Sermon for Yom Kippur morning 5784
September 25, 2023
What is Yom Kippur? The Torah tells us, in Leviticus chapter 16, verses 29 through 31, which we read earlier today:
“This shall be for you a law for all time: in the seventh month on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial, and you shall do no manner of creative labor, neither the citizen nor the stranger in your midst. For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you of all your sins; you shall be clean before the Eternal.”
In ancient Israel, this atonement was achieved through purification rituals conducted by the Kohen Gadol (the High Priest) in the Temple in Jerusalem: We still recount these rituals in the dramatic Avodah service on Yom Kippur afternoon.
In later centuries, up to our own time, the centralized, sacrificial, priest-centered rituals were replaced in Judaism by a focus on individual efforts --- towards repentance, prayer and social justice ---- or to use the Hebrew phrasing of our High Holiday liturgy -- teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah.
We turn inward and judge ourselves --- so that we may find new energy to turn outward and repair the world.
We do this with seriousness of purpose: This is Yom Din, a day of judgment, a day on which our ancestors imagined that our fate for the coming year is being sealed in a book of life. We are taught that the entries in that celestial book are written in our own handwriting, by our own freely willed acts and omissions.
In this sacred season, teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah go together --- with our inner work of teshuvah ----- finding emotional expression in our tefillah ---- and concrete effect in our acts of tzedakah. In essence, this is about cheshbon-ha-nefesh, taking stock of one’s own soul. We seek during this season of repentance to bridge the gap between our actions and our ideals.
In the penitential prayers of our synagogue services, we phrase our confessions in the plural, reminding us that whether we attend synagogue regularly or not, whether we call ourselves Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform or none of the above, whether we live in the State of Israel or in the Diaspora, whether we are Jews by birth or by choice ---- we are all one people --- all sharing one fate --- all responsible for one another----- and all called to the pursuit of justice throughout the world and peace among all people.
Still, it all begins on the individual level.
So, on that individual level, where ought we to begin?
You may be familiar with a poem that was written in 1927 by the Indiana-born poet Max Ehrmann. It was called “Desiderata,” and, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up, it became widely known and quoted in popular culture. I even had a framed copy of “Desiderata” on the wall of my bedroom when I was in High School – which, I might add, was subsequently commandeered by my sister when I went away to college. To this day, over 40 years later, she still has it hanging on the wall of the guest room of her home in south Florida.
But I digress…
Anyway, the poem[1] starts like this:
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
I was reminded of Max Ehrmann’s poem Desiderata when I came across a Jewish text written some seven centuries earlier. Here is some advice for living that was written by Rabbi Eleazar Ben Judah of Worms circa 1200 C.E. To me it’s sort of a medieval rabbinic version of “Desiderata” appropriate for Yom Kippur reflection even today.
If you happen to come across a copy of the old Silverman machzor, originally published in 1939 and revised in 1951, you can find it there, where the reading is entitled “Meditation”:
It goes like this:
Let your dealings be such that a blush need never color your cheek; be sternly dumb to the voice of passion; commit no sin, saying to yourself that you will repent and make atonement at a later time. Let no oath ever pass your lips; play not the haughty aristocrat in your heart; follow not the desire of your eyes, banish carefully all guile from your soul, all unseemly self-assertion from your bearing and your temper.
Speak never mere empty words; enter into strife with no person; place no reliance of those of mocking lips; wrangle not with evil people; cherish no too fixed good opinion of yourself; but lend your ear to criticism and reproof.
Be not weakly pleased at demonstrations of honor; strive not anxiously for distinction; never let a thought of envy of those who do grave wrong cross your mind; be never enviously jealous of others, or too eager for money.
Honor your parents; make peace whenever you can among people, lead them gently into the good path; place your trust in those who love God.
If worldly wealth be lent to you, exalt not yourself above your sibling; for both of you came naked into the world, and both of you will surely have to sleep at last together in the dust.
Bear well your heart against the assaults of envy, which kills even sooner than death itself; and know no envy at all, save such envy of the merits of virtuous people, as shall lead you to emulate the beauty of their lives. Surrender not yourself a slave to hate, that ruin of all the heart’s good resolves, that destroyer of the very savor of food, of sleep, of all reverence in our souls.
Keep peace both within the city and without, for it goes well with all those who are counsellors of peace; be wholly sincere; mislead no one by prevarications, by words smoother than intention, as little as by direct falsehood. For God, the Eternal, is a God of truth; it is God from whom truth flowed first, who begat truth and sent it into creation. [2]
We know that such noble aspirations are often easier said than done, but we assemble as a community this day to support each other in following the path of the good life. As we say when we finish a book of the torah – chazak, chazak, v’nitchazeyk --- be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another.
That’s also an appropriate kavanah, or prayerful intention for this concluding day of the Yamim Nora’im/ these “Days of Awe.”
Yom Kippur is a solemn day but not a sad day.
We are taught to have hope and confidence in our ability to do the work of teshuvah . A classic pun on the Hebrew name of this holiday reminds us of this --- In the Torah the Day of Atonement is called Yom Kippurim. According to the classic pun --- the two words “Yom Kippurim” meaning Day of Atonement should be read as three words --- Yom Ki Purim --- a day like Purim. And so, we might say that just as on Purim our people collectively succeeded with God’s help in defeating their external adversaries, so we on this Yom Kippurim/ this day like Purim --- will surely succeed with God’s help – in overcoming our internal adversaries of sin and despair.
This Yom Ki Purim this Day Like Purim can be for each of us a time of joy and gratitude for the power to make amends for our misdeeds.
Speaking of connections between holidays, we usually lump Yom Kippur together with Rosh Hashanah and speak of them collectively as the Days of Awe or the High Holidays. However, an important tie also links Yom Kippur with Sukkot, our fall harvest festival which follows Yom Kippur by only five days. Philo of Alexandria, some twenty-one centuries ago, taught that Yom Kippur is like a pause to say a blessing over a meal. Since the meal is the harvest – the meal of the entire year --- the pause for the blessing is also much longer than your typical one-sentence “hamotzi”.
And so, we pause --- for prayer, for self-reflection, for blessing, for supplication.
May the solemnity and power of this day inspire us to return to our better selves.
Gmar chatimah tovah v’tzom kal/ A good sealing and an easy fast to one and all.
© Rabbi David Steinberg (September 2023/ Tishri 5784)
[1] https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
[2] Eleazar Rokeach, 1200 --- as quoted in High Holiday Prayer Book, Rabbi Morris Silverman, editor (Prayer Book Press, 1951), p. 348 (adapted)
