Excuse me
Everyone talks about forgiveness, no one really forgives. Everyone asks for forgiveness if you were hurt, and basically says, if you were hurt, it's your problem. Everyone is waiting to be asked for forgiveness, and until then they become entrenched in their anger, and even if forgiveness comes, it is not exactly as they wanted, not at a time when they hoped, too late, too little.
So if I hurt you this year, I'm not asking for forgiveness. Not that I meant to hurt, God forbid, but in this work, which I undertook, there is no choice but to hurt sometimes. Why? Because every reader comes to the act of reading with expectations. Everyone wishes that the words I write reflect exactly what they feel, that there is a sense of elation – oh, here there is someone who really talks me in the world. And sometimes you get disappointed, and suddenly you get slapped in the face by some opinion that doesn't match what they thought it should be. And there is harm.
Every week I get a few emails from readers telling me that I really let them down, hurt their feelings, how I could, and now they stop reading what I have to say. Eternally. Is. Bye. After two weeks, they write something again. Sometimes. And there are those that really disappear. And I ask myself: Could I have avoided this injury? Maybe it's better for me to meet all expectations, to find some AI-based text generator that knows at all times what the total expectations are from me and navigates my ranks through mines so that no one is ever hurt?
And I understand that with all the desire to be accepted by all hearts and to make all people happy, I am committed first and foremost to my truth, even if it hurts someone. It's better for me to have someone hurt than to hurt myself by not telling the truth.
It is better for me to be damaged in the eyes of someone than to lie in my soul in order to find grace. And I also know that in the public sphere today many people come to be hurt, their harm is prepared in advance, and they look after disappointments and insults so that they can hurt back, so that they will have legitimacy to use harsh words and do extreme acts that are acceptable today, such as removing a follower. For hurting those who come with the intention of being hurt, there is no need to ask for forgiveness, on the contrary, to be happy that I helped let off steam from the system.
Still, what will I ask forgiveness for, so that you won't be disappointed in me? For every opinion I didn't establish enough, for not researching it thoroughly before writing it, for every growl that came to me and I didn't process it before I blurted out on the newspaper paper. I will try harder next year. Good signature.
Self-forgiveness
Here comes Yom Kippur, forgiveness is spoken between one person and another, between one person and another, and there is no talk of forgiveness between one person and oneself. And I feel that I actually have some issues that I have to ask forgiveness from myself, because I have committed a crime against the person dear to me in the world, which is me.
First, I must ask forgiveness from my mind for the excessive amount of phone usage. The weekly report issued to me last night said that I use an average of four hours a day for a robber with the black screen. Whatever the justifications, it's too much, far too much. Because although I read quite a bit from the screen, between helpful reading and her friend, I browse to watch all sorts of web buzzes, ten-second videos that leave no impression on my soul, just finished and already forgotten, and I consume a lot of my waking time and attention resources on them. I apologize to myself for falling into this addiction, and for not doing enough to quit. I forgive myself for this and understand that it is a very powerful force to deal with, and promise myself to try harder.
I ask forgiveness from my body. I coach him every day, but I know it's not enough. Between workouts, I sit way too much, even though I know the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. I don't walk enough, I don't work enough in the garden, I don't run at all, and I prefer to use electricity on my bike rather than my legs. My body longs for movement, and I force it to rest that shortens its life.
Sorry, body. This year I will start adopting the micro-movement approach, which says that every half hour I have to do something physical. I'll put an alert on my phone. Uh... The phone, problem. I'll find a way to remember. Contact with a handkerchief.
I ask forgiveness from my nerves. I turn them on far too much, get angry at abusive drivers on the road, cut lines, overtake on the right, foam at blindfolded media people, ego-sick, tired, lose my composure in front of violent, bad, noisy people. I know I can say - it's not mine, it's theirs, it's none of my business, they're not bad, bad for them, and spare me the storm, and yet dragged, tempted to get angry even though I know it's hurting myself. Sorry, nerves, we will try to protect you more this year.
Before Yom Kippur, I forgive myself for all my inaccuracies toward myself. When I forgive myself, I forgive all creatures, I make peace on my high. Excuse me, this part is over.
Polarization
My jaw dropped when I read the data from a survey conducted by the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization that examined the attitudes of the tribes of the Jewish people towards each other. The public to which I "belong," the secular, shows a sharp increase in hostility towards the ultra-Orthodox, a distancing from all elements of tradition, an alienation from everything that smells of Judaism. It hurts a lot. Not only because I like peace and mutual acceptance more than rejection and quarrel, but because I know that the first casualties are the secular themselves, who cut off their roots with their own hands and think that this is how they will bloom.
Let's be honest: The ultra-Orthodox, especially the Ashkenazim, have rightly earned the hostility towards them this year. Political ultra-orthodoxy has become brazen and brazen. The demand to deepen separatism, on the one hand, and on the other hand to finance this separatism with public funds from which one wishes to differentiate, is not only immoral, but also extremely disgusting to the public, whose representatives are on the deep-pocketed side.
The blatant Eichlerism not only distanced the secular and part of the national-religious public from the ultra-Orthodox, but also severely damaged the connection between secular Jews and the Torah of Israel, Jewish tradition, and the wisdom of the ages. Quite a few secular people think - if this is what Judaism looks like at its best, what about me and that? I don't want a share and I don't get a share. And it will boomerang back to the society that sends arrogant, crooked and exploitative extremist public emissaries like Goldknopf and his cronies to the Knesset. As soon as there is an opportunity to strike back, the harm will be bitter and painful, and those who will pay the price will be the poor, the children, the needy in ultra-Orthodox society. Wait and see.
And all this is happening when the ultra-Orthodox themselves, separated from their representatives, are actually approaching Israeliness, and perhaps this is the backlash of the rabbis, who see and fear cracks in the separation wall and deliberately radicalize and mistreat. At this point, it should be noted favorably the Rebbe of Baalza, who also introduces core studies into his institutions and has established a system for teaching sexual abuse in his yeshivas and studios, and unlike another Rebbe, who drugs victims of sexual assault in his community with psychiatric drugs so as not to complain, the Baalzar looks reality in the eye and does not blink. Respect.
We should also say a good word to Minister Moshe Arbel, who shows in his mission as Minister of Health and Interior how an ultra-Orthodox politician should behave and act. And very warm words to Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb, who appears on My Morning Show and stars on TikTok, which shows how ultra-Orthodox women and love of Israel live together in mutual respect and giving from the heart. What he is doing, in my view, is tantamount to all the injustices of the MKs waving a Torah flag.
I wish that in next year's survey we will be able to close the gaps and evaporate hostility, and reconnect to the pure groundwater of the Torah that we can all drink from, each as usual. Good signature finish.
avrigilad@gmail.com
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