Episode 163 - Divorce The Importance of Forgiveness

How do you rebuild a broken relationship or fix the damage from past mistakes?

 Drop a 🔥 if you’ve ever wondered how to truly let go and move forward.

We all carry baggage — grudges, regrets, past hurts. But here’s the truth: you can’t drive your future looking in the rearview mirror. The key is learning to leave the past behind — sincerely — and focus on the next step. Once you’ve done your part to make amends and genuinely forgive, it’s about letting go of the weight that’s holding you down.

Forgiveness isn’t just about the other person; it’s about freeing yourself. It’s understanding that everyone makes mistakes, but growth is possible if you keep that door in your heart slightly open — just enough for genuine change to happen. And yes, it’s hard. But would you rather be weighed down by resentment or free to move forward with clarity and peace?

Maybe it’s time to ask yourself: are you ready to drop the anchor? It’s a choice — and one only you can make.

Trust the process. Forgive fully. Move on.

What’s one step you’ll take today toward healing?

#CleanSlateChallenge  #ForgivenessJourney  #MoveForward  #InnerPeace #emunah

Transcript

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When you harbor that hatred in your heart and you don't give that 100% forgiveness, then the only one who suffers is you. Even if it's somebody who's on the other side of the planet, you don't see them, you don't have a relationship with them, you don't interact with them, but you're harboring this resentment in your heart, it's weighing you down. It's that anchor that's not allowing you to swim across the channel. It's the one that's sinking you and you're holding on to it for dear life. When it comes to the family, that anchor is weighing everybody down. So you have to be able to bring yourself to give in 100% forgiveness. T G I S. Thank God it's Shabbat. We made it, my friends. Tonight is your lifeline. Tonight is the system that you plug into. If you haven't done it yet, I don't know what you're waiting for. If I haven't done a good enough job building it up, then I've probably failed because I don't know how many other ways to get across to you just how important Shabbat is. It's important for our success, for our emotional and for our physical well-being. Plug into the system, guys. No more excuses. Start to benefit. That's the whole purpose of this program. It's the whole purpose of the book, and it's the whole purpose of the Torah to teach you how to be successful, to teach you the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, the things that you need to do to be successful, and the things that you need to avoid, the pitfalls that would otherwise bring you down and slow your success. So plug in. It's tonight, 24, 25 hours. Bring it in early. If you've never done it before, ease in. If you're a pro, start bringing it in early. Cut out the world, lock the door, shut it out, put up that gate. Nobody enters. This is my private personal space that I have for the next 24, 25 hours with my family, my friends, and my community. I don't want to hear from anybody outside of that. And even when those people interact with me, I don't want to hear about work. I don't want to hear about taxes. I don't want to hear about business opportunities. I don't want to hear about the blue jays. I don't want to hear about the FIFA. Nothing. Shut it out. Let's just talk. Let's be humans and let's connect on a real level that we don't do six other days of the week. So what's the answer to our problem? What's the way forward? How do we pick up the pieces of this failed marriage or a failing marriage? And how do we put it back on track? How do we get this train back on the rails? And how do we make it better than it ever was? And the first step is to start looking forward. You cannot drive a car looking in the rearview mirror. If you do, you will end up in more trouble than you started with. You have to look forward. You have to pick a direction and run towards it. Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, we falter. And that's going to continue. If you anticipate that you're never going to make a mistake, then you're doomed from the get-go. You're going to make a mistake, but that's okay as long as you're learning and working on yourself. So let's see what the book says. It says, how do you do this? How do you look forward? He says, This is a rule for all situations. Listen, whatever has happened has happened. Once we've repented and done our best to rectify, we've made a valiant effort. We need to leave the past behind us and move on. We focus on our next step and how we continue on the journey of life from this point forward with Amuna. Yesterday I didn't know about this concept of Amuna. Before this podcast started, I hadn't had a clue. But now I've got the Garden of Amuna. I've been taught about this concept of Bitachon Trust and Amuna faith. Now it's time to start living with these principles and work on yourself. Nobody said it was easy. But if it's worth doing, it's not going to be easy. Now here's the danger. The danger is whatever has happened has happened. Leave the past behind. Move on. Yes, an amazing principle, but I want to just give you a small warning because it's very important. Oftentimes in your life, you've met people and you probably know them now, who are problems in your life. They are the people who bring the difficulties and the challenges. They're narcissistic. They're people who are only self-serving. There are people who don't know right from wrong. You would be amazed at how many people alive today who are perfectly functioning and even successful people haven't got the slightest clue of what behavior is acceptable and what is not. And they will spend a lifetime making those mistakes. There are many people in the world who have a broken view of life. They have their own personal problems, emotional problems, and their personality is one of conflict. They're always