2025 (5786) Yom Kippur Sermons
Tikkun Atzmi—Repairing ourselves: sermon for Kol Nidre
As just about all of you are no doubt aware, Temple Beth-El has now purchased one of the McGann-Hay funeral homes, and is intending to spend the coming months transforming it into our new spiritual home. It all happened in a great flurry of activity: the Temple leadership learned that the cost to build a building of our own was prohibitively expensive. The next day, this property came up for sale, and our bid was accepted nine days later. Over and over again, Temple members remarked that it was all bashert—that we were destined to purchase that building. It’s an enticing idea: that there are events that unfold in our lives that were meant to happen. We can talk about bashert when it comes to finding the love of our lives. We can talk about bashert when we find ourselves in just the right place at the right time. We may even speak of bashert at the time of a tragedy—suggesting that God planned all along for this terrible thing to happen at a particular place and time.
I am personally opposed to the concept of bashert, and I’m far from the only rabbi who feels that way. As homework for this evening’s sermon, I re-read the short treatise On Repentance by the twelfth century rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. There are many points of divergence between him and me, but we both agree: Yom Kippur represents the antithesis of bashert. In fact, if there is actually such a thing as bashert, then Yom Kippur becomes meaningless. The reason I say this is because without the concept of free will, there can be no such thing as teshuvah or repentance. Teshuvah—which literally means turning away from or turning towards something—requires making the choice to be different than we have been. If God has already predetermined the course of our lives, then no decision we make is entirely our own. If our lives are predestined, then there is no such thing as independent action, and so there can never be the possibility for us to choose to be better. By contrast, Maimonides writes as follows: “Free will is granted to all. If one desires to turn himself to the path of good and be righteous, the choice is his. Should he desire to turn to the path of evil and be wicked, the choice is his.”
What I would like to do in the coming minutes is provide you with a framework for doing teshuvah, possibly over the next 24 hours, but really at any time. Maimonides’ work offers a comprehensive guide. He starts with a clear definition of when we know for sure that we have done teshuvah. It’s not when we realize we’ve done something wrong. It’s not in those moments when we are contemplating how we can possibly make up for what we’ve done. It’s not even when we approach someone we have hurt and ask for forgiveness, or if and when they forgive us. Maimonides states that we know when we are truly different people than we were before if we are given the exact same opportunity to do the same terrible thing, and we make a different choice.
Getting to that point is by no means a simple process. We can assume that the habits and patterns of a lifetime will always be lying in wait to trip us up. Rabbi Alan Lew writes powerfully about the journey of teshuvah in his work This is Real, and You are Completely Unprepared. For him, the season of repentance starts way back on the 9th day of Av, which was almost exactly two months ago. On that day, recalling the destruction of the ancient Temples, we imagine how the seemingly steadfast and reliable structure of our lives is really just a fragile building which ultimately collapses and falls as we make the same mistakes over and over again: “Tisha B’Av is the moment of turning, the moment when we turn away from denial and begin to face exile and alienation as they manifest themselves in our own lives—in our alienation and estrangement from God, in our alienation from ourselves and from others. Teshuvah—turning, repentance, is the essential gesture of the High Holiday season. It is the gesture by which we seek to heal this alienation and find at-one-ment: to connect with God, to reconcile with others, and to anchor ourselves in the ground of our actual circumstances, so that it is this reality that shapes our actions, and not just the habitual, unconscious momentum of our lives.”
Maimonides spells out a clear procedure for what to do when you realize that have wounded another person: “sins between one person and another; for example, someone who injures another, curses another, steals from another, or the like will never be forgiven until he gives the other what he owes him and appeases him. Even if a person restores the money that he owes, he must appease him and ask him to forgive him. Even if a person only upset another by saying [certain] things, he must appease him and approach him [repeatedly] until he forgives him. If the wronged party does not desire to forgive him, he should bring a group of three of his friends and approach him with them and request [forgiveness]. If [the wronged party] is not appeased, he should repeat the process a second and third time.” Maimonides even outlines a procedure for when the person you’ve wronged has already passed away: in that circumstance, you may bring ten people to the person’s grave and confess the hurt you’ve inflicted in front of them. You are then required to pay any outstanding monetary damages to the person’s surviving family members.
Maimonides reserves special condemnation for those who embarrass or publicly disgrace others or who derive enjoyment from another’s shame. I think this teaching is especially relevant for this historical moment. Thanks to social media, not only can we embarrass others more easily than ever before, but we have the capacity to shame them before an audience of millions. I have often wondered in recent years what it would mean to do teshuvah for an Instagram post or a tweet that caused horrendous shame to another. What about, God forbid, revenge porn posted to YouTube? How do you repent not only to the person you’ve hurt so deeply but before the entire world? I have yet to come up with a satisfying solution.
In any case, Maimonides repeatedly states that anyone who makes genuine and heartfelt teshuvah will be completely forgiven by God. “A penitent should not consider himself far below the level of the righteous because of the sins and transgressions that he committed. This is not true. The Creator will embrace him as if he never sinned. Furthermore, he has a great reward, for he has tasted sin and yet distanced himself from it, conquering his [evil] inclination. Our Sages declared: "In the place where the penitent stands, even the completely righteous are not able to stand."
700 years before Maimonides, the Mishnah had already stated, “One who says, ‘I will do wrong and the Day of Atonement will atone,’ for that person the Day of Atonement does not atone...For wrongs between one person and another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until the offender has put matters right with the one who was wronged.”
This day is a single stop along the path of our lives. What it offers is a pause—a day dedicated only to the work of the soul. The day ahead is an opportunity to reflect on what is keeping us from being at peace with ourselves, with others, and with the divine. But the work itself takes a lifetime. By the time Yom Kippur comes around next year, may each of us be a little closer to realizing our own personal visions for the best we can be. May each of us, along with our loved ones, the house of Israel, and the whole world be sealed for a year of transformation and growth, abundant good health and joy, and, God willing, peace. Shana tova.
Tikkun Olam—Repairing our broken world: sermon for Yom Kippur morning
A few weeks ago, I was visiting with members of the congregation who also had a neighbor over. Somehow the conversation turned to the horrific school shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis. Everyone agreed that these school shootings were beyond awful and should never happen. I commented that mass shootings were only a phenomenon in the United States. The neighbor chimed in that this wasn’t the case at all.
And then it happened. That all-too-familiar sensation of feeling my blood pressure go from normal to extreme as I felt myself moving almost instantly from calm to incandescent rage. I did manage to keep myself under control. I commented, possibly a bit too forcefully, that there hadn’t been a single mass shooting in the eighteen years that I lived in Australia and also that my two sons had not had to grow up with lock down drills as a regular part of their school routines. We moved onto a different topic, and the moment was past.
That encounter reminded me of how my emotions and sometimes even my physical being seem to have been rewired in recent years to move in an instant to white hot anger. I cannot tell you exactly when this transformation in me took place. I do suspect that it has quite a lot to do with Covid, and its months of isolation from human contact. What I know is that those moments of rage seem to be an almost daily occurrence within myself, and I’m guessing that just about every one of you shares that experience.
This sermon on Tikkun Olam—the idea of bringing healing to the world—has gone through a number of iterations. I had so many different issues that I could rage about. An earlier draft of this sermon included an example. And then I deleted that paragraph once I saw that it was the opposite of helpful. I do not see any possible way that anger can bring healing to a country that is already being ripped apart by ferocious disagreement.
And then on Rosh Hashanah, I listened to a meditation on peace included in the morning service: “To think the same way, to share the same opinions—this is not peace. Unity is not uniformity. True peace comes through the expression of differences; many perspectives, each offering a partial view of the truth. Shalom means wholeness. Only when we open ourselves to understand all sides of an issue will we attain peace. And so it is written: Torah scholars increase peace in the world. Through their disagreements, truth will emerge and we will find shalom.”
The Mishnah speaks of a powerful concept: vikuach l’shem shamayim—meaning “argument for the sake of heaven.” “Argument for the sake of heaven” means disputes whose intention is solely for a higher purpose—for the betterment of ourselves and our world. The classic example of such arguments are those that unfolded between the sages Hillel and Shammai. The two disagreed on nearly every point of Jewish life. One of their more famous arguments was about how many candles to place in a Hanukkah menorah. Shammai insisted on eight candles on the first night, with one removed for each subsequent night, because there were fewer days ahead. Hillel stated that one should begin with one candle and add one for each night, reflecting the number of days that had already passed. So which one was correct? They both were!
The rabbis generally ruled in favor of Hillel, and they greatly respected Shammai. The two men remained in close relationship throughout their lives, as did the houses of learning each founded. This at a time when the well being of the Jewish community was often under threat, and the very principles upon which Jewish life would be built were taking shape. From Hillel and Shammai emerged the Jewish tradition of making sure that all opinions on any issue are included in the records of the discussions, even those that had been rejected.
How did they do it? Quite simply, they learned to set aside their own egos so that they could struggle with each with respect, and perhaps even with love. They had to let go of their need to be right. They had to give up on winning.
What a contrast from this present moment. Now when we disagree, it is generally not enough just to condemn the other’s point of view. It is not even enough to say that their point of view is ill-considered, wrong, or even downright evil. We leap directly to questioning the humanity of the people putting forth their point of view. Such statements generally start with the words, “How dare you...how could you..” or “only a terrible person would say such a thing.” Over the years, our points of view have diverged so widely in the United States that it now feels like the chasms between us can never be bridged. And I can see how I am part of the problem: I have conflated viewpoints that I find politically problematic with moral deficiencies. I have forgotten how to be in relationship with those who see the world in a very different way than I do.
Today, I’m going to see if I can be part of the solution instead. To do so means taking personal risks, especially when so many have weaponized anger as a powerful tool to use against those with whom they disagree. But if there is to be a possibility of true tikkun olam, it needs to start with each one of us.
It is often said that rabbis really have only one sermon in them. They give that same sermon in various guises over the years, and keep dressing it up in different ways. I’m hoping that isn’t true of me, but there is one theme that I keep returning to: the lost art of listening. I have learned that there are three different kinds of listening: listening for deep connection, listening to gain information, and listening to interrupt. Which kind of listening do you think we are most likely to engage in?! When we confront someone who holds very different views than us, we stop listening just as soon as we’ve formulated a response that proves how wrong they are. No doubt they do the same. We walk away from such encounters with a tremendous sense of pride and conviction about our own rightness. We sure showed them! But we have failed to learn anything new, and we have certainly failed to deepen our relationship with the other person in any way.
I have been gratified to see guides showing up on the internet about how to engage in conversation with someone who sees the world in a radically different way. In every case, the guides recommend not immediately engaging directly around the points of difference. Instead, they suggest creating a relationship with the other person, and then working outwards. This means asking questions about who the person is and what shaped them. Some example questions might be, “What are some formative life experiences that led you to where you are today?” “Who are the people you look to for inspiration?” “What’s a world event that had a big impact on you and how did it change you?” And then, our task is to listen fully and without judgment. It might not be a bad idea to practice on someone whose political views are closer to yours first.
From there, and only if you are mentally prepared, you can go on to explore their thoughts and feelings on an issue where you have significant differences. The problem here, I think, is that each of us has become so utterly invested in virtually every political issue that we are unable to listen in a dispassionate way. But that’s exactly what’s required here. Listening is an exercise in mindfulness, in which we are fully focused on the other person and their views.
And then we can ask them if they’d be open to hearing another viewpoint. When we present our point of view, it’s important to try to do so in as objective and neutral a way as possible. Even when we are speaking about issues that are close to our hearts, we understand that as soon as we introduce emotionally-loaded language, the other person will shut down or walk away.
Will any of this work? Honestly, I have no idea. But I also can’t think of a better strategy to start the work of healing this world. And perhaps bringing a bit of healing to ourselves along the way. This morning’s Torah and haftarah portions both offer guidance as we approach this challenge. The Torah portion reminds us that each day, we face the choice of whether to choose good or ill, life or death. The haftarah portion calls us to action. How do we choose life? By looking after the vulnerable, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and speaking out for justice. But we can only speak of justice if others are listening. Learning to listen across differences is both a small thing and an enormous thing. I hope that next Yom Kippur will find the world in a better place. May we be the ones to increase peace in the world. Amen.
