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Q: Dear Rabbi Gellman, thank you for addressing this important topic. Forgiveness is not easy, but is necessary to our health. I believe that God is able to love and forgive all beings without condoning or approving of all their actions. There is an important distinction between forgiving the person and condoning or approving their actions. I believe that by holding onto anger and not being able to forgive we are choosing to keep negative energy within us. This is harmful to our health and well-being and interferes with our love of self and love of others.

About 49 years ago, I left my first husband, the father of my children, because of his hurtful actions. I did not feel that he deserved forgiveness. However, I began to realize that holding on to my anger and not forgiving him was harmful to me. I asked God to help me to forgive him and within months, I was able to let go of my anger and felt forgiveness for him without condoning his actions. It was so freeing and releasing and I am now able to remember the love we felt for each other and since then we have been able to build a caring and respectful relationship. In my daily prayers I send love, light, health and healing to all. – (From J)

(MG) I recently spoke to a group called Compassionate Friends, which is a support group for parents who have lost children. One of the fathers spoke with searing grief of how he did not want to forgive his child’s murderer. His life was framed by and nurtured by his grief. I shared your wisdom that forgiveness helps us release the poison of hatred in our souls but he could not find his way to forgiveness. Forgiving the person but not the actions of the person seemed to make no sense to him. What does it mean to condemn the murder of a child and forgive the murderer? What does that even mean?

The murderer is responsible for and guilty of the murder. The sin and the sinner are bound together in a web of evil. This is why I require remorse and contrition from a sinner seeking forgiveness. If they can reach out to me then perhaps – just perhaps – I can reach out to them. Until and unless there is repentance I do not see how there can be true forgiveness.

My solution to this problem is to teach people the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is not a choice, but suffering is. If you drop a heavy object on your foot you cannot avoid the consequent pain. It hurts and there is nothing you can do about the hurt. You have no control over pain. However, you do have control over how you react to the pain. Do you obsess over the pain? Do you let the pain stop you from doing the things you love in life? You control all of that and you can choose ways to marginalize your pain. Yoga practice does this for some people. Breathing exercises for childbirth helps some women. Choosing to reduce suffering does not force you to forgive the unforgivable. It allows you to live again and let your tormentors rot in their personal hell.

Eid Mubarak

There are basically two major holidays in each of the Abrahamic faiths. Judaism celebrates Passover and the High Holidays. Christianity celebrates Christmas and Easter, and Islam celebrates Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha which arrives on the evening of June 5 through June 9 this year.

Eid al-Adha is based on an Islamic reading of the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. In the Quranic version of the testing of Abraham by God to see if he was willing to sacrifice his son, the story becomes the sacrifice of Ishmael who was the Egyptian ancestor of the Musim Arabs through his mother and Abraham’s wife Hagar.

Eid al-Adha is also the time of the year when millions of Muslims try to fulfill a once-in-a-lifetime religious obligation for every Muslim to make the Hajj – a pilgrimage to Mecca that is by far the most impressive mass religious ritual in the world. The Hajj is so difficult that Muslims who are able to complete it change their names and add “al haj” before their old names. It is also a holiday celebrated by sacrifices of animals that are distributed to family and friends and poor people. The forging of communal bonds is essential for any religious and ethnic group and the Hajj and this feast is a powerful example of how these bonds are formed among the Umma – the worldwide body of the Islamic faith.

To all my Muslim brothers and sisters I wish you an eid mubarak, a blessed feast.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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