looking for a fight. They're always making poor choices. And the result, the net effect, the punching bank is us. We're the ones on the receiving end of all of that negativity. Now, oftentimes you'll hear those very same people coming to you and making you out to be the problem. How? By saying to you, whatever happened has happened. That's in the past. Why can't you just let it go? In other words, they've beat you down, they've mistreated you, they've done so many bad things to harm you. They have gotten away with it. And now they come and say to you, when they see that you're upset and you're not willing to give them another opportunity, they say to you, What do you mean? Whatever's happened has happened. Why are you holding a grudge? Suddenly, you're the bad person. So that's the caveat. That's where we need to be careful. You can only use this statement of whatever has happened has happened. Put the past behind us and let's move forward if you've done what he says, which is that you've made amends, you've made an effort, you've done chuva, you've felt sorry, you've regretted your actions, and you've put mechanisms in place to learn and to grow so that you don't repeat the same negative behavior. Then, yes, if you recall many episodes ago, I mentioned to you my personal philosophy when it comes to dealing with these kinds of people. We have to keep a distance from them. We cannot allow these people to come too close to us because they will destroy our family unit. They simply don't care. And oftentimes it can be a brother or a sister or even a parent. We have an obligation to ourselves and our families first. Keep them at bay, keep a distance. But remember, it's the behavior that you're not okay with. You can hate the behavior, their actions and their choices all day long because they make poor ones. But the individual has potential. Like we said the other day, if they are above ground, if God opened their eyes, then they have the potential for change, real change, not lip service change. So you keep the door open a crack. You always let them know that there is potential for you to return, but it's not going to be easy. First, you need to establish that you've done what the book says, what God tells us to do, namely to do chuva, to actually feel bad. Again, not lip service, but I really did the soul searching and I understand what I did wrong. And I am making amends and I am making efforts to never repeat that behavior. If it's sincere and you see that they're on that path, then you can apply this philosophy of whatever has happened has happened. It's in the past. But you can't walk around carrying and dragging behind you the same weight and expect change. It's like the Gemara gives an example of somebody who's swimming and he's holding on to an anchor, to a weight, and he's complaining that he's drowning. How can you complain? You're holding on to the very weight that's sinking you. Those are our bad behaviors, our negative character traits. If you want to be able to float to the top, if you want to be able to swim like an athlete, drop the anchor first. Get rid of the thing that's holding you back, and then you can propel yourself forward. That's how this principle applies. And where does that lead us to? In order for this to happen, forgiveness. We have to have room in our hearts to forgive. That's the door being left a crack open. It always has to be a crack open because if it's not, then you will never have the opportunity to forgive and to move forward. Let's see what the book says. It says one of the first things that a divorced couple, now you can talk about all kinds of things that need forgiveness, but divorce from a spouse who's already laid down that framework and divorced their spouse and broken up a family, there is no greater harm that you can do to an individual that requires this concept of forgiveness. One of the things that a divorced couple must do is to forgive one another. If you're planning on moving forward, even if it's not remarried, even if it's just remaining civil for the sake of the children, you have to be able to forgive one another. Why? As long as a divorced couple harbors resentment and bitterness in their hearts against one another, they simply won't be able to move forward and to rebuild their lives. Obviously, we see divorced couples at each other's throats all the time. Who benefits from it? Nobody except for the lawyers, the kids and the parents and the and the grandparents and the siblings, everybody suffers. Sins between man and his fellow man, this is important, are more severe than sins between men and God. And I explained this to you a couple weeks ago. The latter, the sin between you and your creator, are relatively easy to fix by confession, regret, and a resolution not to repeat the act, like we just said. But the former, if you sin against your fellow man, are much harder to correct. Why? Because that individual has to forgive you. God cannot forgive you. It has to come from that individual. One is therefore required to appease the person he or she wronged and to go to great lengths to gain their forgiveness. Even in the Gemara, it says you have to go to the grave. When somebody has passed away and you still need forgiveness from them, you have to go to their grave and bring people along with you as witnesses to plead on your behalf. It doesn't end. It's very difficult. Now, God is forgiving. That's one of his attributes. He's very forgiving. We see that. We walk around every day doing the exact opposite of what we're supposed to do. We behave in ways that go against his Torah, literally the opposite of his instruction manual. We do the things that we're not supposed to do, and he saves us. He's there to defend us from the real harm that could have come from that situation. We don't have eyes to see it. If we did, we'd be jumping for joy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We'd be on top of the world. We'd feel invincible if we knew how many times he came to our rescue. Just as a comparison, it's like the manual for the toaster oven that says, don't plug it in next to the bathtub because it might fall in and you might be toast, pun intended. And what do we do? We take that very same toaster oven and we put it on the edge of the bathtub and we plug it in and it falls in time and again. But he's there to stop the negative implication that should have come from that. In other words, we should have been toast many times over. But in his love and his patience for us and his willingness to forgive, he comes to our assistance. Now, that's him. What about us? What about friendships? I could tell you about 30-year-long friendships. I could tell you about a 50-year-long friendship that I know of recently that was solid. 