Atonement
Sunday,
October 5, 2003
Rev.
Gretchen Woods
READING
from High Holy Days for Humanists by Sherwin Wine
(Lynn)
The day of
atonement is a time when we feel at one with all our vital connections. We feel
at one with the living world of nature, now displaying its glory in the beauty
of autumn. We feel at one with ourselves searching for the integrity of our
mind and body. Of our purpose and action. We feel at one with our family and
friends, without whom our struggle would have little meaning. We feel at one
with all creatures who bear our human form. Their needs and desires are also
our very own. Above all, we feel at one with a living people whose unique style
gives ys a special identity. We are Jews. We share that destiny with each other
and with millions beyond.
. . . The style of a healthy religion allows for many
degrees of commitment and for many expressions of identity. If we all dance to
the same Jewish tune, we will bore ourselves with uniformity. . . We take what
we receive and we mold it to our needs.
SERMON
Atonement
Today, on the eve of Yom Kippur, we consider the concept of
atonement as we explore the Jewish High Holy Days: Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur. I will offer my own experiences, some explanation of ritual practices
of the Jews at this time of year, and what we can learn from this tradition as
Unitarian Universalists. We begin with my own experience:
From the time I was five years old until I married and
moved, I lived in the New York Metropolitan area, specifically, on the New Jersey
shore. I knew many Jewish people. Sputnik went up when I was in fifth grade,
and I was homogeneously tracked in school from seventh grade on. Therefore, I
was one of two or three students in class during the High Holy Days. I was
occasionally invited to a seder, but I did not understand the religion of
“God’s chosen people.”
When I attended Asbury Park High School (a bit before Bruce
Springsteen), my best friends were a Jew and a black: already a budding
liberal. Unfortunately, Susan, my Jewish friend, was more interested in
converting to Christianity, which she later did, than in teaching me about
Judaism. I remained in the dark.
As an adult, I deplored the Holocaust and studied aspects of
Judaism, but recognized that I was far from their experience. Their fortitude
in the face of genocide was inspiring, but difficult for me to fathom. I was
riveted when Michael Barenbaum, then Director of Research for the Holocaust
Museum, said that nothing meaningful can be said theologically that does not
take into account “burning children.”
As luck would have it, I was accepted into the Kenneth
Jewell Chorale and sang for several major Jewish events. I was privileged to
participate in a production of “The Last Dance,” a musical play which told the
story of a pogrom after which Jews were forbidden to dance in their Russian
village. I was deeply moved by the story and entranced by the principal dancer.
I was disappointed when I asked a friend who was singing in the production what
she thought of the dancer’s work. Her reply: “Nice buns!” Transcendence is in
the eye of the beholder!
Several years later, I was hired to sing with a choir for
the Holy Days. Since then I have been hooked on Jewish liturgy and music. More
important, I had the opportunity to experience the celebration of the
mysterious High Holy Days that seemed so foreign in my childhood. Recognizing
my limitations, from that experience, let me provide some background for the
rituals of the Jewish New Year.
The Ten Days of Penitance begin on Rosh Hashana and close on
Yom Kippur. In Talmudic times, they were viewed as an especially appropriate
period for introspection and repentance. Penitential prayers (selihot) are
recited prior to the daily morning service and, in general, during this period,
scrupulous observance of the Law is expected.
Rosh Hashana (New Year) According to Mishnaic teaching (oral
law), the New Year ushers in the Days of Judgment for all mankind. Despite its
solemnity, the festive character if Rosh Hashana is in no way diminished. In scripture
it is called “a day when the horn is sounded;” in the liturgy “a day of
remembrance.” In the land of Israel and in the Diaspora (any area outside of
Israel), Rosh Hashana is celebrated on the first two days of Tishri.
Considerable speculation in recent literature concerning the origin of the
Jewish New Year festival proves mostly that its early history can only be
conjectured, not reconstructed.
The most distinctive Rosh Hashsana observance is the
sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) at the synagogue service. Medieval
commentators suggest that the blasts acclaim God as ruler of the universe,
recall the divine revelation at Sinai, and are a call for spiritual reawakening
and repentance. An expanded New Year liturgy stresses God’s sovereignty, his concern
for man, and his readiness to forgive those who repent. One the first day of
Rosh Hashana (except when it falls on a Sabbath), it is customary for many to
recite penitential prayers at a river, symbolically casting their sins into the
river; this ceremony is called “tashlihk (thou wilt cast”). Other symbolic
ceremonies, such as eating bread and apples dipped in honey, accompanied with
prayers for a “sweet” and propitious year, are performed at the festive meals.
