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October 10, 2019

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Take a Seat on the Throne of Mercy – Yom Kippur 5780

Think about an argument that you have had with someone in the past year.  Some time when you really got angry.  Picture the scene.  What did the other person do and say?  What did you do and say?  Think back to what led up to the fight, and what happened after it was over.  Are you still angry about it?

Now I have a question: What color were the other person’s eyes?  Can you even picture their face, or is it a blur?

It is not only when we are in a fight that we don’t look at one another.  We tend to be pretty self-centered in most of our interactions.  As society becomes more fractured and people become more atomized, this is only getting worse.

Self-centeredness lends itself to being more judgmental of others.  We are less willing to see things from another person’s perspective.

And yet, that is exactly what we ask God to do for us.  We want God to take note of us, to see things from our perspective, and have mercy.

It is ironic, because the dominant depiction of God during the High Holidays is as a King.  Last week, for Rosh Hashanah, we celebrated creation.  God is a Creator King.  Today, on Yom Kippur, we stand in judgment before our creator.  God is a Judge King.  

What does every King need? A throne, of course.  The Hebrew word for throne is kisei. The image of God’s kisei appears frequently in our High Holiday prayers.

One of those thrones appears in the prayer, Unetaneh Tokef.  V’yikon b’chesed kis’ekha — “Your throne is established in love.”  V’teshev alav be’emet — “and You sit upon it in truth.  ‘Truth’ for you are judge and prosecutor, expert and witness…” The image is of God as a King and a Judge, reviewing the deeds of all of Creation, passing judgment on us on Rosh Hashanah and sealing it on Yom Kippur.  It is a terrifying image, suggesting that our actions in the past year seal our fate in the year to come.  There is no escaping the truth of our deeds.  The best we can do is avert the severity of the decree.  It is not particularly reassuring.

Fortunately, this is not the only kind of throne that we find in the Mahzor.  Another part of our Yom Kippur service is called Selichot.  We recite the words El Melekh yoshev al kisei rachamim.  “God, King, who sits on a throne of mercy.”  That is the image of God that we want.  “acting with unbounded grace, forgiving the sin of Your people, one by one, as each comes before You, generously forgiving sinners and pardoning transgressors, acting charitably with every living thing; do not repay them for their misdeeds.” The God of Selichot is the polar opposite of the God of Unetaneh Tokef: a God of mercy rather than a God of justice.

Our goal, through the season of repentance, is to elevate the Divine King from the Throne of Judgment to the Throne of Mercy.  It is why, for example, we add an extra l’eilah to the Kaddish.  L’eilah l’eilah: Higher and higher.  Rise up, O Lord, to Your Throne of Mercy.

This tension between justice and mercy, din and rachamim; law and righteousness, mishpat and tzedek, is found throughout Jewish tradition.  

It is in the commentaries and midrash and even in the Bible itself.  It is reflected in two most commonly appearing Divine names.  Yud Hei Vav Hei is the unpronounceable name that we read as Adonai or, “The Lord.”  The other name is Elohim, which we translate simply as “God.”

Jewish tradition understands these two names as reflections of the two aspects of the Divine persona.  These attributes oppose and balance one another.  Adonai is mercy and Elohim is Judgment.

Throughout the creation story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Divine is repeatedly referred to by both names, together: Adonai Elohim—”The Lord, God.”  This is atypical.  Usually, the Torah uses one or the other name.  It must mean something important.  A midrash offers a parable (Genesis Rabbah 12:15).

There once was a human king who had some drinking cups.   The king said to himself, “if I put hot water in them, they will shatter, and if I put cold water in them, they will crack.  What to do?  What to do?”

So what did the king do? He mixed the hot water with the cold water and then filled up the glasses so that they would not break.  (This is not rocket science, folks.)

So too did the Blessed Holy One say: “If I create the world only with the attribute of compassion alone, I will tolerate everything and the sins will proliferate uncontrollably.  But if I create the world only with the attribute of justice alone, how would it be able to stand?”

“So,” the Lord God concludes, “I will create it with both judgment and compassion.”

