Kol Nidrei 5782

No Guarantees

My heart pounded as our four-year-old racing along the sidewalk on her big wheels. I worried: would she turn the corner or end up in the middle of the street? I can’t watch! She made the turn. Whew! She always made the turn. Yet my heart always pounded.

Today, much of her bike riding is on an exercise machine. No worries!

I believe that for some of us, worry or concern plague us at least occasionally through the year. And if it’s not worry or concern, it might be anxiety, angst, overthinking, underthinking, losing confidence, being over-confident.

How many of us have wished we could live that top 40 hit: “Don’t worry, be happy!” or hold to the credo of Alfred E Neuman: “What, me worry?”

About what are we so worried? About health and wealth (or lack thereof), our parents, their children, our children, work, play, coronavirus, politics, global warming, personal relationships…OY!

A Jewish response to some of the worry in our lives is “FEH!”

Another Jewish response to worry is Yom Kippur. Yes, Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur is fasting; it’s a long day of prayer, readings, Hebrew, sitting, standing, listening.
It is — or could be, should be — a full day full of introspection, reflection, determination. Of prayer, of singing, of really listening, even if only to our own hearts. Of perusing the explanations and inspirations in the High Holy Day machzor.

I think we all get the idea that Yom Kippur is an exploration of, in the words of Rabbi Alan Lucas, “the possibility of gaining purposeful, meaningful perspective on life through introspection and ruthless self-analysis.” (The Observant Life; Holy Days and Holidays)

According to Torah, “Yom kippurim hu lachem / this is a day set aside for you to atone, v’initem et nafshoteichem / and you shall afflict your souls.” A whole day for atonement and affliction.

Atonement and affliction.

Let’s start with atonement: “I’m sorry.” “I’m really sorry.” “I’m really truly sorry.” We know the words; the action needed to make amends is the harder part.

This week, in The New York Times, Rabbi David Wolpe wrote about atonement: “Yom Kippur does not magically buy you absolution.…” Further, you must apologize sincerely and understand your actions so you can return to “a less tainted state,” and change your behavior. He offered that regret or apology “is not a strategy; it is a vulnerability and it is a promise.”

And the affliction part? On Yom Kippur we are to afflict our souls. Just how are we to do that?
More importantly, why must we afflict our souls?

Clearly, our sages of old were not content to understand Torah’s commandment as only an internal struggle. They made fasting the way we afflict our soul, as fasting is an action within reach of any healthy person.

Rabbi Lucas writes that affliction of the soul through fasting and avoiding other kinds of ordinary pleasures “demonstrates …the control [we] can exercise over [our] lives and appetites.”

We spend the day trying to not even think about eating or drinking, we avoid footwear that screams luxury, we don’t pay attention to some things that are part of our daily lives… Can personal affliction through voluntary, temporary deprivation help us achieve atonement?

Even though it is focused on our physical selves, fasting is considered an avenue to the inner self. Which can lead us to consider this: It is not what we do without on Yom Kippur that matters most. Rather, it could be that this act — atonement itself — is the way we afflict our souls.

We can then understand Torah’s phrasing a little differently: “Yom kippurim hu lachem / this is a day set aside for you to atone, v’initem et nafshoteichem / and thereby you shall afflict your souls.”
Perhaps atonement is effected or made more effective through affliction. Shouldn’t genuine remorse be enough?

Seeking forgiveness, truly repenting, atoning for what we’ve done wrong is HARD! It takes work, it takes courage! The process of atoning — facing up to our wrongdoing and doing what we can to make amends — can be hard on the soul. Rabbi Lucas (again):

Yom Kippur is a long, exhausting and difficult day not because of the fasting, but because of the emotional and spiritual concentration required.

And maybe that’s why we wish one another “an easy fast.” It’s not about not-eating; it’s a wish that our process of atonement not be overly difficult or painful, so that at the end of the day, we come out of Yom Kippur in better shape.

Of course, those for whom fasting is medically contraindicated are exempt from the rabbinic directive to not eat. While reviewing this talk, my beloved muse Ellie asked: Is there an expectation that one who for medical reasons isn’t fasting do something else to afflict the soul? I don’t know, but it feels right that there should be some acknowledgement.

For example, if you’re not fasting, you might drink or eat only what you need to take your medications. Or have a simpler meal than usual.

When our kids were young enough to eat on Yom Kippur, they got a sandwich and a veggie or fruit, but no cookie or other sweet dessert. To make it different.

