(9:01 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

From "What is a 'relevant' translation?"

(Permit me a parenthesis here: while rereading this extraordinary verdict whose ruse we shall analyze in a moment--namely, the phrase that says "then the Jew must forgive," implying that "it is the Jew who must forgive," "it is up to the Jew in general to forgive"--I can't avoid recalling the Pope's extraordinary sigh at the end of the second millenium. Several months ago, as he was about to board the plane for one of his transcontinental journeys, he was asked what he thought of the French episcopate's declaration of repentance, and after sighing, after feeling a bit sorry for himself, after feeling a bit sorry for Christianity and Catholicisim, he said: "I notice it is always we who are asking for forgiveness." Well! The implication: forgiveness from the Jews [even if some people legitimately think of certain American Indians, too, as well as various other victims of the Inquisition whom the Pope has since put on the list as another duty of commemoration, as it is called--or of repentance]. It is always we, Christians or Catholics, who are asking for forgiveness, but why? Yes, why? Is it that forgiveness is a Christian thing and Christians should set an example because Christ's Passion consisted of assuming sin on the cross? Or indeed because, under the circumstances, a certain Church, if not Christianity, will always have reproached itself a great deal, while asking for forgiveness, and first of all from the Jew, whom it has asked for forgiveness--and to be merciful? "Then must the Jew be merciful.")

The strength of forgiveness, if you listen to Portia, is more than just, more just than justice or the law. It rises above the law or above what in justice is only law; it is, beyond human law, the very thing that invokes prayer. And what is, finally, a discourse on translation (possible/impossible) is also a discourse of prayer on prayer. Forgiveness is prayer; it belongs to the order of benediction and prayer on two sides: that of the person who requests it and that of the person who grants it. The essence of prayer has to do with forgiveness, not with power and law. Between the elevation of prayer or benediction--above human power, above even royal power insofar as it is human, above the law, above the penal code--and the elevation of forgiveness above human power, royal power and the law, there exists a sort of essential affinity. Prayer and forgiveness have the same provenance and the same essence, the same eminence that is more eminent than eminence, the eminence of the Most High.

| permalink | Main Page