Sermon for Kol Nidre night 5784
September 24, 2023
I spoke on Rosh Hashanah about how Judaism contains a mix of universalistic and particularistic ideas.
The particularistic aspect is perhaps most strongly asserted in those words that we find in the traditional language of the first paragraph of the Aleinu:
שֶׁלֹּא עָשָֽׂנוּ כְּגוֹיֵי הָאֲרָצוֹת
וְלֹא שָׂמָֽנוּ כְּמִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה׃
שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃
[God] did not make us like the nations of the lands,
Nor place us like the families of the earth,
Nor make our portion like theirs,
Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.
Reconstructionist prayerbooks omit these lines because of the possible chauvinist and supremacist interpretations that they could imply. And that’s certainly one reasonable argument.
The Reform siddur Mishkan Tfilah includes those lines, as does the independent machzor “On Wings of Awe” that we are using for our High Holiday services, so I’m fine with including those lines in our services that use those prayerbooks.
Still, those lines, especially that last line --
שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃
[God has] not made our portion like theirs,
Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.
Those lines nowadays seem particularly inapt to me.
In these recent years of increasingly disturbing signs of climate change --- how can we Jews, or we Duluthians, or we Americans, anymore say -- without massive cognitive dissonance:
שֶׁלֹּא שָׂם חֶלְקֵֽנוּ כָּהֶם וְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃
[God has] not made our portion like theirs,
Nor our destiny like all the multitudes.
With regard to the global climate crisis ---
Goraleynu DAVKA kekhawl hamonam ---
Our destiny is INDEED like that of all the multitudes.
Maybe not to the same degree as for those suffering from historic heat waves in Italy or Arizona.
Maybe not to the same degree as for those who have had to flee from smoky wildfires in Northern California or from Yellowknife in the Canadian Northwest Territories.
Maybe not to the same degree as for those whose lives have been disrupted by increasingly common superstorms, floods and rising sea levels.
But, nevertheless, all of humanity still occupies just this one planet, and the effects of climate change are not hermetically compartmentalized by political borders.
As we are taught in the Midrash collection Ecclesiastes Rabbah:
בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, נְטָלוֹ וְהֶחֱזִירוֹ עַל כָּל אִילָנֵי גַּן עֵדֶן וְאָמַר לוֹ, רְאֵה מַעֲשַׂי כַּמָּה נָאִים וּמְשֻׁבָּחִין הֵן, וְכָל מַה רָא הַקָּדוֹשׁשֶּׁבָּרָאתִי בִּשְׁבִילְךָ בָּרָאתִי, תֵּן דַּעְתְּךָ שֶׁלֹא תְקַלְקֵל וְתַחֲרִיב אֶת עוֹלָמִי, שֶׁאִם קִלְקַלְתָּ אֵין מִי שֶׁיְתַקֵּן אַחֲרֶיךָ
When God created the first human being, God led the human around all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at My works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.”[1]
Duluth has made the news in recent years as a “climate refuge” and we even have members of our congregation who have moved here on that supposition. But the effects of the Canadian wildfires this summer gave pause to any of us who have been relying on such notions.
And the flood of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who have sought to enter Europe and North America in recent years has come in no insignificant part as a result of political upheavals that have been caused in significant part by climate change.[2]
Indeed, in the long run, and on a fundamental level ---
ְגֹרָלֵֽנוּ כְּכָל הֲמוֹנָם׃
Our destiny IS like that of all the multitudes.
--------------------
The main body of our liturgy tonight opened with Kol Nidre. We chanted it in its original language a little while ago, with all our Torah scrolls taken out of the ark standing as it were as witnesses and judges.
I purposely didn’t have us read it in English at that moment because I didn’t want to interrupt the dramatic flow of the liturgy – and, of course you all had the translation in front of you on page 256 of the machzor.
But it seems appropriate to read that translation now:
All vows, bonds, devotions, promises, obligations, penalties, oaths, wherewith we have vowed, sworn, devoted, and bound ourselves, from this Day of Atonement to the next Day of Atonement – may it come to us for good – all these we repent us of them. They shall be absolved, released, annulled, made void and of no effect; they shall not be binding nor shall they have any power. Our vows shall not be vows; our bonds shall not be bonds; and our oaths shall not be oaths.
This is what we might call an exercise in “teshuvah advance planning.” In effect, we’re trying to make amends for the wrongs we haven’t yet committed. Kol Nidre acknowledges that we are imperfect --- and that our best intentions are often thwarted by circumstances beyond our control, or simply by our own moral failings.
