“Between the Suns”
It is late afternoon. The sun is sinking. The shadows are lengthening. Our tradition ascribes special sanctity to the daily period of transition, the indeterminate time between day and night, neither day nor night, neither completely light nor completely dark, but somewhere in between. It is called bein ha-shemashot, “between the suns.” At such a time, the edge of the sea merges with the edge of the sky; at such a time, earth and heaven come very close; at such a time, borders of separation dissolve. It is said that souls pass between the worlds, and all things are possible.
The first twilight came at the end of the seventh day. When Adam saw the sun begin to sink, he grew frightened. He turned to Eve and said: “Because we disobeyed the divine command, darkness is enveloping the world. Soon the earth will become formless and void, as it was in the beginning, before the Holy One brought creation into existence.” Then he cried aloud to God: “Alas! Because of our sin, we are doomed. Have mercy upon us!” What did God do? God inspired Adam with wisdom from above. The human being arose, fetched two flints and rubbed one against the other. Fire sprang forth, and he exclaimed in astonishment: “Blessed are You, Eternal God, Ruler of the Universe, who creates the light of fire.” That is why each week at the conclusion of Shabbat to this day, we kindle the Havdallah candle and recite over it the very same words of blessing, in commemoration of that first Havdallah. (bAvodah Zara 8a; Breishit Rabbah 3:6)
We all live at every moment a hair’s breadth away from the terror of primordial darkness. We are constantly assailed by reports of tragic accidents and natural disasters—“acts of God” on the one hand, and of violence and cruelty—acts of evil on the other hand. We read about a random shooting in the newspaper, or, closer to home, a dear friend is newly diagnosed with life-threatening illness, and we secretly rejoice: “thank God, it didn’t happen to me.” We construct a life of seemingly secure surroundings and familiar routine, of work and play, of money and material comforts, but, in fact, we have much less control over what happens to us than we care to acknowledge. Rabbi Karen Silberman likens the existential human condition to hurtling through the depths of outer space on a spaceship. The spaceship is the veneer of order and stability that masks the endlessly black chaos just outside the window, threatening to break through the flimsy covering and engulf us at any moment. According to scholar Jon Levenson, even God is often Biblically portrayed as still engaged in combat against the powerful forces of darkness. “YHWH’s mastery is fragile,… Leviathan is still on the loose, and the absolute sovereignty of the absolutely just God lies ahead.” (Creation and the Persistence of Evil, pp. 47-48)
Occasionally, chaos and evil succeeds in piercing the veil. Extraordinary events momentarily rouse and shake us from our complacency. Something happens; we lose our job, we are given a medical diagnosis, a loved one dies—God forbid—and for a brief while, we remember the priorities and values that truly matter. This is our chance for Teshuvah—to take stock of our lives and to change direction—but too often we miss the opportunity. Instead, we rush to sweep away the pain, to reestablish the status quo as much as possible, and to return to normal.
In a documentary I watched the other night, AIDS activists rued the loss of the strong sense of mission that bonded them into tight fellowship during the early years of the health emergency. “People were dying right and left,” says one interviewee. “But, at the same time, we were there for one another, we looked out for each other. Nowadays, people no longer heed the warnings, and we old-timers, we are tired—or gone. HIV is still killing our young people, but I’m afraid if the early advocates of AIDS awareness were out in the community broadcasting their message of practicing safe sex today, nobody would stop to listen.” Similarly, an op-ed piece in last Sunday’s New York Times commented on the national response immediately after 9-11: “Emergencies are occasions for fresh starts and rethinking. Because they make death vivid for those who survive, they properly prompt people to appraise their [own] lives. [Thus,] we took September 11 as a wake-up call. We opened our minds to questions of how we could live better.” In contrast, a companion article reported on this year’s commemoration: “Posters and photographs held aloft bluntly injected politics into New York City’s annual ceremony. The once unifying day is now replete with tension and division.” (The New York Times, September 12, 2010)
It’s human nature to respond to crisis with vows of reform. The trick is to translate a single, extraordinary impetus for change into everyday renewal. In his pioneering early-twentieth-century work Varieties of Religious Experience, the psychologist-philosopher William James documented the phenomenon of sudden conversions, such as the life-altering experiences of born-again Christians or of alcoholics who hit rock bottom. He writes that radical transformations are difficult to sustain unless they are accompanied by permanent shifts in regular spiritual practice. Fortunately, softer interventions exist as well. Thank God we don’t have to wait for grand epiphanies or major catastrophes in order to effect long-lasting spiritual growth. We just need a little prodding sometimes, a periodic firm reminder of our higher purpose.
As I see it, the basic function of Yom Kippur is to remind us of our higher purpose—without the shock and pain of tragic circumstances. It is to shake us from our complacency, to re-instill in us a sense of urgency, and to reawaken our deeply buried primordial fear—or perhaps I should use the word “awe” instead of “fear,” as in the designation “Days of Awe,” yamim nora’im, which specifies the entire period of self-appraisal. Yom Kippur is considered a dress rehearsal for death. It is customary to wear the kittel, the white shroud that one will wear once again in her grave. The entire solemn liturgy and, in particular, the prayers of the day’s final service, Ne’ilah, reflect her final moments on earth. Ne’ilah culminates with the dramatic proclamation of the Shema, which our tradition also prescribes as the final words she recites just before she dies. But we do not die. We are resurrected. At the end of the day, the single blast of tekiah gedolah calls us back to life. We are not like Rabbi Harold Kushner’s dying parishioners whom I mentioned in my Rosh Hashanah sermon last week, “those who felt that they had [wasted] their lives, and if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right.” We possibly have another two or three years. What will you do with your remaining two or three years?
I devoted last week’s sermon to the theme of holiness. I defined holiness as godliness projected downward into the world of human affairs, or, from a different perspective, the distillation of the noblest deeds and loftiest values of humankind projected upward into the spiritual realm. Within Judaism, qedushah, holiness, entails havdallah, separation. For example, the holiness of Yom Kippur resides in its singularity, separate from all other days. The Hassidic Alter Rebbe of Ger taught that anything that is holy exists not only for its own sake but, more importantly, for spreading its holiness outward. Accordingly, the purpose of Yom Kippur is not so much to spur self-reflection today, but to motivate self-improvement throughout the year. In a well-known Talmudic story, Rabbi Eliezer once admonished his disciple: “repent one day before you die.” “But Master,” replied the student, “does one then know the day on which one will die?” “Therefore, repent today, lest you die tomorrow,” said the Rabbi, “and so you will spend all your days in repentance.” (bShabbat 153a) When I was younger, I used to perform my annual rite of atonement by making grand New Year’s resolutions to myself and by mouthing stiff, generic apologies to others. I now believe that a quieter, more durable form of atonement demands, instead, a disposition toward humility and contrition in my daily interactions.
