ONLY VICTIM OR GOD CAN TRULY FORGIVE SINS.

Byline: Jane Ulman Local View

THE land of freedom has become the land of forgiveness.

From pulpits to talk show podiums, advice columns to health columns, Web sites to crime sites, so-called experts urge us to reach out and forgive someone. They claim we have nothing to lose but our rage, resentments, deep depression and high blood pressure.

So, always on the lookout for the easy answer, the quick-fix tonic for the soul, we Americans blithely bestow unsolicited forgiveness, instantly and superficially, on killers and kidnappers, ex-spouses and ex-bosses, our parents, our children and complete strangers.

Recently, the John Templeton Marks Foundation, adding fodder to our forgiveness fixation, launched a $10 million Campaign for Forgiveness Research. Researchers will try to apply scientific principles to a historically spiritual process.

But as we approach Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement that focuses on repentance for the past year's misdeeds, we can all see that America's preoccupation with forgiveness is misdirected.

Instead of forgiving, we should be seeking forgiveness.

Instead of placing blame, we should be accepting blame.

Judaism offers no absolution or unconditional forgiveness. On Yom Kippur, God forgives us only for transgressions between God and ourselves. Jewish law states, ``For transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.''

The traditional time for making peace with another human being is between Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur. During this period, known as the Ten Days of Repentance, we are urged to seek out people we have offended or harmed during the previous year and - directly, honestly and often uncomfortably - to admit our wrongdoing. We must also offer to make amends or restitution.

And we know that we haven't genuinely repented until, after seeking forgiveness, we are confronted with the opportunity to commit the same transgression - and we decline.

As Jews, we are born with good and bad inclinations as well as free will. We must take responsibility for all our actions and the consequences that ensue.

The act of forgiving, in Judaism, is also significant and specific. We are commanded to forgive someone who sincerely seeks to make amends. In fact, if a person requests forgiveness three times, and we decline each time, that person is then granted forgiveness by God.

Also, even if we have been grievously wronged, we are admonished not to seek vengeance or bear a grudge against the person who has wronged us, even if he or she has not sought our forgiveness.

Similarly, once a person has atoned, we may not remind him or her of the misdeed. Jewish law tells us, ``One must not say to a person who has repented and changed his way of life, remember your former transgressions.''

What is crucial, however, is that, as Jews, we cannot forgive someone who did not transgress against us directly. Simon Wiesenthal eloquently and painfully elaborates on this subject in his book ``The Sunflower.'' He recounts the true story of a young dying SS officer who summons Wiesenthal, then a concentration camp inmate, into his makeshift hospital room, regarding him as a representative of all European Jews. The German soldier emotionally requests Wiesenthal's forgiveness for a heinous act of cruelty in which he participated and which continues to haunt him.

Wiesenthal cannot bring himself to grant absolution. And by Judaism's standards, he actually cannot, for he was not one of hundreds of innocent Jews inhumanely immolated in a burning building in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.

Secondhand forgiveness, while perhaps bringing some degree of peace to the transgressor, demeans the actual victims. And some crimes, including that of the SS officer, even though carried out under coercion, are ultimately unforgivable. These include murder, incest and idolatry.

Life is jampacked with injustice, unfairness, disease and evil. And often, when there is no redress, reversal or repentance, we must learn to live - uncomfortably, irresolvably and sometimes angrily - with the emotional havoc that results.

The most we can do - and this is the lesson of the Jewish High Holy Days, applicable to all Americans - is deeply and fearlessly examine our own behavior.