A version of this sermon was delivered at Kol Nidre, 5780 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation
Each year, on this day and this day alone, Yom Kippur, the High Priest of Israel, direct descendant of Aaron, Moses’s brother, would make his way from his home in Jerusalem, through the community, into the Temple complex, and up to the Temple Courtyard. Within a few hours, the entire procedure for the day was completed. The people of Israel had been forgiven their sins for another year.
It was
a precarious day for the people of Israel.
Would they be forgiven? Would the
High Priest do his duty as prescribed?
Would he ensure that the rites and the rituals would be carried out
exactly as they had been for generations, since God first gave instruction to
Moses, generations ago in the wilderness?
And
what a day for the High Priest… One misstep, one word wrong, one scratch, one
error, and the entire procedure would have to start over. Or worse, his prayer would be denied by God. He would be struck down. The people’s forgiveness delayed.
He was
awakened at midnight, an air of anticipation, until the crack of dawn, when he
would begin to make his way to the top of the mountain. To God’s abode. To the center of the spiritual universe, to the
locus of holiness.
The
High Priest was surrounded by his acolytes, who stood outside the ritual bath
with a curtain between so that they would not gaze upon him. He bared his flesh, immersed himself, and
then put on the eight priestly garments, for he had prepared himself in
conformity with the unchanging law.
Appropriately and unerringly, he offered the sheep, spilled its blood,
offered the incense, lit the lamp, arranged the sacrifice on the altar, and
poured the libation.
Then he once again came out to the porch to
sanctify and immerse himself – this time putting on the white linen vestments,
not the gold ones. He stretched his
hands over the bull and confessed his sins, and those of his household,
withholding nothing in embarrassment.
And thus he would say:
Adonai, I have committed iniquity, I have
transgressed, I have sinned against you, I and my household. I beseech you, Adonai, by your holy name:
forgive the iniquities and the transgressions, and the sins that I have
committed against You, I and my household, as is written in the Torah of your
servant Moses: “On this day, atonement shall me made for you, to cleanse you of
all your sins before Adonai…”
When the priests and all the people standing
in the Temple Court would hear the glorious and awe-inspiring name explicitly
enunciated, in holiness and purity, by the lips of the High Priest, they would
bow, and kneel, and fall prostrate to the ground, saying; Baruch Shem Kevod
Malchuto l’olam va’ed! Praised be God’s glorious majesty for ever and
ever!”
The High Priest would intentionally prolong
the utterance of the Name while the people recited their praise, whereupon he
would complete the verse saying: “…You shall be cleansed!”
And You, [O God] out of Your goodness, aroused
your love and forgave the one who was faithful to you. [1]
With
this first confession, the High Priest, in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem
would confess his sins and the sins of his family. He would go on to repeat the same procedure twice
more, in the early hours of the morning of Yom Kippur. The people’s forgiveness could not wait. Each time, he would confess again, broadening
his vision and his scope. After atoning for his family, he would then atone for
his tribe, the entire house of Levi. Finally,
he would atone for the sins of all the community of Israel.
When
the entire procedure was done, when the sacrifices were concluded, when the scapegoat
had been sent to the wilderness carrying the sins of the people, when the
instruments had all been washed, and the vestments buried, “the crowd
accompanied their faithful leader home, exulting that the red thread had been
turned to pure white [meaning their sins had been forgiven by God]. They gave thanks, gathering the fruits of
peace; they sang praises, reaping fulfillment.”[2] For generations, each Yom Kippur, the people
would celebrate behind the High Priest, looking forward to a year ahead, to
their work ahead and to doing so imbued with God’s forgiveness and a reminder
about the holiness inherent within them.
The
High Priest was sent on a journey every Yom Kippur to find expiation for his
family and his community. In so doing,
he also encounters the most Holy. Not
just because of where he is and what he’s doing, but because of how he does it,
and how in order to find the holy, he has to search for the center.
In the
middle of Jerusalem stands Mount Moriah.