So far, this is a pretty straightforward midrash.  There are several rabbinic texts that say something similar.  But the two concluding words are unique:  V’halevai ya’amod.  “Would that it stands.”

This ending is delightfully ambiguous.  God says, “I’ll give this a shot.  I hope it works.”

The resulting world, our world, is a confusing mess.  Fate is unpredictable, and may or may not reflect a fair consequence of our actions.

This tension is on display in full force in the Book of Jonah, which we will read this afternoon.  The book opens with God’s command to deliver a prophecy against the residents of the wicked city of Nineveh. Without any explanation whatsoever, Jonah runs the opposite direction, booking passage on a ship.  When the inevitable storm appears, Jonah is asleep in the cargo hold.  The other sailors are doing everything possible to survive.  They each pray to their own gods.  They throw overboard anything that is not nailed down.

Nothing works.  When the captain finds Jonah asleep, he is incredulous.  “How can you be sleeping at a time like this!  Get up and cry out to your god!  Ulai—Maybe the god will give us a thought and we will not perish!”

Jonah ignores the captain in silence.  It’s like he wants to go down with the ship.  So they cast lots to identify the person on whose account the storm has come.  Of course, the lots indicate Jonah.

“What did you do?” the sailors cry.

Again, Jonah is silent.  

“What can we do to calm the sea?” they ask.

Finally Jonah speaks, “Throw me overboard and the sea will calm down, for I am the cause.”

The sailors are heartbroken.  They do not want to perform such a terrible action.  But the storm is raging stronger by the minute, and they have no alternative.  Before they do it, they offer a prayer to Jonah’s God.  “Please, Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life.  Do not hold us guilty of killing an innocent person…!” Then they toss the prophet, and the storm ceases.  In appreciation, the sailors offer sacrifices and make vows to God.  

What is up with Jonah?  Why does he run?  The text offers no explanation.  You would think that he might try to argue with God.  Perhaps he could pray when the captain approaches him.  What is going on in this guy’s head? The man has a death wish.  He is on a one-way journey of self-destruction.  If not for the piety of the sailors, he would have brought them down with him.

God will not let Jonah off so easy.  Instead of letting him drown, God sends a big fish to swallow Jonah alive and deposit him on dry land after three days.  God orders Jonah, once again, to deliver a prophecy of destruction to Nineveh.  Realizing that there is no escape, Jonah performs his task.  He walks through the streets declaring, Od arba’im yom v’Ninveh neh’pachet—”Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!”

Compelled by these five inspiring words, the entire city—from the King to the people to the livestock—puts on sackcloth and fasts in repentance.  God backs down from the evil that had been planned for them.

Jonah’s reaction is exactly the opposite.  The forgiveness of the Ninevites “was exceedingly evil to Jonah, and he was angry.”

Now, finally, at the beginning of chapter four, Jonah reveals his motivations in what the text describes as a prayer to God.  It does not sound much like a prayer, though.  “This is exactly what I said would happen.  That’s why I ran away so quickly.  I knew that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, repenting of evil.  Now, Lord, please take my life, for I would rather die than live.”

Jonah still harbors his death wish.  Why is he so upset? In this book, God is governed exclusively by the attribute of mercy.  Jonah knows it well.  He is certain that when the Ninevites hear his prophecy of doom and destruction, they will repent.

God, who is always ready to forgive a sinner, will then have to forgive the Ninevites.  Jonah’s prophecy of devastation will never come about and he will be made to look the fool. He would rather die than be embarrassed.

If God is driven solely by mercy in this story, then Jonah is governed by strict judgment.  The world he wants to live in is a world in which the wicked are always punished. He is willing to suffer to make this happen.  Jonah would rather die than act to prevent the deaths of others he deems not worthy. He wants to invoke the God of justice, but this is not a story about the God of Justice.  In this book, it is a merciful God who saves the sailors, prevents Jonah from drowning, and forgives the Ninevites, along with their animals.

Jonah is closed off to the possibility of change.  He is closed off to considering the internal feelings, thoughts, and experiences of anyone but himself.  He will not allow himself to consider it.  Justice prevents it.

