Forgiving and Being Forgiven Affects a Person’s
Entire Health: The Lord required us to
forgive because He forgives us. "Asaph . . . a religious doctor . . .
believed that since many diseases came as punishments for sins, a patient
could be cured only by praying hard, asking forgiveness and giving charity,
because God was the true healer, only God could give doctors the power to
use properly all the medicine they had learnt. He also taught that forbidden
food was a cause of disease, while kosher food prevented it." (Encyclopedia
Judaica Jr.)
Mistaken Idea – "If One Truly Repents and
Truly Forgives, He Will Forget." The
scriptures indicate that the Lord is the one who will forget our mistakes.
Apparently we need to have memory, because it is from our memory of good and
bad that we learn. As we remember our sins and the sins of our
forefathers, we can prevent ourselves from repeating the same mistakes.
"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall
be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and
every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah
31:33-34)
Great Value in Being Reconciled with God Through
Remembering: It leads us to seek
forgiveness and imbues in us a sense of forgiving. "It is natural for
someone who has endured a terrible disaster to want to bury his painful
memories along with the dead and forget the past. But the Jews, being only a
tiny minority in the world and having a long history of persecution, cannot
afford to forget that Nazism brutally murdered six million of their people.
Thus in 1953 the Knesset, Israel's parliament, established Yad Vashem, the
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, to perpetuate their
memory." (Encyclopedia Judaica Jr.)
Jog Your Memory:
"The rabbis of that generation enacted new laws whose purpose was to
fulfill the biblical verse, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem . . .’ (Psalm
137). They decreed that a corner of every house, a part of every meal, even
some of every woman's jewelry, be set aside --- in memory of the
Temple. Special prayers were formulated to express the yearning of the
people to return to Zion and to worship once again in the Temple of God.
Instrumental music was banned from the synagogue service, a glass was broken
at every wedding, and the words ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ were recited on
Passover and at the end of the Day of Atonement --- all in memory of
the Temple. Most historians believe that these prayers, customs, and hopes
helped to unite the Jewish people and kept alive the hope of returning to
Zion, a hope fulfilled in our days."
Mercy and Forgiveness:
"In addition to belief in God, one of the important (thirteen) Articles
of Faith of the Jew is that God is good. Often human beings cannot
appreciate God's goodness, because no human being can see the whole course
of events as God does. A unique aspect of the Jewish faith is that although
God rules the world with absolute justice, He is also merciful and forgives
sins against Him. The doctrine of repentance is based on this belief."
"The exercise of mercy is an obligation for all Jews. By this it
is meant that they must act with compassion and forgiveness towards
all mankind, and perform deeds of charity and kindness. This quality is an
essential characteristic of God who is known as Rahum (‘Merciful’)
and, in accordance with the tradition which sets as man's goal the imitation
of God: ‘As He is merciful, so be you merciful.’ Just as God is
bound by His covenant of mercy with His people, so is the Jew bound by
specific commandments to act mercifully to the oppressed, the alien, the
orphan, the widow, and indeed, every living creature. (Encyclopedia
Judaica Jr.)
Chosen to Suffer?
On one occasion, a professor of religion went to the Western (wailing) Wall,
microphone in hand, and began asking religious Jews why they were chosen.
One responded, "We are chosen to suffer." Later, in making a point
about the Savior’s suffering, the professor said, "No one is chosen
to suffer other than the Lord." However, let us consider that the
difficulties, calamities, and sufferings of the Jews will ultimately bring
them closer to the Lord who covenanted to remember and save His people.
Sufferings bring us closer to Him and those having the highest
responsibilities of serving Him often suffer greatly. They "sink to new
heights." "And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the
hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be
cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce
winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the
elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of
hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all
these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son
of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?"
(Doctrine & Covenants 122:7-8)
Reconciliation Brings Peace:
Once reconciled to God, the adversity in life brings His peace, resulting in
a spirit of fulfillment, completeness and serenity that enable us to comfort
and bless others in their difficulties. " It is generally thought that
the Hebrew word shalom means peace, but it is really much more than
that. The main problem in understanding shalom is that there is no
single word for it in English and even many words when they are strung into
deep philosophical theories, cannot capture the full meaning of the simple
Hebrew. Shalom in Jewish thought has a positive connotation and, as
such, is central to Judaism. Peace, on the other hand, is a negative
concept; the absence of war, strife, and fighting. Shalom is more
like fulfillment, completeness, serenity, or security. Its opposite is not
only war and strife, but adversity, injustice, fragmentation or
disunity."
(Encyclopedia Judaica Jr.)