## CONFESSION, OR HOW JUDAS WASHED HIS HANDS
In Matthew 27:4 we hear a line of confession from Judas, saying; “*I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.*” A confession to the crime of bearing false witness, and to an Old Testament crime—in evoking ‘the innocent blood’—of taking a reward from the death of an innocent person[^1].
One line. Perhaps spoken with an intent of regret. Perhaps spoken with a feeling of guilt—casting the price of blood from his hands, attempting to wash them of his sin alike Pontius Pilate. Whatever the intent, the language of the confession is entirely self-focused. This confession shows no introspection, no understanding of the pains undergone by the harmed.
This confession was an act of defence.
In 2018, *Community* and *Rick & Morty* showrunner Dan Harmon gave a lengthy public confession—he had sexually harassed a writer on his staff. Megan Ganz, the writer in question, spoke highly of her harasser’s public confession, calling it “a master class in how to apologize.”[^2]
> [!quote] Megan Ganz, '*On Dan Harmon’s Apology'* The New York Times (2018)
> *The most important part of the apology was its specificity. He gave a complete account of what he did. Not the salacious details that people focus on—Was it in a bar? What time? Who was there?—but the ugly little realities. \[...\] I felt vindicated.*
But this ‘masterclass on apology’ was not Harmon's immediate reflex. This process began with failure, with self-preservation. It began, months earlier with a virtue-signalling tweet calling men assholes, complete with a self-pitying remark of shame that he too, is an asshole.
Ganz remarks on this flagellation; “I saw him tweeting about how he had been a bad person in the past, and how he was trying to do better. And all these people were congratulating him for being so brave and honest. And I thought, ‘No way does he get to skip past confession and go straight to absolution.’ So I asked him to be specific.”
And so she replied to his faux-confessions: “Care to be more specific? Redemption follows allocution”
Harmon speaks to this in his apology, defining the ugly little realities of his asshole-ish-ness: “And so I did the cowardly, easiest, laziest thing you could do with feelings like that and I didn’t deal with them, and in not dealing with them, I made everybody else deal with them – especially her. \[...\] After all, this is happening to \*me\*, right?”
> [!quote] Maimonides, *Mishneh Torah, Repentance 2:3*
> *Anyone who verbalizes their confession without resolving in their heart to abandon sin can be compared to a person who immerses themself in a mikvah (ritual bath) while holding the carcass of a lizard in his hand. Their immersion will not be of avail until they cast away the carcass.*
In my version of Judas’ myth, the death in Acts is pushed forward, allowing Iscariot this same cowardice. Constructed primarily from the woes of Job (Jude 1:7, Job 3:9): *“There in the bed of the earth, the son of Simon did let his work cease. Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let the body of filthy dreamers sink into deep mire. (Ovid 1:6-7)”*
The son of Simon makes no effort to lift himself from the mire. He relents, he gives in to the narrative of his own tragedy. As Judas is released from his work on this earth, so shall the “filthy dreamers” (sinners) take their leave from repentance.
Later in my myth, Judas shall attempt a return to this position. His lazy, pitiful, narcissistic escape-plan—he has no choice but to kill himself, to meet a tragic end. After all, this is happening to Judas, right?
I found it important to allow for this failure of repentance, found it's inclusion necessary for the poem to function well as parable.
That initial self-pity, that immediate defensiveness; that is the sin that damns a man. I've seen it tear through my own communities. I've seen the accused draw swords, watched former friends as they severe their own connections.
I've done that cutting too.
In the moment, it makes sense to be defensive. To take arms against a foreign idea, one that conflicts with the narrative you've been telling about yourself. The hypocrisy revealed by a collision between the superego—"*I am incapable of causing harm*"—and the external—"*You have harmed me*." A conflict in which only one statement can remain. Either the internal wins out as it does with the original Judas, you remain as unchanged as the corpse. Or the external wins out as a revelation, an opportunity for change.
That first step then, is to confess to the external—"*I chose to harm you*". Not to fully understand the capacity of that harm, but to simply commit to that work. To commit to [[Change]].
[^1]: Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen. (Deuteronomy 27:25)
[^2]: Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times (2018) *Megan Ganz on Dan Harmon’s Apology: ‘I Felt Vindicated’* (https://archive.is/YjJCb)