Q&A: Forgiving Verbally While Canceling It in One’s Heart
Forgiving Verbally While Canceling It in One’s Heart
Question
He forgave verbally, but in his heart he did not forgive at all. If someone asks forgiveness and one estimates that he still should have kept trying to appease him, or do matters of the heart not count?
Answer
Simply speaking, matters of the heart do not count unless this is evident outwardly or from the circumstances (for example, that he only gave in because of constant pressure. But then it is not clear what good it would do to keep pressuring him).
However, this is said when we are dealing with forgiveness in the heavenly sense, where the other person’s forgiveness is a condition for atonement before Heaven; in that case, it seems obvious that the other person’s verbal statement is enough, and matters of the heart do not count. If we are talking about the relationship toward the other person himself, then it seems that everything depends on what is in his heart, but there is no practical difference in that.