Rabbi 360

This being the month of Elul, the themes of repentance and forgiveness are front and center in our hearts and minds as we get ready for the High Holidays.

Last week, I had an opportunity to attend a screening of the first two episodes of “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,” an 8-part series currently on Hulu that dramatizes the Amanda Knox case. If you don’t recall, Knox was a University of Washington student from Seattle who, along with her Italian boyfriend, was accused of killing her British roommate during a study abroad in Italy in 2007. She was convicted and served four years of a 26-year sentence before her conviction was overturned and she was acquitted by Italy’s highest court. Another person was charged and found guilty. (Obviously there are more details, but that is the gist of it.)

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Knox is a producer of the show, it is based on her story and memoir, and she and her husband were on hand to do a Q&A after we watched the episodes. During the Q&A many people were asking about details of the case, or her personal experiences of making the series. And then one person raised their hand and asked, “where are you regarding forgiveness?”

Despite it being asked frequently, I truly dislike that question.

I dislike it because of the assumptions and burden that comes with it: it assumes that people are owed forgiveness even if they do nothing to earn it, and it puts the moral burden on victims who have suffered, and not the perpetrators who caused the suffering. It is a seemingly very American way of thinking. (Perhaps based on the strong Christian foundation in this country.)

But it is not very Jewish. Judaism teaches that forgiveness must be earned, and that we are only worthy of forgiveness if we have done the work of teshuvah (repentance). There is no obligation for a victim to forgive their perpetrator if the perpetrator has not atoned for their misdeeds, changed their ways and (this is important too) asked for it. Forgiveness must first be requested by the perpetrator, not preemptively given by the victim, and only after a process of introspection and repair.

An example of this teaching comes from the law codes of Maimonides, one of the leading Jewish scholars and thinkers:

However, sins between people—for example, someone who injures a colleague, curses a colleague, steals, or the like—will never be forgiven until they give their colleague what is owed and appeases them. Even if a person restores the money that they owe, they must appease the victim and ask them for forgiveness. Even if a person only upset a colleague by saying certain things, they must appease them and approach him repeatedly until they forgives them.

(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 2:9)

Whether this is Maimonides’s intention or not, assuming a victim must grant forgiveness without being asked and without demonstration of behavioral change can indeed also cause further harm to the victim. Putting the burden on them to forgive someone who is not repentant can extend the injury in the name of “healing” or “closure.” It is unfair and harmful, for if a victim does not feel that they can forgive, then they are then seen as the ones causing harm.

Maimonides does go on to teach that if someone does the work of teshuvah—which includes recognizing where one caused harm, confessing it, making amends with the person they harmed, resolving never to do it again, and not doing it when the same opportunity presents itself—and asks for forgiveness, then the victim must forgive. If they don’t after three requests, then they are in the wrong. But the important work is repentance, not forgiveness.

And forgiveness isn’t necessarily needed for healing. A perpetrator who had done true teshuvah might not even need forgiveness, because they know in their heart that they have atoned and changed their ways. We note too that some sins in Judaism are unforgivable, like murder: one may ultimately gain forgiveness from survivors for the pain they caused by causing the death of a loved one, but they can not gain forgiveness for the act itself, because that victim can never grant it. This doesn’t obviate the need to do teshuvah, however.

Interestingly, in response to the question, Knox noted that the framing of the entire series is a trip she took back to Italy in 2022 to confront the prosecutor who led the case. This is introduced in the beginning of the first episode before the story goes back to the events beginning in 2007. Knox noted that the eighth and final episode of the series is about that meeting, so we will need to wait a few weeks to see how that played out.

Whether or not there was true teshuvah done, I don’t know. (I’ll keep watching, but then again, I don’t know if this is a plot point.) At the Q&A, describing that 2022 meeting, Knox’s husband Chris hinted at developing an understanding that the Italian officials who drove this case are “flawed individuals who make mistakes and cause trauma.”

Indeed, aren’t we all. And a good reminder that it is this gift of teshuvah that brings about healing, within ourselves and in our relationships. Forgiveness should only come at the end of a process, not at the beginning, and not as a shortcut to an end. We would do well then to refrain from asking victims about forgiveness. Rather, let’s ask the perpetrators about teshuvah.