Contrast him with the ship’s captain.  The captain says Ulai—”Maybe.”  What a beautiful, hopeful word.  The captain does not know why the storm has risen.  His world, and that of the Ninevites, is one in which is mercy is possible.  He does not know if Jonah’s prayer will work.  But he is hopeful.  Ulai.  “Maybe the god will give us a thought and we will not perish,” he offers wistfully.

The captain’s ulai sounds like God’s Halevai ya’amod from the midrash of the cups.  “Would that the world stands.”  We live in a world in which justice and mercy are both present.  Harsh, unrelenting punishment, competing with forgiveness and second chances.

I have suggested before that whenever we talk about God, we are actually talking about ourselves.  The midot, God’s qualities. are what we imagine to be the best possible attributes that a human being can achieve, but better.

So when we ask God to ascend from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy, and when we read how Jonah is unable to prevent God from acting with compassion, we are talking to ourselves. It is we who are overly judgmental, and who suppress compassion for others in our relationships and interactions.  We are the ones who need to rise to the throne of mercy.

But it is so hard.  Every day, we have to deal with people who drive us crazy.

That person who lives under the same roof, who leaves their socks out on the floor of the living room, or the family member who yells at them for it.  The child who screams at a parent to change the radio station in the car, or the parent who insists on listening to the news.  (This is all hypothetical, of course.)

At school: the disruptive student who takes up 50% of the teacher’s time.

At work: the coworker who stubbornly refuses to see that my solution to the problem at hand is clearly the best one.  The employee who arrives late and goes home early while I work hard at my desk.

In the news: the politician who is clearly driven by the pure quest for power and ego-fulfillment, and the blind, naive supporters.  Why can’t they see the facts, which are so clear and straightforward?

My knee-jerk response is always to judge others.  Like Jonah, I do not take time to consider the experiences and emotions that another person might be feeling.  Instead, I judge that person only according to the impact of their actions on me, personally.

One of my favorite lessons in Pirkei Avot is taught by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya.

Hevei dan et kol ha-adam l’khaf z’khut. “Judge every person to the scale of merit.”

Pirkei Avot 1:6

Imagine scales of justice, with one side representing guilt, and the other side representing or innocence.  We are encouraged to do everything possible to load up the side of innocence. 

I am really good at this, an expert, really… for myself.  I find all sorts of ways to justify my behavior, to excuse my mistakes.  I am so good at defending myself against the critiques of my family members, friends, and coworkers.

When it comes to other people… not so good.  Giving other people the benefit of the doubt does not come easily.

Consider every confrontation with another person that you have ever had.  Estimate the percent of time that you were the side in the right.  What would the percentage be?  50/50?  I don’t think so.

Human beings are naturally biased.  We have a strong tendency to be merciful with ourselves and judgmental of others.  This is called “illusory superiority.”  It is when a person tends to overestimate his or her own qualities and abilities compared to others.

80% of all drivers think they are above average.  Look around the room.  80% of us think that we are better than half of you.  

I know what you are probably thinking, because I am thinking the same thing: “but in my case, I actually am better than average.”  Sure you are.

Mashing up the Pirkei Avot teaching with the Torah’s commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th century founder of Hasidism, adds

Since you always find excuses for your own misdeeds, makes excuses also for your fellow.

Is that doable?  The next time someone cuts me off on the freeway without indicating their turning signal, can I make an excuse for them?  Let’s try.

  • Maybe there is a woman about to give birth in the backseat.
  • Maybe there is a toddler having a temper tantrum.
  • Maybe the driver did signal, and I just didn’t see it.
  • Maybe the driver has been on the road for three hours and really needs to find a bathroom.

Imagine the story that would explain the behavior to be perfectly reasonable, even preferable perhaps—given the circumstances.

This is easy when it comes to people we don’t know and whom we do not have to face directly.  It’s easy to make up a creative story that probably isn’t true about someone I have never met before.  What about people we do know?

I recently heard an interview of Alan Alda on the podcast, Hidden Brain.  He wrote a book called If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? in which he draws upon his work helping engineers and scientists to become better communicators.  Effective communication all comes down to “empathy and learning to recognize what the other person is thinking.”

