What do you do on the Day of Atonement when you can't forgive?

I always tell people that I've never been less religious in my life since living in Israel. My religious friends cringe when they hear that statement, but it is absolutely true. There are many reasons and excused for this lack of religiosity, and to be honest, none of them are adequate. If Judaism was our priority, we would be attending synagogue, even if the synagogue that we find appealing is not close to our home. We do light candles on shabbat, say kiddush (holy wine), and eat challah bread. However, besides having a mezuzah on our door, lighting Chanukah candles and building a sukkah (here a Sukkah is common as Christmas trees in the states), Judaism does not permeate our lives as it did in Chicago.

However, my dear friend and Rabbi extraordinairre, Elliot Cosgrove shared a post on Facebook that motivated me to take a step back and reflect. See, the month before the Jewish high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you are supposed to prepare your soul for the work that needs to be done during the Days of Awe culminating in Yom Kippur (which my daughter and secular Israeli kids call bicycle day because there are no cars on the streets and you can ride your bicycle everywhere). Here's part of what he wrote on the Park Avenue Synagogue Facebook page:

Perhaps the power and promise of this month of Elul and the coming High Holy Days is not so much in seeking awe-inducing revolutions but in identifying the small yet significant course corrections needed in our lives: making the phone calls we should be making more often, resuming the good habits that we have let lapse, restoring the relationships that have atrophied. We all have a “best self” who has become unfamiliar to us in the year gone by. These holy days call on us to identify that person whom we seek to be but are not, and then close the gap. And we don’t have to wait for the year ahead to begin. The month of Elul offers us the chance to get a head start.

So, I've taken this wisdom to heart, and have identified some small areas in my life in which I can improve. However, one can't think of the High Holidays and not consider from whom, besides The Inscriber, you must ask for forgiveness. I am pretty good at that part, but the part of the holiday that I really, really struggle with is forgiving others as instructed by this prayer:



I have had some really terrible thoughts about people who have wronged me. I have that at least the popular notion of "Karma is a bitch" was real. Even my husband, who is pretty relaxed about interpersonal issues said about an unscrupulous person, "One day that person will get theirs." But it's pretty clear that the Rabbis wanted us to drop it, or as Rabbi Elsa said, "Let it go."

Non-religious writings, specifically in psychology, spout the benefits of forgiveness. There are 2759 quotes on Goodreads about forgiveness. So, this is very much a secular value as well.

Then or so why is it so hard?

For the few people who have wronged me, there is a subset of them with whom I just am angry at the action, not the person. Those people are easier to forgive (but not forget). However, there are a few people who I cannot (yet?) forgive.

Nelson Mandela, may he rest in peace, would advise me otherwise, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

And of course, he had exponentially and infinitely more reason to resent those who wronged him than I do, yet still it's advice that's unheeded. So, what I've decided this year is to change course. Instead of feeling like a failure for being unable to forgive those few people on my list, I've decided to forgive myself for being unable (right now) to do so. It's not like these grudges affect me on a daily basis. It's not hindering my professional or personal success. Sure, would I prefer to be forgiving? Of course. Do I recognize that the anger must serve a purpose of some sort? Yes. But I can't forgive these few people, and I'm more consumed with self-loathing for not being able to "let it go" than the grudge against the people who have wronged me. I can understand why this might seem narcissistic, but this admission, this confession, will help me work on what is possible for me at this point in my life, and perhaps next year I can do better.