One of the struggles many people have lies in how they deal with a grievous wrong, such as the murder of a child. Sure, they know what the usual ethic promotes: Forgive those who have done wrong. For Christians, Christ on the Cross asking for forgiveness for his persecutors is the model. That dictum, embedded in The Lord’s Prayer in various versions (trespasser, trespasses, debtors, debt), is expressed in several other religions, Janism, for example (“I grant forgiveness to all living beings. May all living beings grant me forgiveness. My friendship is with all living beings. My enmity is totally nonexistent”) and Hinduism (“Forgiveness subdues (all) in this world; what is there that forgiveness cannot achieve? What can a wicked person do unto him who carries the sabre of forgiveness in his hand? Righteousness is the one highest good; and forgiveness is the one supreme peace …”).
But forgiving is difficult after a tragic loss. In the context of moral systems and their followers’ compliance, “fore-giving” is easy to do in thoughts, words, or actions prior to an offense. But once an offense occurs, particularly an egregious offense, then only a few seem to follow the dictum; only a special few can forgive the offender.
Take the tragedy of a Chicago policewoman killed in a senseless gun battle. Here’s the headline from the Chicago Sun Times after the trial during which the perpetrator Eric Morgan pleaded guilty and received a seven-year sentence:
“Mom of slain Chicago police Officer Ella French faces man charged in fatal shooting: ‘My faith tells me to forgive, I’m not ready for that.’”— Elizabeth French, Officer Ella’s mother. *
The unnecessary death of a child is probably the most difficult human tragedy to endure. Love and hope disappear in an instant, a vacuum forms, and for what, for the impulse of a man without compunction? For unbridled hate? For trinkets in a jewelry store, a shiny car, cash, drugs, or evil impulse?
It’s easy to “fore-give” as moral systems advise; it’s very hard to forgive. Keep that in mind during the current war with Hamas, a war that Hamas started and perpetrated with utter savagery.
The Juxtaposition Is the Dilemma
Surely, I subscribe to “forgive your enemy” ethics; and just as surely, I would echo Elizabeth French’s words, “I’m not ready for that” if I lived in any part of the world under attack by terrorists. All loss and grief endure. Forgiveness takes time because feeling the needless loss of life persists in those who remain. We’ve all heard words like those of Pope John Paul II: “Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.” And just as surely, we’ve heard that it’s character weakness to carry a grudge or seek revenge. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
But strong for what? Theory or practice? Dictum or act? Principle or emotion? To go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil? Is the lack of forgiveness a moral weakness? Is payback not a form of justice, deserved justice? Deserved retribution in the context of a life-shattering loss?
Thoughts of revenge and not forgiveness prevail as the “moral reality” after an act of barbarism. “Fore-giveness” collapses into a black hole of despair in the wake of savagery. Think of the people brutalized and killed by Hamas militants this October, 2023, and ask yourself how an entire nation might not think, “We need to forgive.” How does one put into practice a religious principle that is meaningful until it isn’t? And in the circumstance of terrorism and killing for killing’s sake, “fore-giveness” seems to have very little practical effect when no matter how forgiving one is after an atrocity, the perpetrators show no remorse and rejoice in their barbarism. Is it understandable under such circumstances that “fore-giving” does not morph into forgiving?
Righteousness in a Vacuum
In an October worldwide protest over Israel’s response to the attack that killed more than a thousand of its citizens, many praised Hamas for the atrocities and justified them on the basis of equivocation: Israel in their minds has practiced the very behavior that Hamas openly admits to employing, an attempt at genocide. It’s a classic case of projection. Ascribe to someone or some group the behavior of the perpetrator. Those self-righteous people who praise the indiscriminate rocket attacks by a terrorist group that has done nothing positive for the Palestinians, but has, rather, kept them in poverty and hopelessness, would probably never wish to live in Gaza under Hamas rule. From afar they equivocate a retaliation with an attack.
You might wonder as I do, how such equivocation arises save for decades, if not three millennia, of the heritage of hate and bias. Personally, I cannot take the condemnation of the 31 Harvard groups that faulted Israel for the attack by Hamas as anything other than both a reductio ad absurdum and a gross non sequitur that I have seen so often in supposed intellectuals living outside the sphere of danger and loss. Their moral equivocation of retaliation and attack and their certainty while rejecting proof of the atrocities of Hamas make their protests against Israel hollow.
