Kol Nidre 2005: I am always waiting for a renaissance of wonder

Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro
Sinai Temple, Springfield, MA

Call 1-800-639-8850.  Or instead of that, let me just thank WFCR for last week's story about the poet, Alan Ginsberg.  

Last Friday, it turns out, was the 50th anniversary of the first public reading of Ginsberg's poem, Howl.  Ginsberg presented this classic poem of protest in a book store owned by another poet of the time, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and it was the FCR story that got me thinking about a poem by Ferlinghetti.  The poem also dates from the mid-50's.  I'd like to share it with you now because, after all this time, the poem still speaks to me as I hope it will to you.

The poem is called: I Am Waiting

I have always liked Ferlinghetti's poem for its humor, its politics, its yearning, vision, and hope.

And I am awaiting

Perpetually and forever

A renaissance of wonder.

I like the poem too because it also has the feel of a prayer for me.  Years ago, in fact, when I was putting together a creative service, I used this poem as a lead up to the line Bayom Ha-hu…On that day, God, You shall be one and Your name shall be one.

The poem fit the prayer because Bayom Ha-hu is about a distant hope for a time of peace in the world just as Ferlinghetti's “wonder” poem is about the hope for a better world where love, faith, and innocence are free to blossom.

And I am awaiting

Perpetually and forever

A renaissance of wonder.

But wait.  I'm ahead of myself by 24 hours.  This is Erev Yom Kippur.  We haven't heard Kol Nidre, and the theme for tonight and tomorrow is not dreaming.  The focus for our Day of Atonement is the opposite.  Yom Kippur is a time for looking back over a year of vows we made and left unfulfilled.  We can't dream of a sweet tomorrow unless we do some of the less pleasant work called for right now right here.

No pretty words about the future until we engage in some remorse, regret, and repentance.  At least once, we need to say, “I'm sorry” for some of what wasn't done and some of what was done or said by each of us.

Yom Kippur means confronting our sins.

But as soon as I say that word, sin, I feel strange.  About ten days ago when I mentioned the word, sin, among some congregants here at Sinai, one of those present said exactly what many of you may feel when you hear me say - sin.  The congregant said, “Sin isn't my word.  Sin sounds Christian.”

And I have to admit it does.  When I hear the word, sin, I flip back to my days as a student rabbi.  For two years I used to visit a small temple in Jonesboro, Arkansas every other weekend.  I would fly from Cincinnati, where Marsha and I were students, to Memphis and then rent a car to drive the 90 minutes to Jonesboro.

I would head to Jonesboro on Friday afternoon in time for Shabbat; I would drive back to Memphis on Sunday.  And on those Sunday drives I would listen to local radio and hear the preachers.  They talked about repenting, they talked about damnation, and they drove home the message that “sin” was lurking in everyone's soul.  “Sin” was ever present and seductive.  

Years later I hear the word, sin, and, like many of you, I have a gut reaction which tells me “sin” is a church word.  It's not the way we Jews understand ourselves.

But does that mean “sin” really isn't a Jewish category?  I don't think so.  After all, what do the first human beings do in our Torah?  Eve hands Adam a fruit; both of them eat; and shortly thereafter they are ushered out of the Garden of Eden.  I think they must have sinned.

Not long after that, Cain loses his temper and kills Abel.  The patriarch, Jacob, steals the blessing of the firstborn from his brother, Esau.  Joseph's brothers detest him, kidnap him, and then sell him away as a slave.  

Flash forward a few centuries and you find our ancestors at Mount Sinai.  They despair about Moses; they imagine how much better life was in Egypt.  Next thing you know, they have built a Golden Calf.

There are a lot of sins in the Torah, and if you push ahead another few centuries, you come to King David.  Here's a great leader, politician, and poet who also happens to have a wandering eye that leads him to have Bathsheba's husband killed so that he can have her for himself.

Our ancient text doesn't pull punches.  In fact, what makes the Bible so important is that the Bible isn't afraid to present our ancestors honestly.  Some of them teach great lessons while many of them are flawed, selfish human beings.  I might not like some of these people,  but I can love the text that doesn't hesitate to present them in all their humanity with their sins.  

Let me tell you a midrash.  It comes from the Talmud where the rabbis try to figure out how human sin fits into God's world.  Here's the setting.  We are at Mount Sinai where God is about to give our ancestors the Ten Commandments.  The rabbis of the Talmud now imagine that a conversation went on between God and the heavenly angels moments before the commandments were given.

First the angels spoke.  “God,” they said.  “You must not give the commandments which are so honored here in heaven to flesh and blood human beings on earth.”

“Why is that?” asked the Holy One.

“Because human beings will break the commandments.  They will sin.  They are not worthy of your precious ideals.

“And you are?” asked God.

“Yes, we are,” said the angels.  “We are not made of flesh and blood.  We are not jealous.  We're not given over to anger or spite.  We follow Your commandments perfectly here in heaven.  Therefore, the commandments ought to stay with us here in heaven.”

“On the contrary,” God replied.  “You are right that human beings sin.  They are finite and limited.  But that is why they need the commandments and angels do not.  I am going to give them My commandments precisely because flesh and blood creatures on earth will always be tempted to sin.  But these commandments will help them.  These commandments will teach that there is another way.  The commandments will become their way of growing toward goodness and growing toward Me.”

And with that, says the midrash, God gave the commandments and the Torah to the Jewish people.  Not because we were perfect and not because we were sinners, but because we were caught in the middle.  Through our choices we could go either way: towards decency or towards decay.

And that's the key for Judaism.  Where Christianity talks about original sin and imagines a kind of stain or blot on the human soul, you could say Judaism describes people with an “original virtue.”  Every day, every hour, we stand at a crossroads.  We can opt for good or bad.  We can live at our best or we can make an inappropriate choice and, let me use the word,  we can sin.

A teacher of mine once captured the Jewish approach in this phrase.  He said Christians understand that they sin because Adam and Eve sinned.  It's a condition of being human.  Jews believe that we sin like Adam and Eve.  Like them (not because of them), we make bad choices.

Or to use an image that draws on Hebrew, we Jews do believe in Chet and Averah.

Chet (al chet she-chatanu) is a Jewish word for sin, but it comes from a verb used in archery.  A sin in this regard is what happens when the archer shoots his arrow and misses the target.  Chet means missing the mark.

Averah (another word for sin) comes from the root O-VAIR, meaning to cross the line.  Averah means going astray or getting off track.

Judaism faults us, then, not for being human, but for temporarily missing the mark or slipping along the path of life.

Mordecai Kaplan, a great 20th century Jewish philosopher, talks about sin in these words:  “The best we can do is generally much better than we actually do.  To be troubled by that fact is to have a Jewish sense of sin.”

And that's where we need to be right now:  not feeling like evil sinners, but troubled nonetheless by the failures of this last year.

Only one problem remains.  Being troubled does not accomplish the work of Yom Kippur.  A few words of remorse don't mean we have confronted how much better we could have been.  It's almost too easy to feel good about feeling bad, pat ourselves on the back for a moment's honesty, and then speed out the Temple door.

So here's my proposal for tonight.  

We will soon get to a formal viddui/confession in our Machzor/prayer book.  We will read together a well-worded litany of sins, but because I know we will tend to read it too quickly and too mechanically, I want to introduce a listing of sins that is not on any page in front of you.  Like the Ashamnu we will sing later, my list of sins will be alphabetical.  It's going to run from A to Z in order to say that our human failures do run the full gamut of human activity.  26 will be the symbolic number for a hundred ways in which we do less than we should.  

What I hope happens now, however, is that because my listing of sins will not be familiar, it may catch you short.  You may own one of the failures I mention.  If so, let it be yours.  If it's not yours but belongs to someone else you know, don't ignore it.  Consider how you might forgive the person who owns it.

And, most importantly, give me time to read the list.  Let me pause between each sin.  Let it hang in the air; let it soak in.

I am waiting.

I am always waiting for a renaissance of wonder.  

But before that happens, Yom Kippur demands action.  That action comes in the form of regret followed by repentance, a real determination to make amends and to get back on track.  The truth is as Mordecai Kaplan told us, “The best we can do is generally much better than we actually do.  To be troubled by that fact is to have a Jewish sense of sin.”

Here is our confession:

Ashamnu - We have sinned - from A to Z -

A - We have assumed the worst in others and the best of ourselves.

B - We have betrayed the trust others have placed in us.

C - We have confused what we want with what we need.

D - Destroyed ourselves with needless abuses.

E - Enjoyed the downfall of our adversaries with glee.

F - Felt superior to others because of our wealth or power

G - Given less than our full selves to the community and the world

H - Hurried to deny responsibility for our own actions.

I - Instigated animosity among others.

J - Junked our world with trash, showing no regard for the environment

K - Knifed others (sometimes friends or coworkers; sometimes family) in the back

L - Lied to cover up our mistakes.

M - Manipulated others

N - Negated the dignity of others in order to aggrandize ourselves

O - Observed people in need and ignored what we saw

P - Being petty, we refused to give others the benefit of the doubt.

Q - Quietly, we have gone along with wrongdoing.

R - Refused to back down from positions when we knew we were wrong

S - Seduced ourselves with the notion that “no one will get hurt.”

T - Trivialized the power we represent in God's universe

U - Unleashed hurtful words

V - Violated the sanctity of our homes with violence against our partners that has been physical, emotional, or sexual

W - Wished ill upon others

X - We have committed X number of sins of which we have not been aware

Y - Yielded to temptation

Z - With zeal, we have pursued happiness to the exclusion of goodness.

(Adapted from Rabbi David Greenspoon and Steve Kerbel)

*******

Honestly speaking, that is us, although the gift of Yom Kippur is the promise that we need not stay as we are.  We can do better.  From A to Z, we can turn our lives around.  

B can become blessing.

I can become integrity.

K can become kindness.

R can be renewal.

I am waiting, always waiting for renewal and rebirth.

It is not easy, but sometimes it can happen.  Serious repentance, slow repentance can work.  Not for everyone every time, but for some of us some of the time.

Confusion can be replaced by commitment.

Destruction by devotion.

Pettiness by peace.

Not easy, but possible if we slow down tonight, if we work together tonight and tomorrow.

May it be so for us tonight and tomorrow.

May we repent and may we find new direction because of what we start to do right now right here.

Amen