Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur

Every year on Yom Kippur we get this strong feeling that there’s something we should be doing but don’t know what. Yes, we can go to temple but temple isn’t going to do it for us. We can go to nature but nature isn’t going to do it for us. We can pray.  We can fast.  We can apologize but words alone won’t do it for us. Nor will the rabbi, nor will other members of the congregation. That’s the real challenge. We are responsible…we are obligated…to do it ourselves.  There aren’t any inoculations of it. There isn’t a structure in place or will ever be in place that will provide it for us.

In other words, we can’t go to Bi-Mart, Tiffany’s, Hawaii, New York or even Jerusalem and expect someone to place it in our hands for many shekels or few. 

The big question is what is it?  Is it just saying we are sorry?  Does it mean we are being asked to feel  that we  have taken part in evil or almost-evil actions? Does it mean we are to see ourselves as  soul-failures, moral-schlumps,  so mistake-ridden it’s as if we have bee stings covering our hearts?  If so, then how can our heart even beat? How can our soul rise if we bury it so deep within the muck of failure that we loathe ourselves?

It’s a conundrum. We must face ourselves, things we’ve done that have been distant from God… hurtful to ourselves and others…and love ourselves the same time. Here’s something to ponder though:  The self-inspection is actually a show of great love. As a naturalist said to me recently… every time you take one step outside you take one step in.  In other words, the movement is what matters. The movement is the love.  And this very movement is what will bring us to greater vision of our thoughts/words/actions.  If we understand this then the movement itself actually helps to shine light on the questionable-actions and that very light can help dissolve them in the greater universe.

Seeing is the first step.  Seeing is powerful.  The Alter Rebbe says that the light in the raindrops is how God sees. This is God’s actual vision. We as well can see from beyond our eyes. And even beyond our heart. We can see from our soul. 

As one of my teachers has said: The vows we are dissolving are really habits that are so in-ground in us we haven’t (yet) been able to release them from our very identity.  If we soul-see we can know how to discern these bad-habits.

To repeat:  what I’m saying is that merely the act of looking at our questionable-habits  carefully can create enough love to then bring about the necessary action to dissolve them…whether that mean a private talk with God or with an individual.

How though can we really love ourselves if we have done something we know to be hurtful? Mean? Unconscious? 

The Alter Rebbe (in the 18^th century)  takes care of this conundrum in his writing of the Tanya.  He says quite clearly that in Gemara we are asked to see ourselves as evil. He then says that in Mishnah we are not to see ourselves as evil.  He then responds to the former saying that if we see ourselves as evil we will be too depressed to rise up. Even worse, we may just give up and fling ourselves into a far deeper darkness than before. 

He then says that there’s an in-between place, a state of being between perfection (the tzaddick) and the absolute evil. 

I think this is very helpful to consider over Yom Kippur.  There are very few of us who have done something so horrible that we must hate ourselves and cut ourselves off from the community.  Not many of us humiliate others publicly and with intention. Not many of us murder. Not many of us intentionally bring others to darkness. 

And if we have (according to the rabbis) there is still a way to see, painful as it is, and to act.

 This is how:  We stop hating ourselves. We stop blaming ourselves. We see that we can rise. We see that there is a flow to the universe and we have a responsibility to lift it to a place of light.  We use the knife of our soul-vision to carefully carve into the ephemeral being which is us and create the person we know we are: We are beings created by God. And we walk in His ways. 

In short, we see, we face ourselves, we don’t make a big deal out of it, we purify through action.  If it hurts, it hurts.  It can be grueling.  But it’s not absolute pain. This is why: We know there’s a ceiling to the pain.  We know we will soon rejoice.  True pain is inaction. In that situation there’s no way out. On Yom Kippur we are literally carving a way out. 

Here’s a short metaphor. Recently I had the opportunity to lead Rosh Hashanah services on a cruise ship. I’m sure I will be writing about it more in the future. Much of the cruise was (yes) placing the best of New York, Vegas and Disneyland within a structure and placing the best of nature outside of it.  I liked being outside on the top deck in the sun with the ocean and the Alaskan glaciers . My beloved son liked being inside with the entertainment and the spectacle. We worked out a balance. One thing I got to witness (inside) was the carving of an ice sculpture. 

This is what happens: First there’s the huge block of ice. You know it was once water in full flow and it became solid at a certain moment.  So with us imagine yourself in full flow and then stopped in one moment in time. This visualization is necessary to do the work. You can’t carve water.  Then we are told that the artist visualizes the sculpture within the block of ice before he even begins. With us imagine yourself as you know you can be…as your very purest form…your best.  Then the artist chops away big pieces at a time. With us imagine we are both artist and sculpture. Imagine dealing with some of the more obvious mistakes we’ve made…things we can easily  (though painfully) see and act to remove. Then the artist gets a smaller chisel and carves away anything that gets in the way of the details of his art (in this case an eagle)…he  focuses on the wings, the head, the beak.  Here, we focus a bit more on the details and carefully cut away the stuff that gets in the way of that perfect purification.  This is clearly the most painful part of the process.

 We simply carve and the chisel might be a prayer. It might be a river. It might be a glacier.  A kiss. A comment.  A moment of silence.

Of course, the ice that’s cut off is collected to form another sculpture in the  present/past/future but it is no longer the same. It may, one day be another eagle itself.  Or beyond-eagle. Beyond-human. Beyond-our-wildest-dreams.

This is the way I see it:

We are all eagles this Yom Kippur. We can fly beyond any thought of self-loathing and act with love towards our God, all of humanity and our selves.  We can be it. We can do it.   We know it.

  

 Because we’ve done it before.