50 years, my friends. That's no joke. These are people who have known each other for the vast majority of their lives, their friends and their families, their communities, all interconnected. And suddenly one thing shifts. And it could be so insignificant that in this case it was as well. And it's over. In seconds, a 50-year friendship comes to an end. A 20-year friendship comes to an end. Why? Because one person did something that the other didn't like, because one person couldn't accept something that was done to them. And as a result of that, they've written off that individual and they have no desire to allow that person anywhere close to them again. We humans are much, much less forgiving than the creator is. We're not even close to how he operates. That's our job, is to become like him, which means we need to be quick to forgive, but smart. Again, go back to what I said. If it's that person who's harming you and your family, but they keep coming back and asking for forgiveness, but you know it's lip service, you can't be a fool. You can't be a fool because it will come at the expense of your family. But if you know that it's sincere and you know that it's real and they're doing the right things, then you have an obligation to forgive. And it's the beginning of repairing your life. It's essential that the couple fully forgive one another. That's not 90%, it's not 98%. It's 100% clean slate. In Judaism, there are many times in our lives when we have not many, but there are certain times in our lives where we're given a clean slate. And sometimes that slate is cleaner than the one before because there is a fresh slate, as you know, you take a fresh piece of paper and it's perfectly white and clean, and you write on it and it looks fantastic. And then there's a piece of paper where it was written on before. But you took that eraser, that eraser is forgiveness, and you erased all of the mistakes that you made, and then you want to start again. And as much as the previous words are no longer on that white page, it's still not crisp and white and fresh. Why? Because you can see that there was once upon a time something on that page. It's not the same as a perfectly clean slate. Sometimes, like when somebody gets married, they're given a perfectly clean slate, a pure white, but nobody's written on it before. But wait a second, I was around for 25 years before. I did all kinds of things. It's a different story. Now you've got a perfectly clean slate. Somebody does chuva, I feel bad, I treated somebody wrong. I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna grow. God gives you a clean slate, but it's not the same. It's got writing on it from before that was erased. So the idea is to minimize the amount that needs to be erased so that you're left with a lot of clean paper to be able to write on it. If the husband hurt the wife, he must do everything that he can to appease her and gain her forgiveness. And the opposite applies. She in turn should not be stubborn. She should be willing to forgive him, even though she was the one that was wrong, since harboring resentment will only boomerang and prolong everyone's agony. When you hold on, you've heard this many times before, I'm not telling you anything new here. When you hold on to that grudge, when you harbor that hatred in your heart or the negativity that comes from having been wronged by that individual, when you hold on to it and you don't give that 100% forgiveness, then the only one who suffers is you. All the time, not just with your family. The problem with the family unit is that everybody suffers. Even if it's somebody who's on the other side of the planet, you don't see them, you don't have a relationship with them, you don't interact with them, but you're holding this hatred, you're harboring this resentment in your heart, it's weighing you down. It's that anchor that's not allowing you to swim across the channel. It's the one that's sinking you and you're holding on to it for dear life. When it comes to the family, that anchor is weighing everybody down. So you have to be able to bring yourself to give in 100% forgiveness. And there are many, many ways to do that. I know it's hard, and I know that some of the things that can be done against somebody and their children can be taken personally, and they are very hard to let go of. One of the ways to do it is to remind yourself that you're doing it for yourself and for your family. You're letting go because it's the right thing to do for you and you're forgiving carefully, making sure that it's the right time, making sure that the person you're forgiving has the ability and has been working on themselves to be able to change it so that moving forward, you won't have to deal with this again. On Sunday, we're going to go through more of how it is that we forgive in such a traumatic case where we've been wrong so many times and on such a deep level. What are the tools that we can use to be able to learn to forgive and move forward and continue to live and build that life that God brought us here to build? Have an amazing Shabbat. Please connect. Disconnect in order to connect. Have an amazing Shabbat. We chat again on Sunday. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.