Jewish Life Digital Edition September 2015 | Page 21

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is living well, showing someone that we’ve
moved on and letting go of whatever the
person did). And, when we’re angry with
someone, we tend to turn towards things
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like inappropriate speech to vent, including loshan harah (speaking about others)
and rechilus (revealing to someone what
another person said about him, causing
friction between the two parties), which is
itself completely destructive and causes
further strife between people.
We want Hashem to forgive us for the
things that we’ve done wrong and, likewise, He wants us to be forgiving of the
wrongs that have been done to us. Our
Sages teach, “When a person lets offences
pass and is forgiving, he will be forgiven
for all of his sins.” (Yuma 87b) And just
think, we don’t always apologise for the
things that we’ve done wrong, so, if we’re
willing to be forgiving of others when they
don’t apologise, Hashem will do the same
for us. We would do well to remember that

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we do the same things wrong year-in and
year-out – and yet G-d still stands ready to
forgive us – and even treats us like He’s already done so, maintaining a relationship
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with us and providing for our every need.

Trying to see the good

For some of us, forgiveness may be easier
if we take a more philosophical approach:
nothing happens in the world without
Hashem allowing it to happen, and everything that happens to us is for the best,
even if we can’t always see it in the heat
of the moment. So, we need to consider
why Hashem allowed such a thing to happen to us, because there’s no doubt we
were meant to learn a lesson from it. And,

just maybe, the pain we felt could be in
place of a more severe decree that was
heading our way, but was thankfully reduced and mitigated.
Finally, we need to recognise that, like
most things in life, forgiveness is not all or
nothing. There’s quite a distance between
hating someone and seething with rage
against him and being completely and utterly forgiving of anything he has done.
Sometimes, just the passage of time is
enough for us to start making progress between these extreme points – and every
step counts.
May Hashem help us to open our hearts
to forgive, and may He pardon us for all
our sins. JL

Gabi Crouse is a freelance writer, married with children, and involved in the Aish
HaTorah community, where she teaches students from the Learn and Earn programme.
Gabi has a diploma in child psychology and has completed courses such as the MTL
programme. She currently runs her own home-based business as an independent
administrator.