On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

by Danya Ruttenberg

A crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm--from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unresolved issues

American culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narratives instead of the perpetrator's obligations or recompense for harmed parties. As survivor communities have pointed out, these emphases have too often only caused more harm. But Danya Ruttenberg knew there was a better model, rooted in the work of the medieval philosopher Maimonides.

For Maimonides, upon whose work Ruttenberg elaborates, forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which the person who caused harm is obligated. The word traditionally translated as repentance really means something more like return, and in this book, returning is a restoration, as much as is possible, to the victim, and, for the perpetrator of harm, a coming back, in humility and intentionality, to behaving as the person we might like to believe we are.

Maimonides laid out five steps: naming and owning harm; starting to change/transformation; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices. Applying this lens to both our personal relationships and some of the most significant and painful issues of our day, including systemic racism and the legacy of enslavement, sexual violence and harassment in the wake of #MeToo, and Native American land rights, On Repentance and Repair helps us envision a way forward.

Rooted in traditional Jewish concepts while doggedly accessible and available to people from any, or no, religious background, On Repentance and Repair is a book for anyone who cares about creating a country and culture that is more whole than the one in which we live, and for anyone who has been hurt or who is struggling to take responsibility for their mistakes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Jewish, Judaism, Religion, Social Justice, Philosophy, Spirituality

243 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2022

About the author

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is the author of eight books. Her newest, ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR: MAKING AMENDS IN AN UNREPENTANT WORLD (Beacon Press, September 2022) applies an ancient framework of repentance and repair not only to our personal relationships, but to the contemporary public square, to institutions, and to national policy--addressing some of the most live and unresolved issues of our time.

She was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of ten “rabbis to watch,” as one of 21 “faith leaders to watch” by the Center for American Progress, by the Forward as one of the top 50 most influential women rabbis, has been a Washington Post Sunday crossword clue (83 Down) and called a “wunderkund of Jewish feminism” by Publishers Weekly.

She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Time, The Washington Post, and many other publications. She has been featured on NPR a number of times, as well as in The Atlantic, USA Today, NBC News, CNN, MTV News, Vice, Buzzfeed News, and elsewhere.

Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting (Flatiron Books), was a National Jewish Book Award finalist and PJ Library Parents’ Choice selection; Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press), was nominated for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature and a Hadassah Book Club selection. Her other books include The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism (NYU Press), Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism (Seal Press), and, with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, three books for the Jewish Publication Society’s Jewish Choices/Jewish Voices series: Sex and Intimacy, War and National Security, and Social Justice.

Reviews

[Katie Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are books that come around once in a generation. This book is one of them.

Rabbi Ruttenberg has done something transformative. She has used an ancient framework to understand making amends and repair for a complicated world. How to ensure we centered those harms, not just our egos. Even more impressive, how we can do it interpersonally, socially, institutionally, and nationally.

Did I mention she did this in under 200 pages (notes an resources excluded)?

She has found a way to translate complicated concepts and make them approachable, understandable, and useful no matter what religious or spiritual background you come from.

If there is one book to read, this is it. I will be coming back to this book myself over and over again.

[Gwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

simplistic and a bit smug

If you’re Jewish, not a lot new here.
I ended up hate reading a lot of this as she tried repeatedly to cram too much into a chapter- it’s one thing to talk about how nations repent and look at Germany and South Africa, but then she threw in Israel and Palestine (oversimplifying), India, Turkey…

While restorative and transformative justice are fantastic tools, this section is weakened by her utter failure to note that yes, some people are psychopaths. Pedophiles, mass shooters, serial killers. So one bit of transformative justice was for a rapist to back off his activism- in which he spoke out against violence towards women.

Um. THAT MAN WAS A CONSCIOUS, SLICK LIAR. Of COURSE we discover he’d raped other women and I’d COURSE he went on to rape again. And yes it IS the failure of the approach as well as his failure.

The final chapter in which she suggests people are not obligated to forgive was the best- but again if you’re Jewish and go to High Holiday services, nothing new.

Read for a book club, only reason I kept going.

[Brian Sokol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advanced giveaway copy of this book.

While not a scholar, I approached this book as someone knowledgeable about the Jewish framework of repentance (specifically that of Maimonides) and how it differs from prevalent U.S.
/Christian thinking. Rabbi Ruttenberg does an excellent job of elucidating this framework for the reader, including the uninitiated.

