DO YOU KEEP A GRUDGE?

Once, on Yom Kippur, a Rabbi spoke about forgiveness.
After the sermon, he asked how many are willing to forgive their enemies. About half held up their hands.

Still unsatisfied, he lectured for fifteen more minutes and repeated his question. All responded except one elderly lady in the rear. "Mrs. Cohen, are you not willing to forgive your enemies?" "I don't have any."

"That is very unusual. How old are you?" "106"

Not satisfied, he lectured the congregation for another twenty minutes and repeated his

"Mrs. Cohen, please come down and tell the congregation how a lady can live to  be 106 and not have no enemy in the world."  The old lady teetered down the aisle, slowly turned to face the congregation, and blurted out, "I outlived them all!"  In this week’s Torah portion, Kedoshim, the Torah says:  Don’t hate your brother [or sister] in your heart. Don’t take vengeance, and don’t bear a  grudge against the members of your people. Love your friend like yourself. I am G-d.

Rashi explains the meaning of the twin prohibitions of taking revenge and bearing a grudge:  So, let’s make this practical. I ask you to lend me your car. You say no. You ask me to lend you my iPhone, and I say no, I will not give it to you, just as you didn’t give me your car. That’s a prohibition, a sin, in the Torah.

Next case scenario. I ask you to lend me your iPhone, you say no. You ask me to lend you, my car. I say ye. “I will not be like you who refused to lend me your phone.” Again, this is prohibited by the Torah.

There is something amiss here. By refusing to lend me your car, you do not violate any prohibition. The Torah does not obligate you to do me the favor I ask of you. Of course, every time you do someone a favor, every time you do an act of kindness, it is a mitzvah,  but you are not morally obliged to lend me your car or your iPhone. When you said the first “no,” there was no sin involved.  Yet, when I utter the second “no,” I sinned! When you asked me for my iPhone  and I said, “I shall reciprocate your “no,” suddenly I violated a transgression in the Torah.  It seems unfair. The first fellow got away “with murder.” He has the right to refuse my request. Then when I reciprocate his actions, and refuse his request, I am guilty. Where is the justice? You can be selfish toward me, but I can’t be selfish toward you?

What is worse, even if I do not reciprocate your actions, and I act kindly, giving you what you ask for, I make mention of the fact that I am not behaving like you I still committed a Torah prohibition. Does this make sense?  The insight is morally and psychologically profound.

What is meant by bearing a grudge? A person's colleague asks him, "Lend me your car.  He responds, "No! I refuse to lend it to you." On the following day, the person who refused needed to borrow an iPhone from his colleague. He asks him: “Lend me your iPhone.” He says to him, “Here it is for you; I am not like you, who did not lend me!” This constitutes “bearing a grudge,” for he keeps the hatred in his heart, even though he does not take revenge.

The Torah, in this distinction between the first “no”—which is permissible and the  second “no”—which is forbidden is guiding us on how to live a happy and wholesome life.

If you don’t lend me something, or do me another favor I ask for, you may not be “Mr. Nice Guy,” but you did not violate any Torah prohibition. The Torah  does not demand us to give away, or lend, whatever we own, to someone who wants it. I may have many good reasons not to lend you something and that does not make me a bad person. What if my car is new and expensive, and I am very protective of it? I do not want to entrust it to another driver. Nothing wrong with that. I may protect my property. Maybe I’m not the most generous human being on the planet, but for whatever personal reason, I do not want to lend you, my car. That’s fine.

Maybe I’m afraid of damage, maybe I’m a little uptight, maybe I’m stressed out today  and can’t deal with a new headache, or maybe I am the pessimistic warrior.  Whatever the case, this is between me and me, or between me and
G-d,  and it is none of your business. I said no, so I said no.

That is not your concern.

But now, when you ask of me something, and the reason I am not giving it to you is   not because  I am afraid you might damage it but to take revenge; or even if I am giving it to you, I am harboring a grudge toward you for not lending me yesterday what I asked for, this is a different story. Now I am harboring negativity and toxicity in my heart. Now, I am operating in the dangerous and vicious orbit of revenge.

Even if I do not take revenge, and I lend you the item you asked for, but I add: “I am not  like you!”—it demonstrates that I am walking around with resentment, hate, and toxicity in my brain. The Torah never wants me to walk around with toxic negativity in my brain,  harboring a grudge and the feeling of what a terrible human being you are.  A wise person said, “Hanging onto resentment, is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” What is happening in this case is even worse: I am allowing my perceived enemy to live in my brain rent-free. This means I am not in a good space.  When my heart swells with resentment, I am not in a healthy space; I am not capable of serving G-d at this moment.  Resentment, it has been said, is like  smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.

It is not always easy. If someone refused to lend me their car, Nu. But if they hurt me, insulted me, or wronged me?

If I am human, I will feel hurt and upset. I am not made of steel. But, as the Torah warns us right in the previous verse, “Do not hate your brother in your heart, you should rebuke your fellow.” Even in this case, we should make sure not to allow the resentment to sit and build up. Instead, the Torah commands us to approach the one who hurt us and ask for an explanation or an apology.

