Sermon on Teshuvah, Btselem Elohim for Kol Nidrei 5778 2017

225 years ago, in 1792, Moses Seixas [say-shuss], a Jewish congregational president in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a letter to the first President of the United States checking to see if the new nation’s leadership would, using Seixas’ words, “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” President Washington responded, repeating those words, in one of the best statements of the nature of America. President Washington wrote:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Hearing those words, some of us cringe. Is our country still there? Was America ever truly there? We live in a time of great partisan divide. Today, discussions are often over the victories or losses of a party and not necessarily over the improvement of the lives of the people. Far too often in our real communities and in our digital ones, we see hatred put into words and action.

The Jewish people have seen that happen before. The flag and torch bearers, the hate filled marchers, too often have come for us. Whenever minorities have been persecuted or oppressed, if we have not been the initial target, historically, neither have we been far down the list.

We have seen some of humanity’s worst. We have seen inhuman hatred. Three thousand years ago, our people’s story already proclaimed our origin to be found in the words, “Let my people go!” Two thousand years ago, living under oppressive Roman rule, Hillel proclaimed, “In a place where there is no humanity, strive be to a human being.” We know that evil exists.

Yet, our tradition also loudly proclaims that we are all created, “B’tselem Elohim.” That is one of the most beautiful and, at times, also difficult teachings in the Jewish Tradition, the idea that we are all created in the image of God.

On the beautiful side of things, it is a teaching that reminds us of the inherent value of all people, that people should be treated equally. It is a directive to rise above concerns about difference, to overcome concerns about race, ethnicity, physical capability and beauty, or sexual orientation. B’tselem Elohim is an idea that helps us feel compassion for those who suffer, urging us to aid them. We should not be able to tolerate seeing people suffering. Everyone is like us. Each of us, in the image of God.

On the difficult side of things, that we are all created B’tselem Elohim is a teaching that reminds us that we have things in common with all people, including those with whom we’d much rather not, enemies, people whom we consider to be evil.

In the Mishnah, in Pirkei Avot, we find the statement: “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.” Traditionally, this teaches that the wisest person can learn something from anyone and everyone, the most exalted can learn from the lowest. The teacher can learn from the student.

The Baal Shem Tov taught in regard to the statement:

When you look into a mirror you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

It’s like a gut-punch. Our first response is “No way am I like….” “Not me! I could never act like that, feel like that, do something like that.” “I could never get so angry.” “I could never hate like that.”

How difficult is it to look at that image of those white supremacists and neo-Nazis standing with torches while shouting hateful slogans and say not only, “B’tselem Elohim,” this one too was created in the image of God, but perhaps, to use the words of the Baal Shem Tov, “I am tainted by the same shortcoming?” No, perhaps not exactly the same, not the same sort of hatred, not of the same things. But:

·      An ability to become enraged?

·      An ability to hate others?

·      A willingness and even desire to march along with others, to be part of a crowd, to rebel against authority, to want to fit in with a group?

·      An unwillingness to stand up to friends and family members even when we know that they are wrong, because we care about them?

·      A tendency to repeat hateful things about others whom we’ve never met?

·      A desire to see faults in others, to pass the blame to others?

·      A willfulness to see the worst in others who disagree with us.

·      A willingness or even eagerness to rise up from a place of frustration and hopelessness to take actions we might regret later.

·      An ability to look out at other people and easily say of them, “These are not B’tselem Elohim.” “I am likened to God, but them, those people, they’re nothing like God, they’re nothing like me. They’re evil.”

·      A blindness towards our commonality with those we do not like.

Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

And how many of us would want to be defined by the worst picture taken of us, perhaps not one that was taken but one that could have been taken? Has there ever been a time when we acted in a way that would anger or embarrass us now?

We may not have ever considered the possibility of ourselves preaching hatred while holding a torch, but, and here is another difficult lesson, far too many otherwise good and even religious people participated in horrors in ages past and still in many places around the world do today. No few of those bearing and sharing their hatreds publicly will eventually repent and change their ways. There are a multitude of stories.

Father William Aitcheson, formerly the parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great parish in Fairfax City, Virginia recently wrote an editorial in The Arlington Catholic Herald acknowledging his past.

“My actions were despicable,” he wrote. “When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else. It’s hard to believe that was me. While 40 years have passed, I must say this: I’m sorry. To anyone who has been subjected to racism or bigotry, I am sorry. I have no excuse, but I hope you will forgive me.”

There is Frankie Meeink, who was a prominent skinhead when he was younger and living in South Philadelphia. He spoke at Beth El congregation a couple of years ago about his story. On TV fairly regularly, he is now an outspoken critic of white supremacy and an advocate for overcoming their hate with love and caring. Today, he lives in Des Moines and coaches youth hockey.

There is the story of the teenagers who defaced our building. They went through a restorative justice process, a teshuva process of learning with Rabbi Fink and working for the Temple that resulted in them not only overcoming their hatred of Jews, but in later inviting Rabbi Fink and Jack Huff to attend their wedding.

And then there is the story of Larry Trapp, once Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, which you can find in Chicken Soup of the Jewish Soul. Larry Trapp repeatedly called to harass and threaten Cantor Michael Weisser and his wife Julie after they moved to Lincoln. Trapp was known to be dangerous by the FBI. He was heavily armed and made explosives. Trapp spewed hatred in numerous ways. The Weissers were warned to avoid him.

Trapp evidently was responsible for firebombing several homes of African Americans and had been making plans to bomb Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, Cantor Weisser’s congregation. Over time, the Weissers called in to his radio show to tie up the phone lines, then eventually to ask him why he hated them, why he hated Jews. Trapp never responded but he listened.

They found out things about him. He was isolated, lived in a small apartment. He was in a wheelchair.

Cantor Weisser once left a message reminding Larry Trap that the Nazis came for those with disabilities first. They kept reaching out. They offered to help him, to talk with him, to take him to the grocery store. Eventually, Larry Trapp realized that the Cantor and his wife were the only people who seemed to care about him at all.

When Trapp finally met the Weissers, he burst into tears. Trapp took the swastika rings off of his fingers and handed them to Cantor Weisser, telling him that he couldn’t wear them anymore, to take them away.

“On November 16, 1991, Trapp resigned from the Klan.” He went on to right apologies to many of those he had threatened or harmed over the years. Trapp said, “I wasted the first forty years of my life and caused harm to other people. Now, I’ve learned we’re one race and one race only.”

Only a little over a month later, Trapp learned that he had less than a year to live because of the progression of his illness. The Weissers invited Trapp to move into their home so that Julie could take care of him. It was disruptive to their lives. They had three teenage children.

On June 5, 1992, Larry Trapp, former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, converted to Judaism in a ceremony at B’nai Jeshurun in Lincoln, in the very building that he had planned at one point to bomb. Only a few months later, on September 6, Larry Trapp died in a hospital bed in the Weissers’ living room, Michael and Julie, holding his hands.

One doesn’t really atone for the acts committed by Larry Trapp over the course of his lifetime. But people can change their direction in life. We can perform T’shuvah, turning from paths that led us in bad directions to the path of righteousness. Sometimes, those who hate simply need to see that we are all created B’tselem Elohim, in the image of God. Sometimes, what the haters need is for others to see them in that way as well, not as other, as entirely different, or as inherently evil.

Cantor Michael Weisser, during the time he was interacting with Larry Trapp, offered a prayer for healing during services in his congregation, one that I will repeat here with the hope that it impacts not one specific person in our country, but many, all of those so afflicted:

            May those who are sick with the illness of bigotry and hatred be healed.

And in this time of political discord, when our passions are easily kindled, when we too often forget even among our family and friends that our commonalities are greater than our differences. May we recall the words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his First Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.

Though passion may have strained,

It must not break our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and

Patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land,

Will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched,

As surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

May our better angels allow us to see the divine in those with whom we disagree and in all of God’s children.

This Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement, this Day of T’shuvah, of turning and returning, let us remember the words of the Baal Shem Tov:

When you look into a mirror you see your own blemishes. Think of other people as being your mirror. When you notice a defect or imperfection in someone else, that should tell you that you are tainted by the same shortcoming... Remember that Heaven shows you these sins in others in order that you search yourself and mend your ways.

After all, we are imperfect human beings and all created in the image of God.

Shabbat Shalom and Shanah tovah tikateivu v’teihateimu,

May you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for a good year.

Kein Yehi Ratson. May it be God’s will.

Erev Rosh Hashanah 2015-5776 Adapting to Change

At this time of year, and to a greater extent during the time between the Jewish New Year, tonight, and the Day of Atonement, ten days from now, Jews are expected to perform Heshbon Nefesh, an accounting of our souls. Heshbon Nefesh involves trying to look at our lives as God might look upon us. How are we living our lives? Are we fulfilling our promise, living up to our abilities? Are we striving to improve or falling back into bad habits?

Are we content with mediocre or accepting of the philosophy, “Happy is the person who is content with his or her lot?” Or do we interpret the latter statement to mean that we should strive to achieve betterment so that we may become content? And if we are discontented, perhaps, because changes in our lives brought with them chaos and disorder, challenge and uncertainty, how will we confront them? Sometimes, the challenge is simply to go on with our lives.

The Jewish New Year is a day of celebration, of renewal of the cycle of life, but it is also a time to confront the reality of our lives, a time when the realities and opportunities of change are placed before us.

Tonight, I would like to share a story about change with you and then to help you consider two things, first, how we might respond to changes that happen in our lives to which we must adapt, and second, how we might elect to make changes when the opportunity arises. Of course, not all of those changes are difficult decisions or painful ones, but change always brings challenges with it.

There are many versions of this story. I have entitled my adaptation of it, simply, “A Story of A Cow.”

In an isolated place, on land where there were no crops and no trees, a young man lived with his wife, three young children, all with long drawn faces, and a thin, tired cow. The man, whose name was Samuel, had purchased the cow when it was but a calf, having labored long and hard to earn enough to do so, in order that he might offer a marriage proposal to his beloved Rachel. Samuel was an apprentice cobbler. Each morning, he walked to the small village nearby, returning after dusk. Samuel earned little, but learned much. Someday, he would have his own shop.

Now though, he barely earned enough to keep his family fed. The family once had a pair of goats in addition to the cow, but during last summer’s drought, when the price of food rose, they had to be sold so that the family had enough to eat. Samuel felt badly about that now. He knew how much Rachel enjoyed goats milk and cheese.

It so happened that a rabbi and his disciple, hungry and thirsty, and a bit lost, were traveling by the home as Samuel cut the grass among the bushes, seeking more to feed his underfed cow. Samuel didn’t have much to offer, but he didn’t hesitate to invite the rabbi and his student to come inside for a rest and bit of refreshment in the heat of the day.

The pair stayed for a couple of hours, eating and then dozing off for a nap. At one point, the sage asked Samuel: “This is a place in which it would seem difficult to live. It is far away from other people. You have no trees or crops. How do you survive?”

“You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” Samuel said. “She gives us milk; some of it we drink and some we make into cheese. When there is extra, we bring it to the village and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food. That and what I can afford with my earnings as an apprentice cobbler is how we survive.”

The sage thanked them for their hospitality, vowing to repay it when he could, and then he and his disciple left. When they were out of the hearing of the family, the disciple asked “Rabbi, why do they live like that? Surely, they could move somewhere more hospitable. This is no life.”

The rabbi thought about a story similar to our Fiddler on the Roof and about how life sometimes is truly like that, so easy to fall. It was obvious that the cow would not be long lived and then what would happen to the family? They could starve, but perhaps they would be able to move on and live a better life somewhere else.

The rabbi and the disciple continued on their journey, but neither could forget the family. The disciple, who was traveling with the rabbi on his way to be installed as the leader of a new school, went on to have disciples of his own. Some years later, he travelled to visit his beloved teacher and passed by the place where the run down shack had been.

Upon rounding a turn in the road, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him. In place of the poor shack there was a beautiful house with trees all around, and children were playing in a lush yard.

The heart of the disciple froze. What could have happened to the poor family? Then he remembered the sickly cow. It must have died. Without a doubt, they must have been starving to death and forced to sell their land and leave. At that moment, the student thought: they must be begging on the street corners of some city. He approached the house and asked the man on the front step what had happened to the family who used to live there.

“We are still here,” he said. The disciple was dumbfounded. He went over to Samuel and asked: “What happened? I was here with my teacher a few years ago and this was a miserable place. There was nothing. What did you do to improve your lives?”

Samuel looked at the disciple, and replied with a smile: “I remember you. Back then, we had a sickly cow that barely kept us alive. She was all we had. Not long after you left, your rabbi came back. He brought a man to teach us how to grow crops and even planted a couple of trees for us. There wasn’t much at first, but when our cow died the next year, there was enough to keep us going. To survive, we had to start doing other things, develop skills we didn’t even know we had. We planted more trees and crops, then traded crops for chickens, and chickens eventually for a healthy cow. I bought materials to make shoes as well. Now, we live so much better with crops, chickens, and cows. We sell produce and shoes in the village, enough to turn our shack into a house. Life forced to come up with new ways of doing things, and because your rabbi thought to prepare us by teaching us how, we are now much better off than before.”

The moral of my version of the story is that not only might we be better off trying to do something new and different to succeed instead of merely trying to get by, but we should help others learn to do so. We understand that we should be helping others adapt to the challenges that life may bring. When we teach about Tsedakah, we often think, “Give someone a fish, they’ll eat for a day. Teach them to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime.”

Thus, we are people who work with charity after charity. We work with organizations helping battered and abused women, immigrants, the homeless, big brothers and sisters and so many more groups, helping others to change and improve their lives.

But how good are we at seeing personal challenges and adapting to them? How are we at setting new goals and seeking to achieve them? That is, to an extent, what we are tasked with doing during the high holidays each year. And the Torah portion that we read on Yom Kippur afternoon tells us, “It is not too distant from you.” We can change.

There are years when we come into this sacred space at this sacred time amid changes that have happened to us, our lives tossed and turned. Other years, changes brought us increased joy and happiness. Sometimes, we enter this space, this place and time, at a loss for what we should do.

Sometimes, We are Forced to Change

Going back to our story. Sometimes, the cow dies, whether we are prepared or not. We lose our job, our health fails or that of a loved one. Life can come at us pretty hard. We can be tossed into the deep end or even tossed about on a stormy sea.

In the original Story of the Cow, the sage demands that his disciple push the cow off of a cliff in order to force the family to abandon its struggles right away rather than continuing to merely get by until the cow inevitably died. The family simply wakes up one morning to find the cow dead.

This narrative doesn’t work in a Jewish version of the story, of course. In our religious tradition, taking and then killing the cow would be stealing, destruction of property, not to mention a violation of the directive to care for defenseless animals, and in this case, endangering the lives of the whole family as well. They could just as easily have starved as succeeded in their efforts to change. So such a sage’s advice wouldn’t be very Jewish advice.

The moral of the story as it is traditionally told is that sometimes our dependency on something small and limited is the biggest obstacle to our growth. We can cling to something that sustains us, but also limits us. Overcoming that dependency can be daunting, hence the version of the story in which the family is forced to change by the death of the cow, but once we are willing to change, we can improve.

Yet, the traditional story is also often closer to what happens in life. Sometimes, we wake up to changed circumstances. What we’ve relied upon to help support us is simply gone. At this time of year, we are particularly mindful of times of loss, of the people who are no longer sitting beside us reaching out to hold our hand.

Certainly, during this High Holiday season, my family and I are particularly mindful of that as we mourn the loss of my mother.

Yet, we are also particularly mindful of new hands that are present in our lives and new responsibilities that we have. There is an appropriate cruder version of this statement, but for Rosh Hashanah, let’s just say, “Life happens.”

Being able to adapt is the key to thriving and often to survival.

Charles Darwin once stated, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” This is true in regard to evolution, but also to success and happiness in life.

A few weeks ago, I attended a program about Israel’s response during times of major disasters around the world. Two young Israelis spoke about their experiences in Nepal right after the massive 7.8 on the Richter scale earthquake wrought havoc across the nation, killing over 9,000 people. One of the Israelis, Avi, had just finished his IDF service and was planning to hike through the mountains with three friends.

When the earthquake struck, Avi and his friends realized not that they were in the wrong place and the wrong time, but that they were in the right place and the right time. Their hiking trip wasn’t going to happen. That was obvious, but they knew that they could help and headed to Katmandu, straight into the heart of the disaster to seek out ways to do so, eventually working with the IDF disaster response team that arrived shortly thereafter, helping to distribute food and blankets to hundreds of people over the next few days.

The second Israeli who spoke was Tal. Tal is a nurse serving with Magen David Adom and in the IDF reserves, who aspires to become a doctor someday. She was at home in Herzliya, having dinner with her parents and watching television when reports of the earthquake were broadcast on the news.

Tal said that her father asked, “So are they going to send you?” “Maybe,” she said. It was nearly midnight. A few minutes later her cell phone rang. Within the hour, her unit was at the home of the doctor who runs the medical clinic that gives immunization shots for those traveling to foreign lands. The clinic was closed, but that wasn’t going to stop anyone. The doctor’s wife brewed coffee and the soldiers were lined up at the kitchen table to receive their shots. By the end of the next day, Tal was in Nepal, one of the first foreigners to enter the country after the quake.

When Tal’s unit arrived at the main hospital in Katmandu, eight stories tall, they found everyone from the hospital, doctors, nurses, and patients, sitting in the parking lot. All of the staff were working out of a batch of hastily assembled tents. The hospital building was unstable and there were powerful aftershocks.

Tal was informed that there was one particular patient, a premature baby born to Israeli parents, for whom she was especially to look to help. She couldn’t imagine where the baby was. The child needed to be in an incubator on oxygen with IVs. This was a tent city with little or no electricity.

Tal related that she looked around and there in the middle of the tents was a running car. They wandered over to see what was going on; perhaps they were using the car for electricity or lights. Instead, the hospital staff had realized that they needed a controlled environment amid the chaos. They turned the car into an incubator. An oxygen tank was outside one window and an IV pole was outside the other. Inside, on the backseat in a bassinet was the baby.

As Tal said, they made do with what they had. When asked why Israelis do these things, why they were there so quickly with no hesitation, she said in essence, “It’s what we do. It’s who we are. We just go and do it, no matter how difficult. We try. We believe in Tikkun Olam. We repair what’s wrong in the world. Anywhere we can. It’s what we believe in as Jews. It’s what we believe in as Israelis.”

And I would suggest, that attitude is plays no small part in the narrative of how our people has survived so many trials and tribulations through the generations. When we must adapt, we adapt.

Electing to Change

While life does regularly tell us, “Lekh Lekha,” “Go forth,” like Tal’s commanding officer did, and gives us no choice but to comply, often, we have the opportunity to make a choice.

In our High Holiday liturgy, we read of the Gates of Repentance opening this evening and closing at the end of Yom Kippur. Our tradition urges us to feel a sense of urgency and to seize the opportunity to change our direction in life, to perform Teshuvah, literally returning to the path.

The High Holidays remind us that we have it in our capacity to change ourselves and our relationships. There is no promise that it will be easy. We do need to understand what we can and cannot change about ourselves and to know the difference. The High Holidays are a time when we are reminded that we can change our relationship with our tradition and with the divine, but also that it is not beyond us to heal and improve other relationships, to seek forgiveness, to express love and caring, to act differently.

Sometimes Both Happen at the Same Time

Sometimes, we may find ourselves both forced to change in some ways and elect to change in others. Major changes in our lives can also force us to confront the possibility of making other changes.

It is best for us not to wait until the cow dies to adapt the possibility that it will. Neither is it good for us to endure suffering rather than seeking a better situation. We are the people whose tradition tells us that we wandered forty years in the desert to find the Promised Land and whose national history is of living in the Diaspora for nearly two millennia before being able to return to our homeland. Electing to deal with some hardships, while seeking something better is very much a part of who our ancestors were and of the tradition that they passed on to us.

Some days, it does indeed feel like the world is testing us, that we not only have to ascend a mountain, but know that what we face when we reach our destination is going to be a greater challenge still. Perhaps, a new alternative will arise, a ram will emerge from the thicket, on a very rare occasion someone may step in and help us, our angels, but most of the time, it is up to us to build up the courage to overcome the challenge.

Like Abraham, we may find ourselves all prepared to continue with the task, the expectation, whatever we’ve been planning to do, and then think to ourselves, “What am I doing?” Sometimes, knife in hand, we realize we’re on the wrong path and a voice inside of us speaks up and then calls out, “Avraham! Avraham!” We suddenly see what we’re doing and where we are. We decide to change. We turn. We find a new way.

That process of making changes, of turning and returning, of Teshuva, repentance, is what the High Holidays are all about. May each of us be open to change in the New Year.

L’shana Tovah!

YK Morning 5771 Beyond the Façade: Seeking Goodness and Hope

Beyond the Façade: Seeking Goodness and Hope

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, I spoke of chaos and creation, of how we need to make the most of what we have and how the Jewish Tradition may play a role in helping us through the most difficult times. The morning of Rosh Hashanah, I talked about Heshbon Nephesh, about trying to look at our lives from a perspective beyond ourselves and challenging our assumptions of the way things are. Last night, my sermon was about taking the next step, of expanding our thought processes beyond ourselves and then acting: not just thinking, not just speaking, not just singing, but dancing…doing.

How do we take chaos and make the best of it, move beyond our assumptions about ourselves and others, and having done that, act in such a way that we connect with God, with our people, with our community and with our world? It is not easy. Sometimes, it appears to be impossible. We are unsure even where to begin and feel a sense of hopelessness.

The spark of hope, the spark of holiness, is to be found if we look for it. Reb Dov Baer taught that there is even such a spark in sin:

This is a fundamental principle: in everything in creation there exist sparks of holiness. No thing, nothing is devoid of these sparks, even trees and stones. And, also in every human deed, even in a sin that one might commit there is a spark…

What is the spark in the sin? [What is the good to be found in a sin?] It is teshuvah (repentance). At the moment that we do teshuvah for a particular sin, we raise up the sparks that are in it to the supernal world.

This means that everyone can do some good. Everyone can repent. But what of the worst of the worst?

What about when we can see no hope? What if, when we think about someone, we can see only wickedness in them? In this vein, I wanted to share with you a teaching of Reb Nachman of Bratslav and to add a bit of my own commentary to his. This translation comes from Arthur Green. Reb Nachman taught that:

You have to judge every person generously. Even if you have reason to think that a person is completely wicked, it’s your job to look hard and seek out some bit of goodness, someplace in that person where he or she is not evil. When you find that bit of goodness and judge the person that way, you really may raise him or her up to goodness. Treating people this way allows them to be restored, to come to teshuvah.

This is why the Psalmist said: “Just a little bit more and there will be no wicked one; you will look at his place and he will not be there” (Ps.37:6). He tells us to judge one and all so generously, so much on the good side, even if we think they’re as sinful as can be. By looking for that “little bit,” the place however small within them where there is no sin (and everyone, after all, has such a place)—and by telling them, showing them, that that’s who they are—we can help them change their lives.

The Psalmist, to put the original statement into context, was speaking of the Messianic Age, a time when God will make evildoers vanish from the face of the earth and only the righteous will remain. Nachman’s statement takes this particular verse out of that context and into ours, the context of life as we live it every day. There are bad people out there. Are they incorrigible? Should we just write them off? Or should we attempt to encourage them to be better people? Should we seek out the goodness that may be found instead of focusing on the façade, or even the true face, of wickedness? Should we give people the benefit of the doubt if we perceive them to be wicked, assuming them to be bad through and through? It is not necessarily easy, but Reb Nachman would urge us to try.

It is well known that how we are treated by others can have a significant impact on how we act. For example, a child who is regularly told that he or she is naughty is more likely to act in that fashion than one who is told that he or she is good. A child perceives himself or herself to no small extent according to the way in which others describe them. When we get older, we still perceive ourselves to at least some extent, if not to a significant extent, by how others see us. How much of those things that we buy and of the time that we spend is directed at our appearance? From clothing to athletic clubs, from dietary products to makeup and hair, we invest our time and money in altering our appearance. Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations are vital to the success of businesses.

We join groups and clubs, sometimes not because we are interested in what we can do because we belong to them, but because of the image belonging to them gives us. We can be vain and shallow. We can and do, as I pointed out on Rosh Hashanah, make assumptions about others. Often, those assumptions are based primarily or solely on outward appearances. This day…this Day of Atonement, we are urged to look beyond the façade into the depths of our character and that of others. As we think of others, whether those whom we have wronged or who have wronged us, it is vital that we see them as they truly are.

How many of us interact with people whom perhaps we cannot stand, who infuriate us? How many of us interact or have interacted with people to whom we can ascribe few if any positive characteristics? In how many of those instances is that because we have not looked for them? Some of us, in our present or our past, have been treated terribly badly and abused, wronged to the core. We all know of people whose actions are so terrible that we cannot even imagine that in such people good is to be found! Reb Nachman spoke of them as well:

Even the person you think (and they agree!) is completely rotten – how is it possible that at some time in this person’s life he or she has not done some good deed, some mitzvah? Your job is just to help him or her look for it, to seek it out, and then to judge that way. Then indeed you will “look at his place” and find that the wicked one is no longer there – not because he or she has died or disappeared – but because, with your help, that person will no longer be where you first saw them. By seeking out that bit of goodness you allowed teshuvah to take its course.

The important thing here is not that somehow suddenly the wicked person disappears or that they cease to be wicked, cease to be a bad person. Our tradition does not begin to say that. It takes effort to atone. What Nachman is saying is that they are able to move in a positive direction, away from complete wickedness in your mind and perhaps their own, to a place wherein some sort of teshuvah, some sore of improvement of their soul may BEGIN. As Reb Nachman put it, “you will “look at his place,” to quote from the Psalm, “and find that the wicked one is no longer THERE.” “THERE” is the operative word.

I would put this in a different way. I would say that our perception of the wicked person will have changed. We will see that person differently.

This is also important because how we perceive others affects how we view ourselves. If others can be totally wicked and have no chance of changing, “no help for them,” we say, might this be true for us? This understanding can lead us to depression and overpowering feelings of guilt and shame. Some of us here today may be in that emotional place.

Realize for a moment that if there is a glimmer of hope for the truly wicked, surely there is hope for us. If the wicked in whom we have difficulty finding goodness can change, how much the more so may we? This understanding on the other hand may lead us to a place of hope, a place of teshuvah.

