Atonement

Atonement

Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
September 28, 2003
© Rev. Sally B. White

At sundown on Friday, Jews the world over began the observance of the "High Holy Days." This ten-day period of reflection and repentance begins with Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year – and ends with Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – the most sacred of all Jewish holidays. It is an ancient observance, woven of instructions from the Torah, or scripture; of stories from the Talmud, the great commentary on scripture; and of customs from as many lands and cultures as Jews have known over more than 5 millenia of history. Today we stand at the beginning of the year 5764 in the Jewish calendar. As Unitarian Universalists, we have grown apart from our religious roots in the Jewish and Christian traditions, and much of the custom and ceremony is unfamiliar and exotic to us. And, as Unitarian Universalists, we strive to remain open to the living wisdom to be found in many traditions, recognizing the common human aspirations and insights that underlie the great variety of religious beliefs and practices. With respect and reverence, let us consider what we can learn from this great Jewish celebration.

Fundamental to much of Jewish belief and practice is a particular understanding of time, and of the relationship between God and the Hebrew people. We would do well to examine these first. Jewish scripture begins with the Book of Genesis, and Genesis begins with the words: "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,…" (Genesis 1:1; NRSV) "In the beginning." Immediately, there is a sense of time moving, unfolding, going forward. Where we are now is not where we were "in the beginning." "God created the heavens and the earth." Without question God is the creator, and has brought all things into being. But the larger picture is more complex.

Time has a goal, life has a purpose, and change is a fundamental aspect of both. Jews believe that time exists so that humanity can grow better, and in growing better, make the world better. They look forward to a time when everyone in the world will be absolutely good, when there will be no hunger, no war, no injustice, no meanness of any kind in the world. Human beings have the power and the responsibility to move the world along the road of days and years – through twists and turns, valleys and hills, darkness and light. When the world has become a place of goodness and justice and peace, that will be the End of Days, or the Days of the Messiah, or the Kingdom of God. (When A Jew Celebrates, pp. 9-11, 245-250).

Every human being is important, and each has a unique contribution to make to the process of shaping the future. Jews, in particular, are charged with this power and responsibility, and they are not only instructed but are sanctified by God’s commandments. Every Jewish holiday or celebration includes blessings that begin by acknowledging that special relationship, and the incumbent responsibilities, using the words: "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has made us holy through his commandments, and commanded us…" (When A Jew Celebrates, p. 23) In a very real sense, then, human beings participate with God in the ongoing creation of the world. And we bring to this relationship of co-creation all the imperfections and frailties of humanity. Together with God, we try, we make mistakes, and we try again.

Rosh Hashanah is, literally, "the head of the year." It is widely known and celebrated as the Jewish New Year, marking the anniversary of the day when God completed the creation of the world. On this day, each year, it as if the world were created anew, and each of us starts fresh. Unique among days, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated over two days – one long, 48-hour day – befitting its importance as the birthday of the world. But there is more. Like all good religious traditions, Rosh Hashanah has multiple dimensions and multiple meanings.

Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Remembrance. Having completed one more cycle of the year, this is a day for looking back – at the year just ending, and the years before; at our own past and our family’s history; at the history of our people all the way back to the beginning of time. It is a day to pray for Israel. Even for the most liberal Jews, it is a day for building and strengthening a connection to Judaism and the Jewish world, for seeing as clearly as possible the strengths and weaknesses of Jewish presence and influence in the world, and for examining one’s own commitment, involvement, and calling to work for healing, repair, and transformation in the world.

Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judging. As the old story goes, Rosh Hashanah is the day on which God opens up the Book of Life, a book for each person in the world, with pages on which each action is recorded: good deeds and bad. On this Day of Judging, God judges each person’s actions in the past year. Everything we have done is weighed for good and for bad, and the tally is balanced. On Rosh Hashanah, God decides whether we have been, on balance, good or bad; whether we have been growing, on balance, toward health and wholeness or toward distortion and incompleteness; whether we will live or die in the next year. The traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting, then is "L’shanah tovah tikatevu: "May you be inscribed for a good year in the Book of Life."

And Rosh Hashanah is the day of Shofar Blowing. The shofar is an ancient and traditional trumpet, made from the horn of a ram. Once a shepherd’s horn, used to signal from valley to valley, the shofar is sounded to call the people to battle, to worship in the temple, or to holiday celebration. The call of the shofar marks the beginning of the Rosh Hashanah service in the synagogue. This morning, we have our own Downeast version of a shofar, made not from a ram’s horn, but from a conch shell. Vicky Thayer will blow it for us now, and again at the end of our service. May the sound call us to worship, to battle, to celebration, and to life.

Shofar

One story says that when the shofar is sounded on Rosh Hashanah, God gets up from his throne of justice and sits down on his throne of mercy. Jews believe that far more than wanting to punish people for the mistakes they have made and the sins they have committed, God wants people to learn from their mistakes, to repent of their sins, to take the time to reflect, to ask forgiveness, to commit ourselves to returning to our own best selves and to right relationship with one another, with the world, and with God. Thus, the sounding of the shofar marks not only the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. For, having weighed and inscribed each person’s deeds in the Book of Life God now sets aside a 10 day period of mercy before passing final judgment. These ten days are to be used for teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah: (repentance, prayer, and good deeds (usually charity)) – actions that may shift the balance of your actions in the Book of Life, and that may shift the balance of good and evil in the world. Thus, Rosh Hashanah stands at the beginning of Ten Days of Repentance and Atonement, ten Days of Awe.