In the interview, Alda quips, “I’ve noticed that the more empathy I have, the less annoying other people are.”

He suggests a simple practice that can help us develop greater empathy, improve communication, and improve our relationships.  While  interacting with someone, try to name the emotion that this person is feeling.  Psychotherapists are trained to do this in clinical settings, but there is no reason why the rest of us cannot employ this practice in our everyday interactions.

Alda suggests that we don’t even need to name the emotion.  Just taking note of the color of a person’s eyes can help us become more loving in our relationships.  

I am far less likely to get mad at somebody if I have a sense of what they are feeling and thinking, or if I have taken a moment to look deeply into their eyes.  This can be an effective way to elevate ourselves from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy.  It is a way of conveying to myself, and to the other person:  “I see you, and I am listening to you.”

Alda writes that

Real conversation can’t happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking…  Unless I’m responding with my whole self—unless, in fact, I’m willing to be changed by you—I’m probably not really listening.  But if I do listen—openly, naively, and innocently—there’s a chance, possibly the only chance, that a true dialogue and real communication will take place between us.”

Alan Alda.  If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? (New York: 2017). pp. 10-11.

What a profound statement!  In how many of my conversations can I truly say that I was willing to be changed by the other person?

That is what it means to sit on the throne of mercy.  In our prayers, this is the essence of what we ask for from God.  Take note of us.  Look at our lives.  See how much we struggle.  Look at the good things we have done.  Look at how hard we have tried to repair our mistakes, to improve?  See us.  And forgive us.

I do not know whether there is a God who is listening to all of these prayers, but I do know that I ought to be listening.  Am I able to get up from the Throne of Judgment, and take a seat on the Throne of Mercy?

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June 9, 2018

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Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Numbers (במדבר)

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Uncontrolled Anger and its Remedy – Shelakh Lekha 5778

Anger is powerful.  It is a core emotion, one we all experience.  It is a natural part of being human.

When we feel angry, we should pay attention, because it indicates when something is not right.  Anger is what alerts us to injustice.  It is how we prepare emotionally to respond to a perceived threat.

Uncontrolled anger, however, makes us forget important details, overrides our moral training, and makes us generally unpleasant to be around.  It causes us lose our ability to self-monitor and maintain objectivity.  Uncontrolled anger, with its partner, irrational fear, is responsible for much of the polarizing behavior in America today.

Anger will lead to Moses being banned from the Promised Land in a few weeks’ Torah portions.

To illustrate this point, the Torah depicts even God slipping into uncontrolled anger.  This morning’s reading, Parashat Shelach Lekha, describes the infamous story of the spies, who are sent to scout out the land of Canaan and bring back an advance report.

We enter the story at the moment when God is furious.  The Israelites have panicked after listening to the spies’ depressing assessment of their chances against the inhabitants of Canaan.

God is incredulous about the Israelites’ lack of faith.  He is frustrated beyond imagination.  “Let me strike them down with pestilence and start over with you, Moses!”

This is when Moses shows his true mettle.  In his prophetic role, he steps into the breach.  “But think about what the other nations will say,” Moses warns.  “‘This God of the Israelites did not have the power to finish the job.  Since he could not bring them into the land that He promised, He just killed them off in the wilderness.’  Is that how You want to be known?”

That is argument number one for Moses.  Argument number two is more personal.

Here it is in Hebrew:  וְעַתָּה יִגְדַּל־נָא כֹּחַ אֲדֹנָי כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ לֵאמֹר  “And now, let the strength of my Lord increase, as you have spoken.”  (Numbers 14:17)  What is this koach, or strength, that Moses mentions?  And when did God speak about it?

Moses continues:

ה’ אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב־חֶסֶד נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וָפָשַׁע וְנַקֵּה לֹא יְנַקֶּה פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבוֹת עַל־בָּנִים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִים:

“Adonai, patient and full of lovingkindness, bearing iniquity and transgression, yet clearing, not clearing, calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and to the fourth [generation].”  (Numbers 14:18)  

Does this sound familiar?  Partially.  When is the last time that God threatened to wipe out the Israelites and start over with Moses?  At Mount Sinai, during the incident with the Golden Calf.  Moses talks God down at that time as well, using similar arguments.  While he is on a roll, Moses asks to behold God’s glory.  God agrees, and hides Moses in a cleft in a rock and passes the Divine Glory next to him.  While passing, God proclaims the thirteen attributes.

