What would you have done?

Hi again! Ok so new development in my life...I have abruptly decided to run for hillel elections at Brandeis for the coming year. The idea was presented to me quite last minute but I am really happy with this decision. I am running for the campus relations coordinator. The person who fills this role is the liaison between hillel and other campus groups which is quite a vague description and as a result the person can really make the position into what they want and in a sense define their own goals. If I am elected, I think it would be a great opportunity to put into practice so much of what I have learned over the past few years both at Brandeis and abroad. Plus I need some non-Jewish friends at Brandeis and as much as I have tried to find some, it has taken me until going to South Africa to actually speak and have relationships with “members of different tribes.” I really am excited at the prospect of having an official opportunity to connect with different clubs, members of the administration, religious groups within the context of the hillel community because it can truly demonstrate the value that lies in these kinds of diverse interactions and how much we can learn about our own beliefs through learning about those belonging to others. Elections are on Sunday, so we will see…oh and for those five of you who read this who go to Brandeis and can vote, I’ll give you candy if you vote for me.

Moving on…So after finishing Desmond Tutu's book “No Future Without Forgiveness” about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which I have discussed in previous blog posts, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of forgiveness. While the book was extremely inspiring and the idea of forgiveness amidst the horrors of apartheid through revealing narratives that connote accepted responsibility on the part of the perpetrator and returned dignity in the case of the victims, I do not know if I personally think that forgiveness is deserved or warranted. Yes, I understood throughout the book Tutu pinpoints the apartheid system as the true criminal, and that is what was put on trial by the Commission through the stories of those involved, but how can people be legally absolved of their crimes committed against those not alive to grant the absolution?

I recently also read a different book that Tutu mentioned within his own writing by Simon Weisenthal called "The Sunflower," that seems to confront this question head on through the lens of the Holocaust. The book is split up into two sections. The first is a semi-autobiographical account of a Jewish prisoner who finds himself at the bedside of a dying SS officer. The officer has hours left to live and feels tortured by the guilt of his terrible crimes as a member of the Nazi regime. He calls upon a random Jew to disclose his up until then unspeakable acts of murder to and proceeds to ask the tortured, dehumanized prisoner still in the midst of the hell of persecution and execution of the Holocaust if he would forgive the officer for his crimes on behalf of those whom he murdered. After hearing the officer pour out his soul, the author walks out of the hospital room in silence, never responding to the dying man's plea.

Weisenthal than poses the question to various prominent world figures "what would you have done?" The second part of the book is an anthology of responses that these people sent back to Weisenthal. It was extremely interesting to read such a diverse group of understandings of what forgiveness is and how it should and should not be utilized. Most of the responses raise the issue of not being able to grant forgiveness for crimes not committed against you. This is an idea that spoke loudly to me and as a result made me question the aims of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If you are faced with the heart-wrenching decision to grant or not to grant forgiveness to someone who committed an awful act directly against you, I would imagine the situation to be extremely difficult because in your heart the pain and destruction it caused will continue to impact your life in negative ways, some which you will never even be able to link back to the source. So how is forgiveness tenable? How is it possible to tell the person who caused so much horror that while they will always be held responsible for it, that they can now distance themselves from the guilt of acknowledging that he or she caused terrors that will never leave the victim? It seems to produce a permanent punishment for the victim but only a temporary one for the perpetrator…where is the justice in that? Where is the restored humanity for the victim when it is on their shoulders to offer that to the person who dehumanized them or others who suffered similar, terrifying conditions?

In reading so many wonderful accounts I came to two conclusions, one of which is borrowed. One of the responses discussed that the word forgiveness is used too loosely in this context. To completely forgive someone for torture, pain and the countless ripple effects of suffering is not feasible. There is no way that the author of "The Sunflower" could have ever been cleansed of the indelible effects of such horror. The title of the book comes from the author's experience of walking through a Nazi military cemetery and seeing that each officer's grave was adorned with a sunflower, a symbol of respect and honor, a symbol that his death was acknowledged and mourned. Weisenthal writes in anguish about the millions of murdered men, women and children whose bodies and minds were mutilated and murdered without concern or remorse and whose corpses were than carelessly piled atop each other to rot and be forgotten. These countless souls will never be acknowledged, they will never be individually mourned, and they will never have a sunflower rest atop their beaten, forgotten bodies. The psychological ramifications of such terrible circumstances are endless, thus forgiveness, absolution is not a legitimate option. Instead the response says that what the author could have offered to this officer was an understanding that he personally felt a great deal of regret and never wanted to be a killer but was forced to become one because of the corrupt, appalling system of which he was a part. I really appreciated this distinction because up until then it seemed as though their were only two options, to forgive the man which implies a sense of complete absolution, or walk away in silence without putting the dying officer’s mind at ease. But this alternative, acknowledging the negative ramifications that the officer’s actions had on himself suggests a middle ground of some sort, a balance of shared humanity and accepted responsibility. If this action had been taken, perhaps the author could have given the dying man hope that he could have been a better person if not for the circumstances.

The second conclusion that I came too (and this is a fusion of some ideas mentioned in some of the responses mixed with my own response) is that forgiveness gives too much power (and in my mind, not the good kind) to the forgiver. Did this officer think that by telling someone who was not even his victim but simply a person who shared the same hated identity as his victims that he could be absolved? Did he think that this one man could speak on behalf of each person persecuted, executed or dehumanized? The author does not fully know what the intent of the officer was in asking him for forgiveness, but it is clear that being granted such by a random Jew still in the midst of the horror to which he contributed would some how offer him a little comfort before he would meet his death. But I think that forgiveness is more an internal experience than it is an external one, it must take place within before it can take place in the outside world. If this officer was in such desperate need of absolution from a random Jewish man who he unintentionally and carelessly tormented for the rest of his life due to his continued doubts regarding his decision, to me it seemed clear that even if forgiveness had been granted, it would not have helped, for this dying officer did not forgive himself.

I have learned (I forget what the source of this is) that true repentance of a sin can only occur when a person finds him or herself in the exact same situation in which the sin took place and decides to not commit the same mistake. In Hebrew the root of the word for repentance means to return and to me it seems that this is the reason (I also think I learned that somewhere). This man was on his deathbed tormented by thoughts of what would meet him upon his exit from the material world. Would he have felt the same guilt and agony had he not been in that same situation, had he been well enough to continue his job as a member of the Nazi regime? This story points out what I see as a kept difference between the concept of forgiveness and the concept of repentance. Forgiveness is rather passive on the part of he or she who wishes to be forgiven while repentance is forgiveness in its most active form, especially when employing this interpretation of it. It seems that while absolution will never be an option because the crime can never be undone, self-improvement is quantifiable through actively not committing the same transgression twice. On the other side of all of this I think that the above-mentioned idea of understanding can than be active forgiveness on the part of the victim, for they are acknowledging the capacity for improvement that their perpetrator may possess. If you have any thoughts or responses to this topic I would love to hear them!

Wow, reading this post, you would not even know I was in South Africa. Well I promise I am still here, I guess its just that recently my adventures have been more mental than physical. But life here I assure you continues to challenge, amaze and inspire me.

South African Ulpan

Is it? – phrase – pronounced is it? – really?!!

Delilah asked Carlton “Are you a democrat or republican?” Carlton responded “ “republican” to which Delilah replied “is it? But you are a vegetarian.”

I hope my example sentence did not offend anyone...Cheers!