Letters people chose to share.

Tikkun Olam — Sharon Brous writes in The Amen Effect about showing up at the door of grief and not turning away. I am at my own door today. I am not turning away. I forgive my body. I forgive the doctors. I forgive the hours I spent reading what I should have done. There was nothing to do. I am sitting down with that.

You did not know what you were doing. That is not the same as not doing it. I forgive the not-knowing. I do not forgive the not-apologizing. Karen Armstrong writes that compassion is hard work, not soft feeling. I am doing the hard work. I am keeping the boundary. Both can be true.

Forty-five minutes on the side of the road. You found nothing. I forgive the forty-five minutes only insofar as I do not relive them daily anymore. I do not forgive what you represent. Stevenson is right — the system is what it is. I forgive my fear. I keep my anger. They are different and I am keeping them separate.

This is the inverse letter. I forgive myself for needing you that much. You never asked me to apologize for it. I'm apologizing anyway, and thanking you, and asking you to come for dinner this Saturday.

Eleven years of choir. Two deacon terms. One same-sex wedding. I forgive the vote. I do not forgive the absence of a single phone call afterward. Tikkun Olam — the world is broken in this exact place. I repair the piece I can reach by going to a different church on Sundays. It is also broken. It is broken differently. That is the choice.

I release the bitterness I carried for years. Your leaving made room for who I am now.

I forgive you and I do not forget. The Teshuvah tradition is clear that pardon from the wronged is required before pardon from God — Maimonides in Hilchot Teshuvah. You never asked. I am pardoning anyway, because the alternative is carrying it into another decade. The forgetting is not on offer.

What felt like the worst day became the door I needed pushed through. Thank you. Three years later I run a team of nine. I would not have left if you had not asked me to. The asking was a gift. I would not have called it that at the time.

Afw is the Qur'anic word for pardon, and safh is the turning of the page. I do both today. Not because you asked. Because the Prophet (peace be upon him) said the merciful are shown mercy, and I would like that to be true for me.

You did not do this to me. You did not do this to me. I am writing this thirty times until my hand believes my mouth. I love you. I'm not angry today. I miss you more than I am angry. That ratio took six years.

I have been at war with you for thirty years. I'm tired. Today I choose peace.

You taught me Teshuvah — the returning — and then you would not return to me after I came out. I am writing this on the eve of Yom Kippur. I have done my cheshbon hanefesh, the accounting of the soul. My side of the ledger is closed. Your side is yours. I will be in shul on Saturday. You will not be the reason I am not.

I am not yet ready to forgive you. I am writing this so the not-yet has a date on it. Today is the date. The teshuvah tradition says naming is the beginning. I name what you did. I do not call it small. I do not call it long ago. I will return to this letter when I am ready.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

Mom miscarried at six months in 1979. She named you. I learned the name in a drawer when she died. I forgive the silence that kept you a secret. I am saying your name into this letter. Hannah. Hannah. Hannah. You exist now in at least one piece of writing. That is a small Tikkun.

The way matters. You fired me at four-fifty on a Friday by phone. I forgive the firing. I do not forgive the way. These are separate ledgers. I close one and keep the other open as a record, not as a wound. There is a difference.

I came back for you. I love you. You are safe now.

The version of me before I had any of these specific wounds. I do not envy you. The wounds have given me everything I love. I forgive the romance I once had about being someone who had not been hurt. Kshama — patient endurance with who I actually am. I am her. I am here.

Your cruelty shaped me into someone gentler. That was not your intention. But it is the truth.

You drank too much and stayed too long. The boss who fired you was correct. I forgive you anyway. Not because the firing didn't matter. Because the firing is what made me. Mechilah — I release the debt I owed myself.