Fore-giveness Is Easy; Forgiveness Is Not Just Hard, It Is Almost Impossible in Terrorism
Those who pass judgment on Israelis live lives of moral equivalence and convenience. Given the horrors of the massacres, they find fault in the victims and discount that such murders even happened. They do so, however, in the absence of actual experience, of seeing up close and in person the bodies of the tortured and slain. They do so in a vacuum that no rockets penetrate, no terrorists overrun as they shoot young people who are enjoying a music festival.
They live in a moral vacuum from which they proclaim an unreality that has little connection to the reality on the ground. They pass judgment on Israelis who find forgiving difficult, especially in the midst of ongoing atrocities. And they accuse Israelis of genocide when Hamas has proclaimed its genocidal goal.
Free from any threat to their lives, the supporters of Hamas in places like Harvard would no doubt protest life under the organization’s rule. In the absence of personal loss, they blame the victim and see a black-and-white world in which a country that has existed under almost constant attack and that lies in the midst of hundreds of millions of Muslims bent on its destruction as the guilty party not worthy of forgiveness.
And now that Israel as of this writing is destroying infrastructure after the October attack, the protestors fault it as a genocidal country without realizing that, for example, sewer pipes funded by organizations around the world have been used not for sewerage and urbanization in Gaza, to for upgrading and gentrifying Palestinian life, but for making rockets. Far removed from the impoverishment imposed on Palestinians by Hamas, the protestors have no room in their hearts to forgive long-suffering Israel for the plight of the Palestinians, even though the very strip of land known as Gaza was given to those Palestinians by the Israelis.
There’s little forgiveness in the Middle East though every religion in the region incorporates it as a guiding principle. Years ago, I read a tongue-in-cheek article about college sidewalks that cross the quads and yards of campuses. Originally laid out in perpendicular arrangements, sidewalks become interspersed with diagonal paths that over time the universities pave, thinking that they have eliminated the path-making by accommodating the path-makers. But even the diagonal sidewalks acquire diagonal paths and so on. Students cut the corners even after the schools post “Keep off the Grass” signs. Like those signs and admonitions to practice a principle of walking on sidewalks, the principle of forgiving does not control the traffic of human emotions after an egregious offense.
“FORGIVENESS” could flash from a neon sign on every church, synagogue, temple, or shrine. It would be proclaimed before but not practiced after an egregious offense.
*ago.suntimes.com/crime/2023/10/12/23914343/ella-french-chicago-police-shooting-guilty-eric-morgan and
https://news.yahoo.com/hope-come-learn-very-wrong-211900142.html
But forgiving is difficult after a tragic loss. In the context of moral systems and their followers’ compliance, “fore-giving” is easy to do in thoughts, words, or actions prior to an offense. But once an offense occurs, particularly an egregious offense, then only a few seem to follow the dictum; only a special few can forgive the offender.
Take the tragedy of a Chicago policewoman killed in a senseless gun battle. Here’s the headline from the Chicago Sun Times after the trial during which the perpetrator Eric Morgan pleaded guilty and received a seven-year sentence:
“Mom of slain Chicago police Officer Ella French faces man charged in fatal shooting: ‘My faith tells me to forgive, I’m not ready for that.’”— Elizabeth French, Officer Ella’s mother. *
The unnecessary death of a child is probably the most difficult human tragedy to endure. Love and hope disappear in an instant, a vacuum forms, and for what, for the impulse of a man without compunction? For unbridled hate? For trinkets in a jewelry store, a shiny car, cash, drugs, or evil impulse?
It’s easy to “fore-give” as moral systems advise; it’s very hard to forgive. Keep that in mind during the current war with Hamas, a war that Hamas started and perpetrated with utter savagery.
The Juxtaposition Is the Dilemma
Surely, I subscribe to “forgive your enemy” ethics; and just as surely, I would echo Elizabeth French’s words, “I’m not ready for that” if I lived in any part of the world under attack by terrorists. All loss and grief endure. Forgiveness takes time because feeling the needless loss of life persists in those who remain. We’ve all heard words like those of Pope John Paul II: “Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.” And just as surely, we’ve heard that it’s character weakness to carry a grudge or seek revenge. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
But strong for what? Theory or practice? Dictum or act? Principle or emotion? To go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil? Is the lack of forgiveness a moral weakness? Is payback not a form of justice, deserved justice? Deserved retribution in the context of a life-shattering loss?
