From the Bima Blog

Kol Nidre 5785 - October 11, 2024

Watch Rabbi Abrasley's sermon on Youtube

Aaron had not spoken to his sister Miriam for almost three years. There’d been a tense family situation, which involved their aging parents who somehow had forgotten to save enough money for retirement. As the situation grew worse, the siblings disagreed about the best path forward, and then came the argument to end all arguments. 

Looking back, Aaron knew he was likely to blame for the fight. But his sister wasn’t the best communicator and never listened to his point of view. OK, maybe not “never” but, she was tough. And just because she was older didn’t mean she was always right. Right? 

But, deep down, Aaron knew he’d truly hurt his sister whom he loved dearly. Had the fight occurred today, he would’ve handled things differently. Aaron longed for a path back to her. But he feared it was too late. Too much water under the bridge. Miriam hated him. She would never forgive him.  

Tonight, we gather to begin our observance of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Twenty-five hours offered by our tradition to challenge us, to wake us up to the ways in which our life is not moving in the direction we truly desire. We are invited to remove ourselves from the pleasures and distractions of the everyday. To focus on the big questions of our lives.

Who am I? How have I been – or not been – my best self in the past year? What are my mistakes, my failures, my faults? What are the ways in which I caused harm to myself? To others? To the world? Life is short, and time is precious. How can I do the work to repair myself, my relationships and my world? 

Judaism calls this yearly internal reckoning chesbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul. It is not easy work, especially when the spreadsheet of our lives reveals mistakes that caused harm and hurt to the people we love. Some of these errors are minor ones. It is easy to correct these sins, these missteps. We give our people the gift of an apology. And all’s well that ends well.

Other mistakes are not so simple to correct. We sometimes cause hurt and pain that burdens our internal accounting ledgers for years. Humans almost always hurt each other. We like to think we don’t do it on purpose. Although sometimes we do. 

I fear these lingering transgressions, the ones we tell ourselves we cannot repair, prevent the complete return of our best selves. I wonder, too, if the repair is even more difficult today, especially now, when we live in a time where offering an apology is often seen as a sign of weakness. So, we tell ourselves it is impossible. We simply cannot repair all our mistakes. The list of excuses is real:

‘I’m not sure why they are so upset. It’s not my fault they are so sensitive.’

‘I know I’m not perfect, but they hurt my feelings too. Maybe they should apologize to me.’ 

‘I would call them, but it’s been too long. I bet they do not even remember.’ 

Side note. I’m willing to bet they do remember. I know I do. And I bet you do too. These little marks of hurt are an unfortunate part of being human. But Judaism teaches it is never too late to make amends. It is never too late to return. Judaism has a path for us, one to help us repair the hurt and harm we cause to others. 

This process, called teshuva, which means repentance or return, was best laid out by one of my favorite rabbinic sages, a physician-philosopher-math nerd best known as Maimonides. His path to return is found in his famous book called Mishnah Torah, a legal code of sorts. Maimonides wrote Mishnah Torah for us, the everyday Jew, so that we could easily find “the right way forward” when time was of the essence. He lays out a Jewish process of teshuva, of returning and repairing, that helps our egos stay out of the way (at least as much as possible) so that we can become better humans. And ideally not hurt someone again. At least not in the same way. For Maimonides an apology was a sign of strength. An opportunity to rebalance the world and our relationships when our sins threw things off.

Specifically, Maimonides’ path for teshuva has thoughtful clear steps to follow, including confession, apology and making lasting change. It is transformative for the one who caused the hurt. Forgiveness, especially the ways that we moderns encounter and interact with the concept, is part of the process. We are responsible for making amends to those we hurt. But forgiveness is not guaranteed. And not in our control. 

The potential for zero forgiveness is a tough one for modern sensibilities. We humans prefer to set goals. Achieve them. And then move onto the next goal. And being forgiven for our imperfect ways is definitely a goal. Otherwise, why would we be here tonight, ready to confess our sins?

What if the person I harmed does not – or cannot – forgive me? Can I go on with my life? Can I receive ultimate forgiveness? Yes, Judaism teaches. God is the ultimate forgiver. And we have up until our dying day to repent. 

But God as the ultimate forgiver is not the final act of teshuva. Forgiveness is not the answer to our transgressions. The goal of teshuva is to transform ourselves, so that we do not hurt people again. Our tradition requires us to do the work – the ‘very hard, I would prefer not to do this, can’t someone else be responsible’ work. It is internal, self-directed, spiritual work designed to bring us back to the good within us, to return us to God because we have strayed from what really matters.

But rabbi, you say, I’m confused. What if I need to be forgiven for the hurt I caused? It’s eating me alive, this thing I did that I never repaired. I’m willing to be responsible for my actions but I need the person I hurt to help me let this go. According to Maimonides as taught by our tradition, teshuva does not work this way. It is not about getting someone else to forgive me once I figure out I was wrong. The ultimate goal of teshuva changes me, leaves behind the person who would cause harm, even unintentional harm. Teshuva asks me to promise to not cause the same hurt or harm in the same way again.

In his most vulnerable moments, Aaron longed to call his sister Miriam. He imagined what he might tell her. How to convince her he had changed. That he didn’t get angry the way he once did (thank you therapy) and no longer thought only about himself. 

