – together with the sinners. We need to be told that we are welcome in shul, no matter what we have done this year. We need to be told that God does not expect us to be perfect. When I was a child, I was taught that first you have to forgive the people with whom you live, and then, and only then, can you ask God to forgive you. I am beginning to think now that it really works the other way around. First, you have to feel forgiven, you have to feel accepted despite your imperfections, then that will free you to forgive others. Once you feel forgiven for not being perfect, you can forgive your parents for not having been perfect parents. Instead of blaming them for the poor way you were raised, you can understand that it is because of the way they were raised by their parents, and that is the way it goes, all the way back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Our parents were amateurs in a game in which even professionals make mistakes. How could we have expected them to be perfect? Why are we still angry at them for their mistakes? Once you feel forgiven for not being perfect, you can forgive your children for not being perfect. We expect that our children will redeem us from our shortcomings, that our sons will be the athletes we never were, that our daughters will be the belles of the ball that we never were. We need to forgive our children their imperfections, and grant them the right to be whatever they are, even average. But we can only forgive them after we have experienced having our own imperfections forgiven. So let us listen to the declaration. Let us hear the healing announcement “It is permitted to pray together with the sinners.” We are welcome here. We are admitted here, as we are, with our shortcomings, despite our sins. We are forgiven by God, and therefore we have the reason and the ability to forgive each other."

Rabbi Alex Greenbaum
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