Forgive Me.

What is forgiveness? It's Erev Yom Kippur, and if by now you haven't received a text before Rosh Hoshana, you'll get it today. When I was a kid I remember learning that you need to ask someone for forgiveness up to three times, in three different locations. If they still don't forgive you, Hashem forgives you. I don't know why, but that never sat with me well. A system designed to let you off the hook. A backdoor to feeling you did what you could. Pain and suffering shouldn't be some sort of bureaucratic form you will fill out in triplicate. So, then, what is forgiveness?

It could be the forcefulness of the season we are in to make amends with people. It's one of these things in Judaism that we force you to do, because in the end it's for the best. Not to get dark, but it's like that with Shiva too. I've never been in a Shiva house that wasn't more of an inconvenience to the mourners than anyone else in the Shiva house. Someone close to you just died? Ok, do you know where the sugar is for the coffee you're kid was forced to make for me? Despite that, it's well known how the distraction of the Shiva week, in many ways, helps people transition into their grief and longer mourning period of the year.

Does forcing people to apologize fall into that same category? I think that it's more about opening dialogue between people who are in conflict than it is just about the open and shut style of the 3x and you're good erev Yom Kippur apology. It's a forced reopening of a damaged connection. Will that person forgive you just because it's Erev Yom Kippur? Maybe in words, but it's about the steps you take after that conversation. If you are only getting these texts from people once a year at this time, it's not gonna be helpful. On Erev Rosh Hashana I got a text from someone I barely, if ever talk to, and I saw in the messages history two other texts from him, with almost a copy and paste text from 2020, and 2019. If you think that moves me that you thought of me once a year for three years, sorry, you are wrong.

There are many concepts of forgiveness. I've heard that you need to forgive yourself before you can forgive others. I've heard that you forgive people for your own well being, not for the person asking for forgiveness. I think there is a deeper meaning to that than we realize because of the obligatory, ask Mechila, push this time of year. If we are truly asking someone to forgive you, it's more about showing that you have changed, or understood why whatever it is you did or said, you now know was wrong. It's about sharing with someone you hurt that you can be better, and you want them to know, you will be.

A few years ago I got a phone call from a guy I was in school with in the 7th grade. It was a one off year in that school. The guy who called was a pretty hyperactive kid who often got in trouble. He told me he is a teacher now, he has a wife and kids, and he is seeing from the other side of the table, what bullying or being mean or disruptive does to other kids. He was going through a process of making amends for that. He asked me to forgive him for anything he might have done that year, he now understands the long term effect it can have on 12 and 13 year old boys. I was extremely moved by this call, and while it did not open up some new relationship and we are best friends now, it did make me think a lot about what forgiveness is. Guess what? He didn't text me about Erev Yom Kippur. He called me, on a real live telephone, on a random day, on a random week.

That was a hard year for me actually, I was in a non Lubavitch school for a very crucial age for a Bar Mitzvah age boy. I was often bullied for being Lubavitch, and it wasn't so much from the students as it was from our Rebbe that year. I had my second pair of Tefillin as all Lubavitchers do, and the teacher used to make jokes like "we have to wait for davening to be over, b/c the holy lubavicher needs to put on his second pair ..." and no, I haven't really got over how horrible that was of him. Yet, over the years I have forgiven him. I haven't let him off the hook, but I acknowledge that maybe he was not in a good mind space then, or he himself had not yet reached the realization that my friend who was now a teacher realized.

What is forgiveness? If you expected me to have some sort of conclusion by the end of this rant, I'm sorry I don't. I think Yom Kippur is a time of self reflection. It's less about crossing off people on your apology tour, and more about seeing yourself in the mirror and asking yourself, is this who I am? Can I be better? If you can be better, then you won't hurt the people you text every year, asking for forgiveness.

This year on Erev Yom Kippur I'm going to ask myself for forgiveness. I'm going to ask myself to spend the time I need to be a better person, and heal from pain, heal from anger, heal from being hurt. We can't love others if you don't love yourself, and we can't forgive others, unless we forgive ourselves.

Wishing everyone a meaningful fast, and the spiritual strength to reflect on ourselves during this important time.