The first darkness fell at the end of the seventh day. It turns out that the Midrashic myth with which I began does not tell the full story. Have you ever wondered about the light of the first day of creation recorded in Genesis, when God said: “Let there be light,” and there was light? What light was this, when the sun, moon, and stars weren’t created until the fourth day of creation? The Rabbis also noticed the chronological discrepancy and explained it with the following, additional Midrash.
When the Holy One created light on the first day, it shone forever. For seven days, it shone continuously. It was light in the evening and in the morning. But as soon as Adam sinned, God looked into the generations and beheld the evil of humanity and the corruption of their ways. So God arose and hid the light from them, as it is written: “Light is withheld from the wicked.” (Job 38:15) And for whom did God reserve it? For the righteous in the time to come, as it is written: “Light is sown for the righteous.” (Psalm 97:11) (bHagigah 12a)
The two Midrashim, taken together, tell of two lights—one spiritual and the other physical, one created by God on the first day and the other created by the human being at the beginning of the eighth day, one that shone forever and the other that shines only as long as we continue to tend it. The second light shines for everyone, the righteous and wicked alike. The first light is reserved for the righteous. But, in the final hour of Yom Kippur, we all taste righteousness, as in the beginning.
The sun is sinking. The shadows are lengthening. The gates are closing. The trick is to respond to the gathering darkness by fetching our own flints and making our own fire, to translate our spiritual awareness into physical action, to extend the light of holiness into the eighth day, into tomorrow. The truth is, we are always bein ha-shemashot, “between the suns,” not just during these final moments of Yom Kippur, but every day. Or chadash al Tziyon ta’ir, venizkeh kulanu meheirah le’oro. “May a new light shine upon Zion, and may we all be worthy to bask in its light.” In the New Year, may the light of awareness shine through our thoughts, may the light of repentance shine through our deeds, and may the light of peace shine throughout the world.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Rosh Hashanah 5771 Sermon: Holiness and Wholeness
Holiness and Wholeness (RH – 2010)
I would like to open with a story. Only it’s not a story in the conventional sense, with an exposition, a development, and a conclusion. Rather, it’s an impression, an experience, a realization. Ten days ago, on our way back to Santa Fe from Colorado, my partner and I stopped at Ghost Ranch, the summer home of artist Georgia O’Keefe, and walked the labyrinth. The labyrinth is a path to the interior of the soul. It is a tool for meditation, an experience for prayer, a trigger for growth. You start at the entrance, and, tracing a series of interlocking spirals, you walk toward the center. You cannot get lost; there is only one way. Billowing cumulus clouds sweep across the deep blue sky. The breeze blowing gently across my face also stirs a set of wind chimes nearby. I inhale the fragrance of a small piece of yellow sage that I pinch off as I pass. Each time the path bends, a new vista opens up: sandstone cliffs, a copse of cottonwoods, a few squat adobe buildings. I suddenly realize: “this is enough.” A poem comes to mind: “I do not have to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert… I only have to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves.” (Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”) O’Keefe never owned Ghost Ranch, and, in fact, she was alarmed when it sold as a conference center in the 1950s. After awhile, however, she realized that she did not have to own her surroundings in order to adopt them. She once said about the mountains: “God told me that if I painted them, then they were mine.”
There are two ways to live. We can direct our energies toward the future, constantly creating, building, amassing, accumulating, improving, progressing toward a goal. Or we can imbibe deeply the draught of human experience, engage joyfully in every activity, and make every human interaction count for good. The wisdom of the sages admonishes: “do not say: ‘when I have time, I will [perform this Mitzvah], for perchance there will never come a time.” (Pirkei Avot 2:5) After all, now is the only time there is, and each moment is for giving.
In classical Jewish thought, the great divine process of Redemption is associated with the end of time. The ultimate destiny of humankind is the coming of the Messiah and the repair of the world. Accordingly, the 19th-century German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen championed the modernist view that human civilization was marching ineluctably toward salvation and that the Jewish faith, as a supreme expression of ethical monotheism, was an indispensable force for progress.
However, there’s another way to look at Redemption, not perennially deferred to a far-off utopian ideal, but rooted in present reality. In response to Hermann Cohen’s depiction of Judaism primarily as a vehicle for hastening the eventual perfection of society, Franz Rosenzweig developed a model of Jewish life that offered fulfillment here and now. By experiencing the richness of religious observance—through prayer, through study, in the cycle of the days of rest and the rhythm of the holy days that form the sacred calendar, in the practice of the commandments and deeds of lovingkindness—one could endow every fleeting moment with the dimension of eternity. As Rosenzweig himself wrote: “I do not seek salvation through reunification with my Father in Heaven someday, because I already live with Him today.”
I am not a Halachic Jew, bound by the commandments, as Rosenzweig aspired to be. (When he was once asked whether he prayed daily with tefillin, he famously replied: “not yet.”) Nevertheless, my prescription for obtaining salvation through everyday living is the same as Rosenzweig’s. For Rosenzweig, there is only one supreme commandment: ve’ahavta et Adonai Eloheicha, “you shall love Adonai your God,” and there is only one way to observe that commandment in the realm of human affairs, and that is: ve’ahavta le-rei’echa kamocha, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” A Jewish concept allows for eternity to inhabit the present. A Jewish concept allows for bringing God down to earth. The concept is called qedushah, holiness.
Kedoshim tiheyu, ki kadosh ani, Adonai Eloheichem. “Holy you shall be, for I, Adonai your God, am holy.” In his book of Jewish vocabulary These Are the Words, Rabbi Green remarks that qadosh “is the single attribute that properly belongs to God alone. We can be compassionate based upon our own value system, or because of good upbringing, or through empathy with victims of oppression. Similarly, we may be just, pure, powerful, or good. But we cannot be holy except in relation to God, who is the ultimate Source of holiness.” (p. 129) In other words, holiness is godliness made manifest within the world of human activity.
I agree with Rabbi Green, and I would go a step further. Just as holiness is godliness projected into the human world, godliness is holiness projected into the spiritual realm. I subscribe to predicate theology, as advanced by the Reconstructionist theologian Harold Schulweis. God is not a Subject, to whom we ascribe certain qualities, such as compassionate, just, or good. Rather, God is a Predicate encapsulating a set of human virtues, such as compassion, justice, and goodness. The crucial shift in orientation makes all the difference. For Rabbi Schulweis, it’s more important to believe in godliness than to believe in God. For instance, I’m not sure I believe that there’s a Being up there who “uplifts the fallen, heals the sick, and loosens the bonds of the oppressed,” as the liturgy expresses it. However, I do believe that the act of uplifting the fallen, the act of healing the sick, and the act of loosening the bonds of the oppressed are divine. Every time you pick up the phone and call your ailing friend to ask after her wellbeing, you draw divinity down into the world. In predicate theology, godliness is a container for the noblest deeds and loftiest values of humankind. In short, God is a name for holiness.