In this deja vu moment, Moses repeats God’s words back to Him.  He quotes some, but not all, of those attributes.  Maybe it will remind God, he thinks, of the last time when really really wanted to kill the Israelites but changed His mind.

Most of the commentators connect the koach, the strength that Moses wants God to increase with the term erekh apayim.  Literally, it means, long-nosed.  In Hebrew, this is a euphemism for patient.  The opposite is charon af, which means the burning nose, or flaring nostrils, a euphemism for anger.

So Moses is appealing for an increase in the relative strength of God’s patience.  Or, as Ibn Ezra puts it, that “the attribute of mercy should be victorious over the attribute of judgment to conquer Your anger.”

Anger has led God to forget about His own nature.  Moses is trying to awaken Divine compassion, which has become blocked.

Citing a midrash, the commentator Rashi takes it a step further. 

When Moses goes up Mount Sinai to get the Torah, he finds God writing down the Divine attributes.  Erekh apayim, Moses sees.  Long-nosed, patient.  Moses asks: “that is just for the righteous, right?

God corrects him, “Nope, it is for the wicked as well.”

“But should not the wicked be punished?” Moses asks.

“By your life,” God responds, “you are going to need these words one day.”

Today is the day.  The entire nation of Israel sins by listening to the ten spies.  God wants to obliterate them.

“But God,” Moses pleads.  “Didn’t you say that you are erekh apayim, patient?”

The Holy One replies, “I thought you wanted that to be just for the righteous.”

“No, no, no” Moses shakes his head.  “You said that it would also be for the wicked.”

Moses concludes his appeal by asking God to forgive the nation’s sin in accordance with the greatness of God’s love.  

God responds: סָלַחְתִּי כִּדְבָרֶךָ – “I forgive just as you have spoken.”

What a wonderful parallel.  Moses uses God’s words to remind God to be His best self.  And God responds by forgiving, according to Moses’ words.

So was God actually angry?  The midrash suggests that the story might have been told this way to teach a lesson about the danger of uncontrolled anger, and to offer a remedy.

The danger is that anger can cause me to forget who I am.  What are the values and principles that govern my life, that lead me to be me best self?  When I allow myself to be consumed by anger, I lose my way.

The remedy is another person.  Moses is the courageous prophet who has the nerve to confront God during God’s moment of rage.  To His credit, God accepts the intervention and snaps back, forgiving the Israelites.

I need to have people in my life who I can trust to step into the breach and tell me when I have lost my way.  And I should have the courage to be that person for someone else.  And most importantly, I should be receptive to hearing the voice of someone who has the courage to tell me, with love, when I am being an idiot.

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October 5, 2014

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Finding the Factory Reset Button – Yom Kippur 5775

Yom Kippur, as the Torah describes it, is a “restore device to original factory settings” button.  It reformats the relationship between God and Israel, wipes our souls clean, and enables us to begin the new year bug free.

Unfortunately for us, the factory reset button is really hard to find, and requires a special kind of tool to reach.

It must be nice to live with the certainty of knowing exactly where we stand with our Creator, to know that, once a year, all of the bugs in the system are eliminated.

Our reality is of a world in which God is hidden.  In our day, we live with tremendous uncertainty.  It seems like we never know where we stand.

The Bible begins with God actively involved in history.  In the beginning, we find God creating the universe, walking about in the Garden of Eden, speaking to Patriarchs and Matriarchs, defeating Pharaoh and leading the Israelites into freedom.  Then God gradually steps back.  By the time we reach the Book of Esther, God is not even mentioned, and the fate of the Jewish people lies entirely in the hands of human heroes, villains, and fools.  Sound familiar?

Towards the end of the biblical era, and certainly into the Rabbinic period, our ancestors’ experience of God becomes much like our own in the present.  We, and they, pray to a God whose Presence is hidden in our world.  We follow a covenant that establishes our relationship with a God who never communicates directly with us.  We never receive clear affirmation that we are doing the right thing.  Our relationship with the Divine is intangible.

