Sermon for Kol Nidre Night 5780
October 8, 2019
A few days ago, I was proofreading the “Roll of Remembrance” that we will be distributing at the Yizkor service tomorrow afternoon. Of course, since my parents are memorialized by plaques here at Temple, I wanted to check to make sure that they were listed in the booklet. Yup. Their names were right there.
Not that I needed reminding.
I think of them every day – as I’m sure is the case for any of you who have lost next of kin. They may have yahrtzeits once a year, and we might remember them on Yom Kippur at Yizkor, but still, they remain in our hearts each and every day.
But then, as I looked just below my parents’ names on page 13 of the Roll of Remembrance, I was momentarily, instinctively startled. For the next name on the list is “David Steinberg.”
Now I assure you I’m alive and well at this juncture. That “David Steinberg,” for whom there is also a plaque here at Temple, was not related to me. He was the father of Lillian Alpert. Lillian was a former member of our congregation from before my time who died in Florida a couple of years ago at the age of 101 and is buried up here in Duluth at Tiffereth Israel Cemetery. Zichrona livracha/May her memory be for a blessing.
Still, seeing my own name in the Yizkor booklet, and also seeing it pop on our yahrtzeit list every year when the anniversary of Lillian Alpert’s father’s death comes up, reminds me of my own mortality.
In the Torah’s telling, after God had proclaimed the Ten Commandments, when Moses went up the mountain to get the first set of tablets and to learn from God all the rest of the laws of the Torah, and when he remained out of sight and incommunicado for forty days ---- the Israelites thought he was dead. In panic, they rebelled and pressured Aaron into fashioning a golden calf for them to worship instead of worshipping this unseen God who had been announced by their now equally unseen prophet.
Rowdy chaos ensued, and not in a good way.
After forty days, when Moses does come down the mountain, he smashes the first set of tablets in anger and then spends another forty days in a general funk, praying to God for mercy for his people. Then God invites him to come back up the mountain for a third forty-day period, teaching him the Torah anew and inscribing the Ten Commandments once more on a second set of Tablets, this time tablets hewn by Moses himself.
Jewish tradition teaches that the date on which Moses came back down from Mt. Sinai with the second set of tablets, that this date was the 10th of Tishri, Yom Kippur.
As we learn in Parashat Ki Tisa in the Book of Exodus, when Moses returned,
קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו / “karan or panav” / “the skin of his face was beaming” from having been in such close communion with God. That unusual Hebrew verb “karan” is related to the word “keren” meaning “horn.” Rashi comments on this verse that this implies: שהאור מבהיק ובולט כמין קרן / “sheha’or mavhik uvolet kemin keren” (“that the light shines out and projects like a sort of horn”). This linguistic similarity between the noun “keren” (“horn”) and the verb “karan” (“beamed”) , which Rashi makes note of, is the root of some old anti-Semitic misunderstandings that claimed that Jews had horns.
But In a more sympathetic, contemporary context we might describe Moses here as having a sort of “aura.”
However, a question remains for us: Moses had spoken with God many times before without getting these beams, or horns or rays of light. So what was different about this latest encounter with God compared to his previous encounters with God?
What is different is that it is on this occasion that Moses learns of the possibility of teshuvah/repentance/turning. The very fact that Moses could come back with a replacement set of tablets was a sign that God had decided to give the people a second chance.
And so we find, that when Moses had asked God to show him God’s ways, God’s response was all about teshuva ( Indeed, although the most common translation of “teshuvah” is “repentance,” the word “teshuvah” can also, literally, be translated as “response”).
We are well familiar with that response, the Shelosh Esrey Midot/ “The Thirteen Divine Attributes.” These words from Exodus 34, in slightly abbreviated form, are a key part of our Yom Kippur liturgy:
יְ-.ה-וָ-ה יְ-ה-וָ-ה, אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן--אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, וְרַב-חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת.
