A Response to Yotam Benziman’s “Forgiveness and Remembrance of Things Past,” Azure 35 (Winter 2009)
Yotam Benziman’s essay “Forgiveness and Remembrance of Things Past” is a thought-provoking and, at times, brilliant piece. I have been studying the topic of forgiveness for almost a quarter century, so Benziman and I have a common bond: that of wrestling with the meaning of forgiveness. Before I begin, however, I must confess that when it comes to understanding forgiveness, to borrow a line from Socrates, I am ignorant. I simply do not fully understand this mysterious and often elusive concept. Indeed, each time I think I have finally mastered it, it seems to recede farther away from me. And so I struggle on. It is in this spirit that I approach Benziman’s very important essay—important precisely because it motivates us all to try and comprehend the enigma that is forgiveness in our lives.
Yet for me, by far the greatest challenge raised by Benziman’s essay was its assessment of the nature of man. He asks, who are we? Who are we to each other? Who should we be to each other, and why? In fact, attempting to answer all of these questions is a prerequisite to the asking of the central question of the piece, namely, what is the essence of forgiveness itself? It is only fitting, then, that I, too, begin with the conundrum of the nature of man, only afterward delving into our chosen topic, forgiveness.
What is the nature of man? Jewish tradition provides an explicit answer in its story of man’s creation: In the first chapter of Genesis, we are told that man is created in the image of God. This response is repeated for emphasis: We, man and woman alike, are made in God’s likeness. Because this claim is so important, it is repeated twice more in the next verse.1 Where else in Hebrew Scripture is there such a rapid repetition of claims? The ancient Hebrew understanding of the nature of man, then, is that beginning with the first human beings, we have all been made in the image and likeness of God. This naturally raises the question: Who, then, is God? Genesis once again provides an answer: God, we are told, has attributes that include, among others, generosity, love and caring, creativity, and a deep concern for us as human beings. We can see, then, why we are enjoined in Leviticus to love our neighbor—to do so is to mirror the act of love God shows to all mankind.2 And who is our neighbor? The original Hebrew uses the word re’a, whichis not confined to blood relatives, or even to those living in close proximity; instead, it connotes associates, such as companions and others who share some part in our lives. In other words, it is a term that is open to some interpretation—and tellingly, it is interpretation of the inclusive rather than exclusive kind.
I believe that the Hebrew tradition gives us the most solid basis for understanding mankind that I have ever encountered. Consider, for comparison’s sake, the preeminent Western philosopher Emmanuel Kant’s views on the subject: People, he once famously stated, are ends in and of themselves and should be treated as such. Yet he did not—because his secular philosophy could not—tell us why this is so. Indeed, when it takes its collective eye off the Hebrew tradition, modern science quickly becomes entangled in moral chaos. After all, if we are nothing more than evolved animals, morals have no meaning in an objective or metaphysical sense. They simply become subjective judgments that lack definitive purpose, since it is presumed that, as human beings evolve, our sense of right and wrong evolves as well. Taken to its logical conclusion, this perspective leads us to believe that we are striving after wind if we attempt to understand what the term “forgiveness” means beyond the here and now, since its meaning is changing even as you read this. The ancient Hebrew tradition, by contrast, grounds our understanding of morals. Kant himself seems to have conceded as much when he reasoned that, even if God does not exist, we should nonetheless act as if he does. Otherwise, he acknowledged, we have little basis for knowing how to interact with one another.