The celebration of Rosh Hashanah is rich with symbolism, reflecting the richness of meaning of the holiday. Many Jews attend services at the synagogue, where the shofar is blown. Services focus on the concept and meaning of God’s sovereignty. The holiday Challah bread is shaped in a circle or spiral – rather than the traditional braid – symbolizing a wish for a well-rounded, full, or wholesome year, smooth without unhappiness or sorrow. The round loaves may spiral upward in the center, resembling a crown, and showing the way to heaven , where the new year prayers are directed. Pieces of challah and of fruit are dipped in honey to reflect a wish for sweetness in the new year. The Rosh Hashanah greeting (sometimes shortened to "Shanah tovah") is exchanged. And a relatively modern practice (only about 500 years old) is tashlikh; walking to a nearby creek or river and emptying the dust from your pockets into the flowing water – symbolically casting off your sins.

Jews work as usual during the Days of Awe, but they also engage in the serious inner and outer work of introspection, reconciliation, and atonement. For it is not enough merely to regret the mistakes you have made, or the ways in which you may have wronged others. It is not enough to apologize to those you may have wronged, although that is necessary. During these days of Repentance and Atonement, the work is that of transformation – of bringing about change. Jews are expected to seek reconciliation with those they have wronged, to work to right those wrongs, to give real energy (and not just lip service) to healing and repairing the world. And this begins with the inner work of examining one’s own physical and mental health; of asking honestly "what have I done, or failed to do, to respect and care for my own body? My own soul? My relationships with myself, with others, with God?" Faithfully done, it includes an honest examination of one’s self-awareness, questioning how I might be overestimating the power that others have over me, or underestimating my own power to inflict harm, or to do good. It includes a recognition that we can affect the world around us by our actions and our failure to act; by our words and by our silence. Every single year, it is a ten-day recognition of the indisputable fact that we are fallible, that we make mistakes and fall short of being our best selves – and that each new beginning holds the promise of a new beginning for ourselves and for all the world. When we fall short, we disappoint ourselves, and we disappoint God, who knows what we are capable of being and doing in our finest moments. When we recognize our mistakes, admit them to ourselves and to others, and work to renew and repair the harm we have done, we move closer to a relationship of atonement – at-one-ment – with ourselves, with others, and with God, however we may understand God. Rooted in the transcendent harmony that we fleetingly experience in moments of grace, built on the pain and the hope that together constitute forgiveness, atonement is an active, ongoing, ever-renewing relationship that we can initiate at any and every moment of our lives. No wonder these are called the Days of Awe!

Yom Kippur is the final day of this ten-day period, the most important holiday of the Jewish year. Observant Jews keep the day as a complete fast, lasting for the entire 25 hours, from one hour before sundown on the evening before Yom Kippur until nightfall on the day itself. The evening candles are lighted as usual in the home, but the table may be set with books rather than food – to show that Yom Kippur is celebrated in this house with study and prayer, and not with feasting. This is a period during which all time and attention is given to repentance and atonement with God. The pangs of hunger remind Jews how human they are, and how much they depend on God.

The evening service that begins Yom Kippur is commonly known as Kol Nidrei, for that prayer begins the service. The entire liturgy has been compared to a great symphony; the Kol Nidrei to a great opening chord, opening the hearts and minds and souls of the worshippers for the work that lies ahead. The whole next day may be spent in the synagogue, and many Jews who do not observe any other Jewish holiday will refrain from work, and will fast, and/or attend synagogue on this day. In Orthodox synagogues, the strictest of the three "streams" of Jewish observance, Yom Kippur services begin early in the morning and continue until about 3pm, then resume at 5 or 6pm and continue until nightfall. Passages from the Torah are read during the morning and the afternoon – including the story of Jonah and the whale (or, the great fish), with its lesson of God’s omnipresence, and God’s willingness to forgive even when people (such as Jonah) are inclined to hold grudges. At the end of a long day, the symphony comes to an end with the great, long prayers of confession.

It is in these prayers that we encounter a most unfamiliar and moving aspect of Jewish belief and practice. In phrase after phrase, the community confesses all the sins that "we" have committed, asking God to forgive, to pardon, to make atonement (at-one-ment) possible. The confessions are plural, not singular, in recognition of the interdependence and interconnectedness of all our lives and all our actions – and in recognition that in fear or ignorance or hunger or loneliness or revenge or anger any or all of us may have sinned, must have sinned. For me, this presents a sharp and moving contrast to the prevailing ethic in our society which almost reflexively denies wrongdoing – protesting first "I didn’t do it!" and then "I didn’t mean it!" We seem to believe that if we admit having done something wrong, we expose ourselves as being irredeemably "bad" people. How would it feel to be a part of a community that assumes and accepts that you will sin – and that builds into the cycle of every year a time for confession and forgiveness between human beings, and between humans and God? How would it feel to live in the faith that always, always, we can begin again in love?

Let us try the feeling on. Please open your hymnbooks to reading #637. This Litany of Atonement was written by a Unitarian Universalist minister, and it is considerably shorter than the great confessions of Yom Kippur, and considerably less monarchical in its language. I will read the lines in straight type – and you may read along, or just listen. Julie will read the response in italic type – and we will all say those lines out loud together.

A Litany of Atonement

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference