Kriat Shema al Hamitah begins with the following declaration: “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered me, or sinned against me, either physically or financially, against my honor or anything that is mine, whether accidentally or intentionally, inadvertently or deliberately, by speech or by deed, by thought or by speculation, in this incarnation or in any other. Every Jew [is forgiven], may no one be punished on my account. May it be Your will, Hashem, my G-d and the G-d of my fathers, that I shall sin no more nor repeat my sins. Neither shall I again anger You nor do what is wrong in Your eyes. The sins I have committed, erase in Your abounding mercy, but not through suffering or severe illnesses. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable before You Hashem, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

As mentioned in the previous article, the Mishnah Berurah (239) recommends that one make a cheshbon hanefesh before going to sleep. However, the Mishnah Berurah writes that it is not enough to make an accounting for one’s own actions throughout the day. It is also important to identify any hurtful things that were done to you during the day so that, whenever possible, you can forgive the person who did them to you. This concept is revolutionary. It is not enough that someone did something to me that hurt me, but I have to make place in my heart to forgive them for what they did! And, in order to motivate us to do so, the Mishnah Berurah says that a person who manages to forgive those who hurt them will merit to live a long life.

Therefore, we begin Kriat Shema al Hamitah with a declaration of forgiveness. Doing so allows us to go to sleep knowing that we have cleansed ourselves of any ill feelings we might be harboring. It means that we can sleep with the knowledge that we have ended our day in the way that Hashem wants us to.

But, more often than not, sincerely forgiving those who have hurt us is a difficult monumental undertaking. It was Alexander Pope, an eighteenth-century English poet, who coined the phrase, “To err is human, to forgive Divine.” True words, indeed. But that does not preclude our obligation to try and rise above ourselves in order to reflect the Divinity inside of each of us. It is certainly far from easy to achieve but it is an attainable goal.

To reach this goal often requires extraordinary inner strength and conviction. An elderly woman who felt that her end was near, revealed to her son a painful memory she had kept suppressed for close to seven decades.

“When I was in the concentration camp,” she related, “the rations we got were so small that we were always starving. Yet, one of the girls in the barracks, each day would put away a part of our bread ration and save it to eat it on Shabbat. I knew where she hid the bread, and one day, could not resist, and ate it up. When Shabbat arrived, this girl discovered that her incredible self-restraint was for nothing. “I know that this girl survived the war, but I don't know where she is today.” This mother begged her son, “Please find her and ask her to forgive me so I can die in peace.”

Shocked by the story, her anxious son immediately started to make inquiries, hoping that the other survivor was still alive and could be located. With much Divine assistance, he tracked down the name and contact information of one of her children.

“My mother is still alive,” the man on the other end of the phone said when he called him, “though she is very weak and is bedridden.”

Hours later, he was at his mother’s bedside, and slowly reminded her of that incident of so many years ago. The elderly woman became very agitated.

“How do you know this story?” she demanded to know from her son. “I knew then already who stole it, but never breathed a word about it all these years. I forgave her back then already!”

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1789-1866), the third Rebbe of Lubavitch, points out how incongruous it is that, as a rule, children forgive each other easily, whereas, often, adults seem to have such a difficult time being able to forgive. Rabbi Schneerson explains that the reason for this is because, generally, children would rather be happy than right. Adults, on the other hand, prefer to be right – even if it means that they will not be happy.

The very first lesson that Kriat Shema al Hamitah is conveying to us is that forgiving those who have hurt us benefits us even more than it benefits them. A nourishing night’s sleep begins with letting go of the hurt and distress that others have inflicted upon us.

To be continued…

*[Please note: sometimes a person may find it impossible to immediately forgive someone for what they have done to them. In such situations, it is Halachically permitted to omit the opening paragraph and recite the rest of Kriat Shema al Hamitah.]