Sermon for Kol Nidre night 5783
October 4, 2022
As I explained back on Rosh Hashanah, I have decided to use the four added paragraphs in the High Holiday kedushah as my “chomer lidrosh” – that is to say, as the texts I’ll try to sermonize about – for my four High Holiday sermons. These are the four paragraphs that we find in the High Holiday machzor that are added to the third blessing of the Amidah.
Three of these paragraphs begin with the word “Uvechen” meaning “Therefore”. And the last of the four added paragraphs begins with the word “Vetimlokh” meaning “and You shall rule”.
In our Kol Nidre service this evening we find these passages on pages 225 through 228.
I talked about the first “Uvechen” paragraph on Erev Rosh Hashanah and the second “Uvechen” paragraph on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah. This evening we’ll turn to the third “Uvechen” paragraph.
In preparing these talks I’ve tried to get my head around the liturgical history of these passages. It’s a little complicated but from what I can gather, there was a debate among the sages of the Mishnah as to where in the Rosh Hashanah service we should sound the shofar.
Apparently these “Uvechen” paragraphs in the third blessing of the Amidah was where some said we should sound the shofar. Later in history, the three sets of shofar calls were moved to another part of the service, but these special readings still stayed put in this part of the service, even without the accompanying shofar calls. Thus, if you look through the “Uvechen” passages you can still find echoes of the themes of the readings that accompany the shofar calls elsewhere in the Rosh Hashanah service.
Of course, that raises the question, why are we still saying these additional prayers on Yom Kippur? And the answer is – as it so often is in Judaism -- -it’s a tradition!!!! ---Though I do think these passages still fit in well Yom Kippur too.
If you’ll recall, the first “Uvechen” paragraph focused on the vision of all humanity joining together in one fellowship (Agudah Achat) to recognize the sovereignty of God.
And the second “Uvechen” paragraph focused on the hoped-for arrival of messianic days
Now the third “Uvechen” paragraph opens with a description of how good people will respond to the coming of that ultimate time of peace and justice.
Let’s take a look. Please open your machzorim to p. 226 and we look at the Hebrew at the bottom of that page. I’ll translate it line by line:
וּבְכֵן צַדִּיקִים יִרְאוּ וְיִשְׂמָֽחוּ
And therefore the righteous will see and rejoice,
וִישָׁרִים יַעֲלֹֽזוּ
and the upright will be jubilant,
וַחֲסִידִים בְּרִנָּה יָגִֽילוּ
and the pious will exult with joyous song;
Wow! That’s three different expressions for joy following one another in rapid succession!
These expressions of joy and jubilation remind us that Yom Kippur is not supposed to be a sad holiday. We may be fasting, and contemplating our sins, and memorializing our dead, but even on this most awesome of the Days of Awe we should still cultivate joy.
Sukkot, five days from now, is known as Zeman Simchateinu, the Season of our Joy, but that joy is already ramping up on Yom Kippur.
Indeed in the Mishnah (Taanit 4:8) it is taught that during the days when the Temple stood, Yom Kippur (along with Tu B’Av in mid-summer) were the happiest days of the year, days on which young people found their romantic mates.
Yom Kippur is not a sad day. We are taught to have hope and confidence in our ability to do the work of teshuvah . The 18th century commentator known as the Vilna Ga’on, taught that the designation -- Yom Ha-Kippurim [יום הכפורים] – which is how the Day of Atonement is referred to in the Torah – should be interpreted as if the letter kaf[כ] were not part of the verbal root kaf-pey-resh [כפר] meaning “atone” but rather as if that letter kaf represented the prefix “ke” (meaning “like” or “as) so that we’d get “Yom ke-Purim,” meaning “A Day Like Purim.”
Rabbi Shraga Simmons, referring to that classic pun, writes: “That which we accomplish on Yom Kippur with spiritual pursuits, we accomplish on Purim with physical pursuits. These holidays are two sides of the same coin, two opposite halves of the same day.”[1]
How do you experience joy?
We don’t need to wait for the coming of messianic days to cultivate simchah, alizah, gila, rina --- all of them being Hebrew terms for joy that we find in this passage in our machzor.
I guess for me, I find joy in experiencing and performing music, in being outdoors in nature, in sharing experiences with loved ones, in travel, in good conversation, in good food, to name a few sources.
As a classic dictum in the Talmud Yerushalmi teaches:
עתיד אדם ליתן דין וחשבון על כל מה שראת עינו ולא אכל
“In the future each person will have to account for everything their eyes saw which, although permissible, they did not enjoy.”[2]
But, as we know, Yom Kippur is not ALL fun and games. The paragraph that we are discussing this evening continues with a description of what awaits evil people once we have healed our world:
וְעוֹלָֽתָה תִּקְפָּץ פִּֽיהָ. וְכָל הָרִשְׁעָה כֻּלָּהּ כְּעָשָׁן תִּכְלֶה כִּי תַעֲבִיר מֶמְשֶֽׁלֶת זָדוֹן מִן הָאָֽרֶץ
“injustice will close its mouth, and all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You remove the tyranny of arrogance from the earth”
The world is not lacking these days in arrogant tyrants. There are plenty of candidates for that designation of “memshelet zadon.”
We see it in Russia, in Burma, in Iran, in China and elsewhere. But if democratic nations keep up the pressure then -- with God’s help -- human rights will be advanced.
Though, matters get complicated when the tyrants are armed with nuclear weapons. Let us pray that sanity prevails in the global conflicts that face us today.
*******
The other phrase in this third “uvechen” paragraph that has always been very evocative for me is that image of wickedness vanishing “ke-ashan” – “like smoke”
“Smoke” is a loaded symbol for all of us.
I think of the smoke of the crematoria in which the Nazis burned millions of our people.
I think of the smoke from the wildfires that increasingly plague not just the west but even, at times, Duluth as well – getting worse each year from the effects of climate change.
And I think about all those who have been addicted to tobacco and succumbed to cancer as a result.
A personal memory – I remember when I was a teen ager and my younger siblings and I hid all the ashtrays in our house. Our parents scolded us but they still got the message and within a few years after that incident that they had each quit smoking.
But here in our High Holiday prayer – smoke symbolizes healing – the healing that comes when wickedness goes away.
On Yom Kippur we try to put the past behind us, at least those aspects of the past that have not served us well. And we have a classic image of a celestial book that records our deeds for better or for worse.
We remain who we are. Our deeds remain part of us. But we strive all the same to move forward and get a fresh start towards being better people.
All this High Holiday season I’ve been thinking about a song called “Smoke.” It’s from the 1997 album “Whatever and Ever Amen” by the group Ben Folds Five. Singer/songwriter Ben Folds is not Jewish, and I doubt he’s all that familiar with the details of the Jewish High Holidays liturgy.
But this song, “Smoke,” that he co-wrote with Anna Goodman sticks in my brain. Ben and Anna had met when they were both in first grade, were close friends growing up, married each other in their twenties, divorced six years later but remained friends and artistic collaborators. Their song is about a romantic breakup but (with a little bit of judicious editing) I think it works also as a midrash on moving forward in life and leaving our regrets behind us --- which to me is a helpful attitude as we move forward into a new year.
Leaf by leaf and page by page
Throw this book away
All the sadness, all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
And all of the grief we never even knew
We had it all along
Now it's smoke
[…]
Here's an evening dark with shame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here's the time I took the blame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here is the time when we didn't speak
It seems, for years and years
And here's a secret
No one will ever know
The reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Smoke
Smoke
[…]
Where do all the secrets live?
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Can stop and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not dead
Well, stop and smell the smoke […]
You keep on saying the past is not even past […]
[Well, stop and smell the smoke] […]
[…]
We are smoke
Smoke
Smoke[3]
****
And in the wider world, we have faith that good will prevail,
UVECHEN, and therefore,
וְכָל הָרִשְׁעָה כֻּלָּהּ כְּעָשָׁן תִּכְלֶה כִּי תַעֲבִיר מֶמְשֶֽׁלֶת זָדוֹן מִן הָאָֽרֶץ
“all the wickedness will vanish like smoke, when You [O God] remove the tyranny of arrogance from the earth”
Of course, God needs our help to achieve this goal.
But you knew that already.
Gmar chatimah tovah/ May we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year – us, our families, our friends, our country, our people and our world.
Amen.
© Rabbi David Steinberg (October 2022/ Tishri 5783)
[1] https://aish.com/48949286/
[2] Talmud Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 4:12
[3] Here’s a link to a live performance of the song, including the lyrics I elided above because they didn’t quite fit in with my theme. (I.e., regarding teshuva, I wouldn’t advocate thinking of our past actions as having “never really happened” but the rest of the song works really well for purposes of this sermon!)
