The sermon I gave at Temple Beth Emeth v'Ohr Progressive Shaari Zedek on Yom Kippur morning, September 14, 2013:
Today at sunset, or at the conclusion of our final Yom Kippur service for the day—whichever comes first—we will break our fast together, and that will mark the end of this year’s 10 days of repentance and atonement, and we will embark on a fresh new year, with a clean slate.
It has been pointed out by some rabbis that the word “atonement” can be split up into “at one-ment.” The idea is that through atonement, we actually are going to a process of becoming “at one” with ourselves, with God, with those we love. When there is something wrong in a relationship—angry, hurtful words have been said or harm has been done, it often feels like there is a separation, a barrier. Making amends, atoning for what has gone wrong, forgiving and asking for forgiveness, can remove that barrier, making the relationship whole again. That can apply to a relationship with God, with ourselves or our self-concept, or to a relationship with another person.
I remember one year at Thanksgiving, many years ago now, when my mother was going through one of her recurrences of the cancer that eventually took her life. I was maybe still in college. I had this idea that I would help cook Thanksgiving dinner to make things easier for my mom. I had this vision of both of us in the kitchen, cooking together. It didn’t occur to me at first, though it did afterward, that it might be hard for my mom to feel like she needed help making the dinner, or that my offer might emphasize that she might not be there to make it the following year.
Anyway, she gave me an assignment to make the asparagus casserole—it was the day before Thanksgiving—and she went off to do whatever she needed to do. Well, this wasn’t what I had in mind. This wasn’t a warm, companionable mother-daughter cooking experience. I wasn’t upset about it, but I didn’t get around to making the casserole. That evening, when Mom was ready to start preparing food, she was furious. She yelled at me, and I said I thought the evening still counted as the same day. I don’t remember exactly what else was said, but my mother stormed out, got in the car, and drove away. I didn’t know where. I still don’t know where she went or what she did. This was not typical behavior in my family, though.
I was devastated. I left the house too, and walked around the neighborhood, crying. Sobbing, really. When I came home she wasn’t there. I felt horrible. I loved my mother more than anything, and there was this wrong thing—that was my fault—between us.
She eventually came home and went into her bedroom. I came to the door, and as I looked at her, sitting in her bed reading, I suddenly realized what it was all about. I said, “I don’t want you to die,” and she said, “I don’t want to die either.” I told her I was sorry, and we hugged and cried together, and that ugly thing that was separating us was gone. Our relationship was whole again, and we were “at one” through our atonement.
In the Torah we read many stories of wrongdoing and hurt between siblings. One example is between Moses, his sister Miriam, and his brother Aaron. In chapter 12 of the book of Numbers, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses. A barrier of pain and anger separates them. God calls all three of them to the Tent of Meeting and strikes Miriam with a scaly white skin infection. Aaron turns to Moses and repents, saying, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly,” (Numbers 12:11). In regular language, that’s “We’re sorry, please forgive us.” The separation between them closes as Moses prays for God to heal Miriam. Their spirits are whole once again, though it takes Miriam’s body a week to heal.
That’s what repentance does. It allows us to return to wholeness of the spirit. It’s no accident that the word “spirit” refers to both our soul, that which animates us, but also to energy. When we are spiritually whole we feel ready to face the world. Our morale is good, we believe in ourselves and our abilities, we feel energetic and creative. We feel strong—not necessarily physically, but inside.
Another story of siblings illustrates not only the importance of repentance for making our spirits whole again, but the importance of forgiveness. This is the saga of Joseph and his brothers—you’re probably familiar with at least part of it. Joseph is his father’s favorite, so his brothers hate him. They throw him in a pit and then sell him into slavery. Joseph winds up in Egypt, and after some trials and tribulations, he becomes rich and powerful. His brothers, who have been living their own lives back home, wind up coming to Egypt to buy food when famine strikes. They end up in front of Joseph, though they don’t recognize him. He tests them, threatens them, and ultimately reveals himself to them. He bursts into tears and tells them who he is and that he forgives them. I don’t think that is the moment when he actually forgives them, though, it’s just when he has the opportunity to tell them. I think he forgave them earlier.