In the beautiful words of Rambam:

When one person wrongs another, the latter should not remain silent and despise him internally... Rather, there is a mitzvah in which he notifies the person who hurt him and asks him: "Why did you do this and this to me?" " If, afterward, the person who committed the wrong asks his colleague to forgive him, he should do so.

Likewise, if a person stole money from you, or damaged your property, you have the full  right to demand compensation, as appropriate by Torah law. This is not called revenge; it is called justice. I was hurt; I was damaged; I deserve to get my money back. And I deserve an apology.

And when someone apologizes, we should always forgive.

Forgiveness comes from recognizing four things:

1: We are all affected by the sadness of  life: so many of us suffer trauma, are weak, and often make bad mistakes.  We want to be forgiven, so we should forgive others. We ask G-d to forgive us for our  mistakes, we must afford that dignity to others.

2. Forgiveness comes from me  recognizing my inner unshakable confidence and strength as G-d’s child.  The more I find my inner core, the easier it is to forgive.

3. Finally, living with animosity and anger is toxic not only for the perpetrator but also for  me. When I withhold forgiveness from you, I am punishing myself.

4: A world without forgiveness is a dangerous world, where cycles of violence never cease.  The Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal related the story of a man who lived near him in one of the displaced persons camps after World War II. This man borrowed ten dollars from  Wiesenthal assured him that he had a package coming from a relative any day and  would pay him back the next week. At week’s end, he had an excuse for not paying.  And the next week, he had an even better one, and so it went on for almost a year.

Finally, one day, the man came up to him with a ten-dollar bill in his hand and said. “My visa has just come through. I’m leaving for Canada tomorrow. Here’s the ten dollars I owe you.”

But Wiesenthal waved him away: “No, keep it. For ten dollars, it’s not worth changing my opinion of you.”

Wiesenthal was a fine man, but he might have been wrong, though I would never judge his response till I have not been in his shoes. He could have gotten a bargain! To give up a grudge for ten dollars.

You think that by not forgiving, you hold power over that individual who pained you,  yet if you let it go if you give it up, you can begin to realize that, by your choosing not to  forgive, this individual holds that power over you.

Forgiveness is your decision to no longer hate the offender. It is letting go of your vengeful thoughts, your venom, and your hatred in an attempt to heal yourself. It is the greatest gift to yourself.

On the morning of 24 June 1922, Walther Rathenau, the first ever Jewish German foreign minister, set off for work from his villa in the Berlin suburb of Grunewald. The weather was fine, so he instructed his chauffeur to use the open-top limousine. The minister sat alone in the back.

As the car slowed down to negotiate a bend just before joining the main road, another car came out of a side street. Two men were sitting in the back. A rapid series of shots rang out. At the same moment, there was a loud explosion, as the other assassin lobbed a hand grenade into the back of the limousine. A passing nurse cradled the dying foreign minister as the chauffeur drove to the nearest police station, but she could do nothing.  The 54-year-old beloved and idealistic German foreign minister was dead at the hands of a group of Right extremists and bitter anti-Semites.

The assassins, Erwin Kern and Hermann Fischer, escaped. The police mounted the largest manhunt Germany had ever seen: ‘Wanted’ posters appeared all over the country, and police forces were issued with descriptions of the men. The two assassins were caught. Kern was killed in a shoot-out and Fischer committed suicide; both were in their mid-twenties. The driver, Ernst Techow, was 21. His parents turned him in, and he faced trial.

And then something extraordinary occurred. Rathenau’s mother wrote Techow’s mother the following letter. It was later from the mother of the victim to the mother of the perpetrator.

“In grief unspeakable, I give you, my hand. Say to your son that, in the name and spirit of him he has murdered, I forgive, even as God may forgive, if before an earthly judge, your son makes a full and frank confession of his guilt... and before a heavenly judge repents. Had he known my son, the noblest man earth bore, he would have rather turned the weapon on himself. May these words give peace to your soul.” – Mathilde Rathenau

These amazing words, combined with Techow’s testimony that he had wanted to back out of the incident before being threatened himself, led the court to convict him and give him a sentence of 14 years. He ultimately served five. While in prison, he studied the writings of the man he murdered and came to admire him deeply. He went on to learn Hebrew and become a scholar of Judaism.

After serving his prison sentence, Techow joined the Foreign Legion where he was decorated for his military exploits fighting Nazis, which included the capture of 24 Nazis. While in the Foreign Legion, he met a nephew of Rathenau and told him that the letter from Rathenau’s mother was his most valued possession. He said that he hoped that he could make up in some way for his past evil behavior.

He fought against the Nazis until France capitulated in 1940. As occupied France began to participate in the slaughter of Jews, Techow smuggled himself into Marseilles. Once in Marseilles, he risked capture and torture by the Nazis, daily, to help Jews escape to Spain with Moroccan passports. For individuals who lacked money, he arranged their escapes without payment. Techow saved over 700 Jews from Hitler’s death camps.

Rathenau’s mother was able, in incredible pain, to offer words of forgiveness. Those words ultimately saved 700 lives and transformed Techow.

May our Lord remember them for good, together with the other righteous of the world, and may He redress the spilled blood of His servants, speedily in our days.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky