Forgiveness: A Philosophical Analysis of the Halakhic Sources
Fall 2024 Issue 56.4
Listen to the author discuss her essay on the Tradition Podcast. See author’s clarification in comment below.
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CLARIFICATION: Midrash ha-Gadol, referenced in this essay, is a 14th-century compilation and therefore could not have been the source of Maimonides’ statement. In fact, Midrash ha-Gadol often quotes Maimonides. This is an important correction that changes the form of the analysis, while the substance remains the same. Maimonides is drawing from the Mishna (Bava Kamma 8:6) that asks “from where do we know that the forgiver should not be cruel and fail to forgive?” but adds strictures—one must forgive immediately with a “full and desirous heart”—that are absent in the Mishna and do not seem to belong there. The compiler of Midrash ha-Gadol, David ben Avraham Adani, sensed that these two components of Maimonides’ ruling are at odds with one another. As such, when he introduces Maimonides’ guidelines he chooses a new opening phrase, drawn from elsewhere in the Talmud: “[A] person should always be soft like a reed and not stiff like a cedar.” The Midrash HaGadol presents Maimonides’ rules—complete and immediate forgiveness—as an aspiration rather than a baseline obligation. All of this leads to the same question posed in the article: Why did Maimonides assume that the Mishna was demanding complete and immediate forgiveness? Why did he consider failure to do so as an act of cruelty rather than simply as falling short of an ambitious standard?