forgiveness

Distinctions

selichah (סליחה)

Root ס-ל-ח. Close to fifty Biblical occurrences, most famously Hashem's answer to Moshe after the Meraglim, salachti kidvarecha (Bamidbar 14:20). Its cognates cluster around the forgiveness a korban brings (Vayikra 4:20-35, 5:10-26). The column notes that linguists connect selichah to the Akkadian salahu and the Aramaic zelicha, both meaning "sprinkling," which it says may be a reference to the sprinkling of the blood on the mizbeach, the main component of the korbanos. Rabbi Moshe Meth (Matteh Moshe) and Rabbi Yitzchak Eizik of Tirna (Sefer HaMinhagim): selichah pairs with avon (Bamidbar 14:19). Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg: selichah may be quantitatively the stronger, since it reaches the whole quantity of the sin, but only by completely deferring its punishment to a later time; the sin itself is left as it was. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer: a reprieve, the sinner is not punished all at once but given time to repay slowly. Rav Hirsch: the correction of the relationship between the sinner and the one (or One) he wronged. The word also names the piyyut genre, Selichos, originally said inside the selach lanu berachah of Shemoneh Esrei and nowadays before davening begins or after Shemoneh Esrei.

mechilah (מחילה)

Root מ-ח-ל, which Ernest Klein's A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language calls of uncertain etymology. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur: absent from Tanach, present in Rabbinic literature and the liturgy; besides forgiveness it means cancelling a debt or forgoing what one deserves. Matteh Moshe and Sefer HaMinhagim pair it with pesha, and since no pasuk has mechilah they prove it from mocheh peshaecha (Yeshayahu 43:25), reading mochel as mocheh, to wipe away; Rabbi Aharon Fuld (glosses to HaBachur): mochel is mocheh plus al. Rabbi Moshe Yitzchak Avigdor and Rabbi Yehuda Aszad: kin to yachel (Bamidbar 30:3), which Targum renders cancel, nullify. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim holds that many three-letter roots opening with mem are really the remaining two letters with the mem flipping the sense to its opposite (chok engrave, machak erase; leitz scorn, meilitz defend; na movement, mana withholding; rad rule, marad rebel, and more). Pappenheim himself does not apply this to mechilah; the column suggests that perhaps we may: ח-ל is hollowing out, and so profaning something holy by emptying it, and a Jew who sins makes himself a hollow vessel, so מ-ח-ל would be the mechanism by which Hashem fills the hollow and re-infuses the penitent with holiness. Mecklenburg: qualitatively the stronger, it can erase part of the sin outright even if not all of it. Wertheimer: immediate and complete forgiveness. Rav Hirsch: commuting the punishment the guilty party deserves.

kapparah (כפרה)

Root כ-פ-ר. Matteh Moshe and Sefer HaMinhagim pair it with chet (Shemos 32:30); Rabbi Yechezkel Landau: elsewhere it goes with avon (Mishlei 16:6, Yeshayahu 27:9, Tehillim 78:38), but the Chumash pairing with chet governs. Malbim records two derivations. From kofer, ransom: kapparah is a price paid for forgiveness, usually a korban (hence Yom HaKippurim, and the Erev Yom Kippur kapparos). From kapporet, cover: kapparah covers the sin on the surface so it is no longer visible, but does not completely remove or wipe it away. The column offers a harmonization of its own, that in English one "covers" a cost by offsetting it, so covering and paying a price can be two facets of one idea. Malbim's own summary is that kapparah recalls the price paid for sin and focuses on the transactional side of atonement. Rav Hirsch: the total negation of any negative ramification of the sin. Mecklenburg and Wertheimer do not place kapparah against the other two.

Rendering guidance

• The triple: "forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement." Keep three words.
• Mechilah between people or in money: "waive," "forgo," "excuse" ("he waived his honor," "she forgave the debt" in the plain financial sense). "Pardon" is for the penal sense.
• Kapparah is never "forgiveness": it carries the korban, the price, the covering. "Atonement" is the settled English and Yom Kippur fixes it.
• Trap: "forgiveness" absorbs all three, and "atone" is sometimes stretched to selichah. If a passage turns on the order or the strength of the words (Mecklenburg's deferral versus erasure, Wertheimer's slow versus immediate), the English must keep three distinct nouns.
• The sin pairings are a useful check: selichah for avon, mechilah for pesha, kapparah for chet (see the sin entry, sin-chet-avon-pesha.md).

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Forms of Forgiveness," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 21 Elul 5779 (2019-09-21): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8400-forms-of-forgiveness.md. Primary loci the article cites: Bamidbar 14:19-20; Vayikra 4:20-35 and 5:10-26; Yeshayahu 43:25; Bamidbar 30:3 with Targum; Shemos 32:30; Mishlei 16:6, Yeshayahu 27:9, Tehillim 78:38; Matteh Moshe and Sefer HaMinhagim on the three words for sin; Rabbi Aharon Fuld's glosses to HaBachur; Rav Hirsch's three-way definition. Nothing the article carries is omitted here, including Ernest Klein's dictionary on מ-ח-ל and the Akkadian and Aramaic comparison for selichah.