In contrast, the biblical narrative that serves as the basis for Yom Kippur presents a relationship to God that is extremely tangible.  The Torah portion we read on Yom Kippur describes it in great detail how the High Priest’s ritual maintains a healthy relationship between the Jewish people and God.

Over the course of the year, the sanctuary becomes polluted through sin, preventing God’s Presence from dwelling among the nation.  Only the High Priest has the ability to clear the sanctuary of its spiritual contamination.  The ritual involves: sacrificing goats, bulls, and incense; making formal confessions; wearing special clothes; sending a goat off into the wilderness; and entering the Holy of Holies.  When the High Priest does everything correctly, God washes the stain of impurity away from the sanctuary.  The Israelites are now pure before Adonai, so God’s Presence can return into their midst.  The relationship returns to its perfect state as if nothing has happened.  Factory reset.

From the Torah’s perspective, this is no metaphor.  It is real.  The stain of sin is tangible.  The ritual literally scrubs it away.  It really works.

How comforting it must have been to know where one stands in the universe, to know with certainty that we have done everything that God expects of us!

Yom Kippur is the one day of the year on which I feel reasonably confident that I have done everything I am supposed to do.  Pray – check.  No food – check.  No drink – check.  There is nothing in either my or God’s to-do list that I have forgotten.

Every other day of the year, I truly do not know where I stand.  It always feels as if there is so much more to do.  It seems like nothing is certain and there are no definitive answers to the questions that really matter.

Have I taken the right path?  Did I marry the right person or choose the right career?  Have I paid enough attention to the people I love?  Have I given my children enough to succeed in life?  Have I donated enough to tzedakah?  Have I worked hard enough to improve the character flaws that I see in myself?  Have I been kind enough to other people?

Have I done what God expects of me?  Has my teshuvah been accepted?  Has God forgiven me?  For that matter, does God exist, and if so, does God even care?

Today, we have no ritual to reset everything.  The “restore system to original factory settings” button is hidden where we cannot find it.  We are never fully certain about where we stand.

This creates tremendous spiritual and moral anxiety – and there are psychological implications to this.  We feel that we have never done enough.  We beat ourselves up over our flaws.  We are tormented with guilt.  And no matter how hard we try, we can never truly know if we have fixed things.

The idea of atonement, the wiping clean of our souls, allows us to move on.  But if the question of God’s forgiveness is always a mystery, how can we ever move on?

This is not a new dilemma.  It became an issue already during the time of the Second Temple.  In the Yom Kippur ritual, the High Priest would draw lots to determine the fates of two male goats that were brought before him.  One was selected to be sent off into the wilderness as the scapegoat, to carry away the sins of the people.  He would tie a red string to the horns of the fated animal.

The Talmud (BT Yoma 67a) explains that there was a matching red string that was tied to the entrance of the sanctuary.  There was a kind of wireless signal between the two strings.  If the sins of the people were forgiven by God, both strings would turn white, and everyone would rejoice.  If the strings remained red, the people would be sad and ashamed, because they knew that God had not forgiven them.

Some time later, the Talmud reports, the string was transferred to the inner part of the sanctuary, where the public could not see it.  Nevertheless, people continued to peep through.

To solve that problem, they sent the second red string out with the attendant who led the goat out into the wilderness.  There, with nobody around to watch, he would tie it to a rock before hurling the goat off a cliff.  He was the only one who knew what happened to the string.

Why did the location of the second string have to change?  People really wanted to know what happened to the string.  They wanted to know if the ritual worked.  Red or white?

But did the strings really change color?  It seems that those in charge, and we do not know who it was, wanted to protect the people from the knowledge that there were, in fact, no physical signs that atonement had taken place.  The burden then shifts to the scapegoat attendant to report on the fate of the string.  We can only imagine the pressure he must have been under to come back with a white report.

This was a paternalistic approach to the problem.  We do not know who was making the decisions to move the red string, but it seems that “they”  felt that the people needed to be protected from the despair of not knowing where they stood with God.  “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” the wizard shouts desperately to Dorothy and her companions.

