Basya Tsybukmakher
Why is it so hard for us to accept an apology? Besides the fact that this has been part of our nature since we were created, there are other reasons.
First and foremost, it is a lack of faith. Anyone who cannot come to terms with circumstances has this shortcoming. If we believe that everything that happens to us is under the Almighty's personal supervision, our understanding of what is happening changes completely. Yes, we are hurt by what our husband did. But in reality, he is not the one hurting us. He is simply a messenger, like any of the people around us.
It is easier to forgive those around us when we understand that they have merely delivered a message from the Almighty.
Of course, the messenger must also repent for what he has done, because he was not chosen to deliver a bad message for no reason. He could have chosen a different course of action (and someone else would have delivered what was allotted to us). But regardless of the intermediary—if not our husband, then someone else—the message would have reached us, and the fact that this was allotted to us by the Almighty makes it easier to forgive the person who brought the message. We must remember this in a time of trial.
If a person feels deeply hurt by an offense, they should say aloud: "I know that this pain and oppression have been given to me by the L-rd because of my transgressions. And You, Almighty, are just in everything that happens to me. May it be Your will that this suffering atone for my sins."
Once, a man came to our teacher, Rabbi E. M. M. Shach, complaining that people were writing slanderous pamphlets against him, reviling and humiliating him in every possible way—he could no longer go on like this.
Rabbi Shach took him into the next room, opened one of the desk drawers, and pointed to stacks of slanderous pamphlets written against him personally. The sheets were neatly stacked and organized. Terrible things were written there, beyond description—at that time, Rabbi Shach was under attack, if anyone remembers. He kept them as though they were cherished photographs. The man who had come to complain about his fate asked, "But why does the rabbi keep all this? Why not tear it up and throw it away?!"
Rabbi Shach replied that he wanted these sheets to be his witnesses in the World to Come, and that all the humiliation and suffering they had caused him should serve as atonement for his sins. In that merit, with G-d's help, he would be able to enter Gan Eden. He gave the visitor the same advice: "Do you hear how they insult and humiliate you? Do nothing; do not respond. If you respond, the fire will only burn more fiercely. Remain silent. Keep these humiliations as companions for the World to Come. This suffering will atone for you. A time will come when you will say 'Thank you' to each of these slanderous pamphlets."
The advice to judge our husbands' actions favorably also helps us deal with hurt feelings.
This principle applies to anyone, and all the more so within our own home. If I judge every action of my husband's from the perspective of "He wants to harm me again, to hurt me; it is all directed against me," then I certainly will not be able to restrain myself; it is a one-way ticket. But most likely, my husband simply did not fully think through what might happen—he was in too much of a hurry and could not imagine that it might upset me at all (it would not have upset him). This principle helps us stop taking every action of our husband's personally and let go of the idea that he deliberately hurt us, because that interpretation traps us in a cycle of bad relations.
As a rule, we excuse ourselves and know how to find an explanation for any misdeed, but our husband—well, he is an angel; he has no right to make a mistake.
In his book series "Umatok HaOr," in the section "Avoteinu Sipru Lanu," Rabbi Shlomo Levenstein cites a parable in the name of the Ben Ish Chai. A king sentenced a thief to death. The thief replied, "I fully accept the king's sentence. But I have a secret skill known to no one but me. If I am executed, this knowledge will die with me. So I want to teach it to the king, so that the secret will not be lost to the world." The king asked, "What is this skill?" "I know how to plant a seed in the ground so that, within half an hour, a fruit tree laden with fruit will grow!" The king was astonished and decided to put the thief to the test. The thief was given an apple, from which he extracted the seeds, water, and several ingredients he had listed. He stirred these ingredients into the water and placed the seeds in it.
After a while, the thief said, "That is it; the seeds are ready to plant. Give me some soil, and in half an hour we will be gathering the harvest. But for this to happen, the person planting the seeds must have hands entirely free of even the slightest theft of any kind. If that person has stolen even once, the miraculous preparation will not work; the tree will not grow. I cannot plant them, because I have been stealing all my life.
Let us find someone with clean hands among the king's noble courtiers!
Mr. Prime Minister! Please!" But the prime minister replied, "I am not suitable. In my youth, when my father sent me shopping, I would say that things had cost much more than their actual price and keep the difference for myself. Although I was young, I am afraid I would still ruin the experiment." Then the thief turned to the chief treasurer: "Please plant the seed in the ground!" But the chief treasurer replied, stumbling over his words, "I have been appointed to oversee the royal treasury; all the kingdom's accounts pass through my hands. I cannot guarantee that I have not made a mistake in some calculation, which would mean that I had stolen, even if by mistake." Then the thief turned to the king himself: "Your Majesty, please plant the tree!" The king replied in a subdued voice, "I have remembered that, when I was still a boy, I noticed an expensive string of pearls belonging to my father. I liked it so much that I could not resist taking it, so my hands will not do either. Find someone else."
Then the thief fell prostrate before the king and said, "My lord the king! Your prime minister admitted that he stole from his own father, your treasurer confessed that his hands are not clean, and even you yourself found a dishonorable act in your past. Why, then, do you sentence me to death for stealing out of my extreme poverty?! After all, I only wanted to eat my fill." The king felt ashamed and released the thief.
The Ben Ish Chai concludes the parable by urging anyone who is angry with another person to look first at themselves.
After all, if we think about it, each of us is guilty of something before the Almighty. This will help us assess the actions of those around us soberly and avoid judging them too harshly. "I was little," "I did not know," "I was tired, hungry." We will find plenty of excuses for ourselves. But we must also look for excuses for those close to us.
To be continued
Prepared by Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya