Ha'azinu

I don’t know about you, but on the days following Yom Yippur, the songs resonate in my head. I hum Avinu Malkeinu while I am brushing my teeth, making my breakfast and putting on my shoes.

It’s not surprising because Yom Kippur is a powerful day that imprints itself on us. Over and over, we resolve to be better people so that we might be be written in the book of life. We resolve to be better people so that ultimately, we will not just be written in the book, we will be sealed in the book. Gmar Chatimah tova we say. May you be well sealed. We sing a very different song today in Ha-azinu. In Ha’azinu, there is no is any Teshuva. There is no expectation that repentance by Israel will bring about a reconciliation with God.

Teshuva is a later development in Judaism and makes me once again so pleased to be a beneficiary of Rabbinic Judaism. I would rather believe that I have agency than believe that I am a victim of circumstances.

But let’s go back in time to listen to Moses’s final plea to Israel to hear his words. It is laid out as a 70-line poem. It is full of metaphors and the verses often rhyme. In it, Moses prophesies that despite all that God and Moses have said and done, Israel will abandon God, as they had in the past. God will punish Israel, as in the past, but never to the point of utter destruction. It warns that God will hide his face from Israel, and it contains these prophetic words:

‘The sword shall deal death without, As shall the terror within, To youth and maiden alike, The baby as well as the aged.’

In our long history, we have seen this happen. But I don’t believe the innocent children and old people are killed in terrifying circumstances because they are Jews who forgot God. I can’t square that circle today.

It’s interesting that Moses’s final plea to the people and his prediction is a poem because poems can express what can’t be said any other way. Poems use metaphors, and we need those to evoke something in the listener.

For example, if I say the word ‘cattle car’ in a poem and it’s read by a person who has never heard of the holocaust, they might see just see a train and they might see cows in the train, but if I say it to a Jewish person, they’ll probably see something very different. They’ll probably recall every horrendous account they’ve ever read of desperate people squashed into freight cars, without water or space to sit on the three-day journey from their village to a death camp. I don’t have to say much to evoke that. Here is a famous six-line poem written originally in Hebrew, by Dan Pagis. It is called:

Written in pencil in the sealed freight car

Here in this carload

I am Eve

With my son Abel

If you see my older boy

Cain son of Adam

Tell him that I

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If you don’t see the sealed freight car in your mind, you will miss the power of the poem. The effect is even stronger if you know that Pagis is playing with Yom Kippur liturgy, contrasting the writing (in the book of life) with the sealing in the freight car. The author of the poem knows that God hid his face from the sealed freight cars delivering millions of Jews to their death.

Eve and her son, Abel were alive then but on a journey to certain death. In our long Jewish story, we will soon take leave of the greatest prophet that ever lived. We will leave him standing on Mount Nebo and looking at the promised land from a distance. Moses is forbidden from entering it, but we are not. Soon we will continue to the next chapter in our long history of those who survived. Our story is not just written in pencil on a sealed freight cart, but also in ink on parchment and on our hearts with songs.

Yom Kippur - Viddui

We will shortly be saying the viddui or confession. We will beat our hearts with our right fists while we confess to our many sins together. Together, we will confess our sins from the general like wickedness and arrogance to more specific sins, like robbery, slander and contempt for teachers and parents. With each beat and confession, we will communally take that awareness of our errors to heart. We will be confessing our character flaws and our less than perfect behaviours, together.

As a child, I would consider whether or not I had done those sins or not. Extortion- not me, rude to parents- oh yes me. As an adult, I would like to think I’m wiser now. I know that it’s not about me and my sins, it’s about us and our sins. And together, we certainly cover off all of these sins as a group effort. But I still struggle with the list of sins with deep feelings of shame. I can think less of myself as I read the list. I often think less of myself anyway. And I know that’s not useful either.

So how do we let the Viddui liturgy help us? If Viddui or confession is the first chapter in process of Teshuva, how do I start this essential task? How do I get to end up serving God out of love rather than fear?

Here’s a possible clue. Before we say the Viddui prayers, we say something striking. It is from Deuteronomy 30 and it says ‘and God will circumcise your heart and the heart of all your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart’ וּמָ֨ל יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ מוּל means to circumcise. Like a Brit Milah where a baby’s foreskin is cut way. It’s also in Deuteronomy 10 where it says מַלְתֶּ֕ם אֵ֖ת עׇרְלַ֣ת לְבַבְכֶ֑ם ‘You shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart’

What does it mean to cut away the bits of your heart? What are the superfluous bits? What is the process by which the heart becomes free of its tattered bits of extra skin? What is the unprotected pure heart underneath the heart’s foreskin?

I think the metaphor is pointing to something about the process of becoming our best selves. It’s not about more. It’s about less. It’s not about more effort and more resolutions to do better. It’s not about more covering up the fact that we are all cracked. It’s about less thinking about those personal stories that haunt us. It’s about letting go of our need to tell the same old story about ourselves over and over again and less desire to meet impossible standards. It’s about stripping back and returning to factory settings. By circumcising our hearts, we might see what we are part of, by default. The Ein Sof that includes us and is bigger and wiser than any of us, if we are down on our knees to see it.

Rav Kook describes repentance as returning to one’s true self. He believes the basic nature of each individual is good. For Rav Cook, when we sin, we are walking away from our better nature. By turning away from the wrong behaviours, we disown them and return to our self - the kinder and better nature that is truly us.

Perhaps. I prefer this framing from a friend of mine who is an artist. Avigail says: Teshuva is like peeling back the dirty masking tape on a painting to reveal the bright white paper underneath.

Unlike Rav kook who believes we peel away the sins and reveal the better state underneath, she says we get to a blank slate underneath. Because that is where the work happens in an endless process of self-re-creation. Beneath our vision of ourselves that we paint one way or another, good or bad, is a place perpetual opportunity. Un-encrusted by habits of thought, we are free to choose better again and again.

Viddui is a means to an end, and that end is to let the communal confessions of our sins circumcise our hearts.

Viddui strips us down to glimpse at the blank paper underneath.

It is the process by which we have to forget our perfect offering, and see our fault lines where the light can get in. We are cracked here and here and here, but at any moment, we can create a better picture.

Let’s get to work.