Aside from the relatively minor discomfort for most of us, fasting is meant to enable us to concentrate on prayer and introspection, and to make us aware of some of what we take for granted:

• that food is so readily available to us;
• that a break in everyday routine — such as food preparation and consumption — opens space for spiritual introspection;
• that we have community in which to share the experience of this day;
• coffee;
• and, that just as we should have an annual review of our finances we should conduct an internal audit of our souls and our hearts.

Too often in our lives, we afflict our souls through insecurity, undue worry.
Do we worry about things we cannot control? Does our worrying help those about whom we worry? Does it help us?

Today, Yom Kippur, we will recite a lengthy litany of al cheits / for the sin of _____, and pound our chests as if trying to beat away the wrongs, many of which we’re surprised (every year) still apply to our lives. (There’s so much more work to do!)

We should worry about the interpersonal wrongs we’ve committed, and we should do something about it. That is within our control.

Do we worry as well about morality, our sense of fairness, our doing right and good?

Are we concerned about what we can do or what and how much we can give to increase fairness, right and good in our personal cosmos — our families, communities, country, and, consequently, the world?
Last week, on Rosh Hashana, we pondered the vagaries of life and death: how we might die, how we might live. The description of possibilities concludes with a challenge to take some responsibility: teshuva , tefila, tzedaka!

Teshuva / taking charge of ourselves, returning, sometimes to a place we may have thought about but have yet to visit. Tefila / opening ourselves to a power beyond our ken, we can’t know it all. Tzedaka / giving of ourselves, from ourselves, to others.

Our liturgy doesn’t give us the option of choosing A, B, or C, or any two of three. Teshuva / returning, tefila / praying, tzedaka / giving — are of a piece: u’teshuva , u’tefila, u’tzedaka, maavirin et roa hag’zeira. All these things — yet, teshuva changing the course of our lives; and tefila accepting the idea of a mystical unknown that is part of our historical tradition, and tzedaka giving of our money or time according to our means — these three things are within our control. And they can change the course of our lives.

So we try. We try to not worry, but rather to do something positive. In all our spheres and involvements, we should seek to make things better.

Now that we’ve set aside our worries, we must remember: THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES. Not in anything we do.

NO GUARANTEES that today we will achieve atonement, that we will succeed in asking forgiveness of those we’ve wronged, that we will summon the generosity to forgive those who have wronged us.

In any of our endeavors, there are NO GUARANTEES that our best efforts will bear fruit. That our best advice will be heeded. That others will learn from our mistakes. (A life lesson from the wise comedian Sam Levenson: You have to learn from the mistakes of others; you don’t have enough time to make them all yourself!)

Ellie and I have kept NO GUARANTEES as one of our mantras since our first daughter was born nearly 40 years ago.

It started with the awareness that there were NO GUARANTEES I wouldn’t drop the squirmy baby, slippery from the bath (I never did). NO GUARANTEES

• she would round the corner when riding her big wheels (she always did).
• that she would make friends, succeed in school, find a life partner.
• that she would find or craft solid footing wherever she went.
• that whatever we did or didn’t do would not adversely affect her independence or confidence as she became an adult.

By the time our third daughter was in high school, we’d realized that NO GUARANTEES means that not everything would go according to plan, expectation, or advice from Dr Spock, friends or relatives.

Nor did it mean that we would totally screw up our kids and that we should have been saving for their therapy bills (or ours) from day one!

Yet, NO GUARANTEES is not an excuse, a way of giving up when things — family, work, play, health — do not go as we’d wished.

NO GUARANTEES does not mean that we are to afflict our souls or worry more deeply when things don’t go according to plan (and whose plan is it, anyway?). Rather, NO GUARANTEES tells us that we are not free of the responsibility to respond, to adapt, to shift gears or change course — to keep trying!

Afflicting our souls through the rituals of Yom Kippur helps us heighten our awareness, sharpen our senses. It helps us be in awe of our lives, however they are turning out, to appreciate the better parts, to manage the more difficult times.

We can worry about atonement or we can do something about it.

We must do our best to make amends, to mend relationships by picking up the phone or writing the letters, to listen and commiserate, to donate, to volunteer — so that our worlds are better places.
There are, of course, NO GUARANTEES that we will succeed at all this, but if we don’t try, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Don’t worry; do something!

Wishing all a fulfilling, safe, happy and healthy year with a lightened load, fewer worries, and deeper relationships with one another and with our rich tradition.