This is the drasha (sermon) I gave on Yom Kippur 5776/2015 at New North London Synagogue.
I remember myself as a 14 year-old, the second Yom Kippur after my bar mitzvah,
refusing to go to shul, staying home and demonstratively eating because I didn’t
believe in God and I refused to be a hypocrite.
Things have changed – here I am! – but in some ways, while I’m less
concerned about inconsistency, have found my place within traditional Jewish
observance, and have a more sophisticated view of the problems, nothing’s
changed for me.
Here are my problems with Yom Kippur.
Firstly: the whole construct of the Yamim Noraim (and in some ways
Judaism as a whole) is built on an unsustainable anthropomorphism – a judging
God who rewards and punishes.
I don’t believe in such a God and, on a deeper level, I reject the
underlying assumption which is that the world is in some way inherently just.
Secondly: morality for me as a modern, liberal individual, is about the
mitzvot beyn adam le-havero (commandments between people), which
I regard as the expression of a binding ethical system. It’s hard to imagine the observance of the mitzvot
beyn adam le-makom (between a person and God) as more
than a lifestyle choice, since they don’t affect anyone but me. And why would I need to repent from a lifestyle
choice?
While the process of teshuva (repentance) relates to both kinds
of mitzvot, the rabbis teach that Yom Kippur only repents for sins
between people if we’ve already made good the damage, received forgiveness and repented
before the day starts. And if, as the Rambam
teaches, teshuva is the essence of atonement, then the rituals of Yom Kippur
itself seem to have no essential function.
This problem has another aspect: teshuva means making change, changing
ourselves. This requires a deep process
of personal transformation, which we’re more likely to achieve through some
kind of long term therapy, working with another person or in a group, than by
standing in shul, surrounded by other people, but essentially alone with our
thoughts.
This is recognised in the tradition: the Rambam (Maimonides) writes
that true repentance means a change both of behaviour and of attitude, requires
a person to avoid negative, habit-forming behaviours and to remove herself from
the situation in which the sin is likely to recur, and teaches that true
repentance can only be achieved by confessing one’s sins to others. The confessional prayers we say in synagogue,
reciting a fixed formula of words in unison, can hardly be described as an authentic
confession of personal sins.
Thirdly, modern, liberal ethics has to be based on autonomous choice. Not just free will in the sense of deciding
whether or not to obey the commandments we’ve been given – this is assumed by
the rabbis and implies an a priori acceptance of the commandments
themselves – but freedom to think for ourselves and shape our own moral
code. I expect not only to choose how to
behave, but also to decide for myself the difference between right and
wrong.
But the vidui (confessional prayer) of Yom Kippur presents us
with a list of sins, our job being to accept the framework and judge ourselves
accordingly. Even if we happen to agree
with many of the sins we’re presented with, how can this be a framework for
proper, autonomous moral deliberation?
So what kinds of answers can I suggest?
Firstly, the tradition provides some justification for my concerns and
basic perspective. This is not something
that needs to separate me from Judaism, but something that our thinkers have
always grappled with.
As an arch-rationalist, Maimonides – perhaps our most important halachic
authority and theologian – clearly could not accept the anthropomorphic view of
atonement, nor the idea that the ritual has any kind of magical effect. But he also knew that the traditional
concepts were important to his medieval audience.
In his Hilkhot Teshuva / Laws of Repentance, he says: ‘at present,
when the Temple does not exist and there is no altar of atonement, there
remains nothing else aside from teshuva.’ He also says, ‘the essence of Yom
Kippur atones’ but only ‘for those who repent.’
The anthropomorphisms and the rituals are a means to an end, a way of
focusing our minds, of bringing people to the correct psychological state to engage
in confession and soul-searching. The
essence is the internal process of repentance itself.
Maimonides helps affirm my basic perspective that the real work of
repentance has to be done outside of shul, with people, over a long period, and
that I don’t need to adopt a simplistic theology in order to engage with
it. Yom Kippur is a moment of
introspection, reflection and making personal commitments about the change I
want to create.
A practical solution might be to change what we do in shul, building in
a process of facilitated, group-based introspection and reflection over the
yamim noraim – the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. (For more on this see, this article by
Donniel Hartman: http://bit.ly/1iNB8tt).
But the Rambam doesn’t help with my fundamental problem: the clash
between the vidui, the framework of the mitzvot, and my aspiration
to be an autonomous moral agent.
I want to address this through an article by the one of the most
important modern Jewish philosophers, Emil Fackenheim (click here to read extracts from the article: http://bit.ly/1LyBsad). Fackenheim agrees that we cannot stand before
God and respond affirmatively to the commandments without free choice. Recognising and living out our freedom is a
necessary condition for any relationship with Judaism.
But at the same time, freedom to make choices about our relationship
with the tradition, means standing in the presence of God and hearing that
commanding voice.
Freedom and service or obedience need each other. We can’t shape our relationship with the
mitzvot unless we accept the framework of mitzvot as our starting point.
Perhaps this is the function of the vidui, the Al Het
prayer we recite throughout Yom Kippur. It
confronts us with this framework, and with the underlying commanding voice of
God (alternatively the voice of the tradition or the idea of an objective moral
code). This is the precondition for any
meaningful, authentically Jewish, process of deliberation, soul searching, teshuva,
and choosing, freely, to be different.
Gmar hatima tova.
