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August 2010

By Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW

The below is an excerpt from the National Center for Jewish Healing’s publication, The Outstretched Arm, Vol. 3, Issue 1, Fall 2000/5761. [Download full article]

Forgiving with the Whole Person: Some Thoughts on a Healing Approach to T’shuvah

The powerful season of the Jewish year that stretches from the month before Rosh HaShannah through the Ten Days of Repentance and even beyond Yom Kippur into the holiday of Sukkot is a period of renewal, reconciliation, recovery, and return — in a word, T’shuvah. During these weeks, through self-examination, special liturgy, interpersonal encounters, and more, Jews intensify the process of improving ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Forgiveness, of course, is a central component in that process. We know we’re supposed to "do" it. We even appreciate that, as Jews, as people, we need and want forgiveness. But somehow forgiveness may seem distant or inaccessible, alien or awkward. To be sure, at times it’s as simple as a heartfelt conversation (though that, too, is often not so "simple") but all too often we fall in the chasm between valuing, feeling, believing in forgiveness — and actually implementing or actualizing that commitment.

Perhaps what we need is not so much to have forgiveness be a part of us — as to ourselves become a part of forgiveness. Towards that end, here are seven possibilities that might reinforce ones forgiveness project. None of these stand alone — they are meant, quite literally, to "flesh out" the undertaking and bolster the basic traditional contours of forgiveness that entails awareness of the misdeed, communicating the remorse and forgiveness, fixing what can be fixed (e.g., financial restitution), and not repeating the misdeed when faced, in the future, with the opportunity.

For any given situation or relationship, some of what follows may or may not be right. Approach these as pointers or possibilities for enhancing the season of t’shuvah; forgiveness is, after all, a most important component of both individual and communal healing.

1. Forgiveness through Speech
2. Forgiveness with Touch
3. Forgiveness with the Face
4. Forgiveness through Bodily Posture/Movement
5. Forgiveness through Listening
6. Forgiveness through Writing, Letters
7. Forgiveness and Music

These "Spirituality Notes" are excerpts from our monthly E-newsletter. Articles are © JBFCS Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs and may be reprinted free of charge as long as this credit line is included.

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