The real estate of the heart

As a rabbi, I sit in rooms most people never enter. I hear stories that rarely make it to the braai table or shul foyer. A son who cannot speak to his father. A woman who will not forgive her sister. A man who still burns with anger at a business partner from 30 years ago. They walk in carrying words that weigh more than their voices: “I will never forgive.”

On the surface, the statement feels powerful. It sounds like strength, like self-protection, like honouring the pain of what was done. However, the longer we listen, the clearer it becomes that lack of forgiveness isn’t a sign of strength. It’s a burden. It’s unpaid rent. The offender may be long gone, but they still occupy prime property in the soul. They replay inside our minds, they shape our moods, they set the atmosphere of our days. They are squatters in the real estate of the heart.

The Torah gives us Yosef as the most striking example of forgiveness. Betrayed by his brothers, sold as a slave, imprisoned for years, he eventually rose to power and could have exacted revenge. Instead, when the moment arrived, he told them, “It wasn’t you who sent me here, but G-d.” He didn’t excuse their behaviour. He simply refused to give them ownership of his destiny. His heart was his, not theirs. This is the true genius of forgiveness, not the erasure of wrong, but the reclaiming of agency.

Judaism is very clear about grudges (faribels). The Torah doesn’t present forgiveness as optional or sentimental. It’s not framed as self-help, though it certainly brings healing. It’s commanded because it’s moral. “Do not take revenge. Do not bear a grudge.” These aren’t gentle suggestions. They are as binding as Yom Kippur and the bris. A clean heart isn’t a luxury. It’s the right thing to do.

That doesn’t mean that the past is erased or that pain is denied. Forgiveness isn’t forgetfulness, and it’s not a licence for abusers to continue unchecked. There are times when boundaries must be set, and distance must be kept. But even then, forgiveness demands that the poison not be given permanent residency. The act of forgiving is the eviction notice. It’s saying: you hurt me once, but you will not continue to own me.

We see this all too often in our communities: Johannesburg cousins who haven’t spoken since grandmother’s China went to the wrong daughter-in-law; the Cape Town brothers who split the family business and then broke the family apart; the shul committee members who can no longer sit in the same room because of harsh words spoken during a budget meeting three years ago. Each becomes a lease agreement with bitterness, a monthly payment extracted from peace of mind.

The WhatsApp family groups tell the story most clearly. One sharp comment about politics or parenting, and suddenly the digital silence stretches for months. The group chat that once buzzed with grandchildren’s photos and Shabbos invitations becomes a monument to wounded pride. Everyone sees who isn’t responding, who has left the conversation, who carries the grudge like a badge of principle.

Let’s be clear: forgiveness isn’t weakness. It’s strength of the highest order. It’s a clean heart that refuses to be defined by bitterness. It’s the insistence that life belongs to G-d and not to those who wounded us. It’s moral because it mirrors the way G-d relates to us. Every year, on Yom Kippur, we come with our lists of failures, our broken promises, our shame. And every year, G-d forgives.

Forgiveness is also moral because it acknowledges our shared humanity. To be human is to stumble, to disappoint, to wound. None of us is immune. If we expect to be seen as more than the sum of our mistakes, we must learn to see others the same way. The person who hurt us is also someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone carrying their own load of regrets.

The old saying warns us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But here’s what we discover in the hard work of forgiveness: often our personal hells were indeed paved with someone else’s good intentions. The mother-in-law who “only wanted to help”. The business partner who thought he was protecting the company. The friend who thought that not inviting us to the wedding was doing us a favour.

Their good intentions don’t justify the wreckage. But when we can see that they weren’t trying to build our hell, they were just laying stones they thought would help, forgiveness becomes possible.

The Talmud teaches us something profound about timing. It says that one who asks for forgiveness and is refused three times, need not ask again; the burden transfers to the one who will not forgive. But this isn’t a score card; it’s a warning. Hold onto anger long enough, and you become the one who needs forgiving.

As Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur approach, the question becomes sharper. We will ask G-d to forgive us. We will plead for mercy, for another year of life, for release from the stains of our own actions. Do we come to that moment with hearts already mortgaged to anger, or with hearts cleared and ready to receive mercy?

Forgiveness isn’t about pretending that everything is fine. It’s about choosing not to let hatred set the décor of the heart. It’s about reclaiming the real estate within, so that it belongs only to G-d and to love. It’s about walking through life without squatters dictating the mood of every day.

How’s this for an image? Somewhere, a son picks up the phone to call his father. Somewhere, a woman deletes the angry text she wrote to her sister, and writes a different one. Somewhere, old business partners nod to each other across the parking lot of The Neighbourhood Mall.

These are small acts that shift the universe. Not dramatic gestures, but quiet decisions to stop paying rent to the past. To evict the squatters. To remember that the heart, like the land we live on, belongs ultimately not to those who would occupy it with hatred, but to the One who created it for love.

So let us forgive. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s right. Not only because it lightens our load, but because it keeps our hearts clean. Not only is it healthy, it’s also holy. The world craves holiness, and life is too short to live with bitterness as a tenant.

Wishing you and yours a sweet year and a pure heart – the greatest duo.

• Rabbi Levi Avtzon is the rabbi at Linksfield Shul.