Bar/Bat Mitzvahs

Once someone came to ask Rabbi Moshe Feinstein for a recommendation.

Those around the Rabbi were incensed, because the petitioner had contemptuously and publicly attacked Rabbi Feinstein's responsa the previous year.

When Rabbi Feinstein agreed to supply the recommendation, they were surprised.

Rabbi Feinstein explained that Yom Kippur had passed, and as is required of every Jew, he had forgiven the malefactor. How could anyone expect him to bear a grudge for something he had already forgiven with all his heart?

BIOGRAPHY: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1991, Orthodox) was born in Russia and moved to New York City in 1937. For decades, most Orthodox Jews considered him to be the world's greatest authority on Jewish Law.