Healing the Heart: Can Forgiveness Really Happen?

"How can I forgive? This seems unforgivable! How could such an option even be considered? I think that perhaps only Hashem can forgive in some cases. Is there a way to repair and rebuild this relationship?" Ruth asked.

"I completely agree with you. First of all, you don’t have to. You are not obligated to forgive. I truly understand that it feels and seems impossible. But what remains for us is to examine the point of desire," I replied.

"Exactly, that’s what I’m trying to say. I feel like I’ve lost all desire to continue my relationship with Asher. I really feel it’s lost already. I feel like I can’t trust him anymore. I don’t trust him, and I don’t believe he won’t hurt me again, so why would I want this relationship?" Ruth asked.

"Maybe if we can isolate the definitions here and assign everything its place, it will be easier not to get confused and to work on the right points.

"When you say you have no desire, you are using the word 'desire' to describe the heavy, completely natural, and understandable feelings you have as a result of Asher’s hurtful behaviors. There’s a place for every emotion, and for all the feelings that arise in you from what you’ve experienced. It’s very important to give these feelings space and recognition. If we don’t allow them room, they will take up all the space and dominate the entire picture.

"But the difficult emotions do not indicate that you lack desire. I hear in your pain the longing and desire for things to work out, and the sorrow is for the gap that currently seems impossible."

"I can’t understand this; I truly feel a lack of desire," said Ruth with a hint of resistance.

"The anger you bring is a clear statement that a boundary has been crossed that shouldn’t have been crossed. Therefore, this anger, pain, and sorrow have their place. It’s an important statement saying that a relationship marked by disrespect and distrust has no place. You are seeking a relationship of truth, and Asher expresses that through actions, effort, and words. Both you and Asher are asking for the same thing today: to maintain a relationship of truth, one characterized by honesty, respect, and openness. You both aim to renew the relationship from a place of truth between you, from the essence with which you started your journey together at the beginning of your lives. This very positioning from both of you, in true desire, allows for access and power to heal, save, and rebuild better than what was before."

"But how? How am I supposed to know that Asher, deep down, wants the relationship? How can he show me? If he hurt me like this, it means he doesn’t want the relationship," said Ruth angrily.

"We need to do a very deep reflective work that will allow us to develop an extremely sensitive inner awareness so we can see the outcry and inner remorse of Asher, the inner voice of his soul.

"Right now, you’re in such a place of anger that it doesn’t even allow you to see his remorse, even if he’s screaming it at the top of his lungs. In order to protect yourself, you’ve built a defense wall of indifference towards him, preventing him from hurting you again, and that’s stopping you from seeing his inner outcry of regret.

"Together, we need to very carefully and patiently learn to dissolve that defense wall, and give you real security, renewed trust, and a different perspective on Asher.

"When we manage to reach that place in the soul, where trust returns and you can lean back and see all the correction and love Asher has for you, at that deep point, you’ll see where his true heart’s intention lies, and you’ll understand that all the points where he hurt were just superficial, and then you can feel secure again, creating a new relationship contract.

"Of course, this all requires very hard, real, and deep work on his part."

"I feel that this relationship will never be happy and good like it once was," Ruth said in despair.

"That’s right, it won’t. It will be much better, without a doubt. There’s no other way," I replied.

"How can that be? The injury was to the core of the relationship! Maybe a miracle will return it to where it was, but to a better place? That sounds illogical," Ruth answered in confusion.

"Ruth, outwardly, it truly seems that way, but inwardly—the essence was never harmed. I will explain this through a few words about the month of Elul and the work of soul correction.

"The common message today is that it’s not wise to be naive. Innocence is portrayed as a kind of 'lost paradise' of purity. The awareness of the levels of the soul initially offers a different perspective: a perspective that connects the body and then moves to the soul. Even after we lose our innocence in body and spirit, there is a higher innocence that we never lose. We need to find and reveal it anew every time. That point always preserves the memory of childlike innocence, and from it, we can begin anything anew.

"This is also the meaning of Virgo's zodiac sign. At the end of each year, the month of Elul is a month of repentance. It’s the time when we summarize and take account of our lives. Therefore, the zodiac sign of the month of Elul is that of the virgin, coming to awaken us to the memory that at the higher level of our souls, we are still young, innocent, and open to new experiences. Ready to encounter familiar realities as if for the first time.

"The past won’t disappear, but it can be repositioned without putting the system in survival mode. There’s space for pain, and there’s space for abundance. You’ll see that you won’t need to hold onto the pain every moment," I explained.

"How can that be? I can’t understand that," Ruth said.

"All the negative spaces that Asher brought to the relationship caused terrible damage and hurt the connection. In the repair you are now going through together, all the negative spaces will transform into positive, strengthening, and connecting places. Inwardly, the virgin state of the relationship was never harmed. The bad actions came from the shell, from the external layer. Thanks to the repentance that Asher is doing and the joint correction, a true relationship will be created."

Hanna Dayan [email protected]

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