Failing to forgive hurts you more than them

By Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg

EDISON, New Jersey — What do you do when you are offended, hurt by other people’s words or actions? I believe we all have been hurt at some point of our life, maybe betrayed, and disappointed by a friend, boyfriend, girlfriend or even a brother or sister.

After any offense you might  get angry, bitter; you might start automatically to dislike that person, maybe even hate him, wish him the worst.

All these negative emotions if not dealt with properly are very dangerous to your health as well as to those people around you. Know this: Failing to forgive will make and keep you sick. Have you ever seen a beautiful apple and when you cut it in half you find it is rotten? Simply anger and bitterness eat away at us from the inside. We do not see it and we simply do not realize that.  Unfortunately, some people carry the bitterness through their entire life.

Anger, hate, resentment, and bitterness hurt us. All these negative emotions have one thing in common; they trigger stress reaction and as we stress, a big amount of cortisol and adrenaline is released into the blood stream. This is a natural stress reaction.It is called “fight or flight.” After the threat is gone, the stress hormone normally dissipates. However, carrying around a load of anger and hate, desire for revenge, or feeling of hurt keep all these stress hormones active in our body and over a long time will result  in damage to our body.

Our arteries are being damaged; the plaque buildup starts to form. The heart begins to suffer. Also your immune system is down which makes you vulnerable to any disease. Being stressed makes you feel tired, worn down; it disrupts the harmony of brain waves, gives you sleepless nights and also will lead you to anxiety and depression as well as to addiction (because at some point your going to find yourself so miserable to ease the pain you may look for relief in alcohol, drugs etc.)

Your life inside as well outside is affected, it definitely robs you of your joy, you can longer enjoy life because most of the time you spend you think about the offense or offender. You basically can’t move forward with your life, think clearly, or make a good decision.

It also affects the people around you, for example if you are mad at your brother or sister, your whole family suffers.

Healthy new relationships are not possible. Why? Because you will bring that anger and bitterness to that new relationship and it’s not fun.
Remember, you can never live in the present well if you are stuck in the past.

If you think that by rejecting forgiveness, you are accomplishing something, you are wrong. Yes, you want the offender to be punished or feel guilty or ashamed, but failing to forgive does not accomplish the goal you think. The person it hurts the most is you.

What can you do about it? Find the courage to forgive. It is not easy. It is a process and a choice you can make.

What is forgiveness? It is letting go of grudges and bitterness and thoughts of revenge.  Forgiveness does not mean justifying another’s actions or denying the hurt (otherwise your wounds will never heal). It’s not forgetting what happened. For example, how you can forget if your brother got killed by a drunk driver?

Say yes to forgiveness; do not let your past affect your health and future.

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Rabbi Dr. Bernhard H. Rosenberg is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, New Jersey, and is the author of Theological and Halachich Reflections on the Holocaust, among other books. He serves on the New Jersey State Holocaust Commission and chairs the Holocaust Commission of the New York Board of Rabbis.