Yom Kippur Sermon

One of the truly surprising aspects of the holiday of Yom Kippur is a comment that the Rabbis make on the Biblical verse that requires us to celebrate the holiday 'b'etzem hayom hazeh' (on this very day), to the effect that 'itzumo shel yom hakippurim mechaper' (the essence of the Day of Atonement atones). What the Rabbis mean by this is that simply by living until Yom Kippur the day itself effects atonement for many if not for all sins.

The fuller treatment of that statement is the comment of the Gemarah in tractate Yomah that says 'rebbe 'omer 'al kol 'aveirot shebatorah bein 'assah teshuvah bein lo 'assah teshuvah yom hakippurim mechaper' (Rebbe said concerning all the sins of the Torah whether one has repented or one has not repented the Day of Atonement atones).

This statement sounds initially like a kind and compassionate concession on G-d's part, but it is hard for people who are serious about religion to understand how one can sin in all sorts of terrible ways and then just by living until a particular day on the calendar, can achieve atonement.

There is of course a long history of trying to deal with this question. Rambam claimed based on one opinion in the Gemarah that in fact the atonement capacity of the day of Yom Kippur only works if in fact one does Teshuvah and that therefore your reading of Rebbe's dictum is incorrect. Others try to interpret or explain Rebbe's statement in a variety of ways.

I am going this morning to add my voice to this group, and I will do so in light of a flash of insight that I had last year during the afternoon service of Yom Kippur. (This will tell you how long a drasha can cook on the stove before one gets to deliver it.)

I am going to present this insight in a formula that one often finds in Midrash. 'Lo kemidat basar vadam midat hakodesh baruch hu' (how unlike the characteristics of the human being are the characteristics of the Holy One blessed be He). This formulation is sometimes used in comparing the baser instincts of human beings with G-d's more refined sensibilities. Occasionally however, it is used in comparing even the noblest actions of the human being to an even nobler act or sensibility on the part of G-d. It is this latter type of comparison that I thought of last year.

We start with one of the high points of Abraham our patriarch's career. When G-d tells him that He is going to destroy Sodom, Abraham engages in his famous negotiation--- one could even call it a type of haggling that would do the best merchant in an Arab shuk proud. We all are familiar with it. If there are fifty righteous men in the city, will you, G-d, agree not to destroy it? If there are forty? If there are thirty? And so on until Abraham reaches ten or perhaps, according to one Midrash, one. If there are ten (or one) righteous individual(s) present, G-d agrees not to destroy the city.

Even though we correctly think of this negotiation as one of the greatest acts of piety in Abraham's career, even though we compare him favorably for this negotiation to Noah who when told about the impending flood never seems to pray for the world, still I am forced to say 'lo kemidat basar vadam midat hakodesh baruch hu' .

Turn with me to the haftorah of this afternoon's minchah service. Again there is a prediction of destruction. This time G-d sends his prophet to say that the city of Nineveh will be destroyed. This is a city known both by its Biblical record and by its own archives recently discovered by archeologists to have been a city of great cruelty. It was a place that devised all kinds of new and interesting tortures and took great pride in using them against captured enemies and others who were deemed appropriate subjects for this abuse. On balance I am not sure that they were demonstrably better than the people of Sodom.

Again this time there is an advocate on behalf of the city. It is not Abraham. It is certainly not Noah, and as we read in the story this afternoon it is not Jonah. Instead the advocate is G-d.

You will remember what happens after the city repents and is saved. Jonah is upset. In response G-d gets Jonah to care about a tree that provided him with shade and miraculously protected him from the sun. When that tree disappears Jonah is again upset. G-d then delivers his explanation for why he allowed the city to be saved. Says G-d, ''atah hasta 'al hakikayon va'ani lo 'ahus 'al ninveh ha'ir hagadolah 'asher yesh bah harbeh mishteim 'esrei ribo 'adam 'asher lo yadah bein yemino lismolo 'uvehama rabah' (you have compassion for the tree and I should not have compassion for Nineveh the great city which contains within it more than 120,000 human beings who do not know between their right hand and their left and many animals).

Notice the difference in focus. For Abraham it was the righteous. For G-d it is the innocent. Just to point out the contrast is to strike a positive emotional chord. It is intuitively obvious that in G-d's presentation there is a deeper compassion and a deeper sensitivity.

There is also a profound practical difference. Abraham's argument may or may not work. There may or may not be any righteous people in the cities that G-d is threatening to destroy. G-d's argument on the other hand always works. Unless all of the animals, all of the children, and all others who might qualify as innocents are removed, there are always innocents that can be used to defend the city against the threat of destruction. The defense may ultimately fail, but it at least raises an issue and a question that the would-be destroyer, even if it is G-d, must be aware of.

It reminds me of a dialogue that goes on in one of the episodes in the old M*A*S*H television series. Someone makes the comment that war is hell, and Hawkeye replies that war is worse than hell. This captures the attention of Father Mulcahey who inquires as to the basis of Hawkeye's comment. Hawkeye replies--and in his reply there is a glimmer of G-d's defense of Nineveh--that in hell there are only sinners, but in war there are innocent bystanders.

The difference between Abraham's approach and G-d's approach is not just one of effectiveness. It also reflects a profound difference in outlook. Abraham's approach is past directed. It speaks to what a person or a group of people have accomplished. They are righteous. They have accumulated good deeds. They deserve consideration.

G-d's argument on the other hand has both a present, and more importantly, a future direction. In the present, the innocents have done nothing wrong. Their innocent state deserves consideration. In the future these innocents have unlimited potential to do much that is good.

There are derivatives of this difference. First, when one contrasts the righteous who have done good with the innocents who have done nothing wrong, one has assumed a very different burden of proof in terms of approaching G-d and asking for survival and the avoidance of destruction. In Abraham's approach one needs to earn the right not to be punished in this way. On the other hand, following G-d's approach there is an intrinsic right not to be punished. Perhaps you can lose it if you sin, but it is yours by birthright. Ultimately then G-d's approach makes a statement about the intrinsic value of each and every human being. This belief in my own value is one which many people lack, and which even Abraham does not think to use in his defense of Sodom. Only G-d uses it in His argument on behalf of Nineveh. 'Lo kemidat basar vadam midat hakodesh baruch hu' (how unlike the characteristics of the human being are the characteristics of the Holy One blessed be He).

This message is particularly important on this day when people look to change their lives. If I believe that I am valuable and significant then the errors that I make and even the failures that I have are challenges which must be met and problems to overcome. On the other hand, if I do not believe myself to be valuable then confronting my shortcomings is much more painful and difficult, and overcoming them becomes an act of desperation to try and achieve at least some modicum of self-respect.

In addition, I would even need to wonder whether the change is worth it because I don't know if I am worth it. Obviously it is much easier to accomplish change from a position of strength than from a position of weakness.

In similar fashion G-d reaffirms our intrinsic value each Yom Kippur by saying that ''itzumo shel yom hakippurim mechaper' (the essence of the Day of Atonement atones). By bringing us back to the state of innocence, by bringing us back to a state similar to the innocents of Nineveh, G-d is saying that He has faith in us as He had in them and as He has in all people.

There is of course no guarantee that we won't sink back into the problems and failures that we have had in the previous year. Changing that is the task of Teshuvah which is our obligation on this day. By this I mean that we are required to change our ways and to resolve to function in a different and better fashion. But again we are able to do this from a position of strength from feeling cleansed, rather than from a position of weakness and inferiority because G-d cleanses us on this day.

We find the concept difficult to accept because we, as Abraham, assume we have to earn our way to this state of innocence. On the other hand G-d says you are valuable as you are, therefore I give you this state of innocence as a gift.

That brings us to the future dimension in G-d's approach to the people of Nineveh that is again lacking in Abraham's argument on behalf of the people of Sodom. The key word here is "potential". If we deal only with what has been accomplished then we are dealing only with the past. G-d looks to the future and to the possibilities and the potential that may yet be. If the city of Nineveh was destroyed, who knows how the innocents in that city would have turned out. Who knows what they may have accomplished. Who knows what they might have done. Destroy the city and you shut off all of that potential, and that would be the greatest tragedy.

This too should remind us of whatever failure there is in our own lives to see the potential and the possibilities in whatever situation we find ourselves. It always saddens me when people are so afraid and feel so badly about themselves that they can not reach towards realizing their own potential and opening the possibilities that exist in their life situations.

I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah that we live in a very pessimistic age-- that it is hard to find in most people a sense of where we come from and a sense of where we are going. An era like that makes it so much more difficult to see potential in anything and so much easier to simply react with fear and with an inability to try and move toward accomplishing anything.

As against that dynamic, the G-d who stood at Nineveh and reminded all of us that there were innocent people with great potential present, and the G-d who every Yom Kippur brings us back to a similar state of innocence and reminds us that our potential to accomplish is still with us, calls on us not to hesitate and to move forward.

I want to conclude with a Talmudic story that was frequently used by the Rabbi of the synagogue in which I grew up to inspire people before Yizkor. The Talmud says that when G-d was about to give the Torah he approached the Jews and insisted that they provide security for this wonderful gift that they were about to be given. The Jews first suggested that the Patriarchs stand as guarantors of this gift. G-d responded and said, I am sorry but they and their merits are necessary for the work that they did in their own generation. The suggestion is then made by the Jews that they themselves stand as security and G-d responded that they needed their merits to take care of the issues that already existed in their own lives. Finally on the third try the Jews suggested their descendants as security, and G-d readily accepted.

My Rabbi would suggest to the assemblage that they were security for their parents who they were remembering as they recited Yizkor. It was his contention, correctly so, that they then needed to live up to this promise which their ancestors had made.

I would take it a step further. The Jews at Sinai, as Jonah at Nineveh, and all too often as we ourselves do not immediately see the potential that lies in the future. Eventually the Jews at Sinai got the point. We need to get it as well.

G-d is focused on Yom Kippur as at Sinai, and at Nineveh, on the question of what we are going to do now. How are we going to move forward from here? He has confidence in us that we can do better and that we can to do the right thing.

We need to develop the same sense of optimism about the future and self-respect about who we are. If we do so then Yom Kippur becomes not just a cleansing experience but a springboard for a far better tomorrow.

'Lo kemidat basar vadam midat hakodesh baruch hu' (how unlike the characteristics of the human being are the characteristics of the Holy One blessed be He). G-d's way of looking at things is His own and reflective of His divine nature. We need to develop some of that divine sentiment to make this year as successful as we want it to be. Shana Tova to all of you.