Holding a Grudge

It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. It says so smack dap in the middle of the Torah in the portion of Kedoshim (Holiness). Chapter nineteen, verse eighteen states do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge against the sons of your people and love your neighbor as yourself, I am HaShem.

Our rabbis teach us that there are no commandments in the Torah which are impossible to do. So why do I find it so hard to stop running my tongue over the canker sore of my resentment against the ones who did me wrong?

Those who think they’re trying to help tell me I should get over my anger, even go for counseling, so I can stop giving free rent in my mind to my adversaries.  Those who support me, though, love me and tell me I’m not hurting anyone. After all, I’m not going to poison my wrongdoers. Nor have I made voodoo dolls of them so I can stick pins in their eyes.

I like my supporters. With their approval I don’t have to change. Yet, I must admit, if only to myself, that when I think about the wrongdoers my heartbeat speeds up and my face flushes. I wonder what my blood pressure reads. Maybe I am hurting myself?

HaShem instructed us to do His commandments and therefore choose life, eternal life. Perhaps the time has come for me to try to change. It’s not just about holding grudges though. I need to pay attention to all His instructions, the easy ones like not eating pork, and the difficult ones such as having the land rest every seventh year and all that entails.

It’s almost the month of Elul, the month of repentance. Then it’s thirty days until the New Year, and ten more after that until Yom Kippur. Can I do it? Can this be the year that I really change? Can this be the year that I will face my Maker on the holiest day of the year without any grudges or embarrassments to distract me? I hope so. I pray so. This year I‘m going to try to make it happen.