I’m Jewish and I’m not confused at all. Respectfully, I don’t believe in the ideas you are putting forth based on Christianity.
I realize you don’t....
Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand
....it may give you a different perspective.....
..it's a best seller, and the narrative is excellent!
She has had no ability to retaliate, seek vengeance or to mete out justice; her tormentors are dead and gone from this world. To continue to allow that past horror to haunt her, to poison her heart and thoughts, well, it can eat you alive.
So, to heal herself she's learned to forgive. Does that mean she's saying it was all OK? No, it doesn't. She wants the world to know that this was a very real thing, in order to guard against it ever happening again.
I get the sense that there is some equivalence for you between forgiveness and pacifism or weakness. That is just not the case. It takes a very strong person to do what she's done, it's not easy at all.
But, she is right, there is peace to be found personally, in forgiveness. I applaud her for having the fortitude to have done it.
Also with respect, please understand that there are Christians who believe that forgiveness must be granted to those who ask for forgiveness and demonstrate the sincerity of their repentance by such actions as appropriate restitution, but that forgiveness to those who make no claim to be repentant is neither required nor appropriate.
I have too often seen Jewish people take great offense, and quite legitimately so, when some Christians tell them they must forgive Nazis.
Psalm 139:19-24 is in our Bibles, too.
“Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
I say this not to criticize my Christian brothers and sisters who believe otherwise — I'm a Calvinist and unlike many non-Reformed evangelicals do not believe G-d loves all people individually — but I want to avoid a son of the Mosaic Covenant perhaps misunderstanding Christianity and thinking that we believe in cheap grace.
Hatred of those who hate G-d — not those who are merely our own enemies, but the avowed enemies of G-d — is entirely appropriate. Of course Christians should pray that haters of G-d will repent and be converted, but if that does not happen, we should pray that the enemies of G-d be taken out of the way by being destroyed or having their plans foiled.
This is a point which far too often has caused Jewish people to be seriously offended, especially Jewish people of a more conservative theological viewpoint, against well-meaning Christians. Christians have every right to follow what they believe Scripture teaches, but it is important that Jewish people know that Christians are not unified on believing that people have a duty to forgive unrepentant evildoers.
Back to the underlying theological issues — JewishRighter, I'm sure you understand there are massive differences between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism in both practice and belief. Similar differences exist within Christianity, and even within its evangelical forms. Just as modern Orthodox and Hasidic Jews agree on far more things than they disagree when compared to less strictly observant Jews, evangelicals may agree on many things without agreeing on whether there is an obligation to forgive unrepentant evildoers. There are good reasons why men such as Oliver Cromwell, many other Puritans, and the Dutch Calvinists in the 1600s and 1700s worked hard to help Jews at the same time much of European Christianity was anti-Semitic. An appreciation within Calvinist or Reformed Christianity for the Hebrew Bible (the Christian “Old Testament”) accounts for much of that historic goodwill between many Calvinists and the Jewish communities of the Netherlands, for example.
Let us unite on what we can agree, namely, praying for the peace of Jerusalem and the scattering of the wicked.
Let G-d arise, and by His might
Let all His foes be put to to flight;
But O ye righteous, gladly sing,
Exult before your G-d and King.