At the top of Mount Moriah stood the Temple complex. In the middle of the Temple Complex, the
Temple Courtyard. In the middle of the
Courtyard, the Temple itself. And in the
middle of the Temple, the Kodesh HaKodeshim, the Holy of Holies, Sanctum
Sanctorum, the locus of Divine presence on Earth. In the middle of everything. Everything emanates from this point on Earth:
the Entrance to Eden, the spot chosen by God to show Abraham. In this most central of spots, God’s presence
dwelt between the cherubim on the cover of the Ark, only to be approached on
this one day.
The
Mishnah for Yom Kippur is found in a tractate called Yoma, Aramaic for “the
day.” That tractate takes pains to
express the specialness of the day and explain in some detail the service of
the High Priest on Yom Kippur. When he
would enter into the Holy Of Holies, the priest would take a handful of
incense, throw it on burning coals in a golden vessel, place that vessel down
between the poles of the Ark, and fill the small innermost chamber with smoke
as he pronounced the prayers of atonement for himself, his family, and his
community.
In
that place in the middle of everything, he would commune with the presence of
the Eternal, shrouded in smoke, and by just a few words, inspire not just his
family and his community, but the generations that would follow, that they too
could be in relationship with God.
In
order to approach God, in order to have the deep connection to God, the High
Priest needed to make his way to the center, needed to be sure to leave the
extraneous outside. The most holy is in
the middle. And that is not unique to
the experience of the High Priest on Yom Kippur. The book of Leviticus, the book of the
priests is the middle book of the Torah.
In the middle of that book, we find God’s instructions that we are to be
holy as God is holy, and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, the most
central of the commandments, according to Rabbi Akiva and Hillel.
If the
middle is where the holiness is found, then finding middle ground, making space
for ourselves and others, is a practice in creating holiness. If the middle is where the holiness is found,
then the work of compromise is the work of creating holy solutions.
Over
this last year, the first as our newly merged congregation, we have striven to
find the holiness of the middle as we’ve merged two traditions. There were a lot of decisions to make and a
lot of issues to overcome, but the leadership of this congregation, committed
to our shared values, and to creating a sacred community, sought always to find
the appropriate holy center.
The
holiness of compromise means making space for all voices and working hard to
include different viewpoints. The
holiness of the middle means working to not allow extreme points of view to
become the only voices heard. The
holiness of the middle means striving to come up with something wholly new,
never before seen, bringing with it the best of what has come before. Friends, I think this evening, we have
surrounded ourselves with holiness, and we ought to be proud.
But
wait, Rabbi, it’s Kol Nidre, should we really be feeling proud? Aren’t we supposed to be atoning? Isn’t this a day about self-affliction? Yes, it is all of that. But if it is only that, we are only doing
half the work. You see, the High Priest,
yes, was surely filled with dread as he made his way into the sacred center,
but he entered that space knowing that he had done all he could to follow all
the rules and regulations so that the day would go as planned and so that the
people would be forgiven. He ended the
day jubilantly, knowing that he had done good work, that he had followed God’s
path. That he had connected to his
family, that he had created a community of forgiven souls devoted to God’s
project, and that he had inspired his generation, as his predecessors had done
and as his successors would do.
Yom
Kippur is about taking stock. It doesn’t
say that it has to be only a list of the negatives. Certainly, we’ve all been stubborn when it
comes to our opinions. We all haven’t
always sought the holy middle. I know
that I am certainly guilty of that, and for those times when my zeal got the
better of me, I apologize. But alongside
that sin, there is the knowledge that at times, we did make space. We did empathize. We did give a little. And what that shows us is that we are all
capable of finding the holy middle. We
all know what it takes, how it feels and how to do it. If we don’t acknowledge the good, we cannot
commit to doing more of it in the year ahead!
As I
explained when we affixed a new mezuzah to this holy space, each mezuzah that
adorns our doorposts is to be hung at an angle for no other reason than because
a man and his grandson disagreed. Rashi,
our tradition’s greatest sage, who lived and worked in France in the 11th
Century, in a comment on a piece of Talmud about the mezuzah, notes that it
should be hung vertically, it’s top pointing toward the heavens.
His
grandson, Rabbeinu Tam, an accomplished sage himself, disagreed, and instructed
that the mezuzah should be hung horizontally, since the 10 commandments were
laid horizontally in the Ark, which rested in the Holy of Holies. On the same page of Talmud, we can see
Rashi’s comment and Rabbeinu Tam’s. Both
men are revered for their understanding of Jewish Law, and both make compelling
arguments. And neither of them won!
Ultimately,
Rabbi Jacob Ben Asher, 150 years later in his law code, decides that to honor
both, to uphold the holiness of both opinions, a compromise must be
reached. He advises hanging the mezuzah
at an angle, in between Rashi’s preference and Rabbeinu Tam’s.
The
words of Torah, reminding us to love Adonai with all our heart, soul, and
might, those words which we place inside our mezuzah, those words we hang on
our doorposts to remind us of God as we come and go, they are also a symbol of
the holy middle, of the possibility of compromise. The marker of Jewishness reminds us of the
holiness of compromise.
Looking
around our sanctuary this evening, I cannot help but be reminded of that sacred
compromise, as we gaze upon our newly installed memorial boards, all hung at
angles, honoring all equally. All the
names given the same space in the same Holy space. The committee that worked very hard to
oversee the design, installation, and administration of these boards,
containing thousands of names, containing countless memories, certainly had to make
compromises. In their work, they focused on shared values, and ultimately,
ensured that there would be space for everyone’s name, and that everyone’s
memory would be equally honored.
Our
holy space, our sanctuary, and our holiest task, the task of memory, now also
serve as symbols of the holy middle, of the holiness of compromise.
The
Temple in Jerusalem is no more. Ever
since the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis instituted that rather than the
actual service of the High Priest, a recitation of that service would suffice
for God. But prayer without action is
incomplete. The recitation of this
service calls us to seek the holy middle: to strive for it, to seek out that
holiness, or to create it for ourselves by channeling the divine call to
holiness.
Before
we even receive the 10 commandments, we are called by God to be a nation of Priests,
a holy people.[3] Tomorrow afternoon, we will read from the
middle of the middle book of the Torah that we are to be holy because God is
holy, Kedoshim tihiyu.[4] We are called to channel holiness.
Like
the High Priests of old, who brought about expiation and ultimately jubilation for
their family and their community over generations, we recognize the role we
have to play as well. We are the
inheritors of the mantle of the High Priests, making our way toward the holy
middle, and like the High Priest, we have a job to do. And that job is to make of this holy
congregation a place that connects families, creates community, and inspires
generations.
How
are we working with our families to provide opportunities for every
member? How are we working to connect families
to each other so that we build our circles and reinforce our social lives as
much as our social media? How are we
helping our families live Jewish lives in the ways that they want and the ways
that are important to them and add meaning to the daily chaos? How are we encouraging each other to find a
place in the holy center, even if, especially if, some of us are accustomed to
being on the outskirts?
How
will we go about strengthening our community?
How will we work to bridge the gaps between the different generations
and the different arms of the congregation?
How will we ensure that we are providing a safe and comfortable space
for everyone, where everyone is also willing to be pushed in their thinking,
and to struggle with what God asks of us?
How will we use our community to pursue and spread righteousness in our
neighborhood and in our world? How can
we marshal the power we create by coming together in the holy middle to spread
our influence of holiness wider each day and each year?
The
answers to these questions and more are before us. But these questions are not the questions of
two communities coming together. These
questions are posed to a new, strong, Holy congregation, chomping at the bit to
do what we are called to do—create a thriving, inspiring Judaism for future
generations to inherit. To make this congregation a locus of holiness.
Connecting
families. Creating community. Inspiring generations. These are our sacred tasks.
This day,
the day, we are reminded over and over that the future is in our hands and the
answers to the questions before us are waiting for us to discover. Yom Kippur is a day of optimism for the
future. A day when we commit to the best
possible future, when we recognize the opportunity for perfection on this
Sabbath of Sabbaths. The future of this
congregation is bright and filled with holiness because each of us is a conduit
for that holiness. We are conduits for
that holiness when we work together and create a holy middle.
The
future is before us. May it be good,
sweet, and centered around holiness.
G’mar
Chatimah Tovah.
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