“Listen Miriam,” he would say. “I was wrong to walk away from you and our family. To leave you with the burden of managing our parents in their later years all by yourself. I would like to make amends if I can. I don’t exactly know what that looks like but I’m hoping we can figure it out together.  And I hope, one day, you will find it in your heart to forgive me for the ways in which I hurt you. I am truly sorry.”

Aaron had stopped counting how many times he had thought about calling. He was afraid of being hurt. Even when he knew in his heart he was the one who caused all the hurt to begin with. 

I think when we are honest with ourselves, many of us feel like Aaron sometimes. We hurt people. We don’t want to but we often do. And I have no doubt we also feel like Aaron’s sister Miriam. 

Judaism gives us a way to return to one another. Our tradition believes we can change for the better. So, what’s stopping us? When our bodies hurt, we go to the doctor. But when our spirits hurt, why do we insist we cannot find an answer to help us move forward?

The word teshuva can sometimes get lost in translation. We see this challenge specifically in text towards the end of Deuteronomy, in verses adjacent to tomorrow morning’s Torah reading. The Reform movement’s decision to emphasize the ideas found in these verses, instead of the traditional reading about priestly sacrifices, align brilliantly with Yom Kippur’s themes of repentance. For me, this is the essence of Yom Kippur, a day to come back, to return, to ourselves and to God.

The first ten verses of Deuteronomy, Chapter 30, pick up on this seasonal idea of return, with seven instances of the verb lashuv, asking us to return to God, and asking God to return to us. The Torah’s extended use of this word is worth leaning into. When the ancient voices repeat themselves, we are called to understand that the Torah might be trying to make a point. 

Torah, specifically the voice of our beloved Moses who God trusted with all the insider information, cries out to us in these verses. 

Listen up, wonderful humans. When you stray from the ideals God set up to help us create a world we all want to live in, it kinda messes up the moral order of things. 

God, Moses reminds us, created a delicate, sensitive, spectacular universe. And then God asked us to be God’s partners. We need to do our part to keep things balanced. Our transgressions, our sins, disturb the ideal order, they make things lopsided and uncomfortable. It closes us off from being our true selves, to being one with God. We need to figure out how we return the world – and ourselves – to an ideal balance. 

The rabbis of the Talmud saw this earthly imbalance caused by our transgressions against one another. They began to build a way back to God when we stray, albeit a bit circuitous. Maimonides clarified the teshuva path in his law code. And recently a modern miracle of a rabbi for our lives, a teacher and scholar by the name of Danya Ruttenberg, took Maimonides’ brilliance and created a path for today.

Rabbi Ruttenberg lays out her take on teshuva in a master commentary called On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in An Unapologetic World. Ruttenberg rejects the contemporary cultural notion that those who have been hurt should accept a simple apology from those who harmed them. Instead, she teaches the path back to rebalance our world when we make mistakes and hurt people we love is through teshuva.  She lays out five steps:

• Step 1. We must name and own the harm and hurt we cause. 
• Step 2. Once we own our mistakes, it is time to begin making changes, to transform ourselves to become someone who does not make this mistake again.
• Step 3. As we transform ourselves for the better, we are called to make restitution and accept consequences for the harm we cause.
• Step 4. When our transformation is underway, and we are making our way back to our best selves, we must apologize to those we harm and hurt. Our apology must be sincere. We hope they will forgive us when we show them in our heart of hearts that we are truly sorry.
• Step 5. Teshuva is complete when we make a different choice in the future. In other words, when faced with a similar situation, we behave differently. This is the ultimate goal of teshuva, to change ourselves for the better, to cause less harm and hurt in our world. 

Ruttenberg suggests that applying these steps of return and repair to both our personal relationships and the leading systemic issues of our time is a better way forward for all of us.

We live in a difficult world. Things often seem binary and divisive. We hurt people without a second thought. And then, to make matters worse, we dismiss their feelings, suggesting that the person who disagrees with us does not deserve kindness or respect. Today’s cycle of vicious “whataboutism” is never ending.

Our Torah verses cry out, as our tradition calls us back. We show up. We pray. We beat our chests with communal confession. But if we do not look inside, engage in the transformational work of teshuva and reach out with love and sincerity to those we harm, and return to being a better person, then I wonder if we’ve really confessed anything at all.

Aaron sat in his car, heart pounding. A distant cousin had just called to tell him that his father was in the hospital. The news instantly brought back that horrible argument with his sister. 

Aaron’s finger hovered over Miriam’s number. He knew he needed to call. Not tomorrow. Now. This was his work, his responsibility. Being self-righteous would not repair his relationships.  His sister may never forgive him. But he had to try.

Aaron took a breath and called the number.

Tonight, the answers we seek are not easy to come by. The message of Yom Kippur, the day we are commanded to consider our mortality and our morality, to hold ourselves accountable, is not a simple proposition. We remove the barriers and sit with our thoughts. Again, not easy. I believe it’s not meant to be easy.

The way back is right in front of us. If you are Aaron, make the call. And if you are Miriam, pick up when it rings. Yes, God will forgive us if others cannot. But redemption is not found in forgiveness. Redemption is found in the return, in the struggle to realize we have hurt others. And in the struggle to become someone who learns to not cause hurt again. We can be better. We must be better.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah! May we all be written and sealed in the Book of Life!