Thoughts of revenge and not forgiveness prevail as the “moral reality” after an act of barbarism. “Fore-giveness” collapses into a black hole of despair in the wake of savagery. Think of the people brutalized and killed by Hamas militants this October, 2023, and ask yourself how an entire nation might not think, “We need to forgive.” How does one put into practice a religious principle that is meaningful until it isn’t? And in the circumstance of terrorism and killing for killing’s sake, “fore-giveness” seems to have very little practical effect when no matter how forgiving one is after an atrocity, the perpetrators show no remorse and rejoice in their barbarism. Is it understandable under such circumstances that “fore-giving” does not morph into forgiving?
Righteousness in a Vacuum
In an October worldwide protest over Israel’s response to the attack that killed more than a thousand of its citizens, many praised Hamas for the atrocities and justified them on the basis of equivocation: Israel in their minds has practiced the very behavior that Hamas openly admits to employing, an attempt at genocide. It’s a classic case of projection. Ascribe to someone or some group the behavior of the perpetrator. Those self-righteous people who praise the indiscriminate rocket attacks by a terrorist group that has done nothing positive for the Palestinians, but has, rather, kept them in poverty and hopelessness, would probably never wish to live in Gaza under Hamas rule. From afar they equivocate a retaliation with an attack.
You might wonder as I do, how such equivocation arises save for decades, if not three millennia, of the heritage of hate and bias. Personally, I cannot take the condemnation of the 31 Harvard groups that faulted Israel for the attack by Hamas as anything other than both a reductio ad absurdum and a gross non sequitur that I have seen so often in supposed intellectuals living outside the sphere of danger and loss. Their moral equivocation of retaliation and attack and their certainty while rejecting proof of the atrocities of Hamas make their protests against Israel hollow.
Fore-giveness Is Easy; Forgiveness Is Not Just Hard, It Is Almost Impossible in Terrorism
Those who pass judgment on Israelis live lives of moral equivalence and convenience. Given the horrors of the massacres, they find fault in the victims and discount that such murders even happened. They do so, however, in the absence of actual experience, of seeing up close and in person the bodies of the tortured and slain. They do so in a vacuum that no rockets penetrate, no terrorists overrun as they shoot young people who are enjoying a music festival.
They live in a moral vacuum from which they proclaim an unreality that has little connection to the reality on the ground. They pass judgment on Israelis who find forgiving difficult, especially in the midst of ongoing atrocities. And they accuse Israelis of genocide when Hamas has proclaimed its genocidal goal.
Free from any threat to their lives, the supporters of Hamas in places like Harvard would no doubt protest life under the organization’s rule. In the absence of personal loss, they blame the victim and see a black-and-white world in which a country that has existed under almost constant attack and that lies in the midst of hundreds of millions of Muslims bent on its destruction as the guilty party not worthy of forgiveness.
And now that Israel as of this writing is destroying infrastructure after the October attack, the protestors fault it as a genocidal country without realizing that, for example, sewer pipes funded by organizations around the world have been used not for sewerage and urbanization in Gaza, to for upgrading and gentrifying Palestinian life, but for making rockets. Far removed from the impoverishment imposed on Palestinians by Hamas, the protestors have no room in their hearts to forgive long-suffering Israel for the plight of the Palestinians, even though the very strip of land known as Gaza was given to those Palestinians by the Israelis.
There’s little forgiveness in the Middle East though every religion in the region incorporates it as a guiding principle. Years ago, I read a tongue-in-cheek article about college sidewalks that cross the quads and yards of campuses. Originally laid out in perpendicular arrangements, sidewalks become interspersed with diagonal paths that over time the universities pave, thinking that they have eliminated the path-making by accommodating the path-makers. But even the diagonal sidewalks acquire diagonal paths and so on. Students cut the corners even after the schools post “Keep off the Grass” signs. Like those signs and admonitions to practice a principle of walking on sidewalks, the principle of forgiving does not control the traffic of human emotions after an egregious offense.
“FORGIVENESS” could flash from a neon sign on every church, synagogue, temple, or shrine. It would be proclaimed before but not practiced after an egregious offense.
*ago.suntimes.com/crime/2023/10/12/23914343/ella-french-chicago-police-shooting-guilty-eric-morgan and
https://news.yahoo.com/hope-come-learn-very-wrong-211900142.html
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