Do any of you struggle with bitterness and chronic grief from being hurt in life? It is hard to forgive when we have been betrayed or seriously wounded by others… Perhaps you were abandoned as a child or suffered terrible betrayal from a friend or spouse. How do we get past the heartache? How can we move past the pain? There are no easy answers, and deliverance from evil comes at different stages for different people, but bitterness is essentially rooted in unforgiveness, and harboring it means losing sight of how much God loves you — despite your own betrayals and sins against others.
Refusing to forgive enslaves you resentment, pain, and life in despair. Forgiveness is therefore not optional for a follower of Messiah: Your forgiveness of others is your own forgiveness (Matt. 6:15). Give up your demands for justice (Elohim) and appeal to God as Savior (YHVH). Instead of focusing on what harm others have done to you, examine your own heart, confess your own hardheartedness, and learn to be thankful for the grace you hope to partake in Yeshua. “Forgive one another, as God in Messiah forgave you” (Eph. 4:32); “for while we were still his enemies, he died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
To be a human being is a paradox, caught between the realms of the infinite and nothingness; a union of endless possibility yet terminating limitation. Man desires to live forever but is conscious that one day he will die. He is an incongruity – a mix of flesh and spirit, saint and sinner, good and evil, angel and animal… A spirituality that demands for us to be always happy, always “up,” is therefore dishonest, since the truth is grounded in what is real, and that includes both the miserable and the tragic as well as the joyful and sublime. It’s not that there is no difference between good and evil within the heart, but both are part of who we really are. It is the bittersweet struggle, the process of walking as “saintly sinners,” “holy fools,” “dying immortals,” and so on, that defines us. We must embrace our brokenness, in order to become whole; there is no healing without true confession of our need. Therefore we come to the paradoxical cross – the place of utter pain, separation, and death – to find atonement, acceptance and life.
It’s vital to remember that one of the main tactics of the devil is to cast a spell over you to induce a sense of forgetfulness and apathy… The devil wants you to forget that you are a child of the King. The entire venture of teshuvah (repentance) presupposes that you are created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God – and therefore you have infinite value and dignity. This is all the more evident in light of the awesome ransom that Yeshua paid to reconcile your soul with God. So what is the greatest sin you can commit in your life? To forget what God has done for you… Remaining asleep, unmindful of your true identity is one of the most tragic things of life. Therefore 
Many people minimize the idea of sin because they fail to recognize it as life-threatening, lethal, and spiritually disastrous. Sin (and its justification in our lives) cuts us off from God, however, and that invariably leads to a sense of existential dread (Isa. 59:2; Ezek. 18:4). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and that means those who practice sin are considered “dead” even while alive (Berachot 18a-b). Tragically, sin can lead to the dreadful punishment of karet (כָּרֵת), being “cut off” from any awareness of the Truth. Regarding this the sages note that the Hebrew word for sin, chet (חַטְא), is written with a silent Aleph (א) because when we sin, the Master and LORD (אַלּוּף) is present, because without his power no one could lift his hand to do anything great or small. Here we note the terrible reality that our sin is witnessed by God himself, a pain that pierces his very heart.
When you become alive to the truth that the LORD is your Rock, the very ground upon which you live, move, and have your being, then your steps are made sure, as it says, “The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast down: for the LORD holds his hand” (Psalm 37:23-24). When you are unsure of your way, when you walk in uncertainty, you are unsteady in your resolve and are tempted to regard your life as being without any solid foundation. As you commit your way to the LORD, your steps are made sure, for you are walking before his Presence, and therefore you are upheld by his power.
From our Torah portion for this week (
The knowledge of God (ידיעת יהוה) is our supreme good and the “chief end of human life.” It is our highest blessing, more precious than earthly riches, power, or any of the pleasures this world affords (Jer. 9:23-24; Prov. 3:15; Matt. 13:44-46). Those who do not esteem the true knowledge of God invariably fall into darkness, idolatry, and despair (1 Thess. 4:5; Eph. 4:17; Hos. 4:1-2). The knowledge of God set us free to receive the inestimable blessing of eternal life given in the Messiah, as Yeshua testified: “And this is eternal life, to know you (לדעת אותך) the only true God (האל האמיתי היחיד), and Yeshua the Messiah (ישוע המשיח) whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Knowing God is the very reason for your existence and nothing can be compared with its superlative excellence (Phil. 3:8). Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! (Rom. 11:33).
How we deal with trouble and suffering (i.e., tzuris) makes all the difference. We may be tempted to bitterness over our lives, but then what? To paraphrase Soren Kierkegaard, the way of life is how more than it is what. You may be powerless to control reality, but you are nevertheless responsible for how you respond to it. Check your attitude. Do you chose to live in lament over a healing that has not yet happened, or perhaps regard yourself as a hapless victim? Or will you attempt to justify your suffering as a means of personal atonement, accepting it passively as a “good child” or martyr? Does your suffering stretch your heart, or does it cause you to shrink back in fear or self-pity?
Perhaps you (like me) once learned Psalm 19:7 as, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul.” However, the Hebrew text might better be translated as, “The instruction (i.e., Torah) of the LORD is perfect, returning the soul.” This is the message of teshuvah (תְּשׁוּבָה), or “repentance,” of course. We turn away from ourselves to discover that only the love of God given in Yeshua gives life to our dead hearts (Mark 1:15). Teshuvah is therefore first of all a matter of faith, of trusting in the miracle of God. And though it is indeed a great gift from heaven, it requires that we pass through the “narrow gate” of humility by confessing the truth about who we are (Matt. 7:13). We turn away from our pride; we acknowledge our inner poverty, our neediness, and we mourn over the loss and hurt caused by our sin. Teshuvah turns us away from our attempts to defend or justify ourselves and instead turns to God to heal our separation from love (Rom. 8:3-4). The miracle of love buries our old nature and transforms us into a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).