Rabbi Megan’s Yom Kippur Sermon 5787
Something wild just happened- no it’s not that a british guy, who has a three week old at home, just chanted so beautifully in aramaic- a language I am guessing no one in this room speaks.
We just had the audacity to say in God’s name, “Salachti k’dvarecha” - I have forgiven you as you have asked. We haven’t even had our first confession, we haven’t beaten our chests with ashamnus or the al heits and yet we are declaring up front that we will be forgiven.
What allows us to be so psychologically daring?
One explanation points to another line we just chanted, that we are permitted to pay with those who have sinned. Almost all of our prayers on Yom Kippur are chanted in the collective "we". By standing together, with all of our unfulfilled promises and human flaws, this community becomes a singular entity. We are accepting collective accountability for each other, we are mostly a room of strangers, this Kahal (group) does not gather regularly, and yet we are in this together. In our inclusiveness and hope, we pray that we trigger the divine response of pardon before a single sin is confessed.
This may be true, but what matters more is that we believe it to be true. to truly confess, to truly see who we have been and admit we want something different from ourselves and our lives, requires terrifying vulnerability. If we begin Yom Kippur thinking we are already condemned, we will be too closed off to do the work this day requires.
By starting with God's reassurance of forgiveness, the liturgy creates a psychologically safe environment. Knowing that we are already loved and accepted gives us the courage to look at our darkest flaws for the next 24 hours. We don’t pray to earn God's love; we engage in the ritual of Yom Kippur because we are already secure in it.
we are able to do something that could be terrifying because we feel safe- and not just safe, but worthy and loved.
On Friday, I was headed to the mikvah, the ritual bath used for conversion and other jewish ritual moments to support a friend who had just completed chemo treatments and wanted to immerse to mark the moment in her healing journey.
I stopped at acme to pick up a few things I needed for later that day, and then chatted with my mom about her upcoming visit as I dove on. There were folks merging ahead, I slowed, suddenly I realized the large truck in front of me had stopped, I moved my foot a bit harder on the break and then realized it was not hard enough, I slammed my foot down as I hit the car in front of me.
There was a bit of pain, some shock, a lot of stress, but first and foremost, shame. Shame that I wasn’t paying enough attention, shame of what this would cost my family, just back on track after a period of my unemployment, shame that my wife had to pause her day to come help me, shame that I couldn’t complete the mitzvah of supporting my friend at the mikvah. That shame was overwhelming. My wife made it clear all that mattered was that I was physically ok. My mom, who had to listen to the crash, made clear that if we needed financial help she and my dad were there.
My wife Paige, who is sitting over there, and I have two kids, 5 and 7. The most important thing I hope they are learning from us is that no matter what they do, who they become, what mistakes they make- they are loved and infinitely worthy just for existing (this is followed closely by a second hope that they be kind).
I worry about this for my kids, because many days I am still chasing this sense of worthiness. Like many of the students in this room, school came easy to me for most of my life. My parents have advanced degrees, I grew up in a home filled with books, my mom, who taught at Northwestern, edited my papers. At Penn I felt a need to do well in my classes (I came in thinking I would triple major- in the end I dropped Jewish studies for Psych and women’s studies- being a rabbi was far from an idea in my mind), I made sure I got the right psychology internships to be competitive for PhD programs, I ran between labs and Hillel and social engagements. I rarely slept more than 5 hours except on shabbat.
Once I decided to become a rabbi, I was convinced I had to become calm, zen, chill to do the job right. I worried about being too loud, too intense, not strong enough in my hebrew, my prayer skills, the list could go on and on. And I felt (and often still feel) that I had to be excellent, well known, someone people looked to as a model- because that is what I was told I was supposed to be in my childhood and early adulthood.
And truth is, I am still not calm enough, my hebrew skills are not what I would like, I don’t use social media enough, last year I was fired from a job that I still think I was pretty good at.
But I know that I am doing my best. I am a good person, I want to do good in the world. I make real significant mistakes, as a driver, a partner, a mother. But I know in my heart that that is human and none of that makes me unworthy of forgiveness or goodness or love.
There is a midrash that I learned from my friend Rabbi Lauren henderson: The Midrash says that teshuvah or returning was created before the world was created. Before there was a universe in which humans who could stumble; before there were relationships which could go right but could go wrong; there was the ability to right wrongs, to correct our mistakes, to ask for and receive forgiveness.
Teshuvah is, according to the imagination of this rabbinic understanding, part of the very fabric of the universe. The same midrash relates that before there was anything there was only G-d. G-d thought of creating a world but every time God thought a world into creation G-d would destroy that world until God created teshuvah. It was teshuvah—the possibility that not being perfect does not inexorably lead to not being—that allowed the world to exist.
The researcher Brene Brown talks about the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt means “I did something bad” while shame says that “I am bad.” When we define ourselves as bad we begin to tell ourselves a story about our identities and personalities that make it nearly impossible to change. But when we say that we did something bad we create the potential that we can and should be better.
When I got home after my accident Friday early afternoon, all I could think about was my failure. I came in and edited this talk while in that place of feeling worthless. And then I paused and asked God for forgiveness- I had already asked the truck driver (who was uninjured and his truck didn’t seem to have a scratch), my wife, my friend, my mom- none of whom were angry with me. And inside I knew that God saw me, held me and forgave me.
A few hours after my car accident, I was able to take a deep breath and move from shame to guilt- you know how I did this? I wrote it down for you- According to Brown, “If we share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame cannot survive.
I knew even before I walked into this room, without knowing most of you, that there would be empathy and understanding here. I know some of you have had car accidents that were likely at least partially your fault. Some of you had yelled at your parents, your kids, your partner.
Some of you have cheated, lied, stolen, some of us have done many of the transgressions that we will list in the hours to come. And knowing that, knowing that we are in a community that will respond to our confessions with empathy and understanding, we are ready to do the work of Yom Kippur together.
Just by showing us as our messy selves and being willing to hold this community together, we have shown God that we are worthy of the transformative power of confession and forgiveness.
By sharing our transgressions aloud over the next 24 hours we separate who we are as people from our wrongdoings and thus we let go of shame, we say we are more than our transgressions, we know better, we are better. We may mess up again, but the sum of our humanity is more than our failures.
We can boldly quote God saying God has forgiven us, because we are forgiving ourselves and each other in the process.
Tonight when you ask God for forgiveness and then confess, try to bring your most heartfelt self to your words, your most empathetic and understanding and believe that you and everyone else in this room are being forgiven. For then Yom Kippur will truly have the power to transform us.