At some point, however, the curtain falls and we all must deal with the uncertainty of our existence.

So does that mean that we ignore what the Torah says about Yom Kippur?  Of course not.  We do with it what we have done so well with all of our holidays.  We transform it.  It is the Don Draper strategy: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

A story is told of a High Priest, a direct descendant of Aaron, who came out of the Temple one year to throngs of excited people surrounding him.  But then the proto-Rabbis Shemaya and Avtalion appear, the two greatest scholars of the generation, who are said to be the descendants of pagans.  When the people see them, they abandon the High Priest to follow the Sages.  Shemaya and Avtalion eventually pay their respects, and the High Priest blesses them:  “May these descendants of heathens, who do the work of Aaron, arrive in peace, but the descendant of Aaron who does not do the work of Aaron (i.e. the priest himself), he shall not come in peace!”

It is a nice story if you are a Rabbi, to have a High Priest acknowledge that it is the study of Torah which best transmits the legacy of Aaron, the original High Priest.  More so even than the Temple ritual itself!  (BT Yoma 71b)  It establishes the primacy of Rabbinic Judaism over Temple Judaism.

Our own Yom Kippur services take the ancient ritual and reinterpret it.  During the Avodah service, which occurs during musaf [in a little while], we reenact, in moving poetry, the Temple service, with the Cantor playing the role of High Priest.  Every detail is captured.  The most uplifting part comes at the end, in a song called Mar’eh HaKohen, the Appearance of the Priest.  It describes how ecstatic, exalted, even glowing, was the High Priest when he emerged from the Holy of Holies.  He is so overjoyed and relieved to have successfully performed all of the rituals and restored the relationship between God and the Jewish people that he throws a big party for his family, friends, and everyone he knows.  It is simply glorious.

Another poem immediately follows: Ashrei Ayin – “Happy is the eye that saw all these,” it begins by listing the marvelous experience of witnessing Yom Kippur in the Temple.  But then it sounds an ominous note: “For the ear to hear of it distresses our soul.”  While it may have been incredible to have been part of the ancient drama, those days are over.  The memory of that loss brings only anguish to our souls.  Instead of partying with the High Priest, we have six more hours of fasting.

Then we turn to Eylah Ezkerah, the martyrology.  We recall ancestors who were murdered for their faith, pious individuals who died for God and Judaism.  It is almost an “in your face, God” kind of moment.  “Where were You, when those who loved You were being slaughtered?”  It starkly raises the uncertainty and injustice of our broken world.

Leviticus is now seen as a metaphor.  Maimonides, in the 12th century, goes so far as to say that God does not even want animal sacrifice.  The Torah merely grants it as a concession to human beings in the ancient world who did not know any other way.

In a world without a Temple, we have other ways to accomplish the same tasks.  Our texts credit prayer, acts of lovingkindness, tzedakah, and teshuvah as equal, if not better, than animal sacrifices.  It turns out, we have not lost our ability to restore our relationship with God after all.  In fact, our relationship with God may be even stronger.

This is what we call, “putting the nail in the coffin.”  When we start to memorialize the good old days, it means they are over and we are ready to move on.  While the rabbis speak wistfully and longingly of the days of the Temple, they much prefer their model of Torah study and a portable, community-focused Judaism that can be practiced anywhere that Jews gather together.

So how do we accomplish today what the High Priest once accomplished in the Holy of Holies?  We need a faith that enables us to live with certainty in an uncertain world.  We need to find a way to perform, if not a full factory restore, then at least a “soft reset.”

Our Jewish tradition has been struggling to find a middle path between despair and extremism for more than two thousand years.  Not surprisingly, several approaches.

Yeridat Hadorot means “the decline of the generations.”  It is the idea that the further in time we get from the revelation at Mt. Sinai, the more we decline spiritually and in our proximity to God.  The destruction of the Temple and the negation of the Temple Ritual nearly two thousand years ago, therefore, signify the growing chasm between us and God.