I contend that the key to individual happiness is to live a holy life, by which I mean caring for others, making a positive impact upon the world, and engaging fully in every moment. Rabbi Harold Kushner writes: “Trying to find [the] one Big Answer to the question of living is like trying to eat one Big Meal so that you will never… be hungry again. There is no Answer (with a capital A), but there answers: loving and being loved, enjoying your food and sitting in the sun rather than rushing through lunch and hurrying back to the office, savoring the… sunsets, the leaves turning color, the rare instances of true human communication, the little things that tend to get lost and trampled in the [frantic] search for the Grand Solution to the problem of Life and emerge, like the proverbial bluebird of happiness, only when we have stopped searching.” (pp. 142-143) Along similar lines, only one blessing in the entire Torah is promises happiness. It is found in Moses’s farewell words to the seafaring tribe of Zevulun: “May God grant you happiness on your journeys.” (Deuteronomy 33:18) Significantly, Moses does not say: “May God grant you happiness at the end of your journeys.” It is only possible to be happy upon the voyage.
I contend that the key to congregational success is to build a holy community, by which I mean, caring for one another, making a positive impact upon the world, and engaging fully in communal life. Twenty years ago, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman spearheaded the Synagogue 2000 initiative, designed to transform and revitalize American Jewish communities for the twenty-first century. His work mirrors our own recent JCOGS needs assessment process, albeit on a massive scale. Hoffman surveyed hundreds of congregations. At first glance, they did not seem to be in trouble. Membership, finances, and programs were stable overall, even strengthening somewhat. Underneath the surface, however, Hoffman discovered widespread disengagement, apathy, and skepticism, together with a deep hunger for intellectual stimulation, spiritual renewal, and social fellowship. Things were chugging along with no real sense of purpose. In Hoffman’s mind, the missing element was holiness.
Here’s how Rabbi Hoffman introduces the concept: “There are two kinds of religious communities—market communities and holy communities. Most American synagogues today are market communities. A member pays her dues and expects that, in return, she will receive X number of tickets to the High Holiday services, religious schooling for her child, a Bat Mitzvah for her teenager, and so on. The worth of a holy community, on the other hand, is measured not by the cash value of its programs and services, nor even by the size of its membership, but by the sum total of the holy acts and relationships that it engenders. In Jewish terms, a holy act is a Mitzvah, and a holy relationship is one in which human beings relate to one another with integrity, compassion, and reverence. Holy acts and holy relationships are pursued for their own sake, not for utilitarian benefits, although benefits may accrue anyway. A synagogue that tries to become a holy community, rather than a market community, will not worry about the size of its membership—but it will find its membership increasing anyway, since people are naturally attracted to the sacred.”
Let me give a specific example of communal holiness. One benefit of participating in synagogue life is the opportunity to receive care from the community when we are ill. In a discussion on illness, the Talmud asks rhetorically: “do human beings have the right to subvert God’s will by caring for one whose disease comes from heaven? Maybe God is punishing her for her sins,” and then answers: “permission is given to heal.” Later commentators add: “it is not only permitted to heal, it is a Mitzvah, an obligation, to heal.” Furthermore, the obligation to care for the ailing rests equally upon the Rabbi as he discharges his pastoral duties, as well as upon all members of the community. It’s not simply that a person visits another while she is sick in the hope and expectation that she will return the favor someday; it’s that he is visiting her in order to fulfill his own spiritual need. Thus, there are actually two needs associated with illness. People need to heal, but people also need to be healers. A synagogue that functions as a holy community will satisfy both needs.
For another example, let me turn to the realm of Jewish education. People hope and expect to gain knowledge and intellectual satisfaction from synagogue classes and lectures. However, Torah entails more than passive participation; Torah demands active engagement. Torah comes alive only when the student brings all her life experience to bear upon it. My Rabbinic ordination document contains the declaration: “he did not stop his exertions until he created his own Torah out of his studies.” The phrase alludes to a beautiful Rabbinic exegesis of a verse in Psalms: “God’s Torah is his delight, and he meditates upon his Torah day and night.” The Talmud comments: when a person starts out learning, it is called “God’s Torah,” but in the end, it is called “his Torah,” meaning the learner’s own Torah.
The Talmudic view of Torah study corroborates the findings of the American social scientist Eduard Lindeman. Lindeman wrote: “The resource of highest value in adult education is the learner’s experience. If education is life, then life is also education… Aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh and vigorous begin to learn by confronting pertinent situations in their own lives, dig down into the reservoirs of their experience before resorting to texts, and are led in the discussion by teachers who are also searchers after wisdom and not oracles.” (Adult Education, pp. 6-7) A synagogue that functions as a holy community will not stop its exertions until its members, clergy and laity alike, become teachers and students to each other.
My highest vision for JCOGS is that it become a holy community. I don’t mean a religious community. I don’t mean a community centered on God. I mean a community centered on godliness, that is, the container of human virtues of compassion, justice, goodness, reverence, and integrity. I envision a JCOGS whose worth is measured not by the size of its membership and the monetary value of its assets, nor even by the richness of its programs and the diversity of its offerings, but by the degree to which it fosters sacred acts and sacred relationships of mutual caring and interdependent learning that connect us one to another. Holiness is not a perennially deferred utopian ideal, but rooted in present reality. Holiness does not depend upon growth and progress. We can be a holy community today, by instilling values of holiness into what we already do.
To this day, the longest continuous stretch of time I ever attended any single synagogue occurred in childhood. Each year, my family would occupy our regular pews on Rosh Hashanah, look at the fellow worshippers around us and notice the slow, steady parade of generations. Babies grew into teenagers; teenagers returned with husbands and small babies; sadly, a smattering of new empty seats would attest to recent passings. It’s natural to become aware of the passage of time at this season, as the days begin to shorten noticeably, as the leaves begin to dry up and fall off the trees, as the natural world begins to prepare for hibernation. Even the preeminent scriptural reading assigned to the Days of Awe points us toward mortality: “See, I have set life and death before you this day, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that you and your generations my live!” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
I would suggest that what causes the most anxiety is not the lack of achievements. After all, we will all die without accomplishing everything we set out to do. Rather, I would suggest that what drives the deepest anxiety is the lack of fulfillment. “In my forty years as a Rabbi,” writes Harold Kushner, “I have tended to many people in the last moments of their lives. [I can say nearly without exception that] the people who had the most trouble with death were those who felt that they had [wasted] their lives, and if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right.” (Living a Life that Matters, p. 6) Fear of death is really a mask for the fear that we are not fully alive while we have the chance.
