Timeless Torah

Sara Rigler was a veteran of anti-War demonstrations in the sixties. Those days were however long gone. That evening was just a Saturday night music fest. True, it was set up one block away from the P.L.O. headquarters in East Jerusalem. Also true, that the organizers wanted to assert the idea that Jewish sovereignty extended to the entire city. Still, there were no placards and no speeches. Instead, the atmosphere was one of family festivity.
Soon enough the music started. Men joined hands and began to dance. Suddenly, out of nowhere, police charged into the crowd, swinging Billy clubs. Troops jumped onto the stage, grabbing instruments and pulling down loudspeakers. An old man positioned directly under a speaker was in danger. Sara shouted to warn him, but could not be heard over the shrieks. She ran toward him, but was cut off by the charge of a horse. Terrified, she retreated toward the stage, now encircled by police, and started yelling, “How can Jews act this way? You’re worse than the American police!”
One officer hollered back, “You don’t belong here. Go back to America!”
Unbeknownst to the policeman, he had just pushed Sara’s Zionist button, so she slapped him across the face. Manhandled quite roughly so that her skirt tore and her knee received a three-inch gash, she was thrown into a paddy wagon. At the police station, she recounted the whole story, and after signing a deposition, was sent home.
Two years later a registered letter charged Sara with striking a policeman, and summoned her to court. Her lawyer quietly asked her, “Why did you incriminate yourself?”
“What did you expect me to do?” she countered. “Lie?”
“You could have kept silent. Now you need to throw yourself on the mercy of the court. It’s only a first offence, so humbly admit you made a mistake and promise the court you won’t repeat it.”
This occurred just before Rosh Hashanah, and Sara had been studying the steps of teshuva (repentance): 1)Admit the sin to G-d, 2)Regret, 3)Resolve not to repeat it.
The lawyer’s prescription suddenly sounded eerily similar. But why should I do teshuva? Sara thought. “I was the aggrieved party!
Sara mulled the matter over and told the lawyer she would do whatever he said. After all, she didn’t want to go to jail. When the meeting was over, the lawyer said parenthetically, “You know, you were wrong.”
“But he insulted me!”
“Someone insults you,” the lawyer mused, “and you think you have the right to slap him?”
On the way home Sara weighed the matter. If she had done something wrong, she would have to do teshuva. But the three steps of confession, regret, and resolution suffice only for sins against G-d. Sins against another person also require asking forgiveness and (when applicable) making restitution.
Her Rabbi confirmed her fears. “G-d doesn’t grant forgiveness until the person you’ve wronged forgives you.”
Sara wondered how she could find the policeman. And with the trial pending, would he suspect some extra-judicial trick? Her lawyer informed her that the policeman’s name, which was on her charge sheet, was Ronny T...
With the holidays swiftly approaching, she thumbed through the Jerusalem phone book. Sara dialed. “Is this Ronny T...?” she asked, nervously.
Sara took a deep breath and blurted out the speech she had rehearsed many times. “Two years ago at a Maleve Malka I slapped you. What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry. I am also more afraid of the Heavenly Court than the earthly court, so I’m calling for your forgiveness.”
A moment elapsed, and he replied, “I forgive you.”
Of course! Israel is a Jewish country. Even a non-religious policeman understands the dynamics of asking and granting forgiveness before the High Holidays.
“Thank you,” Sara breathed. “May you and your family be inscribed for a year of life, good health, and blessings.”
“Thank you; you and your family, too.”
Postscript: A month later Sara Rigler was sentenced to two months suspended sentence on condition that she didn’t hit any more police for a three-year probation period. She didn’t.
It’s hard to ask forgiveness. Sometimes the mechanics are sticky; locating a person from our past, initiating the conversation, getting the offended person to listen.
Harder still are the inner dynamics: Examining actions we would rather forget; cutting through the rationalizations to admit that we were wrong despite the extenuating circumstances; and humbling ourselves from someone to whom we may have felt superior.
G-d promises us atonement. Atonement is a wondrous, miraculous reality that bleaches out even the most stubborn stains on our soul. Atonement reconciles us with G-d. To procure it, we need a change of direction, from feeling a cut above the other fellow (“we showed them”) to knowing we are inferior in that we require their gift (and it is a gift) of forgiveness. This is a relatively small price to pay for the soul-cleansing we desperately crave on Yom Kippur.
But if asking is difficult, truly forgiving is harder. After all, we may have been grievously hurt, in body, mind, or heart. To forgive is tantamount to executing a divine function, letting the offender off the hook.
On the other hand, nothing more quickly procures divine forgiveness for our own sins. The principle of mida k’neged mida (measure for measure) means that we get what we give. When we stand before G-d on the High Holidays our most compelling defense is, “I have forgiven those who sinned against me. Please forgive me in turn.”
Every time we forgive, we open up the gates of forgiveness. And we are the first ones to walk through.