Forgiveness Is the Best Medicine
On January 27, 1995, Eva Kor returned to Auschwitz to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the camp’s liberation. At that camp Kor and her twin sister were subjected to human experimentation. Her parents and two older sisters were murdered. Fifty years later she returned there with her children by her side and read a document of forgiveness and then signed it. She writes,
As I did that, I felt a burden of pain was lifted from me. I was no longer in the grip of hate; I was finally free. The day I forgave the Nazis, privately I forgave my parents whom I hated all my life for not having saved me from Auschwitz. Children expect their parents to protect them; mine couldn’t. And then I forgave myself for hating my parents. Forgiveness is really nothing more than an act of self-healing and self-empowerment. I call it a miracle medicine. It is free, it works and has no side effects.
Her act is unbelievable. It is unimaginable.
The Torah also offers a story of forgiveness.
Joseph is now vizier of Egypt. Because of his talent and abilities, he has secured enough food to get Egypt through seven years of famine. In the second year, his brothers travel to Egypt to procure food for their starving families. Joseph remembers how they sold him into slavery and so tests them by framing their younger brother Benjamin. This time, Judah steps up to protect his younger brother.
Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. They are in shock. They are unable to speak. Joseph states, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me here; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.” (Genesis 45) And with that act the brothers who were once enemies are transformed into a whole family.
Forgiveness demands courage. It contradicts our Jewish sense of justice. It demands a certain amount of forgetfulness, and this too is contrary to the Jewish ethos. We fight it because it reminds us of our pain. We must confront the person who wronged us. We must come near the place that tortured us. Joseph decided that family is more important than right and wrong. Forgiveness powers relationships. They cannot exist without forgiveness. Relationships cannot be sustained without repair.
I struggle to understand how Eva Kor could forgive what was done to her and what was taken from her. How can one forgive murder? And yet her powerful example reminds us that forgiveness is also about self-care. Holding on to anger corrodes the soul. Although Kor’s example appears out of reach, her advice is well founded. Forgiveness is an act of self-healing.
Perhaps Joseph is motivated not by making his family whole. Instead, his efforts are about healing his own soul. He no longer wants to bear a grudge against his brothers. He no longer wishes to be angry at his father.
Indeed, forgiveness is the best medicine we can take.