In his book Who Dies?, Stephen Levine offers two measures of a person’s worth. The Western mind views life as a line that extends from one point to another—we are born, we pass certain milestones along the way, and then we die. In contrast, the Native American views life as a circle. The circle itself may expand as we progress through life, but at any given moment it is boundless and complete. Therefore, the Native American wakes up in the morning and says: “today is a good day to die”—not with morbidity, but with the serenity that comes from knowing that there is nothing more he needs in order to be whole. Now, I’m not saying that it’s always wrong to strive for achievements and only right to bask in the fullness of experience. Our tradition, in fact, prescribes a balance between doing and being, between the workweek and Shabbat. It’s just that only Shabbat is called holy. And only holiness can breed wholeness.
These are my Rosh Hashanah blessings: “holy you shall be,” and may this community be holy. May we care for one another, may we make a positive impact upon the world, and may we engage life fully in every moment. May we be filled to overflowing in the New Year with sacred deeds and sacred relationships. May God grant us happiness on our journeys—the happiness that comes from wholeness, holiness, and peace.
I would like to open with a story. Only it’s not a story in the conventional sense, with an exposition, a development, and a conclusion. Rather, it’s an impression, an experience, a realization. Ten days ago, on our way back to Santa Fe from Colorado, my partner and I stopped at Ghost Ranch, the summer home of artist Georgia O’Keefe, and walked the labyrinth. The labyrinth is a path to the interior of the soul. It is a tool for meditation, an experience for prayer, a trigger for growth. You start at the entrance, and, tracing a series of interlocking spirals, you walk toward the center. You cannot get lost; there is only one way. Billowing cumulus clouds sweep across the deep blue sky. The breeze blowing gently across my face also stirs a set of wind chimes nearby. I inhale the fragrance of a small piece of yellow sage that I pinch off as I pass. Each time the path bends, a new vista opens up: sandstone cliffs, a copse of cottonwoods, a few squat adobe buildings. I suddenly realize: “this is enough.” A poem comes to mind: “I do not have to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert… I only have to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves.” (Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”) O’Keefe never owned Ghost Ranch, and, in fact, she was alarmed when it sold as a conference center in the 1950s. After awhile, however, she realized that she did not have to own her surroundings in order to adopt them. She once said about the mountains: “God told me that if I painted them, then they were mine.”
There are two ways to live. We can direct our energies toward the future, constantly creating, building, amassing, accumulating, improving, progressing toward a goal. Or we can imbibe deeply the draught of human experience, engage joyfully in every activity, and make every human interaction count for good. The wisdom of the sages admonishes: “do not say: ‘when I have time, I will [perform this Mitzvah], for perchance there will never come a time.” (Pirkei Avot 2:5) After all, now is the only time there is, and each moment is for giving.
In classical Jewish thought, the great divine process of Redemption is associated with the end of time. The ultimate destiny of humankind is the coming of the Messiah and the repair of the world. Accordingly, the 19th-century German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen championed the modernist view that human civilization was marching ineluctably toward salvation and that the Jewish faith, as a supreme expression of ethical monotheism, was an indispensable force for progress.
However, there’s another way to look at Redemption, not perennially deferred to a far-off utopian ideal, but rooted in present reality. In response to Hermann Cohen’s depiction of Judaism primarily as a vehicle for hastening the eventual perfection of society, Franz Rosenzweig developed a model of Jewish life that offered fulfillment here and now. By experiencing the richness of religious observance—through prayer, through study, in the cycle of the days of rest and the rhythm of the holy days that form the sacred calendar, in the practice of the commandments and deeds of lovingkindness—one could endow every fleeting moment with the dimension of eternity. As Rosenzweig himself wrote: “I do not seek salvation through reunification with my Father in Heaven someday, because I already live with Him today.”
I am not a Halachic Jew, bound by the commandments, as Rosenzweig aspired to be. (When he was once asked whether he prayed daily with tefillin, he famously replied: “not yet.”) Nevertheless, my prescription for obtaining salvation through everyday living is the same as Rosenzweig’s. For Rosenzweig, there is only one supreme commandment: ve’ahavta et Adonai Eloheicha, “you shall love Adonai your God,” and there is only one way to observe that commandment in the realm of human affairs, and that is: ve’ahavta le-rei’echa kamocha, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” A Jewish concept allows for eternity to inhabit the present. A Jewish concept allows for bringing God down to earth. The concept is called qedushah, holiness.
Kedoshim tiheyu, ki kadosh ani, Adonai Eloheichem. “Holy you shall be, for I, Adonai your God, am holy.” In his book of Jewish vocabulary These Are the Words, Rabbi Green remarks that qadosh “is the single attribute that properly belongs to God alone. We can be compassionate based upon our own value system, or because of good upbringing, or through empathy with victims of oppression. Similarly, we may be just, pure, powerful, or good. But we cannot be holy except in relation to God, who is the ultimate Source of holiness.” (p. 129) In other words, holiness is godliness made manifest within the world of human activity.
I agree with Rabbi Green, and I would go a step further. Just as holiness is godliness projected into the human world, godliness is holiness projected into the spiritual realm. I subscribe to predicate theology, as advanced by the Reconstructionist theologian Harold Schulweis. God is not a Subject, to whom we ascribe certain qualities, such as compassionate, just, or good. Rather, God is a Predicate encapsulating a set of human virtues, such as compassion, justice, and goodness. The crucial shift in orientation makes all the difference. For Rabbi Schulweis, it’s more important to believe in godliness than to believe in God. For instance, I’m not sure I believe that there’s a Being up there who “uplifts the fallen, heals the sick, and loosens the bonds of the oppressed,” as the liturgy expresses it. However, I do believe that the act of uplifting the fallen, the act of healing the sick, and the act of loosening the bonds of the oppressed are divine. Every time you pick up the phone and call your ailing friend to ask after her wellbeing, you draw divinity down into the world. In predicate theology, godliness is a container for the noblest deeds and loftiest values of humankind. In short, God is a name for holiness.
I contend that the key to individual happiness is to live a holy life, by which I mean caring for others, making a positive impact upon the world, and engaging fully in every moment. Rabbi Harold Kushner writes: “Trying to find [the] one Big Answer to the question of living is like trying to eat one Big Meal so that you will never… be hungry again. There is no Answer (with a capital A), but there answers: loving and being loved, enjoying your food and sitting in the sun rather than rushing through lunch and hurrying back to the office, savoring the… sunsets, the leaves turning color, the rare instances of true human communication, the little things that tend to get lost and trampled in the [frantic] search for the Grand Solution to the problem of Life and emerge, like the proverbial bluebird of happiness, only when we have stopped searching.” (pp. 142-143) Along similar lines, only one blessing in the entire Torah is promises happiness. It is found in Moses’s farewell words to the seafaring tribe of Zevulun: “May God grant you happiness on your journeys.” (Deuteronomy 33:18) Significantly, Moses does not say: “May God grant you happiness at the end of your journeys.” It is only possible to be happy upon the voyage.
I contend that the key to congregational success is to build a holy community, by which I mean, caring for one another, making a positive impact upon the world, and engaging fully in communal life. Twenty years ago, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman spearheaded the Synagogue 2000 initiative, designed to transform and revitalize American Jewish communities for the twenty-first century. His work mirrors our own recent JCOGS needs assessment process, albeit on a massive scale. Hoffman surveyed hundreds of congregations. At first glance, they did not seem to be in trouble. Membership, finances, and programs were stable overall, even strengthening somewhat. Underneath the surface, however, Hoffman discovered widespread disengagement, apathy, and skepticism, together with a deep hunger for intellectual stimulation, spiritual renewal, and social fellowship. Things were chugging along with no real sense of purpose. In Hoffman’s mind, the missing element was holiness.
Here’s how Rabbi Hoffman introduces the concept: “There are two kinds of religious communities—market communities and holy communities. Most American synagogues today are market communities. A member pays her dues and expects that, in return, she will receive X number of tickets to the High Holiday services, religious schooling for her child, a Bat Mitzvah for her teenager, and so on. The worth of a holy community, on the other hand, is measured not by the cash value of its programs and services, nor even by the size of its membership, but by the sum total of the holy acts and relationships that it engenders. In Jewish terms, a holy act is a Mitzvah, and a holy relationship is one in which human beings relate to one another with integrity, compassion, and reverence. Holy acts and holy relationships are pursued for their own sake, not for utilitarian benefits, although benefits may accrue anyway. A synagogue that tries to become a holy community, rather than a market community, will not worry about the size of its membership—but it will find its membership increasing anyway, since people are naturally attracted to the sacred.”
Let me give a specific example of communal holiness. One benefit of participating in synagogue life is the opportunity to receive care from the community when we are ill. In a discussion on illness, the Talmud asks rhetorically: “do human beings have the right to subvert God’s will by caring for one whose disease comes from heaven? Maybe God is punishing her for her sins,” and then answers: “permission is given to heal.” Later commentators add: “it is not only permitted to heal, it is a Mitzvah, an obligation, to heal.” Furthermore, the obligation to care for the ailing rests equally upon the Rabbi as he discharges his pastoral duties, as well as upon all members of the community. It’s not simply that a person visits another while she is sick in the hope and expectation that she will return the favor someday; it’s that he is visiting her in order to fulfill his own spiritual need. Thus, there are actually two needs associated with illness. People need to heal, but people also need to be healers. A synagogue that functions as a holy community will satisfy both needs.
For another example, let me turn to the realm of Jewish education. People hope and expect to gain knowledge and intellectual satisfaction from synagogue classes and lectures. However, Torah entails more than passive participation; Torah demands active engagement. Torah comes alive only when the student brings all her life experience to bear upon it. My Rabbinic ordination document contains the declaration: “he did not stop his exertions until he created his own Torah out of his studies.” The phrase alludes to a beautiful Rabbinic exegesis of a verse in Psalms: “God’s Torah is his delight, and he meditates upon his Torah day and night.” The Talmud comments: when a person starts out learning, it is called “God’s Torah,” but in the end, it is called “his Torah,” meaning the learner’s own Torah.
The Talmudic view of Torah study corroborates the findings of the American social scientist Eduard Lindeman. Lindeman wrote: “The resource of highest value in adult education is the learner’s experience. If education is life, then life is also education… Aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh and vigorous begin to learn by confronting pertinent situations in their own lives, dig down into the reservoirs of their experience before resorting to texts, and are led in the discussion by teachers who are also searchers after wisdom and not oracles.” (Adult Education, pp. 6-7) A synagogue that functions as a holy community will not stop its exertions until its members, clergy and laity alike, become teachers and students to each other.
My highest vision for JCOGS is that it become a holy community. I don’t mean a religious community. I don’t mean a community centered on God. I mean a community centered on godliness, that is, the container of human virtues of compassion, justice, goodness, reverence, and integrity. I envision a JCOGS whose worth is measured not by the size of its membership and the monetary value of its assets, nor even by the richness of its programs and the diversity of its offerings, but by the degree to which it fosters sacred acts and sacred relationships of mutual caring and interdependent learning that connect us one to another. Holiness is not a perennially deferred utopian ideal, but rooted in present reality. Holiness does not depend upon growth and progress. We can be a holy community today, by instilling values of holiness into what we already do.
To this day, the longest continuous stretch of time I ever attended any single synagogue occurred in childhood. Each year, my family would occupy our regular pews on Rosh Hashanah, look at the fellow worshippers around us and notice the slow, steady parade of generations. Babies grew into teenagers; teenagers returned with husbands and small babies; sadly, a smattering of new empty seats would attest to recent passings. It’s natural to become aware of the passage of time at this season, as the days begin to shorten noticeably, as the leaves begin to dry up and fall off the trees, as the natural world begins to prepare for hibernation. Even the preeminent scriptural reading assigned to the Days of Awe points us toward mortality: “See, I have set life and death before you this day, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that you and your generations my live!” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
I would suggest that what causes the most anxiety is not the lack of achievements. After all, we will all die without accomplishing everything we set out to do. Rather, I would suggest that what drives the deepest anxiety is the lack of fulfillment. “In my forty years as a Rabbi,” writes Harold Kushner, “I have tended to many people in the last moments of their lives. [I can say nearly without exception that] the people who had the most trouble with death were those who felt that they had [wasted] their lives, and if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right.” (Living a Life that Matters, p. 6) Fear of death is really a mask for the fear that we are not fully alive while we have the chance.