But, what I most appreciated about the book, and its core contribution, is the application of the framework to successively greater realms, starting with personal relationships, and expanding to include public figures, institutions, and finally nations. With current and modern historical examples, she shows how the framework can be usefully applied to help find the way past the tired, repetitive cycles of false apology toward deeper progress.

Another important aspect of the book is her clear distinction between the process of repentance, which is incumbent on the perpetrator, and the process of forgiveness--and multiple types of forgiveness--which is optional for the victim. While repentance is the work of the perpetrator, it should center the needs of the victim. Those who harmed others should not hold their own need to absolve their own guilt higher than the emotional needs of those harmed. That can often just be an extension of the original harmful action. She shows how the pressure to forgive has been unevenly applied to those with less power and often serves to keep the existing structures in place.

All told this is an engaging, deeply researched, wide ranging and insightful book, which I highly recommend for Jews who want to apply the Jewish ideas of repentance to the fullest range of issues, as well as for those less familiar with the Jewish ideas of repentance who want to look at the ideas of sin, harm, repentance, forgiveness, and atonement in a new (albeit old) way.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have some very mixed feelings about this book. Let me be clear about two things, lest I be accused of bias: I'm a practicing Conservative Jew and a liberal/progressive. In theory this book should have been right up my alley.

I've long had an interest in what it means to repent, or in Jewish terms, to do teshuva, particularly in these days of callout culture and public apology--much of which seems to be performative, rather than sincere. (Jill Lepore had a very good article about apologies in the New Yorker in November '22.)

Despite being a rabbi, R' Ruttenberg is less interested in analyzing Jewish thought here than she is about applying Maimonides' process of teshuva to both everyday life... as seen through a left-wing lens. The problem is that life is messier and more complicated than a left-right political axis. Religion is never apolitical, but it should be bigger than a specific political lens or moment. She's also taking on a lot of territory here, covering both interpersonal relationships and collective sin, in a relatively short book (about 200pp plus notes)

This leads to sections where her treatment of a topic is rushed, for example in the section on restorative justice. She says outright that it's not an appropriate setting for abuse, but troublingly, several of her examples center on rape and sexual assault, and she then continues into a segment on a "perpetrator centered" view. Ruttenberg takes this chapter as an opportunity to consider the perpetrators of crime in a different context--as themselves a victim of larger social forces. In some cases that is true. But in rape and sexual assault, we are dealing with a larger framework of oppression, and that context cannot and should not be ignored. Deborah Turkheimer's book Credible has a section on the promise AND the perils of a restorative justice approach to rape and sexual assault that was much more even and balanced. While R' Ruttenberg does say a restorative justice process needs to be initiated by the victim, this needs to be considered in the framework of how girls and women particularly are socialized and the pressures upon them. The example given of the rapist who went on to commit another crime is also somewhat brushed aside with "it was his fault, not the process."

I can't say, though, that it's a bad book. It's a case of a book that could have been much better. Maimonides' framework is excellent! As a Jew, I guess I was disappointed that it wasn't a more Jewish book, just some relatively basic Judaism boiled down for outsiders. And some of the stories and examples are good. It was, however, very much about how outsiders should view a process because of its focus on stories about others, and less about how we as individuals can internalize that process and perform it. It's not really a how-to.

[cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reworking of the Laws of Repentance from the Mishneh Torah written by 12th Century rabbi Maimonides. Ruttenberg does an excellent job interleaving modern examples (e.g. BLM, #MeToo, justice for the First Nations Dakota people of Minnesota) with an old text* and covers the whole spectrum from interpersonal / public / institutional / national repentance to repentance in the justice system. This book appeared at a prescient time in my life. :')

* My favorite quotation, from the Laws of Repentance 2:3 - Anyone who verbalizes his confession without resolving in his heart to abandon [sin] can be compared to [a person] who immerses himself [in a mikvah] while [holding the carcass of] a lizard in his hand. His immersion will not be of avail until he casts away the carcass.

rec: Kaavya

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leaning hard into High Holiday themed reading, and this one did not disappoint!

The topic of this book dives into the true meaning of repentance. Ruttenberg uses quotes from seminal works of famed medieval sage, Moses Maimonides, to bolster up the Jewish ideals at play.