Reb Nachman taught:

I know what happens when you start examining yourself. “No goodness at all!” you find. “Just full of sin.”…[Yet] You, too, must have done some good for someone sometime… [And Reb Nachman addresses the one who responds]“Even the good things I did were all for the wrong reasons. Impure motives! Lousy deeds!” “Then keep digging!” I tell you, “Keep digging, because somewhere inside that now-tarnished mitzvah, somewhere in it there was indeed a little bit of good.” That’s all you need to find: just the smallest bit: a dot of goodness. That should be enough to give you life, to bring you back to joy.

Challenge your assumptions about yourself! As children, we heard, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” It is time you listened to those words as an adult and to these as well, “I think I’m good. I think I’m good. I think I’m good.” Self doubt, self criticism, can amount to self harm if we do too much of it. If instead, we focus on seeking out the good, the hope, even just a little spark, we can begin to change for the better. When we examine ourselves this day and show ourselves that we are people in whom there is good, in whom there is hope, in whom there is courage; we can change our whole lives and bring ourselves to teshuvah.

Nachman tells us that it is the first note of goodness that is the hardest to find. I would add that it is the first bit of courage, the first bit of hope, the first glimmer of light. Once we find that first one, that first spark, the ones that follow are easier to find. He concludes his teaching on Teshuvah:

These little notes of goodness in yourself – after a while you will find that you can sing them and they become your niggun, the niggun you fashion by not letting yourself be pushed down, and by rescuing your own good spirit from all that darkness and depression. The niggun brings you back to life and then you can start to pray…

Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash. Sing a new song. I spoke of this last night in the words of Rav Kook. Many of us on occasion, if not often, have difficulty even singing our own song, much less that of our people, our community, humanity and our world. We have difficulty entering prayer. We have difficulty, on occasion, facing others, leaving the safety of our cocoon, even if it is dark and dreary. We may be afraid of how others see us because a part of us does not like what we see in ourselves.

None of us is evil through and through. None of us is without merit to some extent, even if it is buried deep within. Some of us just have a bit more difficulty seeing goodness in ourselves and in others. Our good friend, Peter Pintus, whose memory is with us this day, was NOT one of those people. Peter always saw the goodness in everyone, was always ready to see the good in people and ready to forgive. I shared this at Peter’s funeral service, but think it appropriate to share this day as well.

On the wall of Peter’s office at home was the following sign:

Dear Lord,

So far today, I’ve done alright. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or indulgent. I’m thankful for that…

But in a few minutes, Lord, I’m going to get out of bed and from then on, I’m probably going to need a lot of help.

–Amen

It is statement of humility, a statement of frailty, a statement of understanding. We connect with this humorous passage because we all, at times, feel this way, feel like the only reason that we have not done wrong is because we have not yet begun. In some ways, this evening we will be like the man laying awake in bed praying to God. This evening, sins hopefully forgiven, we will have a clean slate. We will not yet have sinned this year. There is hope for a new beginning even if admittedly it is one in which we need a bit of help to stay on the right path.

On this, day and any other day, when we have difficulty finding the words or when there are no words to find, we can sing a wordless song, a niggun, a song of notes of hope, notes of goodness. Then, perhaps, we can move on to words, to sing the song of our own life and even to add new verses in joy.

On this, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the gates are open. The gates of repentance are open wide for us to enter. These gates are also the gates of hope for a new beginning, for a better life. These gates are the gates of teshuvah, of repentance, yes, but also of return to hope-filled life. These are the gates that are the entry way to seek forgiveness from God and also forgiveness from ourselves. These are the gates through which we may seek Shalom, wholeness and completion; the gates through which we may reinvigorate our spirits and repair our souls.

“Su Shearim. Open up, O gates!” May we enter and be welcomed in forgiveness, wholeness, and joy!

Gamar Hatimah Tovah! Good Yom Tov!