In his book Who Dies?, Stephen Levine offers two measures of a person’s worth. The Western mind views life as a line that extends from one point to another—we are born, we pass certain milestones along the way, and then we die. In contrast, the Native American views life as a circle. The circle itself may expand as we progress through life, but at any given moment it is boundless and complete. Therefore, the Native American wakes up in the morning and says: “today is a good day to die”—not with morbidity, but with the serenity that comes from knowing that there is nothing more he needs in order to be whole. Now, I’m not saying that it’s always wrong to strive for achievements and only right to bask in the fullness of experience. Our tradition, in fact, prescribes a balance between doing and being, between the workweek and Shabbat. It’s just that only Shabbat is called holy. And only holiness can breed wholeness.
These are my Rosh Hashanah blessings: “holy you shall be,” and may this community be holy. May we care for one another, may we make a positive impact upon the world, and may we engage life fully in every moment. May we be filled to overflowing in the New Year with sacred deeds and sacred relationships. May God grant us happiness on our journeys—the happiness that comes from wholeness, holiness, and peace.
September 22, 2010: Be Only Joyous
Dear Chevre (Friends):
“After the ingathering of your grain and your wine, you shall hold the Feast of Sukkot for seven days. You shall rejoice in your festival… only be joyous!” (Deuteronomy 16:13-15) Of course, the joy of Sukkot reflects the abundance of the fall harvest. But still…what an impossible commandment: “only be joyous!” How can the Torah mandate happiness? Some of us live in constant pain and depression, and the rest of us are not usually capable of conjuring up feelings upon demand.
Another even more basic commandment seems to stipulate an emotional state: “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) However, its fulfillment is predicated not upon adopting a certain attitude, but upon performing certain deeds, such as welcoming guests, visiting the sick, lending money, and giving charity. As Millard Fuller said: “It’s easier to act your way into a new of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” So, what actions does the Torah prescribe to induce joy on Sukkot?
We are to wave a bundle of palm, myrtle, willow, and citron and we are to live outdoors in temporary, leafy structures. The Lulav and Etrog are a feast for the senses: the color of the leaves, the rustling of the fronds, the delicious aroma of the fruit. Their sexual imagery is unmistakable. As for the Sukkah, it represents life laid bare of all luxurious pretensions. “The special joy of Sukkot,” writes Rabbi Alan Lew, “is precisely the joy of being stripped naked, the joy of being flush with life, the joy of having nothing between our skin and the wind and the starlight, nothing between us and the world.”
It is no coincidence that Sukkot arrives on the heels of Yom Kippur. Feeling right with the world is the product of a clear conscience. The grand prize for the hard work of atonement is wholesale immersion in the simple pleasures of life. May we all taste the sheer joy of this festive season.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
“After the ingathering of your grain and your wine, you shall hold the Feast of Sukkot for seven days. You shall rejoice in your festival… only be joyous!” (Deuteronomy 16:13-15) Of course, the joy of Sukkot reflects the abundance of the fall harvest. But still…what an impossible commandment: “only be joyous!” How can the Torah mandate happiness? Some of us live in constant pain and depression, and the rest of us are not usually capable of conjuring up feelings upon demand.
Another even more basic commandment seems to stipulate an emotional state: “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) However, its fulfillment is predicated not upon adopting a certain attitude, but upon performing certain deeds, such as welcoming guests, visiting the sick, lending money, and giving charity. As Millard Fuller said: “It’s easier to act your way into a new of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” So, what actions does the Torah prescribe to induce joy on Sukkot?
We are to wave a bundle of palm, myrtle, willow, and citron and we are to live outdoors in temporary, leafy structures. The Lulav and Etrog are a feast for the senses: the color of the leaves, the rustling of the fronds, the delicious aroma of the fruit. Their sexual imagery is unmistakable. As for the Sukkah, it represents life laid bare of all luxurious pretensions. “The special joy of Sukkot,” writes Rabbi Alan Lew, “is precisely the joy of being stripped naked, the joy of being flush with life, the joy of having nothing between our skin and the wind and the starlight, nothing between us and the world.”
It is no coincidence that Sukkot arrives on the heels of Yom Kippur. Feeling right with the world is the product of a clear conscience. The grand prize for the hard work of atonement is wholesale immersion in the simple pleasures of life. May we all taste the sheer joy of this festive season.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
Friday, September 17, 2010
September 15, 2010: The Merit of the Penitent
Dear Chevre (Friends):
“Rabbi Abahu said: in the place where the penitent stands, the perfectly righteous may not stand.” (bShabbat 34b) What is the basis for this beautiful, but counterintuitive, Talmudic teaching? According to one explanation, the righteous have it easier. They aren’t subjected to the usual vices, such as greed, envy, lust, and the like. But the sinner, whose moral constitution is weaker or who may have been subjected to greater temptations, must work harder to overcome them. The penitent has had the opportunity to fulfill all the Mitzvot that the righteous have fulfilled, plus one more—the Mitzvah of Teshuvah.
I would go a step further. Not only is repentance meritorious, but sin itself can become meritorious. “Reish Laqish said: great is repentance, for because of it, even willful transgressions turn into merits.” (bYoma 86b) (Reish Laqish was a living example of his own teaching. He started out as a Roman gladiator, robber, and murderer, but converted to Judaism and become one of the great Rabbis of the Talmud.) How can sin ever be redemptive? The businesswoman who serves her time for embezzlement and devotes the rest of her life to philanthropy, the teenager, in remorse for his role in public bullying and hazing, who decides to become a high school guidance counselor as an adult—these are examples of good that can stem from evil. There is no doubt in my mind—and my closed friends and loved ones can attest to it—that I would not be a Rabbi today if not for the waywardness of my past.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that we should go out and indulge in transgression. The teaching is not: “the righteous may not stand with the sinner.” The teaching is: “the righteous may not stand with the penitent.” After all, we all sin, so the teaching is aimed at all of us. It prompts us to look for ways—no matter what we have done, no matter how dark our past—to make our misdeeds count for good.
G’mar chatimah tovah, may you be sealed for a year of repentance and meritorious deeds,
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
“Rabbi Abahu said: in the place where the penitent stands, the perfectly righteous may not stand.” (bShabbat 34b) What is the basis for this beautiful, but counterintuitive, Talmudic teaching? According to one explanation, the righteous have it easier. They aren’t subjected to the usual vices, such as greed, envy, lust, and the like. But the sinner, whose moral constitution is weaker or who may have been subjected to greater temptations, must work harder to overcome them. The penitent has had the opportunity to fulfill all the Mitzvot that the righteous have fulfilled, plus one more—the Mitzvah of Teshuvah.
