L'Oeuvre du pardon. En/un dialogue avec Catherine Chalier

After having contextualized and identified the reasons for coming back to the theme of forgiveness, in the footsteps of the 1965 collective volume entitled La coscience juive face à l’histoire: le pardon, we wonder about the moral, then religious, then theological meaning of forgiveness. This, referring to some passages from the Talmud and the Jewish Bible, but always attempting to actualize their borders. Matters concerning forgiveness, which in our opinion are essentials, thus re-arise: does forgiveness have to do with God, with the other or with oneself? Does forgiveness concern single individuals and their personal relationships, or can we also speak of forgiveness with regard to communities or groups of people, for example, as precisely happened in the past, after the Second World War, between Jewish and Germans? In other hand, which is the difference between forgiveness and reparation? And where does it fit into? For those who guarantee justice? Moreover, is it possible to forgive through the intermediation of another person or is it necessary, as dictated by the Jewish tradition, a direct request of forgiveness to the offended person? Does forgiveness include a prior request, namely to know and to question, or is it possible to grant it independently from the acknowledgement and the awareness, and therefore from speech, by him or her who wish to receive it? In other words, can the request of forgiveness go beyond words or can it only be formulated into the language, and specifically, into human language? Does this mean that in silence there is no forgiveness? Finally, or in limine, but certainly on the limit, can dead forgive?