Because here there is not only an emotional barrier and separation, but for many years, a physical one. They are separated for a long time. I can only imagine that the difficulties with his brothers weighed on Joseph and troubled him. After Joseph is in Egypt for a number of years, after he becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, he marries an Egyptian woman named Asenath. They have two sons. Well before he encounters his brothers again, Joseph names his first-born son Manasseh, saying, “For God has made me forget all the troubles I endured in my father’s house,” (Genesis 41:51).
Joseph’s choice of a name with that meaning—made me forget—seems to me to indicate two things. One is that up until this point, his experiences with his brothers have been a weight on his spirit. The other is that with the birth of his own son, he is able to forgive his brothers and move on. There are times when we are not able to be with a person who has wronged us, or when it would not be a good idea to be with that person. In these cases, they do not have an opportunity to repent to us or make amends. We do have the opportunity, though, to forget—not to truly forget, but to allow the pain of the past to become less of a presence in our daily lives—and move on even in the absence of the one who wronged us, allowing our spirits to become more whole.
Later, when Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt, he is able to see that they have indeed repented for their past behavior, and he tells them that he has forgiven them. There is something of a reconciliation, though they really don’t become one big happy family afterward. For the wholeness of Joseph’s spirit and the release of his pain, they don’t have to be. He got there himself, as we sometimes must do for our own spiritual and psychological health.
We are taught, “For sins between a person and God, the Day of Atonement atones. But for sins between a person and another person, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.” (BT Yoma 85b) I’ve already discussed the way repentance and forgiveness of one another, when it works the way it’s supposed to at this time of the year, can dissolve the barriers that prevent our spirits from being whole, and can bring us back to being “at one” with each other. What about sins between ourselves and God?
We must first ask, as Reform Jews, what sins between ourselves and God are. I suggest that sins between ourselves and God are the times in the past year when we have neglected our spiritual responsibilities. By this I don’t mean the times we didn’t go to services. Maybe that’s a relief to some of you. Rather, I mean the times we didn’t listen to our internal voices when they said, “I need something. I need spiritual stimulation. I need time for contemplation. I need learning. I need to explore what my purpose is in this world.” It is our spiritual responsibility to consider why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing with our lives. Not for our parents, not for our children or our partners if we have them, but for our own sense of who we are and what we are meant to do. For some of us, it feels comfortable to phrase this as what God wants us to be doing. For others of us, that God-language is uncomfortable, and perhaps more resonant is the idea of what feels right, what fits, what brings spiritual satisfaction.
The repetitive prayers of this day, and the prayers sung or chanted by the cantor on our behalf, are an opportunity to contemplate how we have sinned by ignoring the needs of our spirits at times during the past year—because we were too busy, or too tired, or too scared, or too lazy to attend to them. This is our time to atone for that by spending this time considering what the needs of our souls are, and forgiving ourselves for the times we didn’t notice or address those needs. Letting go of the “shoulds” of the past year for ourselves, letting go of any guilt we’ve placed on ourselves for not meeting our own unreasonable expectations of ourselves, we can become at one and in touch with our own selves again. We can end this day hungry, physically tired, but spiritually rejuvenated, ready to begin a new year.
This letting go isn’t easy. It’s easier—and sometimes on some level satisfying—to hold on to resentment and bitterness. For some of us, it’s very difficult to let go of the things we’ve done wrong, and let ourselves off the hook. When I was in my 20s, I was working at a technology consulting firm, and I remember a yearly review I had. My boss gave me high marks in every category but one, which was “is able to acknowledge mistakes and then move on effectively.” She said I needed to do a better job letting go of having made mistakes after they were corrected. It took me a long time to get over that. In the 20 years or so since, improving the ability to let go of mistakes after they are past has been part of the work I’ve been doing on myself.
This day, this holiest day of the year, this Shabbat of Shabbats, let us allow the weakness of our bodies—some of us weakened by fasting, some of us by the lengthy services—open us up to revelation, to the opening of our hearts and our souls, so that we can be freed from the pain and worries we carry from past misdeeds or hurts. May our repentance be true, and having repented and atoned, may we feel at one with our spirits and with our loved ones. May we feel free, new, and fresh, as the year 5774 is still new and fresh. May we enter this new year ready to celebrate at Sukkot, when we rejoice about the food and shelter that physically sustain us, and at Simchat Torah, when we rejoice because we begin anew to read the Torah that spiritually sustains us. May our spirits be whole, our energy be high, our belief in ourselves be strong, and may we be ready to face the world in joy. Amen, Shabbat shalom, and g’mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed for a good year to come.
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