I would go a step further. Not only is repentance meritorious, but sin itself can become meritorious. “Reish Laqish said: great is repentance, for because of it, even willful transgressions turn into merits.” (bYoma 86b) (Reish Laqish was a living example of his own teaching. He started out as a Roman gladiator, robber, and murderer, but converted to Judaism and become one of the great Rabbis of the Talmud.) How can sin ever be redemptive? The businesswoman who serves her time for embezzlement and devotes the rest of her life to philanthropy, the teenager, in remorse for his role in public bullying and hazing, who decides to become a high school guidance counselor as an adult—these are examples of good that can stem from evil. There is no doubt in my mind—and my closed friends and loved ones can attest to it—that I would not be a Rabbi today if not for the waywardness of my past.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that we should go out and indulge in transgression. The teaching is not: “the righteous may not stand with the sinner.” The teaching is: “the righteous may not stand with the penitent.” After all, we all sin, so the teaching is aimed at all of us. It prompts us to look for ways—no matter what we have done, no matter how dark our past—to make our misdeeds count for good.
G’mar chatimah tovah, may you be sealed for a year of repentance and meritorious deeds,
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
September 8, 2010: Giving and Taking
Dear Chevre (Friends):
Mussar is a quintessentially Jewish approach to moral self-improvement. More than merely a stream of literature that constitutes a substantial portion of the corpus of Jewish knowledge, Mussar designates an entire way of life. Its domain encompasses all supererogatory behavior going beyond the letter of Jewish law, including how we relate to one another in business, in community, and in our daily lives. A central tenet of Mussar is that cheshbon ha-nefesh (moral inventory) and teshuvah (repentance) are not relegated to the High Holiday season, but are practiced daily throughout the year.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, a teacher and practitioner of Mussar from England in the early twentieth century, produced a treatise on human relationships entitled Giving and Taking. “These two powers,” he wrote, “form the roots of all character-traits and all actions. And note: there is no middle way… Every person is devoted, at the deepest level of his personality, to one or the other of the two sides—either to lovingkindness and giving or to grasping and taking.” For R. Dessler, selfless giving engenders love within the giver’s heart. Although R. Dessler acknowledges that a certain amount of taking is necessary for society to function, he considers unchecked taking to be the source of most of the world’s evil. The goal of pious living is to minimize taking and maximize giving in all our affairs.
Chevre, on the cusp of the New Year, my heart is full of gratitude for the acts of giving within our community. The work of the Needs Assessment Committee is wrapping up, its report will be written and disseminated within days, but one thing is already clear: JCOGS has entered a new phase in its growth into a stable, mature institution. We are placing more diverse expectations and more formidable demands upon JCOGS then ever before. We cannot take from JCOGS unless we also give to JCOGS. I’ve heard it expressed recently that a handful of members keeps JCOGS running, but my experience in recent months tells me otherwise. The Needs Assessment process, the Cemetery development, the weekly Friday night services, the Mashgiach training, the Chesed Committee work, the Israeli Scouts Caravan, the Nearly New Sale, the Yiddish club, the book club, the “August anniversaries” service, the High Holiday services, the choir, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah training, the Religious School planning, the office management, the website administration, the Executive Committee and Board leadership, the events coordination, the beautiful improvements to our sanctuary and building—none of these activities could have taken place without the exertion of dozens of givers.
My blessing for JCOGS for 5771 is as follows: may it be a year of continued growth, prosperity—and giving.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
Mussar is a quintessentially Jewish approach to moral self-improvement. More than merely a stream of literature that constitutes a substantial portion of the corpus of Jewish knowledge, Mussar designates an entire way of life. Its domain encompasses all supererogatory behavior going beyond the letter of Jewish law, including how we relate to one another in business, in community, and in our daily lives. A central tenet of Mussar is that cheshbon ha-nefesh (moral inventory) and teshuvah (repentance) are not relegated to the High Holiday season, but are practiced daily throughout the year.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, a teacher and practitioner of Mussar from England in the early twentieth century, produced a treatise on human relationships entitled Giving and Taking. “These two powers,” he wrote, “form the roots of all character-traits and all actions. And note: there is no middle way… Every person is devoted, at the deepest level of his personality, to one or the other of the two sides—either to lovingkindness and giving or to grasping and taking.” For R. Dessler, selfless giving engenders love within the giver’s heart. Although R. Dessler acknowledges that a certain amount of taking is necessary for society to function, he considers unchecked taking to be the source of most of the world’s evil. The goal of pious living is to minimize taking and maximize giving in all our affairs.
Chevre, on the cusp of the New Year, my heart is full of gratitude for the acts of giving within our community. The work of the Needs Assessment Committee is wrapping up, its report will be written and disseminated within days, but one thing is already clear: JCOGS has entered a new phase in its growth into a stable, mature institution. We are placing more diverse expectations and more formidable demands upon JCOGS then ever before. We cannot take from JCOGS unless we also give to JCOGS. I’ve heard it expressed recently that a handful of members keeps JCOGS running, but my experience in recent months tells me otherwise. The Needs Assessment process, the Cemetery development, the weekly Friday night services, the Mashgiach training, the Chesed Committee work, the Israeli Scouts Caravan, the Nearly New Sale, the Yiddish club, the book club, the “August anniversaries” service, the High Holiday services, the choir, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah training, the Religious School planning, the office management, the website administration, the Executive Committee and Board leadership, the events coordination, the beautiful improvements to our sanctuary and building—none of these activities could have taken place without the exertion of dozens of givers.
My blessing for JCOGS for 5771 is as follows: may it be a year of continued growth, prosperity—and giving.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
September 1, 2010: Free Will, Accountability, and the Morning Blessings
Dear Friends:
This is the season—the weeks and days leading up to Rosh Hashanah—that our tradition designates for personal moral inventory. How do we behave toward others, toward God, and toward ourselves? What do we need to do to make amends? The entire spiritual exercise of cheshbon ha-nefesh, literally, “a reckoning of the soul,” is predicated upon Judaism’s core doctrine of free will, the insistence that the essential characteristic of the human being is her capability to make moral decisions.
Free will elevates us above all other creatures. Animals must obey their instincts, but we can transcend ours. In the Rabbinic imagination, we are higher in glory even than the angels. An angel has no choice but to fulfill the purpose that God assigns; we have a choice. As Maimonides puts it, if a person were compelled by reason of her nature to pursue a particular course of action, “how could God have commanded us to improve our ways? What room would there be for the entire Torah?” (Laws of Repentance 5:4)
For this reason, Judaism tends to avoid the maxim of “turning the other cheek.” By ignoring another’s offense against us, we deny his freedom of moral action. By holding him accountable for his wrongdoings, we uphold his essential humanity. (Does this statement contradict what I wrote last week about the need to forgive? I think not. Forgiving someone does not entail letting him off the hook.)