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) The most solemn of the Jewish
festivals, Yom Kippur is a day when sins are confessed and expiated, and God
and Man are reconciled. It is also the last of the Days of Judgment and the
holiest day of the Jewish year. Celebrated on Tishri 10 (October 5-6 this year),
it is marked by fasting, penitence, and prayer. Working, eating, drinking,
washing, anointing one’s body, sexual intercourse, and donning leather shoes
are all forbidden.
In Temple times, Yom Kippur provided the only occasion for
the entry of the high priest into the Holy of Holies; details of the expiatory
rites performed by the high priest and others are recorded in the Mishna and
recounted in the liturgy. Present day observances begin with a festive meal
shortly before Yom Kippur eve. The Kol Nidre prayer (recited before the evening
service) is a legal formula which absolves Jews from fulfilling solemn vows,
thus safeguarding them from accidentally violating a vow’s stipulations. The
formula first appears in the gaonic sources (derived from the Babylonian
Talmudic academies, 6th –11 centuries Ace) but may be older; the
haunting melody that accompanies it is medieval in origin. Virtually the entire
day is spent in prayer at the synagogue, the closing service concluding with
the sounding of the ram’s horn. (source, Encylopaedia Britannica, 1975 ed.)
The mood of the season, for traditional Jews, is captured in
the introduction to Shaarei Teshuva (Gates of Repentence : The New
Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe ):
At this season we turn from our
ordinary ways to contemplate extraordinary issues, to ponder large – and
largely unanswerable – questions: Who are we? Whence do we come? Whither are we
going? What is the divine, and what our relation to the One whose name conceals
more than it reveals? Measuring ourselves against our ideals during this
season, we are moved to express regret for past errors and to reaffirm our
aspirations for the future. This our tradition calls cheshbon hanefesh,
“the examined life.” This is the season of self-judgment, of struggle, of
inward turning, the season when a whole people labors heroically to remake
itself. Though year after year that effort meets with little success, still we
believe that it must ultimately succeed. To the extent that our effort is
honest and undeceived, constant and undespairing, we gain strength, though it
comes in small, undramatic, perhaps unnoticed accretions. And this is a season
equally for the individual and the folk. Universal is its message, reaching out
to all humanity, it derives much of its power from its particularity: it is our
searching, our aspiration, our effort, our unique path to self-transcendence
and self-renewal. Hence its timeless hold upon the imagination of the Jew. One
confronts this season, its stern demands, its awesome potentialities, with
trepidation.
This is the essential meaning of the Ten Days of Repentance
which began on September 26 this year. It is a powerful time for Jews, an
awesome time. One must make peace with oneself, with one’s family and friends,
and with what is ultimate in one’s life. Ten days are set aside for this effort
and a special prayer made to absolve one for possible mistakes along the way.
It is the holiest time of the year, this beginning of a New Year.
Yom Kippur reminds us of the task of seeking forgiveness. As
some of you already know, I believe this is not a project of cheap grace, To
receive forgiveness, one who has wronged another must do three things: 1) recognize and acknowledge the wrong done;
2) repent (turn one’s life around and never repeat the deed); and 3) offer
restitution for the wrong done. As often as we can, we need to do this to lead
lives that are clear of stacked up kharma. It is a good way to begin again in
love.
Suppose, however, that we are the ones wronged.
Unfortunately, all too often, our perpetrators do none of these things. In such
cases we are left with a greater task: to “remember and release.” We need to
forgive ourselves for being powerless to stop those who have hurt us. And we
need to stop letting past events own our lives, our health, our energies. The
perpetrator probably has long ago forgotten the hurt we feel, but they still
own us. Days of Repentance could be a time of liberation, of freeing our
energies for other more creative experiences.
In addition, who among us does not hunger for connection to
something more than our selves: to our families, to our communities, to Nature,
to Life, to God. When we seek forgiveness, we truly seek union, to be
reconnected to that which has meaning for us.
What it boils down to is recognition for all of us that the
web of life is delicate and easily broken. Our deepest hunger is to mend the
web, first in ourselves, then in the fabric of community. This longing is
probably the deepest longing within human beings and is so expressed in the
eloquent prayer, Kol Nidre, which states, in Wine’s High Holy Days for
Humanists :
“We affirm all promises and resolutions we have made for the
sake of love.”
So Be it! Blessed Be!
CLOSING WORDS
from The Gates of Repentence
Kol Nidre: a whisper of wings, as promises are remembered.
Saint and sinner alike communes with the Most High. We are
at one.
So be it! Blessed Be!