(February 21, 2019 at 6:55 pm)Yonadav Wrote: Revenge and bearing grudges are forbidden in Judaism. Rashi gives a good explanation of what this means. A man says to his neighbor, 'Let me borrow your axe." The neighbor says no. A year later, the neighbor goes to the man and says, "Let me borrow your sickle." The man says, "I will let you borrow my sickle even though last year you would not let me borrow your axe." That's grudge bearing. Or the man says, "I won't let you borrow my sickle because last year you wouldn't let me borrow your axe." That's revenge.
This is really beautiful.
And it's hard to think of anything that goes more strongly against current American conventional wisdom. I don't know how many times I've seen people say something like, "If you give me shit I'm going to give it right back to you, man," as if that's just obviously good.
