Jankelevitch considers forgiveness as an act that is “for nothing and in exchange for nothing, gratuitously, from beyond the marketplace.” The raison d’être of forgiveness, is when the moral debtor is still a debtor.
Although the passing of time makes forgiveness easier, and neutralizes the effects of the misdeed, it cannot destroy the fact of the misdeed. Forgiveness that comes about as a result of the passing of time is more amnesia than amnesty. For Jankelevitch, fatigue and the accumulation of the years is negligence and cannot be considered a moral attitude. In order to forgive, it is necessary to remember.
Forgiveness, where the offence is integrated and held in check, is incomplete because some part of the offence still remains and the grace is curtailed.
Jankelevitch believes that true forgiveness is a gratuitous gift and a sudden instantaneous decision that is situated outside of time, a conversion that does not depend on the chronological circumstance.
Forgiveness undoes the last shackles that tie us down to the past by the weight of memories that draw us backward, and hold us down. Forgiveness is making peace with the guilty person and developing a personal relation with the other. The reason for the relation is because forgiveness does not forgive the misdeed as much as it forgives the guilty person.
However, according to Jankelevitch, a crime against humanity is not a personal affair to forgive, and a person has a duty to “harbor rancor” against such a crime. When “rancor” is an unshakable fidelity to values and to martyrs, then it is forgiveness that is betrayal.
True forgiveness is not an excuse that asks for the misdeed to be mitigated by circumstances. It is forgiveness that takes charge of the inexcusable. Forgiveness pays no attention to justifying itself and giving reasons. “Forgiveness is like love; a love that loves with reservations or with one single ulterior motive is not love; and so a forgiveness that forgives up to a certain point, but not beyond is not forgiveness.” However pure forgiveness is an event that has perhaps never occurred in the history of man.
We say in our prayers during this period:
כי אין שכחה לפני כסא כבודך
“There is no forgetting in front of Gods throne of glory.”
Nevertheless the Talmud states that:
גדולה תשובה שמגעת עד כסא הכבוד
“Teshuva is so great that it reaches the throne of glory”
May we all learn to forgive, and accordingly be forgiven.
