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宽恕未必意味着软弱
【原文】
Good morning. I’ve been thinking about Eva Kor, who was recently interviewed on this programme. Eva Kor is the 81 year old Auschwitz survivor who gave evidence in the trial of 93 year old Oscar Groning – he was the SS guard who took and recorded the money of Jewish prisoners as they arrived at the death camp. When Eva had finished giving evidence against him she went over to where he was sitting and shook hands with him. He responded by pulling her towards him and kissing her. She said that she had spoken out at the trial to give voice to the victims and to help the world never to forget what had happened. But she also said, and this was a surprise, that she had forgiven the Nazis. There’s been much criticism of her for saying that, with people insisting that forgiveness can only be given where there is genuine repentance. I can see why. Forgiveness can sound like weakness as though what has been done doesn’t really matter.
But that isn’t what Eva Kor was saying. Her most startling remark was that to her, forgiveness is the most formidable form of revenge. Forgiving the perpetrators of Auschwitz meant that they lost the one thing they once had – their power over her life. The fact that she had forgiven Groning neither prevented her from testifying against him, nor stopped him from taking responsibility for his own actions. So repentance and justice are part of the picture, but as a response to forgiveness not as a condition of it.
What she is insisting on here is that by enacting forgiveness victims can escape from being trapped in a cycle of helplessness. She has found the strength to live freely, not defined by the horrors of her past. I find that astonishing, for not only did she lose the rest of her family to the gas chambers, she also came near to death herself, she and her twin sister were subject to Joseph Menegele’s medical experiments – and her sister never recovered from what had been done to her.
I suppose the difficult question is whether this means that forgiveness is ultimately independent of justice? Most of us would find that hard to take. Yet I am always struck when I read the Gospels how often Jesus forgives people before they show any sign of changing their ways. Of course they usually do repent in response to being forgiven but in theory they could have just shrugged it off.
The forgiveness declared by Eva Kor certainly invites repentance and Oscar Groning has already acknowledged his moral guilt. But perhaps the real significance of what she said was to announce the ultimate impotence of evil. Sin does not have the last word. We can choose to be free. We need that astonishing confidence in a world which would often tell us otherwise. It is the basis of all our faith and all our hope.
【参考翻译】
早上好，我一直在想着最近接受过本节目采访的伊娃·侯尔，她今年81岁，是奥斯威辛集中营的幸存者，在对93岁的奥斯卡·罗宁进行审判时她进行了举证，罗宁曾是纳粹党卫军的看守，负责夺走并登记进入死亡集中营的犹太囚犯身上的钱。当伊娃对他举证完后，她走到他坐的地方与他握手，罗宁将她拉过来并亲吻了她。她说自己在审判上帮助受害者发声，让全世界永远不要忘记所发生的一切。但令人吃惊的是，她是自己已经宽恕了纳粹。她的言论招致很多批评的声音，人们坚称只有在真正悔改的情况下才能宽恕，我知道为什么，宽恕听起来就像是软弱，仿佛所做的一切已经不再重要。
但关键不在于伊娃·侯尔说了什么，她最令人吃惊的看法是，对她来说，宽恕是最强有力的报复形式。宽恕奥斯维辛集中营的作恶者意味着他们失去了曾经拥有的一样东西——能够控制她生命的权力，她已经宽恕罗宁这样一件事，即没有阻止她作证指控他，也没有阻止他为自己的行为负责。所以悔改和正义也是这件事的一部分，但却是宽恕的结果，而不是导致宽恕的原因。
这里她所坚持的是，通过宽恕，受害者可以得以解脱，免于陷入无助的循环之中。她已找到自由生活的力量，不受可怕过去的束缚。我发现这一点令人吃惊，因为在毒气室里她不仅失去了家人，她自己也非常接近过死亡，她和自己的双胞胎姐妹还是约瑟夫·门格勒医学实验的试验品，她的姐妹根本没有从试验中活过来。
我认为难题在于，这是否意味着宽恕最终是独立于正义的?我们大多数人发现很难做到宽恕，但在读福音书时，看到耶稣总是在人们表现出悔改之前就宽恕了他们总会令我吃惊。当然因为被宽恕，这些人总是能做到悔改，但从理论上说他们完全可以对之不屑一顾。
伊娃·侯尔表现出来的宽恕当然引发了悔改，奥斯卡·罗宁已经承认自己的道德罪责。但或许伊娃·侯尔言论的真正意义在于宣布了罪恶最终是无力的，罪恶并没有决定权。我们可以选择自由，我们需要这种令人吃惊的信心，尽管这个世界总是告诉我们相反的情况，因为它是我们所有信念和希望的基础。