A Mishnah (Sotah 9:16) describes the deterioration of Judaism as various second century Sages pass from the world:

When R. Meir died, the composers of fables ceased.  When Ben Azzai died, the assiduous students [of Torah] ceased…  When Rabbi Akiva died, the glory of the Torah ceased…  When Rabbi Ishmael ben Fabi died, the luster of the priesthood ceased.  When Rabbi [Yehuda the Prince] died, humility and fear of sin ceased.

It goes on to describe how the situation falls apart after the Temple is destroyed in 70 CE.

From the day the Temple was destroyed, the Sages began to be like school teachers, school teachers like synagogue attendants, synagogue attendants like common people, and the common people became more and more debased; and there was none to ask, none to inquire.

“So upon whom is it for us to rely?” the Mishnah concludes, “Upon our Father who is in Heaven.”

The good old days are over, and our task is to maintain faith while things continue to deteriorate.  Eventually, when things cannot get any worse, the Messiah will come to redeem the world, restore everything to its proper place, and bring certainty back into our relationship with God – the ultimate factory reset, and upgrade.

It is not a particularly happy message.  Far more appealing is the narrative of “we stand on the shoulders of giants.”  Our knowledge is constantly increasing.  Our understanding of Torah continues to expand.  We are always building on the successes of our predecessors and striving for more.

Although the process had already begun, the destruction of the Second Temple forced the Rabbis to deal with the reality of a hidden God.  For Judaism to survive in a post Temple world, the conversation had to be changed.

The old narrative that relied upon the ritual of the High Priest was gone, and something new would have to replace it.  We needed a way to wipe the slate clean and start over with the certainty that we had been forgiven.  So if there is no longer a red string to turn white, no goat to throw off a cliff, and no High Priest to sacrifice a bull, who will take over the ritual?

Answer: we will.

This is what the Rabbis do.  They add the element of personal teshuvah to Yom Kippur.  Instead of relying upon a High Priest to perform the ritual for us, the burden falls to individual humans.  The Mishnah teaches the following:

If one says: I shall sin and repent, sin and repent, no opportunity will be given to that person to repent. [If one says]: I shall sin and Yom Kippur will procure atonement for me, Yom Kippur procures for him no atonement.

It may seem obvious to us that we need to be sincere about repentance, but nowhere in the Torah’s description about the Temple rite does it say anything about hypocrisy.  According to a plain reading of the Torah, atonement is automatic as long as the High Priest does his job correctly.  The Rabbis, in changing the conversation, made this part up.

They continue their reinterpretation by taking away God’s ability to forgive fully half of our sins:

For transgressions between a person and the Almighty, Yom Kippur procures atonement, but for transgressions between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not procure any atonement until one has appeased one’s friend.  (Yoma 8:9)

The Talmud expands on this idea, explaining that if one person angers another, it is not necessarily the case that he will be forgiven.  I depend upon the person I have wronged for forgiveness.  I am at her mercy.  But with God, it is another story.

… with the Holy One, if a person commits a sin in secret, God is pacified by mere words… And not only that but God even accounts it to that person as a good deed… And not only that but Scripture considers it as if that person had sacrificed a bull.  (BT Yoma 86b)

In other words, God is a sure thing.  All we have to do is ask – with sincerity of course.

When we do manage to appease one another, then God steps in to finish the process by wiping our souls clean.  That part is also automatic.  The uncertain part is each other.

Notice that the ability to grant atonement has effectively been taken away from God and granted to human beings.  It depends on us working with one another to repair our relationships.  It depends on us asking each other for forgiveness, and forgiving when we are asked.  God’s role is to affirm what we are able to accomplish with one another.  The hard work of Yom Kippur is in our interpersonal relationships.  The factory reset button is relocated into our own hearts.

So instead of trying to sneak a peak while an austere man robed in white performs the rituals, we all come together as a community of High Priests.  Success depends on whether we manage to repair our relationships with each other.

At the end of the day, during the final service of Neilah, the atmosphere in the synagogue changes.  Everything feels lighter.  An aura of glorious radiance fills the room.  Despite the chaos out there, we stand together in here, certain in this moment.

We have created that moment by coming together, and God responds by wiping our souls clean, affirming the hard work we have done.  Factory reset accomplished.