I have a question is justice different from revenge? And how?

Also on the third stage of forgiveness as it relates to a rapist...there is not a relationship that I would want to return to or mend however perhaps that "relationship" would only be in say a concept, you know that you are safe to be yourself... or that you are free in your abililty to have relationships. Be it not with him or her but with another of what he or her misrepresented.

Catroot, I'd throw that first question into a whole other post. That one question will lead to a post as long as this one....

But I agree with your third stage of forgiveness... could never be the same if you knew your abuser/rapist...

Again there is a difference .... forgiveness between people in a relationship

And forgiveness in some other type of area

I agree: " The sinner has to ask to be forgiven, to be graced with that beautiful, beautiful meeting of understanding in the minds. This is how I believe it is with God. Ask for forgiveness, and you shall have eternal love, because it is genuine. Going about your business and dealing with earthly consequences thinking you will be forgiven my God is a serious, mortal error. "

Somehow I wonder if the offender or sinner truely repented and is forgiven by God...I sorta feel that somehow God would let me know! I guess I just believe in sprituality that way.

I can be a very forgiving person...if fact I was completly ready right after is but he was no where to be found (in terms of seeking) it was actually shocking to me.

I don't know enough about the Sinead incident on SNL ... although I figure it has something to do with the church and the Celtic people. I am learning some stuff that we all ways have to deal with regarding religion. For Instance I watched a show recently about how the church murdered and tortured all these Templar Knights because they were worshiping Mary right along with Jesus. They made a beautiful pillar called the apprentice piller in one of their cathedrals; said the inspiration came from God...it's a pillar with vines twisting around. Of course the master killed the apprentice for carving it without him. Pissed and jealous. I guess it's something I sometimes grapple with in terms of having grown up catholic and wonder about my pagan roots! ??? Some times I wish I were more settled in my religiousness infused with spirituality.

So maybe it has a part of misunderstandings on both her part and others. Not sure

Sinead ripped up a picture of the Holy Father on live television, singing an acapella version of Bob Marleys song "war". She threw in the words child abuse instead of the word war and decided that ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul II was the best way to demonstrate how pissed off she was. Not so sure this is a misunderstanding.

The Jewish view? Here's the problem. There isn't one. Or at least there isn't only one. Judaism isn't really a religion of beliefs. It is a religion of question and debate. Take the Talmud, one of the core source books of Judaism. No where does it specify a creed. It is a long series of stories, sayings, hypothetical and not-to-hyptothetical cases and life situations, and often contradictory debates about what they mean and how to resolve them. The truth isn't in the final answer because there often isn't one. Rather it is in the wisdom that comes from trying to make sense of a whole mess of competing views.

So if I were teaching about forgiveness at my synogogue I would probably follow the example of the Talmud and start with a series of questions just like I posed in my first post on this thread. Then for answers from my tradition, I would present various source texts from the Bible, the Talmud, and various thinkers from the middle ages on up to the latest books. The more contradictory those sources the better. The bulk of the class would be spent debating whether the various sources actually disagreed or whether they were referring to different contexts and cases.

As for the Rebbe. His voice is just one among many. What exactly he means by no anger would depend a lot on the context.

Judaism certainly doesn't endorse ignoring injustice in any form. One key principle is that "one shall not put a stumbling block before the blind". This is considered a grave sin. Abuse is considered equivalent to this. Far from being forgiven, the abuser is placed under a ban.

Another key issue that plays into Jewish thinking of forgiveness and when it is merited is intention. In most cases ones obligation towards others, including forgiveness, depends on why the wrong was committed. A key distinction is made between intentional freely chosen acts and bad behavior due to illness, immaturity, negligence or happenstance.

An example of the various ways Judaism handles the problem of abusive parents can be seen here: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Parents_and_Children/Childrens_Responsibilities_to_Parents/Honoring_an_Abusive_Parent.shtml

I'm sorry I can't give you a more solid answer.

What are they banned from, Beth?

Also a few thoughts about the Christian view from a textual point of view:

I took a brief look at the Greek. My Greek is _very_ rusty and it never was all that good to begin with, but one thing that stood out is that the verse in Matthew that you refer to (Matthew 6:14-15 for anyone who is interested) uses the word "paraptomata" (faults) rather than the word that Paul uses for sin (hamartia = miss the mark). I have a hunch this is probably significant.

Biblical Hebrew has at least 4 different words for sin: chet, averah, pesha, and avon. Chet literally means an arrow that misses its mark and figuratively refers to any human action that falls short of the ideal. Paul's hamartia also means an arrow that misses its mark so it is most likely a translation of Chet from the Greek, although to be sure you'd probably have to check the Septuagint â the Greek translation of the Hebrew bible.

Pesha, averah, and avon describe sin in the context of motivation: pesha is an intentional sin chosen out of a fundamental disregard for God, humanity, and life. Avon is a sin that arises out of human short-comings and immaturity â the kind of thing we do as we're trying to change but before we actually get to the point of having actually changed. Averah includes just about any sort of sin done out of ignorance, accident, negligence, or immaturity.

My best guess is that paraptomata is referring to forgiving either averah or avon, NOT to pesha. That kind of makes sense. We're all growing human beings. We make mistakes on the way to becoming whole even when we're trying our best. What Jesus might be saying in Matthew 6:14-15 is that we can't really expect God to have mercy on our growing selves when we won't give a break to our fellow travellers on the road to repentence. Abuse as you understand it (an intentional choice) would be pesha, so Jesus isn't at all suggesting that we look the other way and forgive abuse.

You could probably figure out which word most closely corresponds to paraptomata by looking up how it is used in the Septuagint.

http://www.notbored.org/sinead.html

To add to this I find it interesting that when she performed Bob Marley's War she changes to words about racial prejudice to child abuse. But yes I just watched the SNL show and that was extremely juvenial.

Yet when she performs this version in front of everyone booing. I don't know but the outfit she's wearing reminds me Temp Agencies!!!! LOL UGH how lost I got after graduating after going to a placement agency this guy getting so excited and telling me how he had this most fantastic job for me and it was such a good fit and then I found myself sitting at this solitary desk inside a dark lobby facing four elevator doors and answering the phones for an insurance company! UUGGH temp agencies! He could have just said this job sucks I hope one day you find something better suited for your personalilty but here it will pay some bills! LOL (I dont' hate all temp agencies I actually found a wonderful environment for me though one of them once.) OH I did invent voice mail for corporations in my head as I tried to figure out how to totally elimate the postion I found myself In! Laughing again!

What are they banned from? From the community, i.e. excommunication.

"one shall not put a stumbling block before the blind".

That explains how it is when I always go from they can't know what they are doing to... THEY know or knew what they are doing! Then it makes me angry and mad and then...What

So how come we have it BACKWARDS!

In fact they are given more credence oh you know it's he said she said situation we'll leave it alone. Which leaves the victim out in the cold.

Anyway we don't have enough community anymore for anyone to be banned from because of sin. Do we?

Some of you are way too deep in your thinking about this...

I like the idea of levels of forgiveness but I would describe them differently. I see a difference between forgiving someone and restoring them to full relationship. There is no way I'd ever want to hang out with my rapists, even if I could. I don't think forgiving my son's sexual abuser means I should ever give him free access to my hypothetical grandchildren. Forgiving someone does not make them worthy of our trust.

My therapist has said that he sometimes wishes my brother had pulled the trigger when he had the older rapist at gunpoint. Rationally and morally he disagrees with revenge killings; he even thinks that it is wrong for him to wish such a thing. But his outrage at what my rapists did, not just to me but to other women, cries out for justice and vengeance.

I used to feel the same way, not that long ago. Many times my rapists were the imagined target for kicks, punches, large wooden sticks, swords, arrows, bullets, etc. I do believe in hell, and I'm ashamed to say that I took pleasure in the thought that my older rapist surely must be roasting in eternal torment.

I'm not sure what changed that. We haven't really talked about forgiveness much in therapy, and never in connection with my rapists. If anything, since I'm realizing and admitting how awful the rape was, and how I am still scarred by it in every way but physically, I should be more angry at them. And I have been angry, almost frighteningly so.

But recently I found myself, through no effort of my own, free of the desire for vengeance. What they did was horrible beyond words and almost destroyed me. But I have survived. I have experienced love and joy and the births of the cutest babies in the world. They didn't steal everything from me. And it dawned on me that I would never ever want to be them. To me, that would be a sort of hell in itself. I surprised myself by praying, "God, please have mercy on Lou's soul." That was surprising on a number of levels, especially since my faith tradition does not include praying for the dead.

But, to me, that's forgiveness. I've tried to will myself to forgive them before, but it never worked. This time it happened without me noticing until it was a done deal. And it feels good...surprisingly freeing.

Getting rid of the hate, anger, and frustrated desire for revenge hasn't made the memories of my rape any less painful. It's just made me feel somewhat cleaner and lighter inside...and part of me is more free than I've been in 28 years.

Just wanted to clarify that I'm not being critical of the deep thinking...it's just that my puny brain doesn't work well at that level!

At the same time, I should add that I'm still struggling with forgiveness for my son's abuser, even though he has asked for it. In this case, I am waiting for a genuine repentance that is obviously not there. And, quite frankly, I don't think I'm capable of forgiving him without a lot of help from God.