To Begin Again: Breisheet 2016

To Begin Again: Breisheet

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Breisheet—“In the beginning…”  (Genesis 1:1—6:8).  So we begin, again and again, just as we have for the past 2500 years.  Again the Torah has been rolled all the way back to the beginning, and again we read and ponder.  We have so many questions!  Why does the Torah begin with the second letter of the aleph-bet?  And what came before? Where did God find the materials for creation? Was it always there (as some ancient Greeks believed) or did God create matter ex-nihilo—from nothing—(as another school of thought believed)?

And above all else, why?  Why bring order into the chaos to begin with? What is order, anyway? Does order, like art, exist only in the mind of the beholder, or is there actual, objective “orderliness” out there in the vast infinity of all that exists?

The text of the Torah is built in a way that encourages us to think and ask our many questions.  Inherent in this text are even more ancient stories; some have been subsumed into the Torah’s version and appear when we focus on the words themselves.  An example of this is in the two versions of the birth of humankind, one that we encounter pretty much right away (Gen. 1:27), the other just a moment later (Gen. 2:22). Were Adam and Eve created together, or was Eve created out of a “rib” taken from Adam’s side.  And if so, then why do men and women still have the same number or ribs?

Story and myth, legend and history all combine as though in some primordial soup, and we have to examine all of it in order to get the full benefit.

But ultimately, the question that emerges as most important is Why?  Why did God decide to create the universe and then focus on a particular planet, minute and insignificant in the larger picture and then place humanity in its midst?  Why? For what reason?  For what purpose?

We have been discussing these questions for nearly three millennia now. Thousands of explanations have been offered—yet we still ask.  And therein lies the beauty and excitement of this text.  For it enables each of us to ponder for ourselves.  Each of us in invited to find our place at the table and continue the discussion begun so long ago, to converse with the greatest minds and souls of all time, hear their sage advice—and then freely to accept it, reject it or come up with an interpretation of our own.

This week we begin the cycle yet again, and the door is open for all of us:  Come in, partake.  Take what you will, offer what you will.  Only come in. There is respite for the weary to be found here, comfort for the downcast.  Here is food for thought, nourishment for the soul, a shining light in the infinite darkness that surrounds us.

As with the greatest of novels, Breisheet and what follows bear numerous repetitions and re-readings.  In each eon, at each age, we find appropriate lessons.  The ancient Rabbis say that the Torah has 70 “faces,” or interpretations.  And that’s true for any moment in life.  Tomorrow there will be new meanings, new discoveries to make and savor.

Torah means teaching.  It also means light.  With the creation of light—God’s first act of Creation, we are given a huge gift:  awareness.  We open our eyes and see.  We sense that we exist not only from the inside, but also in relationship to what we see all around us.  Comprehension comes later; first, we learn to see.

We learn to hear.  It is God’s voice that creates the universe.  The myriads and myriads of sounds around us are all God’s voice.  Like a rainbow, we hear the separate melodies that interweave, sometimes in harmony, other times in discord.  But each is a fragment of the whole.  Learning to add our voice, our own song, will come later.  First we learn to hear and listen.

We feel.  Our hands touch the blades of grass, our feet sense the dew on the field or the cracked dryness of desert sand.  With our hands we feel the trees, the flowers, the soft fur and flowing hair. We sense the roughness, and we wonder at the smoothness.  We sense the love; we comprehend pain.  How mystifying, this ability to feel another’s touch on our skin and then sense its echo in our hearts.

We feel the hunger.  We seek to quench our thirst.  We yawn and sleep and, miraculously, dream.  We imagine.  We see visions.  We learn to use our minds and hands to create, fashion and invent. We learn that everything has a name.

Slowly, we learn to craft tools and tame fire, wind and water to give energy itself. 

We learn that giving life to children is natural, but teaching them is not.

We gather information and store it, like grain, in the storehouses of our minds, or on cave walls, on paper or anything else that will allow our handprint.  Here is how we gather, here is how we hunt.  Here is how we pray.

We learn about cause and effect; we learn about actions and consequences.  With each step we take comes new awareness. 

We learn about death. Torah does not flinch in the face of the fearful and unknown.

We learn not to kill, not to give in to our natural impulses.  The impulse is short and momentary; the hurt and pain of loss are much more lasting.

Slowly, like the sun peering through the fog, we begin to comprehend that beyond reason there is also purpose. A path appears, revealing footprints of those who came before us.

And so we begin our own journey of discovery, of understanding, of determining for ourselves what the purpose of our existence might be. 

We have the tools.  Now we begin.  Again.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

Ushpizin: Guests At God’s Table

Ushpizin:  Guests At God’s Table

Sermon for Shabbat Sukkot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

October 21, 2016

Growing up secular in Israel, I missed out on learning a lot about my own religion.  Sure, I learned about the holidays; I celebrated many of our traditions; at home we observed Shabbat by lighting candles, blessing the wine and challah, and eating dinner at the big dining table rather than in the kitchen, often to the accompaniment of Shabbat music that was coming from our one family radio.

At school we learned Torah stories and even some of the Prophets—but no Talmud and very little Midrash. The holidays all had a connection to our Land, the Land of Israel, and to our history as a people, but there was little in our education to link us with rabbinic teachings, with prayers, and certainly none of the more esoteric meanings and lessons that accompany the holidays.

The synagogue and many of the rituals remained mysteries to me until I was a teenager.  Sukkot, however, the holiday of Tabernacles, brought with it something that my friends and I could actually participate in.  It was easy to find planks of wood, some nails and a hammer, and for several years on end my brother and I, as well as several of our neighborhood friends, constructed and decorated a sukkah in the backyard of my childhood home.  We ate a few meals out there, played some games, but then school started again, and winter came in, and in Israel it rains in the winter.  And so, wistfully, we tore down the threadbare construction we had put together so enthusiastically just a few days earlier.

There were no festive family meals in the sukkah that I can recall; and certainly the tradition of inviting ushpizin was not something we children were familiar with.

Ushpizin are guests.  The word comes from Aramaic and is at the root of our own English word, hospitality.  Officially, of course, since the sukkah was in our backyard, all our friends were our guests, but there our hospitality stopped.  We didn’t invite any homeless or hungry people in—frankly, we didn’t know any.  Food may have been scarce in those early days of the State of Israel, but we children didn’t go hungry.  In those years, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants came to our Land, mostly refugees from Arab countries.  There were no homes to house them in, however, and most of them were living in tents in shabby refugee camps.  But we children were happy with what we had.  I guess we were lucky.

It was only much later that I learned about shaking the lulav and etrog—the Four Species—and the meanings that these symbols hold.  And only later, much later, did I learn about the tradition of inviting the ushpizin, the spiritual guests whose presence blesses the sukkah, those unsteady tabernacles that for one week you could see everywhere you looked, in backyards, on porches and even on rooftops.

Sukkot—not the holiday, but rather the tabernacles or booths that give the holiday its name—are decorated with green s’chach, a thatched roof made of interwoven green branches.  Streamers, flowers, paper chains made from colorful paper, drawings, and other miscellaneous decorations beautify the sukkah.  Traditional sukkot also have portraits—imagined, of course, since no one really knows what they looked like—of several of our ancient ancestors.  These are the ushpizin, our imaginary guests.  They are the patriarchs and matriarchs of our people—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and his two wives, Rachel and Leah.  Then there are Joseph, Moses and Aaron, and King David.  In modern days, more women were added to this list, so Miriam, Esther, Deborah and Yael among others, have joined the ranks of the ushpizin, our spiritual guests.

Together, they all represent our tradition.  Individually, however, each has a role to play.  Our most ancient fathers and mothers represent our humble beginnings.  But they also teach us about our unity.  Our entire people, today all 13 or so million of us, are descended from this one family.  Going back to that earliest part of our history, not one of us can claim better heritage.  Not one of us can say that we are more mighty or heroic than another, or that we are born of a higher class.  Our earliest ancestors remind us of our equality.  We are all children of Abraham and Sarah, all a fulfillment of a promise made thousands of years ago, a bargain and a covenant cut between God and Israel.

Joseph, of course, saved our people from extinction.  He taught us about bringing together torn families, about forgiveness, and about making plans for an uncertain future.  But Joseph was also a dreamer, and he taught us to dream and see visions.  Joseph also taught us to remember where we came from, and to always try to find our way back home.  “Remember me,” he exhorts his brothers on his deathbed. “When God takes you back to the land of your ancestors, take my bones with you.” Joseph was the very first visionary Zionist.

Moses gave us the Law.  He gave us the Torah, the Word of God.  Moses gave us our holidays and traditions, our way of life.  He gave meaning and purpose to our existence as Jews, teaching us that holiness was not something you found in seclusion up on the top of some mountain, but rather down on the land below, on the street, in our cities and homes.  Moses taught us that holiness is found in justice, love and compassion.

The Torah and the Rabbis teach that Aaron—Moses’s brother—was a man of peace.  Rather than quarrel, he sought to pacify.  A man of steady hand, he guided our religion forward through the maze of offerings and sacrifices.  Entrusted with hearing the prayers and pleas of the people, he brought them forgiveness and understanding.  And above all, as the one whose daily task it was to light the menorah—the seven-branch candelabra that stood at the opening of the Tent of Meeting—Aaron brought light to the people.  In a world overwhelmed by fear and superstition, by dark and mysterious forces, Aaron represented then—and still does now—enlightenment, joy and an infinite range of possibility. 

David was the king who unified Israel and established a kingdom that lasted for nearly one thousand years.  According to tradition, he authored the book of Psalms, or at least many of the religious poems that that book contains. He established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of his kingdom and laid the foundation for the construction his son, Solomon, would undertake—the building of the Temple of God. 

Miriam, Esther, Deborah—all heroes of our people who stepped up at a time of need and rescued us from sure disaster.  To us today, they represent the need to take action.  Miracles happen, but not only through the Hand of God.  Often enough it takes a human hand to assist God.  We are, after all, God’s partners in Creation, in making this world a better place for all its inhabitants.  And especially in a time and place that saw women as—at best—second class citizens, it was these women who stepped up, who showed us the way forward, who made sure that we knew when, what and how we must take action.  They were the first to liberate women from social oppression, and still to this day they inspire us to see all human beings, regardless of gender, color or faith, as equal in the eyes of God.

These are the ushpizin, the guests that the Rabbis instructed us in days of old to invite into our unassuming sukkot, those threadbare huts that we build with scraps and decorate with the humblest material.  Not built to withstand anything beyond a gentle wind or mild rain, the sukkah is actually one of the most resilient and enduring of our Jewish symbols. It has survived storms, floods and fires.  It has withstood persecution, intolerance and exile.  Who knows, perhaps these ushpizhin, these guests we bring into our homes and lives, are the very reason why this humble structure has lasted so long.

For children, the sukkah is a fun and secure way to enjoy a bit of the outdoors at the turning of the seasons.  For adults, however, it represents that and so much more.  It represents our very existence—precious and beautiful on the one hand, yet also fragile and prone to falling down at a moment’s notice.  The sukkah is the most durable symbol of the Jewish People, a people made strong by our dreams and values, by our traditions and customs, and by our strong and constant devotion to a covenant made thousands of years ago on top a bare mountain—a covenant between God and Humanity, a Covenant of Peace.

May we all prove worthy ushpizin at God’s table, in God’s sukkah, today and every day of our lives. 

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

Achdut Ha’am: The Miracle of Jewish Unity Yom Kippur Sermon 5777

Achdut Ha’am: The Miracle of Jewish Unity

A Sermon for Yom Kippur 5777

October 12, 2016

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The well-known cliché has it that where you have two Jews, you have three opinions.  I’ve always wondered about that.  Not whether it’s true or not—it’s pretty much proven fact by now.  What I do wonder however is, what is it that gives us that special ability, the genius if you will, to look at any issue, at any problem, and come up with an almost infinite number of opinions and solutions?  Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, mind you.  One result of this talent is Israel becoming the hi-tech superpower it is; finding logical solutions for supposedly illogical problems is a Jewish specialty.

It could be, of course, that this kind of thinking is ingrained in our culture, the result of thousands of years of Talmud study.  Discussing and arguing over minute points of the law, often only for the sheer pleasure of it rather than with the hope of actually changing anything, after a while becomes a habit.  Maybe that’s why we’re like that:  we constantly argue with ourselves; we argue with our spouses; with our bosses—why, we even argue with God!

It could be that we became that way as a result of living in—or being from—the Land of Israel. Anyone who’s ever been to Israel or knows anything about its geography knows that this small country exists right in the midst of three continents, at the intersection of several of the world’s major trade routes.  For better or for worse, this always enabled our ancestors to absorb different philosophies, viewpoints and perspectives; it taught them, and then us, to view life from different vantage points. 

We’ve learned that there isn’t necessarily only one right or correct view, but rather that all views complement and complete each other.  Individually we see only our own portion, our own narrow slice of the Truth, but when we put together the different perspectives, a larger and more complete picture emerges.

But the truth is that the Jewish People has always been divided along many lines.  There’s a good chance we wouldn’t still be a people at all if it weren’t for our religion, and God knows we argue about that!  A lot!

In Israel, religion is a major bone of contention.  For one thing, there is its role in government.  The inclusion of religious parties in the Knesset and Cabinet gives certain groups power that far exceeds their actual numbers.  This means that if you want to get married in Israel, you have to have an Orthodox rabbi marry you.  Conservative or Reform won’t do. But then, even among the Orthodox there are many divisions.  There’s the Ashkenazi custom, for example, and the Sephardi custom; these in turn are subdivided by time and place of origin, with each community practicing its own traditions and worshipping in its own synagogues—which sometimes are just across the street from one another.

The fissures in Israeli society don’t stop with religion.  The State of Israel was established by European, Ashkenazi Jews, and the infrastructure they created had few roles for Jews from Arab lands—the Mizrachi community as they were called.  There was little understanding of the rich legacy Mizrachi Jews brought with them from Iraq and Morocco, from Yemen and Tunisia, from the Balkans and from the Atlas Mountains of Northern Africa.  Coming into the newly-formed State, Mizrachi Jews found themselves relegated to second-class status. Their heritage was belittled, while their lack of modern, western education meant that they would remain for decades on the fringes of society.

More recently, the cultural dispute has focused on the large Ethiopian Jewish community that came to Israel in the 1980’s and 90’s.  Here the division is not only over the kind of Judaism they brought with them but also, tragically, along race lines.

When Jewish immigration to Israel—or Palestine, as the world called it then—increased from a mere trickle to a series of waves, late in the 19^th century and early in the 20^th, most of the pioneers came from Eastern Europe.  Refugees from pogroms and persecution, they could boast of both education and culture, but very little money.  So they established kibbutzim, communal settlements where money and all other resources were shared equally by all members.  Little by little, however, as the population grew, as donations from America and Western Europe increased, and as local industries began to rise and develop, so did privatization.  Wealth was no longer equally distributed, and Israeli society became riven along economic lines. In recent years, this problem has grown to serious proportions. The gap between the very rich and those living below the line of poverty has grown to an unprecedented level.  Sadly, among the most adversely affected are Holocaust survivors and children—the very elderly and the very young, who together are among the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.

Yet another bone of contention—and this stands true for all Jews, throughout the world, not only in Israel—is how to proceed with self-defense.

I find it amazing and hard to understand, but there are those among us who see no need for a Jewish State at all.  However, the majority of Jews still remember the events that preceded the establishment of Israel, or are descendants of survivors.  Or they might be among those who have learned well the lessons of our history.  It’s a history that has many glorious moments, that has achieved unbelievable heights.  But it is also a history filled with tragedy.  Expelled, segregated and persecuted for 2000 years, a full half of our people were murdered in the Shoah, the Holocaust.  4.5 million adults and 1.5 million children—a vast and rich past as well as almost our entire future—were herded into cattle cars and then methodically shot, starved, electrocuted, gassed and burnt by the Nazis and their collaborators.  

And what Hitler didn’t succeed in completing, the Communist regime of the USSR took up, not only killing Jews and exiling us to frozen gulags, but also attempting to eradicate Judaism itself, to snuff out whatever spark was left among our people of Jewish faith, spirit and hope.

The State of Israel is as much product of Jewish nationalism as it is a heroic effort to be a refuge and shelter for Jews and Judaism.  Israel was established not only to be a place where Jews could defend themselves, but also as a safe harbor where Judaism could thrive and grow on its own terms.

Israel today is stronger than it ever was, thank God, but not much safer. Iran has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, and through the media as well as through its proxy militias—particularly Hamas and Hezbollah—challenges Israel’s security daily.  Peace talks with the Palestinian Authority have proven fruitless for more than two decades now, and the Lone-Wolf Intifada, as the media calls the latest surge of violence against Israelis, is product of ongoing viral hatred and daily incitement in Arab mosques, schools and even kindergartens.  Only two of Israel’s neighboring Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, concluded peace treaties with Israel; they have benefitted greatly from peace, but there is little doubt which side they would take if Israel’s existence, God forbid, were really on the line.

In Israel, the majority of the Jewish population understands that strength is the only viable answer to the ongoing violence.  But there is also a large number of people who see the collateral damage, too.  They see the government’s policies as too harsh.  They see the settlements in Judea and Samaria as roadblocks to peace.  They see the security wall, built to keep out blood-thirsty terrorists, as a form of apartheid, meant to keep Palestinian Arabs not only out of the geographical boundaries of Israel, but in a constant state of poverty and desperation.  This slanted and one-sided view is voiced by several parties and alliances in Israel, but it also finds expression outside Israel, on colleges and universities, in the BDS movement, in leftist politics, and—of greatest concern—in statements coming from the White House and the State Department.

Now, sadly, the question of how best to guarantee Israel’s security has caused a deep rift to appear not only between American Jews and their Israeli counterparts, but also within the American Jewish community itself.

With all the divisions and rifts pulling at the seams of our people, it’s amazing that this house still stands.  Practically a miracle!

It’s a miracle that, although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on religious matters, our religion still does unite us. 

It’s a miracle that, although we don’t always agree about politics, we still talk to one another. 

And it’s a huge miracle, too, that today, Israel unites us.

Who would have expected that in a mere flicker in time, in less than seventy years, the Land of Israel, its people, its language and its traditions would rise from the ashes, come alive and even thrive once again?  Who would have foreseen that millions of refugees from Europe, from the Soviet Union, from Arab lands, from India, China, Ethiopia and all other countries around the world would come home to the land of their ancestors and become interwoven into the fabric of one multi-ethnic, multi-racial nation? 

But Israel unites us not only by taking in refugees from our Diaspora.  It unites us through its values and ideals.  We view with pride and gratitude Israel’s many contributions to humanity—from agriculture to conservation, from medicine and hi-tech to women’s empowerment, from economic assistance offered to struggling nations to life-saving aid sent to survivors of natural disasters.

But this unity is under attack today, and the dangers have rarely been greater.  It isn’t only Israel that is criticized and attacked today.  It’s all Jews, all over the world.  An attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, France, is not random.  It’s specifically calculated.  The vicious beating of a Chabad rabbi in Zhitomir, Ukraine, only five days ago, isn’t random.  Ukraine has a long and violent history of anti-Semitism, and Zhitomir owns a whole chapter in it.

And now, anti-Semitism has even reappeared in American politics. In what’s been termed the Alt-Right, anti-Semitism is obvious and easy to recognize, expressing itself openly in a proliferation of symbols and words we have come to recognize and know all-too-well as hateful and dangerous.

But the political Left also has its share of anti-Semites.   With attacks ostensibly directed at Israel, the Alt-Left subverts history itself, using terminology such as genocide, ethnic-cleansing and even holocaust to describe Israel’s actions of self-defense.  On liberal college campuses, Jewish students are harassed in classes and excluded from student government as well as other groups and events, solely on the basis of their religion. Jewish events such as film festivals are cancelled, and Jewish speakers are either disinvited or silenced.

The world today is riven with hatred and bloodshed.  Much of it—way too much, though even one is too many—is directed against our people, whether in Israel or in other countries.  We need to unify and stand up as one against these dangers.  We may have different political views, but we are also one people, united by common tradition, history and purpose.  We need to support one another against the rising flood of anti-Semitism in Europe, Asia and America.  We need to support and embrace our brothers and sisters in Israel, to be there for them as they have been and are there for us. In our schools, at our local meetinghouses, in our statehouses and in Washington, D.C., we need to work together for a strong Israel, to advocate for it, to tell the truth about its history and survival.  It is, after all, also our history and survival we are defending.

Today, in addition to saying Sh’ma Israel, our God is one, we also need to say, Sh’ma Israel, Hear O! Israel, our people is one.  Despite the many differences and divisions between us, we are one.  Despite the many viewpoints and opinions, our mission is still one—to be God’s partners in making this world a safer and better place for all its inhabitants.

May our many voices rise up in unison today.  May our prayers for life and health join in one accord with the prayers of our people in Israel and elsewhere throughout the world.  And may we all be blessed with peace, love and prosperity.

L’shana tova tikateivu v’teichateimu—may we all be inscribed as sealed for a sweet, safe and happy New Year.

Kein y’hi ratzon.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman

The Opposite of Arrogance: A Sermon for Kol Nidrei 5777

The Opposite of Arrogance: A Sermon for Kol Nidrei 5777

Oct. 11, 2016

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Growing up in Israel, I loved books.  I loved going to the bookstore and browsing up and down the aisles. Luckily, the town’s library also had a large selection that made me a repeat customer, sometimes several times a week.  But some of the best books of all I found much closer—in the bookcase at my own childhood home.  There I found a beautiful edition of the Bible, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Jewish folk tales told by I.L. Peretz, the complete writings of Sholom Aleichem, and many other classics.  Among my favorites, however, a book I kept returning to time after time, was a collection of Bible illustrations by Gustave Doré. 

Those woodcut prints, vivid and powerful, caught my imagination, and for long periods of time I would delve into both the detail and the mood of each picture. 

One of the illustrations was of the Tower of Babel.  It wasn’t only the sheer size of the unfinished structure that struck me, however.  In fact, the tower itself is actually set in the background.  Dark, ominous clouds seem to swoop in from above.  The foreground, however, is dominated by a group of men clearly distraught over the enormity of the folly they only now realize they had committed.

In the Bible, the story of the Tower of Babel, though cleverly told, is short and quite simple.  Yet something about it kept eluding me.  What exactly did the ancient Babylonians do that was so wrong?  Rashi, the great 12^th century French rabbi, scholar and commentator, gives us a clue:  The builders of the tower had lost sight of morality.  As the tower grew taller and taller, hauling stones that high up became an ever-greater challenge.  When once a stone fell from its high perch and killed a worker on the ground, the laborers cried not over the tragic loss of life, but rather because they would now have to re-lug the stone once again all the way up.

I like this commentary, but I wonder at what exact point in the story did the people lose their sense of morality. 

I now believe that it was even before they began the actual task of building the tower.  It was at the moment they thought of the idea to begin with.  As the Torah tells it, their plan, their intention, was to build a tower so high that its rosh, its head or top, would be in the heavens. With this tall structure they wanted to create “a name” for themselves.

What’s wrong with that?  What could God possibly see wrong with that?  Doesn’t the Bible itself say that “a good name is better than good oil?” 

On the one hand, the people’s desire for “a name” is an important display of purpose and unity, of loyalty to king, land, society and culture.

On the other hand, having your name emblazoned in heaven itself is an unparalleled show of arrogance.

What the Babylonians wanted was not only to be like God; they actually wanted to be gods themselves.  Their name versus Ha-Shem—God’s name—or at least side-by- side, two stars on equal footing in the same firmament.  The intention was not merely to know God, but to actually contest and master God in God’s own home court, the Heavens.

The sin of the ancient Babylonians was the sin of supreme conceit.  They wanted to be so powerful that they could live free from fear of punishment and consequence.  They dreamed of—and began to build for themselves—a life whose guiding principle was unfettered desire and indulgence, a life unencumbered by moral judgment, a life where pride and arrogance, not justice and compassion, reigned supreme.

Short but powerful, the story of the Tower of Babel is more than just a cautionary tale.  Its lessons are at the core of another paradigm: Judaism’s vision of a just and moral universe, a vision in which the prayer we call Kol Nidrei plays a pivotal role. 

Yom Kippur is the total opposite of Arrogance.

Arrogance is the abrogation or denial of consequences, while Yom Kippur is all about consequences.  Yom Kippur is a day of reckoning, a day when our actions and behavior are put to the test and consequences are meted out.  As Unetanei Tokef reminds us—“who shall live and who shall die.”  To each according to his or her own deeds.

But Yom Kippur isn’t only about punishment.  It’s also about forgiveness and Redemption, the opportunity to cleanse our record and begin again, only now with more humility, with more experience, with greater wisdom.

Redemption doesn’t happen automatically.  It’s a process, a gradual series of steps that we must take.  It might make it easier for us to think that there are actually three “R’s” in Redemption, each representing a rung in the ladder we must climb. 

The first “R” is for Recognition. While often enough we know when we’ve hurt someone, it isn’t always so obvious or clear. We may be too hurried, or too proud to notice; or perhaps the other person hides the hurt deep inside.  And yet it’s important to own the moment, to recognize that we indeed offended, hurt or injured someone or something.  At times we need to be made aware of what we did.  In fact, the Torah makes this a commandment when it says (Lev. 19:17), ךָעֲמִיתֶ אֶת תּוֹכִיחַ הוֹכֵחַ–“You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him.”  We need to let one another know when we have wronged someone.  We need to know when we’ve caused pain.

Once we are cognizant, once we are aware of the wrong we have done, we have to do something about it.  The next “R” then is for Response.  Say something of comfort to the person you’ve hurt.

I love it when politicians, caught in a lie or a smear, claim that their words were taken “out of context.”  I love it when, instead of apologizing, they say they were misunderstood. If Recognition, the first “R” in Redemption, is difficult, apparently the second “R,” Response, simply saying “I’m sorry,” is twice as hard.  Apologizing is humbling and embarrassing. It’s admitting that we can be wrong. For the arrogant among us, it’s like taking the air out of our tires.  For a bully, it’s even more difficult, because saying I’m sorry means undoing his or her whole psychological makeup. You aren’t born a bully; you grow into one; and undoing that often takes years of therapy and hard work. 

Yet if we are looking for Redemption, for a chance to rehabilitate ourselves, to re-create ourselves as honest and valuable members of society, Response, simply saying these three words, “I am sorry,” is essential.  Apologize for the pain you may have caused, whether intentionally or not.  Don’t underestimate the power of a word spoken, or a word not spoken, to hurt.  Don’t dismiss the wrong, don’t put it out of mind.  Pain lingers, sometimes for years. Respond to it.

One of the most naïve lines that ever circulated in pop culture comes from the book and later, the movie, Love Story, “Love means never having to say you are sorry.”  Actually, no; love means exactly the opposite.  Love doesn’t mean you never hurt one another.  Sometimes we hurt the very people we love the most—simply because they are there; not because they deserve it, but because they are available and vulnerable. And also because we can’t take it out on our boss or whoever else we are really mad at.  And so we hurt the one we love.  At such times, love very much means having to say, “I am sorry.”  This is how you reach the next rung, the 2^nd “R” in Redemption, Response. Make it count: Respond with kindness, respond with love, respond with humility.

The third “R” is for Repair.  And this may be yet the hardest step of all.  It may take the rest of our life to achieve this level.  Some things can never be repaired—and oh! how sad it is when a person we’ve hurt is gone, and with him or her, lost too is the opportunity to make things better and complete again.  You want to say I’m sorry a hundred times, but there’s no one there.  There are moments in my life that I still cannot recall without cringing.  Times when I slighted someone, called them by a name or a slur I regret uttering.  There were times when I ignored someone because acknowledging them would have meant acknowledging my own fear and insecurity. Repair for such damage, for hurt caused long ago, is difficult, and sometimes impossible.  Yet the principle of tikkun ‘olam teaches us that we can fix some things by paying forward: by never repeating the mistake; by making life better for others; and not least, by mending what’s broken inside ourselves so that we never revert, never repeat our past behavior.

Sometimes that’s the best we can do.  But if we are very careful, we may in time even learn to be more forgiving, of others as well as of ourselves.

And that’s where Yom Kippur comes into our lives.  The Day of Atonement enables us to ask pardon, to forgive and to be forgiven, to redeem the broken pieces and make them whole again.

Yom Kippur is the opposite of the Tower of Babel.  It’s all about consequences, not arrogance.  It’s all about Redemption, not control. Through its own process of Prayer, Repentance and Righteousness, and along with our own 3 “R’s”—Recognition, Response, and Repair, Yom Kippur offers us a golden opportunity to do things better, the right way, this time around.

May our prayers and pleas this Yom Kippur reach the Heavens—not by way of pride and arrogance, but rather carried aloft on the wings of our humble prayers and our repentant spirit.  And may our acts of repentance, of tikkun ‘olam, from this day on, be acceptable in making us better people, and by making this world a better place for all that exists and lives.

L’shana tova tikateivu v’teichatemu—may we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a year of health, happiness and love.

Kein y’hi ratzon, may this be God’s will.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman