Reflection
Yom Kippur 5766 Sermon by Rabbi Julie Schwartz
She hides in a dark corner of the cellar. The room is filled – men to the front, women along the back wall. The only children are babes in arms. It is a scene of hushed voices, murmurs of words, little movement. Complete quiet comes over the room as a lone individual hums a melody that everyone recognizes. Then he begins its text and each person there joins in prayer that God will forgive them for all of the lies that they will tell and live out in the coming year. They do not even bother asking for forgiveness concerning the sins of the past; they must prepare for the words that they will be forced to choose during the days and months ahead. They know that these lies are the only means by which they can follow the command to choose life. And so they repent for their future words and in so doing find a way to struggle on.
This sad picture is the reason that we say Kol Nidre. We say it because once others needed it. We recite it because others needed its official legal pronouncement that all promises made under duress during the new year would be null and void. Throughout our history and especially during the darkest days of the Spanish Inquisition, our people have been forced to say words against their will, make promises of belief that they did not take into their hearts. And they sought God’s understanding that they were making the best choice under the circumstances. We cannot all be martyrs – we are not all brave enough nor would this act serve our ultimate Divine mission to be a light to the nations. Thus our ancestors have said words that must be forgotten, discarded by God.
But we are not those Marranos hiding in the cellar. We are proud, strong, safe, healthy Jews. We live in a country that protects the right to choose our faith and live our faith in security. We live in a nation that has championed the doctrine of the separation between Church and State. While each generation of citizens and politicians finds new challenges with this very difficult ideal, our country has always also found the courage to ultimately overcome those who would belittle the minority and attempt to assert their particular beliefs, and so insert parochial ideas into our free society. So we today, Thank God, need not choose a lie to cover up our identity. We need not mis-speak in order to safeguard the lives of our children. We speak freely; we worship freely. We no longer need the Kol Nidre to free us from those specific words.
And yet we continue to sin through our words, sentence by sentence, chosen phrase by chosen phrase. We who can choose any words that we like, we who could use our ability to speak to create love and goodness and strength and light – we use our words to hurt, to demean, to scorn, to hate. The power of our words is immeasurable yet our discipline in using that power is not only inadequate, it has completely failed us.
Once I studied an often considered and complicated ancient rabbinic text which explained that the Holy Temple was destroyed, that Jerusalem was leveled, and that the Jews were scattered to the four corners of the earth all on account of a few harsh words. It begins, al chamsa u’var chamsa and many rabbis can continue it by heart – on account of the argument between these two individuals – chamsa and barchamsa – the tragedy of our people’s dispersion began. When I first read the teaching, I found it meaningless. To me it was absurd hyperbole and the rabbis’ attempt to find rationalization for suffering, to pin the blame for tragedy upon the smallest of matters. I was too naïve at the time to recognize the truth within it. Then someone said a few hurtful words to me and my world fell apart. Then I said something hurtful to another and watched that person’s world fall apart. Indeed, our words are powerful enough to cause destruction that we cannot even imagine. One comment can change the world – and if not the entire world then one person’s entire world.
In these past weeks, we have watched as nature demonstrated her might and erased homes, institutions, mighty structures that demonstrated humankind’s incredible engineering capabilities. We have remembered after the hurricanes’ wind and waters have finally receded that we are not that strong. Yet the next most powerful force that has damaged us since Katrina and Rita and the earthquake – that force has been the battle of words that also left people suffering. Our inability to communicate clearly, kindly, usefully – this has wrought devastation upon the devastation. Yes, nature is clearly more potent than humankind but our words are damaging enough.
So here we are my friends, we have chanted the Kol Nidre and now we are freed from the most awful of the things that we might say during this next year. Should we find ourselves making a vow, under pressure, that commits us to an action which is clearly unconscionable or impossible, we have God’s promise to release us from that promise. But we still remain responsible for all of the other words that we will find flowing from our lips, all of the words of hate, of slander, of malice intended. We speak again and again without recognizing that each of our conversations become messengers -- messengers that will ease another’s way in the world or place obstacles in the path. What incredible power we have and how badly we misuse it.
I do not speak as an outsider to gossip. I sin often in my speech. I read and teach about the offense of lashon harah. I read and teach about it often because I need this lesson as much as anyone sitting here in this sanctuary. But unfortunately I have a different, painful constant way of being reminded about this sin. I hear from you, from congregants about the ways that others’ words have not only hurt their souls but damaged the lives of their family members, their futures, their pasts. I hear these stories as people sit in my office and share their stories. I hear from parents whose children have been made to feel as outcasts due to their appearances or their limitations. I hear from mothers and fathers who are shamed by others’ comments upon their financial status or abilities. I hear from young people who regularly dodge the arrows of ugly commentary. I hear from spouses as they absorb words of hate spoken by those who had once pledged to love them for life. I hear from people whose professional reputations have been harmed by others who needed to support their own success and did so by denigrating the other’s accomplishments. And the worst aspect of listening to these sad, sad stories is that I may have actually heard the very same stories and since they were told well, I would never have known that there was no truth in them. So my own opinions were shaped by gossip and I was shaped by it too. I tell you that I become afraid to hear another story. Will it be truthful? Will it be hurtful? What is the teller’s intention? How can I judge its merits?
And therein I find my answer. I cannot judge another person’s story. I cannot listen to words about a third party and ever know the truth value within it. I am never, ever meant to be that judge. Thankfully, we have a court system filled with judges and jurors and lawyers and investigators whose days are filled with weighing evidence and reaching verdicts. Often they do their job well and something that we call justice is served. We know as well that on occasion and every such occasion is cause for distress, we know that justice is denied. And when a just verdict is actually reached, it takes many, many individuals to make it so, many, many hours of effort and deliberation. So I am most grateful that I am not expected to investigate every statement that I hear in every conversation that have and prove the veracity of the speaker and the account.
No, neither you nor I am meant to be a judge as we share our words with one another. Our Judge is God. So when we speak and we realize that any one of us is sharing a story that is about another of us – our job is to not be God, to be the Judge but to simply stop the conversation. It becomes our most appropriate job to say instead, “I cannot hear that story about our mutual friend because he is not here to join in.” We are to say, “I am so very interested to know how she is doing in business but I will ask her myself rather than speak about her in her absence.” Our Judge, Adonai, wants us to choose other words and so stop the words that may lead to pain, to injury, to destruction that we cannot even imagine. Is this an easy thing to do? Certainly not and I fail at it regularly. Yet, as we say to our children so very often and so very easily, we have to try to do hard things and then when we fail, we have to try once again. God knows that we can do very difficult things. It is instructive that the words which tradition hands us to say at the time that we hear of a person’s death are, Baruch Dayan Emet – Blessed is the true judge. I believe that this is one very dramatic, ominous warning to us all – at the end of life, the ways that we have judged all of those stories will be meaningless. There will be only one Judge who is discerning and who can discern from among the gossip to find the Truth.
At other times, in other sermons, I have reflected with you about the reasons that lie behind the need to gossip. I have come to only one conclusion – and that is the universality of the struggle. We would not have such an emphasis on curbing this bad behavior if the behavior were not so prevalent and pervasive. Years ago, the Chabad movement made a year-long campaign against lashon hara – it was a focus of their adult and children’s education and it was a regular topic of the Rebbe’s teachings. That movement’s determination to take this concern to the forefront demonstrates that Jews of all types and denominations suffer the same problem – the problem is identical whether you use a lot of Hebrew in the service or only a little, whether you light candles at exactly the right time of erev Shabbat or not, whether you emphasize tzedakah or education or good deeds or synagogue attendance. This is our problem.
I do believe that gossip does have some connection to our need for power and control. In a world where we often experience many things beyond our power and wish to be more important, sharing words about another person seems to give us that power. Creating stories about another individual certainly makes the speaker more powerful in the moment than even the truth. We are frightened of such control and I contend that we are often frightened of truth, especially truth about ourselves. I understand one thing about how the world seems to work – what seems like power now may not be power in the long run. Thus when we manipulate words to support the outcomes that we desire, we may well get the immediate results that we desire. But long term, our words will return and turn against us. Some would say that knowledge is power and that is true to some extent and in many circumstances. But I would tell you that after having watched family after family prepare for a funeral, the most potent form of power that I have ever seen is that which stems from love. Honest, true, heartfelt love creates an energy and a force that does conquer all. Dishonest words may have built a career, covered a problematic relationship, or furthered a personal agenda.
Words of love, even those spoken by one who may never have had prestige or financial security or privilege, these words of love build a legacy that cannot ever be weakened. What I have learned is that the truth given by our tradition remains worthy: Rabbi Shimon taught that there are three crowns that one may wear in this world – the crown of learning, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty. Each of these as you can infer are crowns that are contingent on some inherited gift. However Rabbi Shimon then asserts that one crown exceeds them all and it is one that each of us can earn, irrespective of our family background or genetic code and that is the keter shem tov, the crown of a good name. This is so very simply, completely true. Some here this evening have found good fortune in resources which they have inherited. This has not changed the relationship that they had with their family members – the words that were spoken during life were not changed by gifts left in death. And of course, the opposite is true – those who were left only wealth through the love and words of kindness shared in life – this inheritance is priceless.
Dare I tell a foolish joke this evening, this Kol Nidre? Well I will have all day tomorrow during which to repent and I am certain that I will have regained your attention once your minds have been renewed from the oxygen which laughter will provide. So I beg your indulgence and know that some of you will forgive me for telling a well worn rabbi joke for this season. The congregation’s rabbi was an avid golfer, one who chose to play a round at every possible opportunity. Unfortunately, one year Yom Kippur coincided with scheduled day off and thus he would be involved in services when he would typically be out on the course. So he made the only logical choice – apparently this is so if you are a golfer – he went to play golf alone at sunrise. He had the game of his life and the crowning moment was his hole in one on the sixteenth green. The angels in heaven questioned God angrily. Ribbono shel olam, Master of the Universe, how can you reward this awful behavior, playing golf on the holiest day of the year, how can you reward this rabbi by allowing him to have a hole in one? Ah, answered God, in truly divine fashion, “he got his hole in one, but who can he tell?”
This year, as we hear the stories, the pieces of reputation that we would like to impeach, the bits of facts that we pick up in the market, I would like us to feel just like that poor, poor rabbi – that we cannot tell them to anyone. How amazing it would be if we would have that very same rule against our words – that sharing gossip is just as impossible as it would be for the rabbi to tell his story. The poison of gossip must become lodged in our throats and then perhaps as we painfully attempt to swallow the words, we will realize and remember their very bad taste. The rule must become, do not say it.
Thankfully there are beautiful sunsets to describe and wonderful trips to talk about. We will not find ourselves without things to say to one another, when we stop telling stories about other people. Of course there are truths that must be told and stories that must be shared. And I am not suggesting that we avoid situations like therapy where we are urged to share our most intimate and sometimes ugly feelings. But my friends the difference between actively participating in lashon hara and giving necessary information – that is not so difficult to ascertain. We have a wonderful mechanism within us that, if properly developed and exercised, will always help us determine whether our words should be spoken: we have a soul given to us from God which cringes whenever we speak incorrectly. Our souls know when our lips are moving only to hurt others rather than to help the world. That is the simplest of all tests. We can imagine that we are here, in this sanctuary, in front of the Torah scrolls. Would our soul allow us to speak these words before God? Are these words intended to do the work that God has called us to do or are they intended to do the work that I, a simple, selfish creature, want to do. When we choose words that make our souls proud then we have spoken well. Of course, we can slowly, slowly dull the impact of our soul, we can build up great walls which will insulate our better selves from hearing the ways that our lips are demonstrating our basest qualities. This very long day and very long fast gives us a chance to tear down those walls, to allow our soul to triumph over our power hungry egos.
As I struggled with the words of this sermon, I received a copy of a poem that lifted my spirit. I want to share it with you because it reminded me and I pray that it will remind you of the many, many ways that our words can be forces for good. Even as we pledge this evening to renew our efforts to curb our tongues, I want us to still commit to the ways that we can speak that are worthy of our tradition.
The poem contains Yiddish words that I will happily mispronounce and then translate for you. I apologize in advance for the ways that this will not contribute to the beauty of its cadence. And yes, I will have this text available for you as part of this sermon on our website. While the formal attribution is anonymous, many have claimed it and I would have loved to claim it as well.
All I Got Was Words
When I was young and fancy free,
My folks had no fine clothes for me -
All I got was words:
Got tzu danken [Thank God.]
Got vet geben [ God will provide.]
Zol mir leben un zein gezunt. [You should only live and be well.]
When I [had a yen] to travel far.
They didn’t provide me with a car -
All I got was words:
Geh gezunt [Go in health.]
Geh pamelech [Go slowly.]
Hub a glickliche reise [Have a lucky trip.]
I wanted to increase my knowledge,
But they couldn’t send me to college -
All I got was words:
Hub saychel [Have common sense.]
Zei nischt kein narr [Don’t be a fool.]
Torah iz di beste s’chorah [Torah is the best merchandise.]
The years have flown - the world has turned,
Things I’ve gotten; things I’ve learned -
Yet I remember:
Zog dem emes [Tell the truth.]
Gib tsedakah [Give charity.]
Hub rachmonas [Have compassion.]
Zei a mench! [Be a decent human being.]
All I got was words.
Avinu Malkeynu, may we so choose our words during this coming year that our souls can feel comfort. May we choose not to listen to stories which are intended to harm. May we choose not to speak words which we know will cause others pain. Dear God, the One who knows us so well and will accept us each time that we try and fail once again, dear God, please help us remember that our power comes from relationship with you and not from harming the relationships of others. Dear God, our loving, forgiving parent, please let us find words that we can use to fill this world with Your love. May we be blessed with words that we will not need to forget and words that we will be blessed to remember.