What is forgiveness? What is the purpose of forgiving? What is required to do so?
Forgiveness has proven itself to be more significant than just verbal affirmation. It is something that mends social and emotional breaks between two groups or individual, and allows both parties to move past the situation; continuing with their lives. In Forgiveness, A Sampling of Research Results from the genocide techset, “Forgiveness is a process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender. Most scholars view this an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive . This process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite their
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Simon does not have the power to forgive Karl on behalf of all of the Jewish people. Nobody has the ability to forgive on behalf of the Jewish people. As Simon Weisenthal says himself, “forgiveness is an act of volition, and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision.” (97-98)There are over 11 million people who have died and suffered tremendously during the heinous genocide. Karl is one person, not 11 million. He can heal his own wounds through forgiveness, but he cannot heal the wounds of 11 million Jewish people. Each sufferer has their own definition of forgiveness, justice, and healing from their trials and tribulations. I do not believe 1 person can speak for 11 million lost souls. In a similar fashion, 1 SS soldier can only apologize for his own crimes. He cannot apologize, repent, and change for the millions of SS soldiers who carried out these inhuman actions towards the Jewish. In all, it’s unjust and unfair to say that Simon could forgive the SS soldier on behalf of those people. Some of the Jewish people didn’t feel justice and weren’t ready to forgive. Even if they were Simon’s constituents, it’s impossible for him to speak for all of …show more content…
Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of volition, and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision.” (97-98) As simon says, forgetting takes no additional output from their survivors, time alone takes care of it. But forgiving is a decision; a choice that a victim of a crime has to make on his or her own. In my personal opinion, it is possible to forgive and not forget. Forgiving is a way of allowing the sufferer to move past a painful experience during their life. With the holocaust and all genocides alike, it's important not to forget, and to bring awareness and attention to the atrocities that happened as a precautionary method to assure that they do not happen again. In addition, the holocaust survivors can make the decision themselves to forgive, but they will never fully forget an atrocity of that size and impact. In the back portion of the book (P 129), the Dalai Lama says “I believe one should forgive the person or persons who have committed atrocities against oneself or mankind. But this does not necessarily mean that one should forget about the atrocities committed. In fact, one should be aware and remember these experiences so that efforts can be made to check the recurrence of such atrocities in the future.” The Dalai Lama continues his passage talking about how the
Before the question of forgiveness can be answered something to consider is what does it mean to forgive. The act of forgiveness can be seen as many things, for example it can be seen as the pardoning of an action done by one person by another. It can also be seen as the letting go of feelings of resentment and vengeance against another person. According to Hans Habe in The Sunflower, “Forgiveness is the imitation of God” (163). This
Forgiveness is the act of forgiving someone or something. What this means is that forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. A quote from Luminita D. Savic “People should forgive because forgiveness is an act of strength. You don’t forgive because you are weak, but because you are strong enough to realize that only by letting go of resentments you will be happy and at peace. Also forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, to be at peace, to be happy and to be able to sleep at night.
Forgiveness is not just practiced by saints and not only benefits its recipients but have strong connection with person’s physical, mental and spiritual health. It plays a great role in the health of families, communities and nations. Forgiveness provides common ground for love, acceptance, harmony and true happiness Most spiritual and religious leaders of the world will agree that forgiveness of oneself and others is one way to clear the mind, heart and soul and may result in a feeling of increased peace and happiness.
Life has ups and downs, it may stab you in the back, but it’s a choice to forgive and forget about it. Forgiveness is something that helps people move on. For every person, the word forgiveness has a different meaning, for me it means leaving behind actions from my past. Personally, I like to think that forgiveness is a way to start over whether in a friendship or in life. If the opportunity presented itself to me to explain the word, forgiveness, to someone I would simply reply that it is the idea of setting yourself free from all the hate one has been holding.
The dance of forgiveness is six steps to be transformed from being a selfish self-absorbed human being. To being a person full of grace and accepting of everyone. The first step is truth telling. This helps build trust between people groups and starts on the path to a relationship. The second step is acknowledging anger. A person should not try to hide their emotions even if it may be an emotion of anger. To get rid of it is by bringing it out in the light and praying for God to help you with the anger. The third step is having concern for others. One of the ways of understanding someone else is to think how life would be in their shoes. Having a genuine concern for someone besides yourself can change a person’s, heart. The fourth step is recognizing, remembering, and repenting. As humans, we need to recognize what we have done wrong and not pass off blame to others and repent for what we have done. The fifth step is
The motivation and tendency of people to forgive others remains an important topic of discussion. In today’s society most people at some period have experienced feeling of un forgiveness towards friend, or relatives. “Forgiveness was defined as the ability to relinquish of resentment towards others” (Baskin & Enright, 2004, p. 80).
