"Rosh Hashanah; The Jewish New Year"

Rev. Dr. Joshua Snyder, September 12, 2004

There is a famous story about a man who was thinking about converting to Judaism.  After going to various Rabbis this man finally went the well respected Rabbi Hillel.  The potential new member posed the following riddle to Rabbi Hillel.   “Explain to me all of Judaism while I am standing on one foot.”  As the man perched himself on one foot Rabbi Hillel responded, “That which is harmful to others refrain from doing yourself.  The rest is commentary; go and learn it.”  In this story, Hillel answers the man with his version of the Golden Rule, one of the near universal forms of morality.  

The essence of the Jewish faith is morality.  That is, living life in an ethical manner that conforms to the will of God as expressed in the Torah.  One might argue, as various Jewish groups do, over how closely one needs to follow all of the various rules and regulations that are put forth in the first five books of the Bible, but Rabbi Hillel acknowledges this nuance.  The Golden Rule might be the essence but there is a lot more too it than that when you get into specific situations.  Perhaps there are some things that are no longer relevant in this modern world.  However the Ten Commandments or some other Jewish teaching that speaks to the ethical core of humanity is still relevant and worthy of attention.

Rosh Hashanah is the holiday that marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year.  It is also the beginning of what are called the Days of Awe that culminate ten days from now at Yom Kippur.  The Days of Awe are a time to reflect on one’s actions over the course of the previous year.  Specifically are to remember the times in which we were not able to follow all of the rules that we were supposed to follow.  For Jews it could be as small as eating barbeque on the Fourth of July or as big as lying or not honoring our parents.  There is a certain amount of confession that goes along with the Days of Awe.  The Yom Kippur holiday, the most sacred in the Jewish liturgical year, is a day of repentance and fasting.  It is also the day in which those transgressions are wiped clean for another year, and we commit to living a more moral and just existence.  Tradition states that God writes your name in the book of Life for another year.

It is interesting to compare some of this to Christianity, which of course reinterprets certain aspects of Judaism and attempts to assimilate some of it.  Christians are very interested in vicarious atonement, the notion that Jesus died for the sins of humanity thus guaranteeing salvation for the faithful.  Yom Kippur also deals with vicarious atonement, and Christians borrowed many of the symbols of that holiday as they were coming up with their own theory.  Basically Christians upped the existential ante of vicarious atonement.  During the Days of Awe in Judaism individuals reflect on their own actions, their sins if you will, that they have committed in the past year.  In Christianity, particularly Protestantism, sin is elevated into a cosmic state of separation from the will of God.  Martin Luther said that one of the most important functions of “the Law” as he called the Torah regulations, was to demonstrate to us the impossibility of living a holy life.  God is perfect, and since none of us are perfect, it is impossible to follow all of the rules laid down in the Bible.  All we can hope for is the grace and mercy of God.  The Protestant movement emphasized our unworthiness to live up to the laws of God, and therefore our dependence upon Jesus as savior.  This point is driven home so strongly that it can be hard for folks raised Christian to hear about the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur without have the hellfire and brimstone of our past religion ringing in our ears.

Obviously Luther’s interpretation of “the Law” is not shared by many Jews and certainly not by the Jewish tradition itself.  In Judaism, “the Law” serves a much greater purpose than to prove to us our own sinfulness because we cannot perfectly follow every one of them.  The Jewish tradition tends to see all of this at a more human level.  God gives us rules to follow.  None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, and the Days of Awe are an opportunity to be real about that.  There is something very authentic about acknowledging human error.  In this sense Judaism shares something in common with what former Baseball Commissioner Francis Vincent once said of his sport:

“Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.  We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often—those who hit safely in one out of three changes and become star players.  I also find it fascinating that baseball alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.”

In Judaism, as in baseball, error is built into the system.  The most sacred holidays of the religion are devoted to acknowledging that all of the stuff we talk about during the year doesn’t work out the way we hoped it would.  It is a refreshingly honest statement.

Rosh Hashanah is an acknowledgement of our basic humanity.  Just because we are not perfect does not mean that we are lowly and wretched.  In fact there is a saying that if someone were to ever follow every rule prescribed in the Torah perfectly, then the Messiah would return.  The Rabbi Zusya once said, “In the coming world they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’  Instead they will ask, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

You see morality is what you do when no one else is looking.  But in Judaism, as in many other monotheistic religions, God is always looking.  There is the belief that even if you think you got away with something, you are wrong.  God knows about it, and knows you better than you think.  This can be a very anxious, guilt-producing belief.  So the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are an opportunity to say to God, as well as to yourself, “I am sorry.”  Remember that fudged number on the tax return?  The white lie to my spouse?  That bet I placed against the Huskers?  I am sorry.  Repentance is good for the soul.  In many ways this has a very therapeutic effect.  In psychoanalysis naming the subconscious and bringing it into the conscious mind is the way one is able to heal.  In confession or during the Days of Awe, one remembers that which might have been forgotten, and names it.  By doing so we are released of those negative feelings of guilt and anxiety and can recommit ourselves to doing better.

Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham refer to this acknowledgement of our human limitations as the “Spirituality of Imperfection.”  So often when we think of religion and the sacred we think of perfection and becoming perfect.  Yet Kurtz and Ketcham’s experiences with A.A. have led them to the precise opposite conclusion.  That the holy can be found, not when we have solved every problem in our life, which is next to impossible, but rather when we accept that we are not perfect.  By doing so we accept ourselves with unconditional love.  And despite some our historical forays into the utopian ideal, there are some similarities with this view to Unitarian Universalism.  Emerson said that every one of God’s creations has a crack in it.  Salvation comes through character, not by being perfect, but by being honest about human failings.  Indeed, by forgiving and even loving those failings.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across the movie Good Will Hunting on TV.  There is a wonderful scene where Robin Williams is doing therapy with Matt Damon, and he begins to reminisce about his relationship with his wife.  His wife had died a couple of years earlier and her loss had been devastating to him.  But, he says, the things he misses the most are the little things.  Her quirks and particularities.  The funny things she used to do in her sleep.  They were those small habits that only he knew about, and that is why they were special to him.  They were just his.  From the outside they might appear annoying habits or imperfections, but they weren’t, he says.  It was those imperfections that he missed the most, and that is what made her perfect for him.  And thinking back on it all, the time William’s character spent with his wife when she was well and when she was sick, he had no regrets.

How many of us can honestly say that we have no regrets?  Probably not many, and if you can’t think of one then you’re probably not trying hard enough.  To live is to have regrets of some sort.  You may recall Robert Frost’s famous poem about choosing between two roads that come to a fork.  In making his choice, Frost really does two things: he chooses one road and rejects the other.  Fortunately he says that his life has been all the better for the decision.  Most of us though don’t have that good a record.  

Paul Tillich has an interesting take on perfection and imperfection.  I have been picking on the Lutherans a bit, so I thought it would only be right to reference my favorite Lutheran theologian.  Tillich points out that we each have a tremendous amount of potential.  Humans have a dizzying amount of diversity.  We have examples from Gandhi to Hitler to demonstrate the gambit of the human spirit.  Both men lived at the same time, and yet took radically different approaches to life.  Though each of us has the potential to be nearly anything we want, we can’t make all of that potential actual.  In other words when you finally choose one path in life, whether it is related to your job, your family, where to live, you have sacrificed all the other choices you could have made.  The road does not fork in two but in many different directions.  To choose just one road in life is both wonderful and tragic.  It is wonderful because you are out there living, making life real for yourself and for others.  You have brought life into being and contributed something to the world.  And yet one cannot help but have some regret.  We always neglect something.  Should I have taken that job in some other part of the country?  I chose to be a Unitarian Minister, not a doctor or an Anthropologist.  Do you choose to have children or money, freedom, and a good night’s sleep?  Rarely do all of them go together.

This choosing between the nearly infinite paths of life, and only being able to make one of them real and actual in the world, is the way Paul Tillich understood Original Sin.  It is not that we are all evil and loathsome by our very nature.  Rather it is the simple fact that we cannot actualize all of our potential, we inevitably sacrifice something.  We cannot be perfect, we always have or should have something to regret.  To paraphrase Paul, there are things that we ought not to have done that we have done, and things that we ought to have done that we have left undone.  The spirit of Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe is simply to pause for a moment and to remember those regrets.  Because in the process of naming and remembering our regrets, we are set free and held in the arms of love.

But I do not understand Paul’s statement about doing the things we shouldn’t and failing to do the things we should, in the traditional manner.  So often this great proclamation of our inability to actualize our full potential is taken as a justification for self-flagellation.  I think there are unhealthy extremes some go to in admitting their imperfection.  It is not an excuse for self-abasement and denial of one’s own power.  Rather, acknowledging our limits allows us to be realistic with ourselves.  It is the understanding that we may not always practice what we preach but there is an honest attempt to do so.  Rev. Ken Phifer in today’s reading notes that just as important to Rosh Hashanah as acknowledging our shortcomings is recommitting ourselves to doing better in the new year ahead.  We recommit ourselves in the year ahead to be mindful of the choices we do make in life and try to live up to the religious values and ideals that we espouse.  Will we get it right every time?  No of course not.  As the former the Commissioner of Baseball said, error is built into the system.  It is part of the game.  Barry Bonds, the best hitter in Major League Baseball that no one wants to pitch to, does not get a base hit two thirds of the time.  Instead of perfection we should strive for continuous and never-ending improvement.  We should have high expectations of ourselves and others without being perfectionist.  In the world to come they will not ask you why were you not more like Moses but rather why were you not yourself.

This is holiday of promises, New Year’s vows of a certain sort.  These vows are common to lots of religions.  This is the time to promise ourselves, and God if you believe in God, that when we shoot for the moon we will try to get a little closer than we did the year before.  I think that is all that is really asked of us.  That is the road to salvation by character.  To strive for continuous and never-ending improvement is the sanctified life in Christianity.  The Buddha taught that intentions count at least as much as the consequences of our actions. Or as Rev. Ken Phifer put it:

“Let us be loving in our inner communion and thereby transcend self-pity and needless guilt; so that we can see the tears that others shed, the pain that others endure, and reach our hand out to them;

So that we not forget the roads we yet can walk, the hills we have still to climb, the meadows in which we can yet dance;

So that we remember the joy of song and the deep pleasure of being with friends in shared work and play and silence.”

Amen, Blessed Be.

Recommended Reading
Kurtz and Ketcham.  The Spirituality of Imperfection
Phifer, Ken.  Aspirations of a Humanist Heart