At this time of the year I can almost feel the approach of Judaism's holiest day, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which begins this coming Sunday night. It's a day we spend in fasting and prayer, pouring out our hearts to God, saying sorry for the wrong we've done and asking him to grant atonement. A solemn time, though there can be some unintentionally amusing moments.

I remember one year when a synagogue was so oversubscribed that it arranged to have an overflow service in a local cinema. When the day was over and the congregation was leaving, they looked back to see what was playing that week. It turned out to be a film called Unforgiven. I hope they had better luck the next year.

But forgiveness is too important to be confined to places of worship. It's the single most important word in conflict resolution. What does it mean? It isn't a substitute for justice. Saying sorry on its own doesn't right a wrong. Nor does it mean forgetting, because we should never forget the past if we want to avoid repeating our mistakes in the future. What it means is drawing a line over the past, saying goodbye to lingering resentments and beginning again. It's one of the most blessed gifts the Bible ever gave humanity.

Think of how many relationships fail because one of the parties doesn't know how to apologise or accept an apology. And what applies to individuals applies to nations and religions. There's a most remarkable group who've been working together in the Middle East for the past eight years - Israeli and Palestinian parents who've lost children in the current conflict. If anyone has a right to be bitter, they have. And yet their grief has brought them together rather than driven them apart. Not because they think peace is easy, but because, having paid so high a price they don't want others to have to pay it. And so they go round to schools speaking of the need for reconciliation. That takes courage of a high order; but in dark days they've lit a flickering flame of hope.

There was once a man lost in a forest, when he heard the sound of someone approaching. The stranger came up to him and said, "Friend, I cannot give you directions, for I too am lost. But don't take the way I've come from for it too leads nowhere. And now - he said - let's search for a new way together." Forgiveness means searching for a new way together, and sometimes it's the only way.

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