What does it mean to really forgive?

Recently, several individuals have offered a master class in that art. 

An Arkansas mosque paid off the fines of the man who helped vandalize it, so that he wouldn’t face more jail time. They had already forgiven him for his part in the 2016 defacing of the building and wanted a practical way to show that, the Masjid al Alsam's social director told the Huffington Post. 

“He needs to keep going, don’t even look back. The back is gone,” said Hashim Yasin. “I look forward to seeing him work and study and become something in the future.”

After a Texas man called her something vile on Twitter, comedian Sarah Silverman saw not a troll but a man in pain and offered to pay his medical bills. 

And an octogenarian Baltimore city councilwoman now mentors the two teenage boys whose attempted carjacking put her in the hospital. Rikki Spector and a coalition of “good Samaritans” have been working with the boys, who are showing improvement in their grades, attendance, and behavior.

Ms. Spector says she chose to forgive them because it is part of her Jewish faith.

“The Talmud says you first have to have empathy,” she said. “You have to do acts of love and kindness.”

Now, here are our five stories of the day, chosen to look at security, the value of history, and the importance of shedding assumptions.