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Example Of Forgiveness Research Paper

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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 …show more content…

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

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