Yom Kippur Morning - Delivered 10 Tishrei 5777/October 12, 2016 at Congregation Netivot Shalom, in Berkeley, California
“Hashem spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they drew too close to the presence of Hashem. Hashem said to Moses: Tell your brother Aaron…” G!d continues to describe in detail how Aaron should conduct all the priestly rituals of Yom Kippur. This morning, as we read from the beginning of Acharei Mot, I can’t help but think about Aaron. “After the death of death of the two sons of Aaron”. Rashi and some of his students say the reason the death of Aaron’s sons is included here is to stress to Aaron the importance of following the exacting details for Yom Kippur services which G!d is about to give Moses, to stress that his life is on the line. That’s looking at the perspective of the Torah, “Why this verse?”
I’m going to wax midrashic a bit here, and put myself in the place of Aaron, project what he must be feeling. I imagine that Aaron is pretty mad at G!d. Some commentators say that G!d killed Aaron’s sons Abihu and Nadab for entering the sanctuary and lighting incense before G!d drunk. Others say they were blameless. I can’t imagine that the reason mattered much to Aaron.
Aaron must have been furious at G!d for killing his beloved boys. G!d killed two of his children for wanting to be like their dad, to come close to G!d. Maybe they did it drunk, or in some fit of inappropriate zealotry, or egoism or maybe, they were just too eager to follow in their father’s footsteps and approach G!d.
Given the detail in which the Torah records smaller rebellions than Aaron refusing to serve G!d, it surely would be recorded had Aaron refused, so it seems safe to assume that Aaron obeyed G!d’s commands. Despite what we can imagine of Aaron’s anger, he fulfills his obligation to perform the rituals of Yom Kippur. He didn’t walk away, and say, “I’m mad at you, and I’m leaving.”
On Yom Kippur, when we are called to make teshuva to G!d, to intensify the work we’ve done for a month, I want to talk about what it means to be angry at G!d and not walk away. I want to suggest that this IS teshuva.
At first, I was going to write a drash on how I’m having a hard time making teshuva towards G!d this year, because I’m really angry at G!d. G!d and I are having a hard time this year. I thought that being angry at G!d made teshuva hard. Now, I think that’s incorrect, and being angry at G!d is sometimes a part of teshuva.
Rabbi Alan Lew writes in his book “This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared” about teshuva as transformation. Teshuva comes from the root shuv, to turn and return. Returning to G!d, to our true selves, involves transformation. Lew writes in This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared, “Most of us only embark on the difficult and wrenching path of transformation when we feel we have no choice but to do so, when we feel as if our backs are to the wall, when the circumstances of our lives have pushed us to the point of a significant leave-taking, when we have suffered loss or death, divorce or unemployment. Transformation is just too hard for us to volunteer for.” [154] In those moments, in the struggle against transformation, it’s hard to imagine not being angry at G!d. G!d has forced you into a place where transformation, change is inevitable, and it hurts. It’s hard, and terrifying, and you start to see you have no choice, and for me, that is the moment that I get furious at G!d. How could You, G!d, do this to me? Why? How dare You, G!d? Wasn’t life good before? The resistance to transformation, to teshuva, to returning to truer selves often manifests as anger against G!d. So perhaps, to be in a place of anger is to be in the middle of teshuva, of returning.
This idea of transformation as part of teshuva isn’t a new one. According to Maimonides, teshuva is only complete when we face the same situation where we can sin in the same manner again, and do differently. We have transformed, into a different person, who makes a different choice and our tshuva is complete.
Lew writes that this transformation process is non-linear. It involves a few steps forwards, and a bunch backwards, so much that we often don’t notice the transformation in progress, we only notice the struggle. It’s only in hindsight that we can notice how much we’ve changed. This certainly accords with my own experience. I can’t think of a single time where I changed and grew in a monotonic path. Transformation happens in fits and starts, and it’s not until you are deep in the middle of it that you even notice that it started at all.
My teacher, Rabbi Benay Lappe, has a teaching she calls the “Crash Talk” to describe how people adapt to these events which force transformation. You start with existential questions. Why are we here? What does life mean? Why do bad things happen to good people. Who am I? This leads to the creation of a master story. Cultures create master stories. They’re traditionally religion, but the American Dream is also a master story. Families and individuals create master stories too. “This is who our family is”. Individuals have master stories “This is who I am”. For many of these master stories, there comes a day when they crash and they no longer work. This crash can be societal, like the destruction of the temple for a sacrificial religious system, or a secular enlightenment. It can be personal: a divorce, the death of a loved one, questioning one’s gender or sexuality, a change of employment.
After a crash, you have three options, Rabbi Lappe teaches.
Option 1: Cling to your master story. Build a fence around the doubts, questions, and challenges. Ignore them. This path is unsustainable. It is the path of death, ultimately. It can work for a few years. Maybe even a few decades. Refusing to acknowledge the crash, however, slowly crushes your soul. Eventually, you have to give up the option 1 or die.
Option 2: Leave. Leave tradition and the master story. Leave it all behind. Maybe you find a new master story. Maybe you flounder around. This option hurts too. It hurts because you lose tradition, you lose meaning, you lose identity. Maybe someday, you find new meanings, and identities, and maybe not. Who are you? What do you do with all those questions, without a traditional framework for grappling with them? You throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And then there’s Option 3: Adapt. Go back to the questions, go back to the master story, and adapt the master story to make it work in new ways. This is the process of transforming tradition, reshaping understanding. Rebuilding a master story that you can live with, that keeps hold of tradition, and embraces it, and builds off what you learned in your crash.
When we are undergoing transformation, progressing and backtracking, I think we are trying the first option, clinging to the master story. We’re trying to build a fence against transformation, because the doubts, the challenges, the crash hurts. However, ignoring the events precipitating your transformation is, in the end untenable.
Eventually, somehow, you may find yourself choosing the third option. Adaptation. Transformation. Transformation hurts. The third option is letting in the shofar blast, and letting transformation happen. Option three is being furious at G!d, and reaching for G!d at the same time. It’s Aaron, finding a way to perform the Yom Kippor rituals, even though he must be angry at G!d for killing his sons. It’s coming to Yom Kippor services, angry at G!d. Heck, standing in front of y’all, angry at G!d. I’m not going to set that aside, and pretend it’s all good. But I’m here, embracing tradition, and returning to G!d. That is the essence of our tradition. It’s okay to be angry at G!d. That’s part of the process. It’s not ignoring your experience and emotions. It’s not walking away. It’s teshuva. Turning to G!d and yourself.
I must admit that I didn’t really understand the shofar until this year. I always wanted it to be a piercing cry to attention, to shake me, rattle me to my core, and that never happened.
Only when I reached a point where the only way I had to relate to G!d was a silent howl, a cry of anger, and frustration, and fear of change, did I understand the shofar. Suddenly, the shofar reflected my prayers, a wordless cry to G!d. Perhaps the shofar is a cry to shake us awake, but I think the shofar is also voicing that which is usually too hard to say out loud. It’s the wail of transformation.
So, this Yom Kippur, let in the shofar. Let it wail resistance to transformation and teshuva on your behalf. And, like breath fades at the end of tekia gedolah at the end of Neilah, let your resistance to transformation fade.
G’mar chatima tova.