One of the main problems understanding our liturgy is our modern tendency to read too quickly. Speed-reading the siddur sounds like this: “Blah blah blah blah G-d. Blah blah blah blah G-d…..”
This is a pity, because we miss so much depth when we read the siddur this way. The sixth blessing of the weekday Amidah is a perfect example of this:
“Forgive us…for we have sinned. Pardon us…for we have transgressed….Blessed are You Who is gracious and forgives again and again.”
With a careful reading, we see that this blessing is making a distinction between forgiveness and pardon. Forgiveness, selichah, is the point of the High Holy Day prayer “Slach lanu,” , the selichot ceremony that precedes Rosh Hashanah, and the modern Hebrew word for “Excuse me,” slicha. Forgivness is a response to sin, chet, which literally comes from the root for “shooting an arrow at a target and missing.”
Pardon (mechilah), on the other hand, is a response to crime. It is juxtaposed with selicha in the above mentioned High Holy Day prayer, “Slach lanu, machal lanu…” “Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.
Pastor Joe Kay offers a beautiful clarification of the difference between selicha and mechila, forgivenss and pardon.
“A pardon protects someone from punishment for their behavior. Forgiveness seeks not to protect the one who has fallen short, but to touch them and to change them.
Pardoning erases an outward debt. Forgiveness transforms a person or a world from within.
A pardon moves on from the moment without requiring a price paid or a heart changed by the person involved. Forgiveness seeks to redeem and change the person and the moment.
Forgiveness isn’t about avoiding a punishment; it’s about reconciling and renewing relationships. Forgiveness transforms recrimination into reconciliation, division into unity. It replaces rejection with acceptance and hurt with healing.
A pardon? All that does is keep you out of jail.
Forgiveness does what pardon can’t do because it originates in a totally different place. Pardon is rooted in the law and legality; forgiveness springs from the heart and is based on love.”
The conclusion of the blessing is also quite telling. It emphasizes that G-d is likely to offer selichah, forgiveness, multiple times. But not pardon. G-d is “Marbeh lisloach”—but not “marbeh limchol.”
The grieving mother of Tyre Nichols, a recent victim of police brutality, gave expression to this when she said, of her son’s murderers, “They have put their own families in harm’s way. They have brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the Black community,” she said through tears. “I feel sorry for them. I really do. I really feel sorry for them, because they didn’t have to do this.” She was willing to offer them forgiveness, but never suggested that they should not pay the price for their crimes.
Selichah, but not mechilah.