Indeed, with regard to such verbal undertakings, there is a strong current within Jewish tradition that teaches that it’s better not to make vows at all:
As it says in Deuteronomy 23: 22-23 --
“When you make a vow to the Eternal your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the Eternal your God will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas if you refrain from vowing, you incur no guilt.”
And as we learn in Ecclesiastes 5:4
טוֹב אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תִדֹּר--מִשֶּׁתִּדּוֹר, וְלֹא תְשַׁלֵּם
“It is better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill.”
And the Talmud, in Tractate Chullin, goes even further --- as it quotes the teaching of Rabbi Meir:
טוב מזה ומזה שאינו נודר כל עיקר
“Better than either of these (i.e., better than the person who makes a vow and fulfills it or than a person who makes a vow and fails to fulfill it), is one who doesn’t vow at all.” (Chullin 2a)
However, notwithstanding all the caveats in Kol Nidre and in our tradition about making vows at all, it seems to me that the current state of the world impels us to make a vow --- and to do our best to fulfill that vow ---
A vow to ourselves.
A vow to God
And, perhaps most fundamentally, a vow --- ledor vador -- to the generations who will follow us:
A vow that we will leave behind us a world that can continue to sustain human habitation.
That is not an easy task. And it’s not a task at which we can succeed simply through private individual actions. Indeed, one of the scandals of recent decades has been the concerted effort by powerful corporations to put the onus on individuals for solving the climate crisis.
A recent article in the independent journal “YES!” cogently describes the situation.
Here are some excerpts from that article by journalist Casandra Roxburgh entitled “Individuals Are Not to Blame for the Climate Crisis”:
She writes:
“[…] George Monbiot [a columnist for The Guardian newspaper] has described individual responsibility as one of the most significant lies ever told by the fossil fuel industry and the PR companies that devise their messaging. And still, these messages continue to be perpetuated by leaders worldwide. […]
“[According to Robert Brulle, a visiting professor of environment and society at Brown University,] [t]he first mainstream manifestation of this individual focus […] was BP inventing the concept of the “carbon footprint.” It’s a messaging strategy that has fundamentally reshaped how the public views the climate crisis.
“Suggesting turning off the lights or driving less loses sight of the global severity of the climate crisis and shifts the focus off those with the greatest capacity and responsibility to make meaningful change.
[…]
“The often-touted solution of changing individual consumption habits is a nonstarter. It feeds into the narrative of individual responsibility that the fossil fuel industry has manufactured. Ethically, yes, one should reduce meat consumption and use public transportation more often. However, those things will not single-handedly make a difference in the grand scheme of things: An individual can save a meager 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide by going carless, which can’t compare with the 1.38 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent Shell emitted last year.”[3]
So, yes, let’s each do our best to reduce our own carbon footprints. But let us not lose sight of the need to view these issues on a societal level. What we especially need to do is to be sure to vote for political candidates who exhibit seriousness in addressing climate change on the macro level, nationally and internationally.
In any event, it’s always best to remain hopeful. Indeed, that’s the note on which Psalm 27, which we read throughout Elul and the High Holiday season, closes:
לׅׄוּׅׄלֵׅ֗ׄאׅׄ הֶ֭אֱמַנְתִּי לִרְא֥וֹת בְּֽטוּב־ה' בְּאֶ֣רֶץ חַיִּֽים׃
קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־י ה' חֲ֭זַק וְיַאֲמֵ֣ץ לִבֶּ֑ךָ וְ֝קַוֵּ֗ה אֶל־ ה'׃
Mine is the faith that I surely will see the Eternal’s goodness in the land of the living. Hope in the Eternal and be strong. Hope in the Eternal and take courage.[4]
We traditionally greet one another on Yom Kippur invoking the Talmud’s poetic metaphor of a celestial “Book of Life.”
Gmar Chatimah Tovah – we say – May you have a “good final sealing” in the Book of Life for the year ahead.
To this we must add, on a decidedly non-metaphorical level, one more prayerful intention:
May we, individually and collectively, be part of the solution in addressing the crisis of climate change in the year ahead.
For we know that, the traditional words of the Aleinu notwithstanding,
[God] has indeed made us like all the other nations of the lands,
We have indeed been placed like all the other families of the earth,
Our portion is indeed like theirs,
Our destiny is indeed like all the multitudes.
ONE WORLD, ONE FATE.
May God help us in the task ahead.
AMEN.
(c) Rabbi David Steinberg 5784/2023
[1] https://www.sefaria.org/Kohelet_Rabbah.7.13.1?lang=bi
[2] See, e.g., https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/05/13/climate-migration-an-impending-global-challenge/
[3] https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2022/01/31/climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-individual-responsibility
[4] Psalm 27: 13-14, translation adapted from that of Rabbi Jules Harlow in his Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, p. 53.
