The Secret of Atonement, Yom Kippur 2020

Before Yom Kippur, a student of the Chassidic Master Rabbi Elimelech came to him to ask him how to atone. The Rabbi said, I cannot help you, but the innkeeper in the next town will teach you. He sent him to there to observe the innkeeper. When the student arrived, he was taken aback by the innkeeper’s appearance. He assumed that his Rebbe had sent him to a pious scholar, but the innkeeper was an uncouth, ignorant person who was serving drinks to his customers and indulging in idle gossip with them. Perhaps this man is one of the Hidden Tzaddikim, masquerading as a simple innkeeper, the student thought. He waited to discover the answer to his question. At night when the inn closed, the innkeeper asked his wife to hand him a huge ledger. He opened the book and began to read all the transgressions he had committed during the past year. From time to time he would pause, heave a sign of distress, shake his head in remorse, and go on with his heavy list. The ledger contained all the misdeeds and transgressions the innkeeper had committed in the course of the year – the date, time and circumstance of each scrupulously noted. His “sins” were quite benign — a word of gossip one day, oversleeping the time for prayer on another, neglecting to give his daily coin to charity on a third — but by the time he had read through the first few pages, his face was bathed in tears. For more than an hour he read and wept, until the last page had been turned. He then opened the second ledger. This, too, was a diary — of all the troubles and misfortunes that had befallen him in the course of the year. On this day the innkeeper was beaten by a gang of peasants, on that day his child fell ill; once, in the dead of winter, the family had frozen for several nights for lack of firewood; another time their cow had died, and there was no milk until enough pennies had been saved to buy another. When he had finished reading the second notebook, the tavernkeeper lifted his eyes heavenward and said: “Listen Ribono shel olam, Great One in Heaven, I know I have not done right by You and have sinned against You. Last year I repented and promised to fulfill Your commandments, but I repeatedly succumbed to my evil inclination. But on the other hand, last year I also prayed and begged You for a year of good health and prosperity, and I trusted in You that it would indeed be this way. You have really not done right by me either. Since we are approaching the day of atonement, let us make an even exchange. I will forgive You, You will forgive me, and we will begin the New Year with a clean slate. The student then understood. Yom Kippur is called the Day Atonement because William Tyndale, an English Christian chose the word Atonement for his translation of the Torah in the 1530’s. Later, the King James translation of the Torah in 1611 kept Tyndale’s word and we have adopted it. It’s a very good word for what we strive for on Yom Kippur: being forgiven and feeling that we are at peace. In today’s Torah reading, the Kohain Gadol, the High Priest, makes several confessions and atonements, one for himself, one for his household, one for the sanctuary, and one for all the House of Israel. Rabbi Israel Meir, known as the Chaftz Chayim, spoke about our Ashamnu prayer of confession listing our human sins, during which it is the custom to beat one’s heart. He said, God does not forgive the sins of one who smites his heart, but pardons those whose hearts smite them for their sins.” (YK Anthology P. 119) Which leads us to the word, Sin, a fraught word in English. You’ve heard me say that the word cheit or sin is derived from archery and means missing the mark. That tells us that the Torah has a very positive view of us humans. The Torah seems to say that God knows that we try to do the right thing; that we are aiming for the center of the target, but that we sometimes miss, getting the arrow a little too low or too high, to the right or to the left of center. Cheit also means void or empty, teaching us that when we make a negative choice or if you like, commit a sin, there is nothing of value in it. There is nothing to be gained from that choice. The Liturgy of the Holy Days is full of the message of Judgement – that God is judging us. However, the idea of judgement is actually missing in Torah. Or perhaps I should say that it’s added almost at the end of the last book of Deuteronomy, kind of as an afterthought, speaking more about judging the nations that are our foes than judging us. In fact, the word, judgment is only used in Torah to describe a human court determining if a person has committed involuntary or premeditated murder, which is found in the laws for Cities of Refuge; and these cities were abolished during the Second Temple period, in Roman times. Judgment of us by God is not found in Torah. What a shocking discovery! And yet the prayers in our prayerbooks are full of Judgment. In the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah, the section referring to Ishmael, it says that “God heard the voice of the lad where he was.” The Talmud’s comments on that verse and also Rashi, our most famous Torah interpreter who lived in 11th Century France, agrees with Talmud, that the verse teaches us that we are judged, if at all, according to present deeds. We are only judged for right now. This is a true revelation. Am I saying that God does not punish us for past deeds. That’s right! God does not punish us for past deeds. In Torah, God only forgives and cleanses, which is told to us in the 13 Attributes, the account of Moses’ intimate encounter with God in which God describes the Divine personality. However, God does say that we are not cleansed completely, so that we will be able to take responsibility for our actions and learn and grow from them. Actions simply have consequences, and we know that. So all the beating ourselves up for what we did in the past, carrying all that guilt around year after year is the true cheit, the truly empty thing with no profit or gain in it. Many of you have heard that I discovered that if someone sins against you, they can’t look you in the eye. It should be the opposite. If someone wrongs me, I should be mad at them and not be able to look them in the eye. But that’s not the way it works – they can’t look me in the eye because deep down, at some level, they know the truth – that they have wronged me. This also applies to our relationship with God, and that’s what the sacrificial service was about: providing a mechanism for us to forgive ourselves and reconnect with God: re-establishing the feeling that we have been forgiven. And that’s why we are here today – to forgive: to forgive others, which I spoke about 4 years ago, in a sermon about forgiveness. Forgiving others has emotional and also health benefits. We are also here to forgive ourselves and feel forgiven. All the Chassidic masters taught that we should stop thinking about the past and make a new start. One said, very graphically, if you stir filth this way and that way, it’s still filth. Stirring it, or in other words, talking about our problems, rehashing them, remembering them, and re-living them, does not change our lives. It does not heal us. The teaching about making a new start comes from the Psalm 34 (:15) by David, “Turn from evil and do good.” My teacher of blessed memory, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman also wrote in his book Spiritual Truths: “We should use (our) energy for new ongoing goals… rather than punish ourselves. Regret without regressing. Regret instead with blessing. Start again.” We are asked at this season to turn, shuv, and return, practicing teshuvah. How can this be done so that we make a new start and feel forgiven? One way is to imitate God, removing judgement of ourselves, not judging others, and forgiving them, which is a process that takes intention and commitment. The classic teaching in Judaism about this comes from Pirkei Avot, Chapters of the Ancestors, which asks: “what is the way a person should go? One should have…A good eye, be a good friend, a good neighbor, one who considers consequences, and have a good heart, which contains them all (2:13).” We should all strive to see the best in everyone, speak the best about everyone, and if we judge them at all, judge them to be wonderful, good, and kind, send them love, and they will rise to the occasion. And if they cannot, have compassion for their suffering. Atonement, Kiper, literally means covering, that we cover the sins of others as if we can’t see them anymore, just as God covers our sins and does not see them any longer, only seeing us in the present. But atonement also means At-One-Ment, being at One with God. We all yearn for the Divine Presence to be manifest in our lives, to feel that God’s guidance and love is with us. Judaism sees this as the point, Pintele Yid, or flame, which burns in every soul. That yearning for Divine union is part of what makes us human. The deeper I go into my own spiritual path, the more I have realized that to see God you have to Be God. If you want to be close to the Divine, you have to walk closer to Divinity by being more patient, less judgmental, more caring, more generous, and of course, more loving. I recently learned how to be more loving through giving charity. Giving charity taught me about loving. Many years ago I was not so generous. I would evaluate the person asking me for a donation to try to determine if they were worthy or if they really needed it. I learned through being a rabbi that if a person comes to me, that my task is to give to them and not to judge. How do I know who is truly in need? I don’t and I never will; and if I’m asked, I know that person needs what they ask for more than I need it. It becomes my mitzvah: a gift to me and an opportunity at that moment, to heal and help. I learned that this is precisely the way God loves us and how I should love others –not withholding my love, but giving it freely to all those around me. It’s not my role to judge them, but only to give love. Everyone is worthy of receiving love. So, if I want to be close to God, I have to love like God and manage my emotions, not becoming angry or even hurt when others are living their lives as they want to; not trying to control anyone, just loving them from a place of security and trust. In this way we free ourselves of the need to manipulate. Our relationship with God becomes clear, healed, and whole. We are At-One-Ment, at peace, and not separated from God, as Isaiah said, (It is) your sins which have separated you from your God.” We are here to feel the release of forgiveness, the joy of closeness with God and the new start the New Year brings. May we go through this process that Yom Kippur gives us, also as a gift, release our judgement as God does for us, and love each other freely as God does for us, accepting ourselves, appreciating the promise of the New Year and all the opportunities and choices that will present themselves. Forgiveness is the gift we give to ourselves. Forgiveness on Yom Kippur is the gift God gives to us so that we can feel at one with God and ourselves. We have already been forgiven. Let us be grateful for the contentment of At-One-Ment and keep our hearts open throughout the New Year!

The Meaning of Shofar This Year, Rosh Hashanah 2020

Living is a contact sport. We are social animals and we crave interaction. Yet for six months we have been more isolated than at any time in our life’s experience. However, through this time we have been jostled and prodded in a sense, by forces which have contacted us, mostly non-physically: rather intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. From Black Lives Matter to the environment to economic injustice and to immigration, these have all touched us. We know we are experiencing a shift – a major shift. What meaning people in the future will assign to this shift, we do not know. It is happening to us and because of that, what it means to us and what we are learning from it is much more important than what historians will say about it in the future. Rosh Hashanah is the holiday when we come together to eat well with family and friends. But no one knows what it’s really about. There is only one commandment in Torah concerning Rosh Hashanah, other than we are to do no work on our holiday. Rosh Hashana’s only commandment is to hear the sound of the shofar. That’s it. And no one knows what that’s about either. Perhaps we can explore what Rosh Hashanah and what the sound of the shofar can mean to us this year. Maimonides famously taught that the sound of the shofar means, Sleepers Awake! Scrutinize your deeds and return to God in repentance. However, this year is different. We have become different. We need a different meaning. The word T’ruah actually comes from the root R-UT, which means affection. It means friendship, neighbor, and even wife. This year God is calling to us – through events and through our gathering together to hear the sound of the Shofar. It’s sound says, I am calling to you in love. I am calling to you insistently: through events and through your seclusion, like the time of your wandering in the empty wilderness when you received the Torah, away from civilization, in a place of less distraction, a quiet, wild, and uncertain place. I am calling to you on an inner level to remember who you really are. You are me – me on earth, and I am you. Who you really are can be recalled from my intimate encounter with Moses which you call the 13 Attributes of God – a description of my personality – when I said, I am all Being. I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness an truth, forgiving and cleansing. Further, I am justice, I am caring – Eyl Kana - A God who cares passionately, I am loving, as I loved you into life, sustain, guide you, and teach you with my love, and I am within each of you – in your heart and in your mouth, as it says in Deuteronomy. God has come during these six months, to heal us and we are being called to grow. What’s interesting about the Holy Days is that we are commanded, not only to participate in our growth, by simply showing up for the holiday, but also to lead it: to lead and direct our own growth. The prophet Jeremiah taught that the wound is the cure. God said, “For I will restore health to you and heal your wounds. (Jer 30:17) and the midrash explains: The ways of God are unlike those of humans. For a person inflicts a wound with a knife and heals with a bandage, but God heals with the very things with which God wounds. (Ex Rabba 50:3) WE have come to life and to this time in our lives to HEAL – to heal ourselves and our society. In the midrash, a commentary on the Torah there is a classic teaching that each blade of grass has its very own angel urging it to Grow, grow! (Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6) If every blade of grass has an angel, we certainly have angels, or energies from the Divine, urging us to grow. And during this time the angels, like the sound of the Shofar, are even more insistent. A quote from Norman Mailer echoes in my mind: There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same. (Barbary Shore Chapter 26) Something is being asked of us. But exactly what is it? Albert Einstein famously said “We cannot solve the problems with the same thinking that created them.” We are being taken to an entirely new level of human functioning: much more interior - centered and much less exterior centered – more virtual and less physical, more energetic and less physically tangible. These urgent demands on us are changing us quickly. We think that the events of our lives are uncharted territory; however it’s really WE who are the uncharted territory. The Torah laid out the ethical bare minimum of moral deeds and integrity of speech and action. It is a floor and not a ceiling. The gems of Torah: Love your neighbor as yourself, and the very love-centered later book of Deuteronomy, asks us to love Being, Love life, Love Existence, Love goodness and love God with all our heart and all our souls and all our might. These gems of Torah point the way toward which we actually find ourselves now travelling. It is prophecy, not only commandment. You Shall love our neighbor as yourself! It will happen. You shall love Being, Life, Existence, Goodness, and God with all your heart, soul, and might. These teachings foretell the shift of the moment and point the way toward a manner of thinking: believing that it’s all possible, which can enlarge our metaphoric tent to include everyone, help us care for and care about each other, preserve and care for the earth, and even know energetically and perceptually when another is hurting – when there is a world situation that needs our attention, and even when someone is thinking of us and is about to call our cellphone. Moses achieved this. Abraham Joshua Heschl said, When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. Once Moses merged with the mind and being of God, Moses could merge with and have empathy for everyone. I think there is a reason why we are called the Children of Israel. To God we are all still children, still a long way from the growth that being human hurries us to attain. As Moses merged with God, we can merge with the heart of God, becoming God on earth; not just God’s hands and feet, but God’s love, compassion, healing, blessing and generosity. One way to do a spiritual check is to ask yourself how big your tent really is. Who would you let into your circle of caring? Who would you let into your country? Into your community? Into your circle of friends, into your apartment, into your family, into your place of employment? Into your heart? Where do you stop? Each of us has a place where we pause or stop. Perhaps we can make our tent just a little bit larger, and perhaps events of these past six months have helped us to do that. All the spiritual teachers of today and many of the past speak about raising our energy or vibrating on a higher level. The Chassidic masters achieved this through joy, love, and ecstasy. With a change in energy comes not only expanded spiritual gifts but also reassurance, safety, protection, lack of fear, more love for ourselves and for others, more happiness, and much more joy. We can only find these gifts through seclusion, as we did in the ancient wilderness when we were so close to God. Henry David Thoreau wrote: “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.” The shofar this year calls us to remember the possibilities that live within us, just waiting for us to realize them. The shofar calls to us, I love you! I respect you. Remember the magnificence within you and bring it forth. There is within you a fierce love and a passionate caring - I know because I put it there. You are about to manifest a greatness only before achieved by the few: by prophets and great teachers. It is now available to you, to ordinary people, and it is your birthright. Sleepers, awake! Awake to a new reality of a deeper healing, a deeper love, a deeper caring than you have ever known. Become inspired to a greater expression of your own humanity, a level of holiness you are only now capable of. The events of this year have nudged us in this direction. Rosh Hashanah is our opportunity to celebrate our ability to become, to be drawn to our yet unimagined growth, and to realize that we are truly on the path of our becoming.

The Evolution of Human Consciousness

One of my favorite metaphors is this: I am standing on the beach at the water’s edge, gazing out at the horizon. Those born after me, the young ones, are standing further out, well into the water. They see a farther horizon than I can see. Those who were born before me: the sages of the past, are standing way behind me, up on the dune. They cannot see as far a horizon as I can see. I am speaking about the evolution of human consciousness. This metaphor allows me to understand that those born after me are more spiritually evolved than I was when I was born. If I am fortunate and blessed, I will take a few more steps out into the water during my lifetime, and see a slightly farther horizon. It also allows me to know that the commentators of the past, the revered sages in Judaism, could not see as far a horizon as I can see. That does not make their commentaries wrong, or mine right, it means that all of the commentaries can exist together, enriching our understanding of Torah and bringing it into the 21st Century.

New Perspectives about the Garden of Eden

About two years ago, I looked at the translation of the Garden of Eden story, and discovered something which to me, was amazing. For reference, in 2011 The Jewish Week newspaper published my interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, in which Eve is the Heroine, being smart, brave, and intuitive. Here is the link: https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-gift-for-eating-forbidden-fruit/. Recently I translated this section. Here is my translation of the beginning of Chapter 3 in Genesis: 1. And the serpent was more awake than all the wildlife of the field that BEING GOD had made, and it said to the woman, “Did GOD even say you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?” 2. And the woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruits of any tree of the garden we may eat. 3. And from the fruits of the tree in the midst of the garden, GOD said, you shall not eat and you shall not touch them, lest you die.” 4. And the serpent said to the woman, “Die! you shall not die. 5. For GOD knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like GOD, knowing good and bad.” Usually, the serpent is said to be more cunning than any other animal. I saw that this line can be translated as: “ Now the serpent was more awake,” from the root, AR ער to be awake. The snake is a universal mystical symbol of transformation in many cultures. This translation bears out my interpretation that the serpent represents our intuition, and that the story teaches, among other things, that we should trust our intuition. I have translated God’s name, yud, hei, vav, hei, as BEING, a conjugation of the verb, to be. God’s name, Elohim, I have translated as God. Another more recent discovery, made during my Wednesday night Torah Study group, comes at the end of the Garden of Eden story. Here is my translation of Genesis 3:21: And BEING God made for Adam and his wife tunics of skin and clothed them. 22. And BEING God said, “Behold, the human has become as one among us, to know good and bad, and now lest he send forth his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever!” 23. And BEING God sent them out from the Garden of Eden to work the soil he had been taken from. What caught my eye was the Hebrew of “…to work the soil.” The word used is not ha’aretz, the land, but adamah, soil. Adamah might also be telling us to work on our ADAM, ourselves, our own humanity, and specifically, the feminine, intuitive or spiritual parts of ourselves. It might be telling us to serve - la’avod - humanity, or to work on our moral sense: the knowing of good from bad, which is one of the major points in the story and themes of the Torah.