Adonai, Adonai, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth
נֹצֵר חֶסֶד לָאֲלָפִים, נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן וָפֶשַׁע וְחַטָּאָה; וְנַקֵּה
keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and acquitting the penitent.
It is in this new, deeper experience of God, this new perception of God’s aspect of granting pardon and forgiveness, that Moses acquires that aura, or those “horns” of light if you will.
The gift of the second set of tablets teaches Moses, and teaches us, that it is never too late to start over, to refocus, to return to our better selves.
And just as God gives us the possibility of being forgiven, so also ought we to be forgiving to others who may have messed up in one way or another in their relationships with us.
For, ultimately, healthy relationship is not about being perfect and never making a mistake. Rather it’s about having faith and trust in the long run. Indeed, in the Hebrew language, the verb “l’ha’amin” (להאמין) from the root letters aleph-mem-nun/א.מ.נ. ) (and the related noun “emunah” אמוניה include the English concepts of faith, belief and trust – all in the same word.
So, to use another word derived from the same root letters (aleph-mem-nun): Whenever we say Ameyn (or “Amen” in English) --- we are not just saying that we believe the message of a particular prayer to be factually true. More importantly -- we are saying that we have faith and trust in the ongoing relationship between ourselves and God.
Faith and trust in God helps us to overcome our fear of mortality.
Faith and trust in others helps us to build relationships and to repair them when they have been disrupted.
The people thought Moses had died. He had not. He would live another forty years, until the proverbial ripe old age of one hundred and twenty. But 120 years is still not forever.
And, as for us, however long or short any of our own individual lifetimes might be, we know that they too are limited.
I guess this knowledge is ultimately a good thing. That’s why the psalmist asks of God ----
לִמְנ֣וֹת יָ֭מֵינוּ כֵּ֣ן הוֹדַ֑ע וְ֝נָבִ֗א לְבַ֣ב חָכְמָֽה׃
Teach us, therefore, so to number our days that we may attain a heart of wisdom.[1]
In other words, Judaism is teaching us that we should make every day count. Every day is a gift. We should strive to appreciate this gift of life, and to appreciate the gift of the presence of others in our lives.
The sages taught that we should say 100 blessings every day. That seems like a pretty daunting challenge!
Well, I know folks who try to do 100 pushups each day, or walk 10,000 steps each day. Such physical regimes take dedication and focus.
So does the spiritual regime of being conscious of our blessings.
Many of us don’t manage to fulfill such spiritual or physical goals on a consistent basis.
Heck, many of us don’t even get around to eating five servings of vegetables each day.
But we get the basic idea. Life is short. Don’t waste it. Don’t walk through it on auto-pilot.
That message comes up loud and clear during these Yamim Nora’im/ Days of Awe. In the “Unetaneh Tokef” on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we wonder aloud who will live and who will die between now and this time next year.
And, indeed, the rituals of Yom Kippur have been likened to those surrounding death and mourning. The kittel that I am wearing and that a few others of you are wearing, resembles the traditional tachrichim or shrouds in which Jewish dead are traditionally enwrapped before burial. They have no pockets. We are not taking our material possessions with us when we go.
Even if any of us live to Moshe’s lifespan of 120 years, life is still too short to stand on ceremony.
Life is too short not to be forgiving of others.
Life is too short not to be forgiving of ourselves.
I love that famous concluding line from the poem “The Summer Day” by the American poet Mary Oliver who died earlier this year.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
We should be asking ourselves that question every day.
But, to the extent that we may forget or neglect to do so, Yom Kippur reminds us.
This day of introspection, Yom Kippur, brings with it an acknowledgement of our mortality.
You all know the old saying, “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
But Yom Kippur also turns that saying on its head.
For with the tekiyah gedolah shofar blast that concludes Yom Kippur we are, as it were, reborn.
With that imminent rebirth, may we all be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for health and happiness in this new year of our wild and precious life.
(c) Rabbi David Steinberg 5780/2019
[1] Psalms 90:12