Repentance might be victim-focused—in fact it has to be in order to be true repentance—but this text is very perpetrator-focused. It has to be in order to get its points across. Repentance, see, is a journey. Ruttenberg often uses the metaphor of “crossing a bridge,” and she means a personal one of self-actualization. The realization, as a perpetrator of harm, that you don’t get to be the hero, or the angel, of this particular story. That your biases, or traumas or what have you (do the work of figuring that part out) have led you to hurt someone else. How can you come to a more empathetic reality—how can you change intrinsically—in order to not make those missteps again? Once and only once you do this work, you can apologize, and hopefully be forgiven.

Indeed, forgiveness is the least important part of the process. Unlike as is the case in modern, secular, Protestant-lite western culture, it isn’t a given. It isn’t assumed that your victim should forgive you, no matter what the infraction. And if attaining forgiveness is the perp’s sole focus, it might throw into question the authenticity of his or her journey.

Repentance, Ruttenberg argues, is freeing for the perpetrator as well. It frees you from the biases and traumas I mentioned earlier. It introduces you to a life of increased empathy. “Empathy” might be more of a me thing than it is for either Ruttenberg or Maimonides. It’s kind of my cornerstone.

In fact I took copious notes as I read this book over Rosh Hashanah (whether or not I can read my own handwriting is another matter. :P) But so far most of this review has gone on my memory and feels. I’ve alluded a bit to interpersonal harm thus far, and Ruttenberg has many examples from people she’s interviewed or whose stories are accessible. But then she branches out, because Maimonides’s Laws of Repentance, she argues (and his own text seems to argue) is more widely applicable. One bears more culpability when one’s infraction is more public (and in today’s world of social media, so much is public.) Groups, institutions, are also capable of harm.

The examples, thus, grow larger, and they culminate in Ruttenberg’s nuanced take on the complicated repentance (or lack thereof) of three(ish) nation states—South Africa in confronting apartheid, East and West Germany in confronting the Holocaust, and the United States in (not) confronting a specific example of indigenous genocide (the Dakota people of Minnesota.) In a world where discourse often feels centered on scoring points for whatever political agenda, Ruttenberg remains focused on honest accounting. My one quibble, particularly in a chapter about the legacy of harm against minority groups, is the implication that the Holocaust—let alone broader European antisemitism—started and ended with the Nazis in Germany.

There’s so much great stuff in here. In her chapter on justice systems, Ruttenberg introduces the idea of restorative justice vs the prison industrial complex (alas, my own country often comes up short in this book.) OK, it’s inaccurate to say Ruttenberg “introduces” this idea—I myself read about it most prominently a couple of years ago in CHARGED by Emily Bazelon—but she applies it deftly to her framework of true repentance over flawed routines.

And of course there’s so much great Jewish content in here (on the flip side, as a rabbi, many of the examples of wrongdoing Ruttenberg knows to hold up come from our community.) But in terms of—to inappropriately use a loaded word, enlightenment—we have everything from Maimonides (with whom Ruttenberg occasionally argues, but broadly speaking they’re on the same page, also there’s nothing more Jewish than arguing with our sages, heh,) to grappling with the Holocaust, to of course Yom Kippur, particularly in the final chapter, about atonement. A senior rabbi from my synagogue even gets a shoutout! :D “As Rabbi Aaron Alexander put it, atonement ‘doesn’t even erase the past, and it certainly can’t wipe away all our shame. But it does offer a moment to feel free, once again…while our past may stay with us, even haunt us, it need not totally define us. And that’s something to celebrate.’” How invigorating to read this shortly after listening to his Rosh Hashanah sermon in person, lol.

I think the most important takeaway from this book is that the vast majority of us—when we are perpetrators, because of course we are also the victims of other peoples’ harm—shouldn’t be wholly defined by our misdeeds. A major hurdle in our path towards acknowledging wrongdoing is that such an admission means that we are admitting to being demons. This sort of binary thinking stops repentance and repair. Having flaws—and even engaging in actions that cannot be fully repaired (slander was a big one for Maimonides, and for Judaism as a whole, because one cannot take back words)—doesn’t mean that you’re irredeemable. It means you have to change, yes, cross that bridge Ruttenberg keeps mentioning, and become someone “different.” But hopefully that “different” person means cutting away the chaff and allowing the better parts of you to grow.

