YOM KIPPUR 5781

 

5781

Good morning.  I hope your fast is going well.

Wow! It’s been  a year since we’e been together and what a year it has been. I remember at the nend of last calendar year having  a conversation with a friend and saying you know, you just never know what’s going to happen next year that we can’t even imagine right now.And never has that been more true.

My oldest son…and my two grandchildren…live in Berlin. They were supposed to come visit in April. Of course that didn’t happen. We would have visited in August but as my son said, Dad it’s going to be a long time before they let people from the US come here. It’s now been over a year since we’ve  seen them. Like many of you, we have weekly family ZOOM meetings.  So a coupe of weeks ago, we’re talking about our current reality. Orange skies over San Francisco. Temperatures of 120’ in Los Angles and weather reports with the word firenado in it. Ten percent of Oregon burned to the ground. Hurricanes, floods and now “zombie storms.”  Killer  hornets. A virus that has killed 2000000 of our fellow citizens. And armed groups of Americans facing off against each other. My son says, Dad, I’m not sure if there’s a God or not. But if there is, and God wants to get our attention, uh, I think it would look something like this…

What I’m saying is if ever there’s a time for a fresh start, this would be. it. I’m fully ready to let 2020 go and just embrace 5781.

I’m in a Wednesday morning conversation group. There’s a woman who has the annoying quality of always looking at the bright side of things. Just when I’m ready to really enjoy being depressed about everything, she’s got to come up with something good. She keep saying that there have been gifts, new opportunities brought to us by the virus.  And I say, “Yeah, but it still sucks…” But she has a point. I remember, in the middle of the full lockdown, being in Central Park. How blue and clear the sky was. And I heard all these birds singing. I realized there was no traffic. No honking horns. No planes or helicopters. I remember having read that in Wuhan, they heard the birds sing for the first time in decades. With clear skies, many more birds were hanging out. 

I began taking closer notice of nature. The coming and going of tulips in the Conservatory Garden. An egret I saw every day in Morningside Park, sometimes journeying over to the Harlem Meer.  I began noticing turtles. How they look like I do swimming the breast stroke. They can quarantine in place by just pulling in their head. The way they come out and bask in the sun. The gingerly way geese walk on the rough pavement and their web feet then their smooth glide across the water. One day for twenty minutes I watched a squirrel eating pizza.  And one day, I had this realization, that all creation, all creatures, are perfect just as they are. (Well maybe not the platypus..) All creatures are perfectly deigned to do what it is they do and be what they are supposed to be. That thought was is serious tension with my conviction that we must always be involved in tikkun olam, repairing the world. And that  the most sacred part of life is that everflowing prophetic stream that has always fought for a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world. 

But then I had an even deeper realization, if all these creatures, egrets, geese, turtles, squirrels, are perfect, then so are you and I, in and with our imperfections. 

This is a season for repentance. And forgiveness, Reconciliation. And getting written into that book of life for another year. I so deeply appreciate and respect that Judaism has taught us that if you have wounded, hurt someone, you must ask them for forgiveness before going to God. Likewise, we are to forgive others. But here’s the thing….I am convinced that the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves. As a minister, every time I lead a service I lead the prayer of confession and then give the assurance of pardon, “Jesus came into the world not to condemn, but to forgive. Know that who you are, as you are, you  are seen, are welcomed, are accepted, forgiven and loved.”In conversation with my colleagues, many of us struggle to accept that for ourselves.

I’m thinking of Adam and Eve. How they coved themselves because they realized the wee naked and were ashamed. Let’s be clear,,,this was not about not having no clothes. Or not about sex. They had just eaten of what? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil….which means they now knew the dfference…they were adults….the were afraid the seen as they really were…when we are aware of the content of our actions, remorse is good. Even guilt. If we take rseponsibility and act to make amends. Shame? Ah,not so good. It makes us want to hide, which causes all kinds of problems…

When my congregation studied the Torah, it took 2 1/2 years, every Monday, to read every word, we discovered that the “great commandant,” to love your neighbor as yourself, is in the exact center of the Torah, equal before and after. (Lev.19: 18) Like all the mitzvot on either side are ways to do that. But here’s the point….as you love yourself. You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself.  There’s ample evidence to suggest that people who join mobs, people who join hate groups, proud boys, what not, are people who are not able to love themselves. So my first hope for you on this day of atonement is that you can feel a sense of oneness with yourself. 

But the other is important too. My tradition used to have  a rule that if you came to the communion table with something against someone, something broken, you were supposed to leave and geo take care of it before taking communion. By the same token,I almost feel like people really ought to make healing of relationships part of the Yom Kippur experience. Yeah, I know there’s not much time left. But try this between now and when  you break your fast, try to think of one relationship that is broken, or not right, And try to think of just one thing you might do to begin to open the door to healing. (It’s never easy…a step at time.) Nothing brings more joy to God than healing of relationships.  Being at one with each other is a big step towards atonement with God.

My hope for you this Yom Kippur 5781 I that you might experience yourself as one known and beloved by God and one capable of loving others and engaging in the holy work of Tikkun Olam. That you might feel your onenesss with God, Adonai, Hashem, the Creator, the Spirit, the source, the nameless one…however you experience holy reality….that this may that be yours.

(Now…as Passover seders end with Next Year in Jerusalem, I’d like to say next year at the Bitter End…may God preserve that special place until we can meet again there…)