In light of cheshbon ha-nefesh, I pray the daily Morning Blessings in a new light. “Blessed are You, God, for making me in Your image,”—that is, with the capacity to know right from wrong. “Blessed are you, God, for making me free,”—that is, for giving me free will. And, finally, “Blessed are you, God, for making me one of Israel,” according to the original etymology of the name—that is, “one who struggles with God.” Indeed, it is often a struggle to do the right thing. However, even within the struggle, there is blessing.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
This is the season—the weeks and days leading up to Rosh Hashanah—that our tradition designates for personal moral inventory. How do we behave toward others, toward God, and toward ourselves? What do we need to do to make amends? The entire spiritual exercise of cheshbon ha-nefesh, literally, “a reckoning of the soul,” is predicated upon Judaism’s core doctrine of free will, the insistence that the essential characteristic of the human being is her capability to make moral decisions.
Free will elevates us above all other creatures. Animals must obey their instincts, but we can transcend ours. In the Rabbinic imagination, we are higher in glory even than the angels. An angel has no choice but to fulfill the purpose that God assigns; we have a choice. As Maimonides puts it, if a person were compelled by reason of her nature to pursue a particular course of action, “how could God have commanded us to improve our ways? What room would there be for the entire Torah?” (Laws of Repentance 5:4)
For this reason, Judaism tends to avoid the maxim of “turning the other cheek.” By ignoring another’s offense against us, we deny his freedom of moral action. By holding him accountable for his wrongdoings, we uphold his essential humanity. (Does this statement contradict what I wrote last week about the need to forgive? I think not. Forgiving someone does not entail letting him off the hook.)
In light of cheshbon ha-nefesh, I pray the daily Morning Blessings in a new light. “Blessed are You, God, for making me in Your image,”—that is, with the capacity to know right from wrong. “Blessed are you, God, for making me free,”—that is, for giving me free will. And, finally, “Blessed are you, God, for making me one of Israel,” according to the original etymology of the name—that is, “one who struggles with God.” Indeed, it is often a struggle to do the right thing. However, even within the struggle, there is blessing.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
August 25, 2011: The Space Between Apology and Forgiveness
Dear Friends:
After 45 days in rehab following allegations of infidelity, golf pro Tiger Woods appeared before the television cameras to issue a brief, tightly scripted statement: “I know that I have bitterly disappointed all of you… For all that I have done, I am so sorry…” For many listeners, however, his words were vapid and disingenuous. One blogger wrote: “By spoon feeding the public, he decides what they need to hear. Tiger still plays by Tiger’s rules.” 59 days into the largest oil-spill disaster in American history, BP chief executive Tony Hayward said to Congress: “I am deeply sorry for the lost lives and environmental damage” from his company’s doomed offshore rig. He was met with widespread cynicism and anger. A typical reaction: “Too little, too late! He is saying as little as possible to appease the public, but feels no remorse whatsoever.”
Are some apologies too vain to be accepted? Are some wrongs too grave to be forgiven? I know of no more profound exploration of the twin moral imperatives, to apologize and to forgive, than Maimonides’s classic Laws of Repentance, for its penetrating psychological insight and spiritual guidance. Maimonides’s injunctions are decidedly varied in tone. At times, he goes to extremes to encourage the fallen sinner: “If a person transgressed all of his life, but repented on the day of his death, all his transgressions are pardoned, as it is written: ‘Until his dying day, You wait for him; if he returns, you will straightway receive him.’” Elsewhere, his admonishments can turn quite harsh: “Sleepers, awake from your sleep! Slumberers, rouse yourselves from your slumbers! Examine your actions and repent!” On the subject of apologies, he mandates: “One must not show herself cruel by not accepting an apology; she should be easily pacified, and provoked with difficulty. When an offender asks her forgiveness, she should forgive wholeheartedly and with a willing spirit. Even if he has caused her much trouble wrongfully, she must not avenge herself, she must not bear a grudge.” On the other hand: “One who makes a verbal confession without resolving in his heart to abandon his sin is like one who takes a ritual bath while grasping a defiling reptile. The bath is useless unless he first casts the reptile away.”
As we approach the High Holidays, the season of repentance, here’s what I would say to the offender: “Beware of empty words and vain promises. Better no apology at all than hypocrisy.” But to the injured party I would say: “Meet your perpetrator with compassion and forgiveness. Resentment will destroy you much sooner than it will touch him.”
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
After 45 days in rehab following allegations of infidelity, golf pro Tiger Woods appeared before the television cameras to issue a brief, tightly scripted statement: “I know that I have bitterly disappointed all of you… For all that I have done, I am so sorry…” For many listeners, however, his words were vapid and disingenuous. One blogger wrote: “By spoon feeding the public, he decides what they need to hear. Tiger still plays by Tiger’s rules.” 59 days into the largest oil-spill disaster in American history, BP chief executive Tony Hayward said to Congress: “I am deeply sorry for the lost lives and environmental damage” from his company’s doomed offshore rig. He was met with widespread cynicism and anger. A typical reaction: “Too little, too late! He is saying as little as possible to appease the public, but feels no remorse whatsoever.”
Are some apologies too vain to be accepted? Are some wrongs too grave to be forgiven? I know of no more profound exploration of the twin moral imperatives, to apologize and to forgive, than Maimonides’s classic Laws of Repentance, for its penetrating psychological insight and spiritual guidance. Maimonides’s injunctions are decidedly varied in tone. At times, he goes to extremes to encourage the fallen sinner: “If a person transgressed all of his life, but repented on the day of his death, all his transgressions are pardoned, as it is written: ‘Until his dying day, You wait for him; if he returns, you will straightway receive him.’” Elsewhere, his admonishments can turn quite harsh: “Sleepers, awake from your sleep! Slumberers, rouse yourselves from your slumbers! Examine your actions and repent!” On the subject of apologies, he mandates: “One must not show herself cruel by not accepting an apology; she should be easily pacified, and provoked with difficulty. When an offender asks her forgiveness, she should forgive wholeheartedly and with a willing spirit. Even if he has caused her much trouble wrongfully, she must not avenge herself, she must not bear a grudge.” On the other hand: “One who makes a verbal confession without resolving in his heart to abandon his sin is like one who takes a ritual bath while grasping a defiling reptile. The bath is useless unless he first casts the reptile away.”
As we approach the High Holidays, the season of repentance, here’s what I would say to the offender: “Beware of empty words and vain promises. Better no apology at all than hypocrisy.” But to the injured party I would say: “Meet your perpetrator with compassion and forgiveness. Resentment will destroy you much sooner than it will touch him.”
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
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