[Chrissy Lapointe · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is so important! 5/5 i think every one should read this and educate them self on the steps of repentance and how us as a society need to educate our self’s and make real social change towards reconciliation in a colonial world

[Eli Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only got through 10 pages and put this book down. The introduction was oozing with self-righteousness and smugness. Hard pass

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as part of this year's UUA Common Read, so essentially for church book club. I was cautiously optimistic about taking something meaningful away from this for both my personal life and how I approach institutional issues. I was deeply disappointed.

Unfortunately, I think this book falls FAR short of the mark it sets out for itself, which as best I can tell is one the author herself defined, so it's really an unforced error that she claims she's going to apply this framework to the real world and then grossly fails.

First, let's get the easy part out of the way: this is not well written. I think both the explanations of the (mostly Jewish) source texts and the real world examples are engaging to read, but around it there's so much filler from the author. Her own rambling and musing, rehashing what was already clearly stated, obliquely referencing later chapters, outright repeating herself, and so on. The book is short and yet it's extremely shaggy; I was constantly skimming and bored despite being (angrily) very engaged with the content proper.

Now onto the more complex issues:
1. This ignores the complexity and interconnectedness of the vast majority of personal harms
2. This ignores the competing values and priorities of institutional decisions
3. This ignores the reality of the modern day US/North American culture it alleges it's written for

1: about personal harms. This I find to be the deal breaker and the fatal flaw of this book: it skips the crucial step of discerning what harm (if any) has been done. It's true there are scenarios with clear victims and perpetrators -- basically the things you would bring to court. But this is framed as a book for the general public, and I daresay the vast majority of interpersonal conflict does not have one fully guilty perpetrator and one fully innocent victim and it's abundantly clear to all who is which. Things are much more messy! Perhaps this is best exemplified by two of her own examples from different chapters:

(A) a student inadvertently, through lack of awareness, deeply upsets a professor by how she organizes a conference, and the professor yells at her.
(B) a black journalist inadvertently, through lack of awareness, annoys an interviewee by how she phrases a question, and he reams her out.

To me these seem like great examples of the real frictions of the world, where two people doing their best at the time can each cause a bit of harm to the other, and are scenarios I'd be interested to untangle and see how to leave the situation better than we found it. But no. According to Rabbi Ruttenberg, in A the student is the victim, in B the journalist is the perpetrator, clear as day no discussion warranted. I just can't take a book seriously that claims it's about how everyone should be making their apologies, but also claims every interaction has a good guy and a bad guy and doesn't give a framework for figuring out who is which.

2: lack of nuance in institutional contexts. Again we see some heavy cherry-picking of examples, and here the glaring omission I see is that there is no discussion of what constitutes "enough" and the presence of competing priorities. Government and huge organizations are complex! Compromise exists for a reason -- every act, bill, law, ruling, or committee is going to provide benefits to some stakeholders and cause "harm" to others. This book totally ignores that, chooses one particular set of stakeholders who have been harmed by a government, outlines what the government has done in reparations (which to my eye seemed actually quite commendable), but says it's not enough and then finds one other thing they did that hurt this group again. I just don't know what to do with this, it felt like I was reading a five year old shouting "that's not fair!" You might be right, kid, but it's not a helpful argument to bring to the grown-ups' table.

3: cultural ignorance. This book spends plenty of time talking about what rules were in place for a small faith based community in the 12th century, as well as plenty of time talking about what we should do if we lived in the just and victim-centering community we all wish we lived in. Cool story bro, but we don't live in that world. Arguably we should strive to make our world look more like that, but that's a whole different book and a whole different effort. So until that happens, we have the media incentives we have. And the justice system we have. And the internet culture we have. And the litigious economy we have. And the political climate we have. And the broken patchwork of communities we have. Again, this is a self-inflicted failure; this book explicitly sets out to be a practical guide for first world readers in our current age (it was written during COVID) so I'm only measuring by its own yardstick, and on this it comes up grossly short.


Ok, so.


What's good in here?

I thought most of the examples, while not always actually demonstrating the intended point, were usually fun to read with the same voyeuristic enjoyment of a piece of juicy gossip or a murder mystery.

I did think that Maimonides has an interesting framework to offer, one I wasn't at all familiar with, and which I find value in learning about. I think there's some academic reasons to learn about this, and with some creative interpretation I do think it provides a framework you can combine with other frameworks and values into something you try to carry with you in life.

The language here if nothing else is approachable and the text easy, so it's digestible enough.

I dunno. There's enough there that I wouldn't give it 1 star, but I definitely would have DNF'd if not for church discussion.

So who is this book ACTUALLY for? I think it's for people who have undeniably victimized someone else in their life, want to make a genuine change of character, but have no idea how to do that. I have to imagine that group of readers is vanishingly small. For the rest of us, I wished I'd just read the Wikipedia pages on Maimonides and Restorative Justice and called it a day.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an important text! You don't need go be Jewish to appreciate this book and the philosophy behind it. Important for the world in which we live.

[Anouk · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few places where I didn’t follow the logic, thought the author was lying to herself, or found the concepts trite - and if not the concepts, at least the way they were portrayed. However, I appreciate how this book had me rethink how relationships work. And although not much time was spent on explaining each example in the book, it was good to show such a variety to see the framework's applications and limitations.

I didn’t like the strong bias toward the political left, though. I'd rather give up all my citizenships than vote for a conservative party, but things are more nuanced than Left = Good, Right = Bad. In that case, the author’s tendency to simplify concepts was grating.

Ideally, I will better follow this framework moving forward. Realistically, my strange mush of pride and anxiety will continue to get in the way. Worth a shot though.

[Jennie]

The paradigm set up in the first chapter is very thought provoking, but the rest of the book felt repetitive, subjective, & anecdotal. This would have worked better as an essay or sermon.

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a timely and necessary book. While I believe that the vast majority of criticisms of "cancel culture" are from people who don't think the powerful and privileged should face real consequences for their harmful actions, it is also undeniably messy to agree on what exactly is required of anyone who hurts another, whether in public or private. This book is a great place to start figuring that out.

Rabbi Rutenberg lays out a thoughtful and powerful framework for addressing all kinds of harm, from mundane but painful interpersonal harm, to abuse by public figures, and even to genocide and centuries-long systemic oppression. She does this with persuasive arguments peppered liberally with real-world stories that keep the discussion grounded. And the dogged insistence on keeping everything victim-focused was very refreshing.

The author's approach is couched in the language of the Jewish tradition, and she does a great job explaining what that tradition says. But the principles outlined are applicable to anyone working through repentance—as the book states explicitly (and models by quoting many non-Jewish thinkers as well). I appreciated as well that Rabbi Rutenberg was willing to disagree with Maimonides (whose framework she uses as the basis for the whole book) when she thinks he gets some nuances wrong or is incomplete.

The chapter that I thought was the weakest nevertheless brought up potential objections to its own claims and admitted that there are no perfect answers. That humility and introspection is one of the highlights of the book.

Overall a beautiful and incisive book about what it means to do the real work of repair and transformation. It is not meant to be a panacea, but it is a fantastic resource.

[Sarah Siggelakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor. Her style is very business oriented and so I wasn't fully expecting what I got out of this book. I learned a lot about Judaism, Maimonides, the Talmud, as well as repentance and repair. Moreover, this book covers repentance and repair at all levels. While this is applicable to daily life we also dove deep into how corporations, cultures, and countries can use these skills.

I won't lie - this is a depressing read. Danya takes us through stories of the worst of humanity. But her goal is to help us learn to be better as well as better to one another.

This is a heavy but important read.

[Sam R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through but it was worth it! Very thought-provoking and I loved getting to know a bit more about Jewish theology. I think a lot of people need to think more deeply about what they should do after causing harm and this book gives many insights.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

vital

I’m so glad I read this book. So much to think about and consider and implement, interpersonally and professionally and nationally and globally. Maybe the most thought provoking book of the year for me.

[Kelsey Bruinwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite book I've ever read for school. This book is incredible, and powerful, and I recommend it to all.
Ruttenberg, a Jewish Rabbi, is compelling and engaging as she writes about the practices of repentance and repair and the ways we engage in these Jewish practices today. Truly cannot recommend this book enough.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an insightful, engaging book to read. I appreciate that it is written to a wide audience, both Jewish and not Jewish. I learned a lot from reading this, and I will try to be mindful of what I’ve learned.

[EGA · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure if this would make for good airplane reading but I blew through it on my flight! I appreciate Rabbi Ruttenberg's thoughtful and compassion approach to adopting-- and adapting-- the wisdom of Maimonides to today's world.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a perfect book for the High Holy Day season and good for any time of year; perfect for people coming to it from a Jewish background and good for anyone who's seriously considering how to take stock of their own wrongdoings, change their path, make amends, and transform themselves and their relationships with people and with God. I want to discuss it with folks who aren't already fans of the author, as I am. The only fault I find in it is that too many of the examples are from the headlines and from Twitter and will age quickly. If Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR, on Twitter) would agree to update it every few years, I would give it five stars!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough, well-researched, well-written, accessible and thought provoking examination of how the Laws of Repen­tance that Mai­monides (or Ram­bam) established in the 12th century can relate to our modern times and provide a framework not just for our personal relationships but for national and societal issues as well. Rabbi Ruttenberg is not shy about making her politics known and connects the concepts of forgiveness, repentance, atonement, and repair to the #MeToo movement, sys­temic racism, reparations for Native Americans, cancel cul­ture, the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate, and more. I found Chapter 5, "On National Repentance," and Chapter 6, "Justice Systems," particularly eye-opening. I like what the Lilith reviewer wrote: "Ultimately, this book is a call for transformative action . . . equal parts justified outrage, astute analysis, and profound hope." I didn't love the audiobook narrator but this is probably one of those books that I need to re-read with a full pack of page flags anyways. Recommended reading not just during the High Holiday season and not just for Jewish readers either.

[Mel E · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate this Jewish lens on accountability, harm, and repentance and highly recommend this book to anyone looking to deepen this connection.

Danya provides meaningful tools for anyone, including institutions, to transform after harm has happened. She does a wonderful job of writing a book focusing on the responsibilities of perpetuators while still centering and prioritizing the lives of those harmed.

With moving discussion of how the continued violences of colonialism and slavery persist today without true reparation/repentance, I wish she had gone into more detail about the perpetuation of settler violence in Palestine beyond the couple promising sentences she included. There is a clear connection between these oppressive structures and a strong link between the US’s legacy of colonialism and its support for an apartheid state in Israel/Palestine. I do wonder about editor choices to edit down to appeal to a wider audience but have hope in the future for bolder claims in solidarity with Palestinians

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean, this is it, right? This is the book on repentance, forgiveness, atonement, reconciliation, etc. At the very least, I suspect it is for me. I'm pretty sure I let out audible noises of relief while reading this.

I really appreciated the broad types of examples of harm and the resultant ways in which they can be addressed depending on the specifics of the situation that were discussed. For example, the book talks about historical harms committed at the national level that require addressing from the government, all the way to harms committed at the interpersonal level that require repentance from an individual. It subsequently discusses ways in which those situations might differ, what forgiveness might look like in each situation (if it happens at all), and how an entity might sufficiently go about repairing those situations.

"That is to say, if harm is perpetuated by a person, or an industry, or a state, that possesses more power than the individual or communities harmed, denying ill-intent can serve the interests of the more powerful party, allowing it to evade accountability and maintain the status quo. Admitting culpability opens the possibility that change might be needed. Claiming 'those bones aren't racist at all' is a way of saying that no change is necessary.'...[This piles] more harm on top of the original offense. As soon as we get to debating the inner state or intention of a perpetrator, the focus of the conversation moves away from any actual injury or injustice, and the question of how to set things right. When this happens, the needs of victims are rarely met in meaningful ways."

"If you find that you are feeling defensive about being invited into accountability for harm you have caused, and thus want to blame the person who is asking for your repentance for making you feel uncomfortable, well, there is some extra work you might need to do. We sometimes commit the greatest harm when we are busy convincing ourselves we are the ones who have been hurt and we use that hurt to rationalize our damaging behavior." [Concept of DARVO]

"If a person apologizes sincerely and even offers restitution for the harm they caused, but then, not long after that, commits the same kind of harm after that, they have not repented, not really."

"What are you apologizing for, exactly, if the other person still hasn't been cared for, attended to. Action first, words later...An apology here does not consist of the words..."I'm sorry that you were hurt by this perfectly reasonable thing that I did."