Alan L. Berger, a Professor of the Holocaust and Religion, expresses in The Sunflower that Simon even though being an imprisoned jew could not take the apology on the behalf others. He refers to Judaism that there are two types of sins; one against god and one against another human. Berger states about forgiveness that ‘I may forgive one who has sinned against me. I may
Some say that because he has suffered so much, from the pain of both his injury and his guilt, and shows how he is repentful for his actions, Karl deserves forgiveness, but that is not so, for Simon is in no place to give it. Simon is neither a priest, nor a representative of the Jewish people, and he cannot forgive him for his crimes against an entire group. According to Alan L. Berger, the Director of Jewish Studies and teacher in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University, Judaism teaches that, “[He] may not forgive one who has taken the life of another” (qtd. in Wiesenthal 119). Wiesenthal was not personally affected by Karl. Knowing that how could Wiesenthal rightfully forgive this man, when even his faith gives does not allow him to. Though he does deserve sympathy, simply being remorseful does not necessarily make him deserving of forgiveness. While it holds merit that Karl is truly repentful, Wiesenthal is just in no place to forgive him.
First off, Karl should not be forgiven because Wiesenthal had no right to forgive him. Wiesenthal wasn’t affected by the crimes Karl committed, “ then another truck came full of more Jews and they too were crammed into the house with the others”. (Wiesenthal,41). Wiesenthal was not one of these Jews that was thrown into the house to burn. Therefor, he has no right to forgive Karl because he didn’t feel the pain the Jews did. Also, Wiesenthal isn't in position to forgive Karl because he has not “suffered nothing because of him, and it follows that what he has done to other people you are in no position to forgive”.(Wiesenthal,65). Wiesenthal has no right to forgive Karl because he wasn't the one that was affected by his actions. He has no rights
Simon Wiesenthal could have not forgiven for the six million that died. Karl could have never “put a Jewish survivor in the impossible moral position of offering forgiveness implicitly in the name of the 6 million” (Fisher,132). Karl (the dying nazi) couldn't have asked Simon for forgiveness because he's only one out of the 6 million that died. That’s like Donald Trump asking 1 Mexican for forgiveness for all the Mexicans. Also “placing a jew in this position further victimizes him or her” (Fisher). Putting a Jew in this position makes them weaker than what they already are. Karl asked Simon for forgiveness but “only the victims were in position to forgive; and they are put to death” (Fleischner 140). Karl shouldn’t have asked Simon for forgiveness because he didn’t do anything wrong. Karl should have asked the people that he had murdered but it was too late.
As one grows from infant to adult an even elderly age, we experience many events in life. One only grows from mistakes that are inevitable to happen. Like the Yin Yang theory, for instance, shadow cannot exist without light. Therefor forgiveness comes into play, it is defined as the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven. In The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. It discusses the moral ethics of the matter of forgiveness. Questions are asked by Wiesenthal, what would you do? If a dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness? Forgiveness can often be influenced by religious belief, psychological, and political point of view, one is always capable of asking for forgiveness or granting forgiveness to another, granted or not, one makes a choice and lives with that decision.
Eleven million people died in the Holocaust, of that number six million were Jews. Those that did not perish had a significant number of heinous war crimes committed against them. In the aftermath many ask: should one forgive these inhumane monstrous actions, if confessed to? The Sunflower examines the difficult topic of forgiveness amongst genocide in Simon Wiesenthal’s direct experience and through various other individual responses to the same scenario; these various responses illustrate the major arguments in favor of forgiveness and against forgiveness. It was through these examinations that I was able to conclude how I might have acted if I had been in a similar position to Wiesenthal.
Forgiveness is letting go; whether it be letting go of small things or big things, it helps people move on. Each person has their own definition of what forgiveness truly means. Its logical for people to be forgiven because no matter what they do, they're human; humans make mistakes. It can be hard not to forgive, but it's also necessary to put away your differences and reunite with former enemies. It makes sense to ask for forgiveness.
interventions that are being utilized are effective when it comes to forgiveness. In the early case
The article "Self-forgiveness: The forgotten stepchild of forgiveness research" is a qualitative rather than a quantitative study of the phenomenon of self-forgiveness. The authors distinguish self-forgiveness versus forgiveness of an 'other' in an outwardly-directed fashion. They state that self-forgiveness has been under-studied in the existing literature. The beginning of the article is devoted to a literature review of existing writings upon the subject, with using a working definition of self forgiveness "as a set of motivational changes whereby one becomes decreasingly motivated to avoid stimuli associated with the offense, decreasingly motivated to retaliate against the self 地nd increasingly motivated to act benevolently toward the self" (Hall & Fincham 2005: 622).