An incredibly rare scene took place in a Texas courtroom on Wednesday. The brother of a young man killed by a former Dallas police officer after she mistakenly entered his apartment and shot him, not only forgave the woman who killed his brother, but physically embraced her. Video of the tear-jerking scene went viral almost immediately, as millions of people were shocked at how a man in such grief could forgive his brother’s killer.
My immediate reaction was to note how seemingly apropos it was for this scene to play out during the aseres yemei teshuva. If ever there was a story to learn a lesson from, this is it. Here we have a man facing the woman who shot and killed his brother. The natural inclination would be to yell at her, if not worse. Instead, showing incredible poise, the man made a decision – he would forgive this woman for what she did. He decided to be a great man and allow himself to move on from the tragedy, to let go of the pain.
This reminds me of a beautiful way someone once described forgiveness. Forgiving someone is not about the other person; it is about you recognizing that it couldn’t have been any other way. The other person is only a messenger. What happened that upset you would have happened regardless of the person who did it.
This is a message we should all take to heart as Yom Kippur approaches. It isn’t always easy to forgive the people around us. There are times when people do some truly awful and unfair things to us. There are instances where the hurt of someone else’s actions could last for years. How are we to ever grant that person mechila?
The answer is that your mindset is not contingent on the other person. Yes, what happened may have been horrible, it may have been unfair, it may have hurt you to your core. But it isn’t about the person who did it. What happened was supposed to happen just the way it did. And as soon as you realize that forgiveness is about accepting that the past could not have happened any differently than it did, you are well on your way to granting mechila to those who did wrong by you.
It’s a difficult lesson to learn, and it takes much practice to truly make it a part of one’s being and thought process, but when mastered, the skill of letting go of the past provides more emotional respite than letting out your anger ever could.
With Yom Kippur fast approaching, we should all strive to let go of the past, to accept what was, and to forgive with full hearts, recognizing that everything is the way it’s supposed to be.