"The critical fifth and last stage of this process is that the perpetrator must, when faced with the opportunity to cause similar harm in the future, make a better choice. This can happen only if they have done the deep work of understanding why the harm happened, stayed out of situations that would make the harm easy to perpetrate again, and reoriented themselves and their life in a totally different way."

"Defensiveness, however, shuts out the possibility of tending to the pain we have caused, and we miss the chance to work on becoming the kind of person who does not cause pain in the future. Not because we have been silenced or shamed, but because we care, because it matters, and because we don't want to be the kind of person who causes pain."

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Rabbi Danya talks about this, her voice is full of excitement and passion. By contrast, Sara Sheckells' narration is more academic. I missed the rabbi's enthusiasm. Still, the information is important, especially now.

From my AudioFile review: Narrator Sara Sheckells correctly describes her vocal delivery as “equal parts empathetic and authoritative,” as evidenced in this somewhat academic performance. Sheckells confidently lays out Rabbi Ruttenberg’s expansive illustration of the ancient Jewish philosopher Maimonides’ five steps to repentance and their application to individuals, communities, and cultures. Centered on care for and inflicting no further harm to the victim, this is an audiobook best consumed a bit at a time, as recommended in the introduction, since the material is complex and sometimes makes for uncomfortable listening. Examples are given of repentance—some successful, some not—by individuals as well as nations, citing South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commision, Germany’s attempts at penitence for the Holocaust, and the few reparations made to Indigenous communities in the United States.

[Sache · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book at the start of a reading slump and I’m very glad I read it—even if it took me two months!

I think this book is a relatively easy (though challenging on an introspective level) read that provides quite a bit of examples to illustrate its messaging. While I appreciate these examples, I can also see how somebody can get overwhelmed or bogged down by the details. I would encourage anybody reading this, or venturing to read this, to really take the time to digest the examples in the narrative, and also consider how they reflect in your lived life experiences.

One of my favorite chapters was the last chapter on repentance (though the chapter that detailed a reconstructive justice framework was interesting). I deeply believe in repentance over forgiveness. I think the author wrote an amazing book that unified Jewish traditional teaching and placed it in our current lived reality. The book is good for the Jew, good for any other religious persons, good for the atheist, fantastic for the spirit.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruttenberg highlights the work of Jewish scholar Maimonides. He synthized the Jewish law and wrote that forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which the person who caused harm is obligated. Maimonides laid out five steps: naming and owning harm; starting to change/transformation; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices.

Why I started this book: Ruttenberg was interviewed on the Bible for Normal People podcast and I was interested in picking up the book to delve deeper into the traditions and theory of repentance in the Jewish tradition.

Why I finished it: Grit. I need to ponder the idea of repairing the harm that I have caused. And taking time to reflect on how my actions effected others. And I do think that we need to have a wider, society discussion on the difference between forgiveness and repair. And the importance of society and systems vs. individuals in maintaining , repairing and restoring the community.

[JoAnn CV · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought going in that this would be more about personal experiences than a global, holistic view of forgiveness and repentance. This book is also more about being the one who wronged, and/or a member of a group/nation/etc who wronged others than being the wronged person and how to move forward with forgiveness to others. My misunderstanding. That said, I do think I came away better armed to do the work of repair when in the wrong, and to take an even more critical look than I already do at society at large.

[Indi · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I feel this is an important book that basically everyone in the world would benefit from reading or listening to, there are a few disagreements I have with specific statements about what should be required of people who have inadvertently caused harm (or happen to be part of a legacy of harm that they themselves did not cause). I also didn't enjoy listening (I had the audiobook) and a big part of my rating is enjoyment 🤷🏻‍♀️
It's still an important book and should be widely read.

[Ashley Dargai · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I’ve read in a long time. So much underlining and dog-earing pages. It’s made me think, and rethink, and I have learned so much!! Highly recommend for clergy, activists and organizers, civil servants, and anyone trying to do the hard work of repentance and repair in any part of life (interpersonal or systemic). So so so good.

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although there is much of value in this book, it seemed too repetitive to me. It seemed as if the author had decided to write a 200-page book when a 100-page section in some larger manuscript would have been perfect. Well documented and well written though. Good food for discussion.