I'm always suspicious of Yinglish and shall we call it Ivrish. Words become cliches when you don't speak fluently in a single language, when you insert foreign words. Those words lose their meaning or take on narrow strips of meaning. The word mochel falls into that category.
Let's say that person A hurt person B, let's say he hurt B very badly. He should feel bad about that. He should feel guilty. He should feel shame. He should question himself. How could I have been so selfish or careless or lazy or egotistical or ignorant? There's much soul searching to engage in.
It seems to me that people in the OJ world don't do that. Rather, they ask for mechilah, which means, they seek exoneration from Divine punishment. How do you get that exoneration? You get it by getting the other party to say "I mochel." With those magic words it's all over. It's like putting a paper ticket in a parking lot machine and the gate that blocks the road is lifted. You can drive out of the lot now. It's all over.
But is it really over? Is person B not still in pain? Has person A changed the parts of himself that caused such hurt?
Frum people don't think about that, not usually. They are so focused on schar and onesh that they see life in technical terms. They see schar and onesh in technical terms. There is little sense of quality to anything. It's more like how many daf did you 'learn' (pardon the Yinglish). Did you bentch? (pardon the Yinglish) I ask, did you learn something when you learned? Did you feel anything when you bentched? To get mechila, people put on a nice guy act, much like that with kiruv, to elicit the magic words, and then once the words are uttered it's wham bam thank you maam. Topic closed.
They even go so far as to insist that the matter not be brought up again. You gave me mechila. You are not allowed to bring it up again. Yes, there is a halacha like that, but I believe we approach that overly technically.
If I hurt somebody, and they forgive me but want to bring up the matter again, I hope that they will because they are still hurting. And whose to say that my apology was totally sincere? I don't know if bringing it up 1,000 times is healthy for anybody, but a few times might be called for depending on the seriousness of the issue and the strength and sincerity of the apology.
Even after the mechila, even if A never mentions the subject again to B, should A let it rest? Has he fixed himself? Did he ever feel bad or did he just fear punishment? Why would punishment come if he didn't do anything immoral? Is this the god who likes to punish for violation of arbitrary rules or the God of justice?
I think for most people, it's the former, and that is no different from idolatry. The wind god will blow down your farm if you don't appease him. He wants an animal sacrifice. Who knows why? Today we have the boss, the CEO, the cop. Whoever has power over us. We appease him out of fear. People do this all the time in corporations, in government, in the military. They fail to operate from a moral code. They just appease the one in power.
That's what most people do with mechila. And those are the ones who even seek it. Many people don't even do that. But the ones who do often act as if they are appeasing an irrational god. Getting that mechila means appeasement. What about that person you hurt? Oh that's over. He said the magic words.
But is it?
No comments:
Post a Comment