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EXODUS — 34:7 forgiving

EXOD1039 The Jewish tradition is confident that God will forgive both individual Israelites and the People Israel as a whole. In the Torah, God Himself proclaims that He “forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin,” and the Rabbis maintained that God's forgiveness exceeds kept his wrath five hundred- fold. (Exodus 34:7 and Tosefta, Sotah 1:4. Compare M.T. Laws of Repentance 1:3-4, 7:1-8, qualified, however, in 3:6ff). There are several reasons why God forgives. God is by nature a loving Father who, like any good parent, punishes transgression when necessary to correct our ways but who always hopes that we will return to Him so that He can instead forgive. (That God will discipline us: Deuteronomy 8:5. That God hopes that we will return to Him so that He can forgive: for example, Jeremiah 3:14, 22). After the Flood, God made a covenant with all children of Noah -- and, indeed, with all living creatures -- not to destroy the world again, however angry He becomes. (Genesis 9:8-17). Furthermore, as an expression of His special love for Israel, He has made a distinct covenant with Israel that obligates Him to forgive and sustain it even after fiercely punishing it for multiple and egregious transgression. (Leviticus 26:44-5 and Psalms 106:45). God remembers the merit of the Patriarchs; the relationship He had with them, and the promises He made them prompt Him to forgive their descendants. (God’s relationship with the Patriarchs as a motive for forgiveness: Deuteronomy 9:27. God’s promises to the Patriarchs as a motive for forgiveness: Exodus 32:13). Because failure to forgive Israel may lead others to underestimate the extent of God's power and goodness, God forgives Israel also to preserve and enhance His own reputation among the nations. (Exodus 32:12, Numbers 14:13-20, Deuteronomy 32:26-7, and Psalms 79:8-9). God forgives, however, only when human beings sincerely seek to make amends in both mind and deed. It is not enough to hope and pray for pardon or to perform the rituals associated with it (animal sacrifices, weeping, fasting, rending one’s clothes, donning sackcloth and ashes, etc.); people must humble themselves, acknowledge their wrongs, and resolve to depart from sin. (For example, 1 Kings 21:27-9, Isaiah 1:10-20 and 29:13, and Joel 2:13). Moreover, inner contrition must be followed by the outward acts of ceasing to do evil and then, in its place, doing good. (For example, Isaiah 1:15-7, 33:14-5, 58:3ff; Jeremiah 7:3ff, 26:13, and Amos 5:14-5). God’s forgiveness, however extensive, only encompasses the sins a person commits directly against Him; injuries to another human being are not forgiven, according to the Rabbis, until the victim has personally forgiven the perpetrator -- hence the custom of seeking forgiveness from those one may have wronged in the days before the Day of Atonement, without which proper atonement to God cannot be made. (M. Yoma 8:9). (Continued at [[GEN1098]] Genesis 20:17 prayed DORFFDRAG 189-90)

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LEVITICUS — 19:2 holy

LEV273 [Continued from [[DEUT300]] Deuteronomy 6:18 right DORFFLAW 117-8] The underlying conviction that pushes Jewish law not to stop with defining justice in its procedural and substantive aspects but to insist instead that we must go beyond the letter of the law, if necessary, to achieve justice is the belief that God requires us to aspire to a moral and theological ideal. Specifically, justice in its fullest form is necessary for holiness. All Israelites are obligated to aspire to a life of holiness: “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19: 2) In the verses that follow this divine demand, the Torah specifies that holiness requires providing for the poor and the stranger; eschewing theft and fraud; rendering fair and impartial decisions in court; treating the blind, the death, and the stranger fairly; and ensuring honest weights and measures. These are all components of a society that has both procedural and substantive justice and even more-- namely, generosity and caring. We are to treat each other as members of one extended family. To the degree that we can at least in some areas, then, holiness requires that we go beyond insisting on our due and look instead at what seems to be good results for everyone concerned.

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LEVITICUS — 19:18 yourself

LEV727 (Continued from [[NUM300]] Numbers 27:16 spirits DORFFDRAG 52-3). These classical rabbinic sources also indicate that pluralism is a divine creation; human beings have difficulty imitating it. To achieve the ability to be pluralistic is, in fact, the ultimate ethical and spiritual challenge, according to [Rabbi Simon] Greenberg [1986, “Pluralism and Jewish Education” Religious Education 81 (winter): 19-28. Just as “love your neighbor as yourself” -- which, for Rabbi Akiva, is the underlying principle of all the commandments (Sifra to Leviticus 19:18) -- requires a person to go beyond biologically rooted self-love, pluralism requires a person to escape egocentricity. It is not possible for human beings totally to love their neighbors as themselves, and neither is it possible to be totally pluralistic; we are by nature too self-centered fully to achieve either goal. The tradition, however, prescribes methods to bring us closer to these aims. Many of its directions to gain love of neighbor appear in that same chapter 19 of Leviticus in which the commandment itself appears. The later tradition’s instructions on how to become pluralistic are contained, in part, in the talmudic source quoted earlier describing the debates of Hillel and Shammai [J. Yevamot 1:6 (3b); B. Yevamot 14a-b. Compare also T. Yevamot 1:12]; One must, like Hillel, be affable and humble and teach opinions opposed to one's own, citing them first. (B. Eruvin 13b)

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