Forgiving Others and Ourselves

Erev Yom Kippur
October 8, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

Kippur is a Hebrew word for "atonement." In the Torah, this term is used exclusively in the writings of the priests. Kippur implies "an exchange of equal value." Kippur atonement was made by paying a specified number of shekels to the sanctuary or bringing a specified sacrifice in exchange for a specific sin. If the money, or the number and kind of beasts, was sufficient, the priests were satisfied that atonement or kippurim was automatically assured. This kind of "buying of forgiveness" made the Rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud uncomfortable. The Rabbis agreed with the prophets that God did not want feasts and fasts, sacrifices of animals and silver, God was more interested in our the atonement of our hearts and minds. The argument ended when the Temple was destroyed and the buying and selling of atonement and forgiveness suddenly ceased to exist. Without the Temple, though, how would atonement be assured for individual transgressions or for the collective transgressions of the Israelites?

The Rabbis answered this by substituting the word teshuvah for kippur. Teshuvah is a much more elastic word, containing many shades of meaning. Commonly, a teshuvah is an "answer" to a question. It comes from the Hebrew root, shuv, so its meaning is "turning back" or "returning." Yet it also means "restoration" or "being restored." And also, "being refreshed" or "being repaired."

Take, for example, the prayer called Elohai Neshamah, "The soul which You have given me, O God, is pure ..." Here, we glimpse the first meaning of teshuvah. In effect, we are committing ourselves: "when I return this soul to You, O God, may it still be as pure." Of course, God knows our souls will never be as innocent and pure as they began. But we can cleanse our souls in this world, return them to purity, through teshuvah. Obviously, this is only possible if God is willing to give us a second chance.

And how do we know that God gives us a second chance? How do we know that God is willing to hit the "ctrl-alt-del" button to reset our souls to purity? The teshuvah, the "answer" is recorded for us in the Torah.

While Moses was alone atop the mountain, receiving the tablets of the law, the Israelites crafted a gold image of a virile young bull -- oh, yes, the Torah softens the image by calling it a "golden calf," but we know what it was about this young bull that the people worshiped and adored. This, even this, represented God's first command, given at the creation of Adam in God's image: "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and rule over it; and command the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth" (Gen. 1:28). See how the young bull rules the herd, demonstrating its power by driving away older bulls and competing with other young bulls. See how the young bull dominates the cows, choosing now this one and then another, fulfilling the command of Creation, "Be fruitful and multiply ...." Was this young bull not a fitting image for the new young nation of Israel to admire? How would they find the strength to conquer, if not by being fruitful and multiplying, by filling the earth and mastering it? Therefore, in the absence of Moses -- and thinking him dead -- they reverted to God's first principle. They raised up a symbol of virility to inspire them to be fruitful, to drive themselves to multiply, to prepare them to command the seas and the skies and all the earth.

Even in their sin, the Israelites came very close to getting it right. After all, it is more fascinating to worship what we can see over what we cannot see. Surely, we can see that. Surely, we can understand their motives. Have we not all stood awestruck at visions of power? When lightning strikes do we not count the seconds between the strike and its thunderous voice? There is a primal fear in us. There is a driven necessity to know just how far away from us the lightning hit. And there is a kind of worship in the vision and in the counting, for we already know we have been blessed. If the lightning had chosen us as a target, there would be no counting. If lighting and thunder had been simultaneous, it would be as it is written of God, "No human shall see Me and live..." (Exod. 33:20). So we stand awestruck at the lightning's fierce command of our human frailty. Blessing and curse are joined in the lightning and we are hopelessly in thrall to it.

It is only after the storm has passed that we unmask our eyes and realize our mistake. Only then, when the rainbow arches in the heavens, do we remember that the lightning is but one servant of God. Like the young bull, it is a terrifying servant and a virile servant, but a servant nonetheless.

What an embarrassment! To enter the throne room, find some lackey cleaning the king's throne, and mistake the servant for the king. How awkward it is to bow to the servant and present to him gifts of obeisance and sacrifices of appeasement. And it is only after the truth comes forth that we realize our error when, suddenly, the king and all his court enter the throne room, the lackey rushes off, and the king mounts the throne as all the hosts scrape and bow. Imagine! We have mistakenly spent our gifts on the lackey and our hands are empty and we have nothing left to offer the king.

How munificent the ruler who grants mercy to those who insult. This is also teshuvah, for God says, "Turn to Me and I shall turn to you ..." As the prophet Hosea writes, "Turn, O Israel, to Adonai your God, for you have fallen on account of your sin. Take words with you and return to Adonai. Say to God: ‘Forgive all guilt and accept what is good; instead of bulls we will pay [the offering of] our lips'" (14:2:3).

Now see how great is Adonai! Though the people sin with their bull at the very moment that God gives them the precious gift (and though Moses loses patience and shatters the stone tablets against the mountain) yet Adonai shows mercy and provides a second chance. Return to God, turn to Adonai, and receive the commandments a second time! Sin a thousand times and when you turn to God, you will receive the commandments again. Sin a million times and you will still receive the commandments again. O, nation of Israel, when will you read and understand them? When will you hearken to them with "all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might"?

Those who understand the commandments die for them willingly. What else will save them? Will they be saved by raising armies and conquering foes they can never control? Will they be saved by territory or by stockpiles of nuclear weapons? Will they be saved by crushing others, as if others will not wheel around to seek revenge? Will they be saved by hiding in caves or in bomb shelters? No. They will be saved in one way only, saved by turning to God, by returning to God.

The incident of the golden bull assures us that there is a second chance, but the teshuvah that insures another opportunity from God is still incomplete. No matter how ardent our prayers, God can only forgive us the sins in our hearts, transgressions between us and God. When it comes to sins we have committed against other human beings, Adonai is powerless to forgive. And, still, teshuvah must be made.

These are the sins that Yom Kippur addresses, as we beat our chests before God, "we have sinned, we have transgressed, we are guilty." We have fallen short in the human tally. Not as individuals do we seek repentance on this day, but as a congregation, as a community, as a city, as a nation, as human beings. We are together guilty of every sin that each individual commits, for we are all roped together in this world like climbers on Mount Everest and, if any one of us falls, we are all in danger of falling.

You probably know the story of the human pyramid. Long ago in a far away country, a gloriously-colored bird nested in the uppermost branches of the tallest tree. When the king heard of the unusual bird, he commanded his servants to capture it and bring him the feathers that he might make a collar for his robe. Seeing that no ladder could reach, the servants decided to create a human pyramid to reach the bird's nest. The first group stood solid on the ground while a second group climbed to their shoulders. A third group climbed to the shoulders of the second. So it went, higher and higher, until they had very nearly reached the branch holding the bird's nest.

But it took a long time to build this human pyramid and, after a while, the servants nearest the ground grew tired and lost patience. They shook themselves free. And all the people above fell. The noise startled the bird and it flew away, never to be seen again.

This is how we understand being Jewish. We are God's holy people, a kingdom  of priests and prophets. We stand at the base of the human pyramid, supporting all who stand on our shoulders, bearing the weight of human history. If we are not strong in our faith, those who depend on us fail. When we tire of being more righteous, of being held more to account, those who depend on us falter and fall. For we possess the only remedy for sin, the commandments which are given again and again in mercy. Therefore, we must be steady, not as individuals but as a congregation, as a community, as a city with its walls and a nation with its borders, and as humans who know no borders and no walls and no congregation and no city, but only the earth God has given us to perfect.

Our pyramid of human souls exists only so long as we trust and rely upon one another. So before the onset of Yom Kippur, we are instructed not only to examine the sins in our heart -- those which God can and will forgive us through teshuvah -- but also the sins of omission and commission that we have perpetrated against one another. It's a delicate matter.

How will you approach those whom you have wronged? And how willing will you be to forgive those who have wronged you? What can be greater than the hurt you have suffered? What can cause you to forgive the wrong that has been done to you? What will reconcile you with someone you have sworn to hate, someone whose deeds you have come to despise, someone who seems beneath your contempt? What will you accept in return for the wrong that has been done you, for the hatred that directed at you, for the scorn and deceit that caused you harm? What do you seek to restore when you repent of your feelings of animosity toward others and when you repent of wrongs you have committed toward another person? What single thing in the universe can be so great as to cause you to forgive and forget?

Look to the heavens and you will discover God's answer. Stand quiet beside a stream and you will discover God's answer. Study photographs of the earth as seen from above and God's answer becomes apparent. Storms, even hurricanes named Rita and Ike, come and go, clouds pass by, borders are set and reset only in our imaginations, oceans and seas beat upon the shore, but the place they meet is transformed into the very beach we enjoy. So must we be transformed by the erosion of tension and the release of hatred. In the fullness of time, our wounds can heal and our spirits can find reason to be refreshed. Our hearts call out for the one thing that mends all others: wholeness, well-being, peace.

Yom Kippur is a curative. Those who harbor hatred are ensnared by dyspepsia and distress and those who seek revenge are burned by the wildfire they themselves conceive. If you refuse to forgive, you construct a wall in your mind so tall that it blots out even the light of the sun. Teshuvah is the first and most difficult step, but like the storm, once it is taken, the skies clear and you find behind it a rainbow that spells peace.

Peace is the brightly-colored bird that nests at the top of the tree of all sufferings. You can never find a ladder long enough to reach it, nor can you climb the tree alone, but you can join yourself to the pyramid of souls and bring peace to all around you. The only challenge is to forgive, to set aside all the mental borders and boundaries, to accept on your shoulders the weight of the past, by learning to treat an old enemy as a new friend, by learning to laugh at the weight and bring yourself to that higher stature that awaits you. This is teshuvah between one person and another. It is what lifts you up in spite of yourself and frees you from the dismal and grants you a sublime sense of unity. You do not accomplish it by changing others. You accomplish it by changing yourself.

A young rabbi once became famous for preaching a sermon entitled "Ten Commandments for Parents." He preached it in one synagogue after another, from one end of the land to the other. When he was successful, he married and had children. Pretty soon, he changed the title of his sermon to "Ten Suggestions for Parents." That worked until his children became teenagers. Then he titled his famous sermon, "Ten Hints for Parents." But by the time he was a grandparent, he stopped preaching his sermon entirely. He had reached the magic level of humility, he had learned the meaning of teshuvah. Now he knew how to forgive parents for their transgressions and how to forgive himself for his transgressions and what he realized was that the forgiving, the teshuvah, was a two-way street. The more he forgave, the more forgiven he was.

Forgive and forget. Move on from hatred and revenge to be like God who forgives us once each time we sin and repent; and forgives us again when we sin and repent again. If you can do that, you will understand the meaning of the kippur in Yom Kippur. If you can do that, you can find peace. Peace is the bird at the top of the tree, the thing we reach for through the work of being Jewish, and peace is my wish for you on this Erev Yom Kippur. And let us say: Amen.