Saying "Yes" -- Kol Nidrei, 5780

Saying “Yes”

Kol Nidrei, 5780

Rabbi Jason Rosenberg

Ron Fischman: My Book of Days

From Ten Poems for the High Holy Days

3, say yes

thinking back to the derailment I

search for switches thrown, tracks mislaid

gross mistakes not evident

fine errors that tilted track

downward

faith that a promise made,

however inconvenient,

is kept

or it wasn’t a promise

ha

I long for the chance to say yes

and have it matter

yes to equity, yes to offering,

yes to custody, yes to commitments

yes when my children ask

if they can tell the truth to mama

not maybe her lawyer will use it in court

like she did my other poem

yes to openness without

evisceration

can I say yes to life again

can I go to synagogue and sing Kol Nidrei

take my place as a treasured member

knowing that I have a

place

can I say yes when offered

the chance to work for no reward

except for the sense that the world

looks fondly on my toil and

smiles

can I say yes to my children

yes to my writing yes to my rabbis

yes to commitment to leadership

to my ex her lawyer my

children

I pray

I pray

I pray

           

Tonight is Kol Nidrei, a service which we call by the name of its opening prayer. In truth, Kol Nidrei is not a prayer at all, but rather a legal formula. It is an annulment of vows. “All vows, resolutions, and commitments… That we promise and swear to God from this Day of Atonement until next Day of Atonement… Let all of them be discarded and forgiven… They are not valid and they are not binding. Our vows shall not be vows; our resolutions shall not be resolutions; our oath’s shall not be oaths.” It’s an exceptionally strange way to open a service — any service, let alone one which begins the holiest day of our year. Why would we begin this night with a public, legal declaration that any oaths or vows that we make are essentially meaningless? It’s hard to understand, especially given how seriously the rabbis of old took the idea of a vow. A vow is a promise which we swear to by God’s name, and in doing so, we elevate the fulfillment of that vow to the level of mitzvah — sacred commandment. Swearing by God’s name to do something, and then not following through is not just breaking a promise. It’s defying our God. Our sages found this idea so potentially dangerous that their advice is to never make a vow in the first place. But, if one is made, we must do everything in our power to see it through. Why then Kol Nidrei? Why do we declare that any vow that we make is as if it was never made, at all?

            An explanation might come from the poem with which I began tonight. “I long for the chance to say yes and have it matter… Yes to offering… Yes to commitments… Can I say yes to life again?” These are the words of a man who finds himself afraid to say “yes.” Afraid to respond as he wants to when he feels called. Can I let myself say “yes” to the commitments which call to me? Even if not sure I can live up to them, am I willing to offer, from my deepest place, my “yes”? Kol Nidrei isn’t giving us permission to make promises to others that we don’t intend to keep. Kol Nidrei is giving us permission to make promises to ourselves that we suspect we can’t possibly keep.

            The poet Robert Browning said that a person’s reach should always exceed her grasp. I should always be trying to touch that which I can’t really attain. I should always be striving for more than I believe I can achieve. Maybe Kol Nidrei is about giving myself permission to try to be what I dream I can be, even if am not sure I really can get there.

            I went to a college with an extraordinarily unusual, possibly unique, grading system. Any class that we took, as many as we wanted, we were allowed to take pass/fail. But, more importantly, any class which we failed, whether or not we were taking it for grade, was wiped from our record. Our transcript wouldn’t show an “F.” It wouldn’t show anything about the class at all. It was as if we had never taken it. The class wasn’t a class.

            The reason for this system was explained to us during our orientation week by one of the Deans of the school. I remember her saying to us that the idea was that each student should have the opportunity to take some classes which he or she could not possibly pass. And, to do so without fear or hesitation. If you are a science nerd, she said, but you’re interested in taking an advanced seminar on Shakespeare, then go for it. If you are a Poly Sci major, but want to take a class in the art department, then take it. There’s no penalty for failure, so there’s no reason not to try. We were being given permission to exceed our own boundaries, to strive, to try to be different from who we usually were, to try to be more than what we usually were. By being told that our failures were forgiven in advance, it took away any valid reason to not try something. It set us free to dream.

            That’s what Kol Nidre is giving to us. It’s giving us permission to fail, which is inherently permission to strive. It’s giving us permission to dream about who we could be, if we were just willing to try.

            Like everyone here, I am not exactly who I want to be. I can easily imagine a much better version of myself. Professionally and personally, there is so much that I want to do, so much that I want to be. Why don’t I? What holds me back?

            Some of it is, to be honest, exhaustion. Just like almost everyone here. We’ve all got so much pulling at us—for some, it’s children who rely on us. For others its older parents who have started to need to be cared for themselves. Some of us are lucky enough to be juggling both of those demands at the same time. We’ve got jobs which seem to offer fewer and fewer moments of downtime. Homes which need upkeep, bodies which need attention. Every time I have a spark of inspiration to do something big, it’s followed by a deep, soulful “oy.” Who has the time? Who has the energy? Promising myself that I’m going to add something to my list, as truly deeply important as it might be, feels like a prelude to failure.

            Even scarier is the idea that I might actually be able to commit to this new idea, I might give it the time and attention that it deserves, and I still might fail. I might fail at it because I’m just not up to the task. I’m just not good enough. What’s more frightening than running up against the outer limits of our own competence, especially when others can watch it happen?

            And, since this is the night of confession, I’ll also admit that I’m afraid of how I’ll look when I’m trying something truly new. Most of you know that, for a few years now, I’ve been getting more and more involved with Mindfulness practice and meditation. It hasn’t been easy for me, and it hasn’t been comfortable. All of my life, through rabbinical school and well into my rabbinate, I was the intellectual, the rationalist. It was how I understood the world, and how I understood myself. And, it was how I wanted to be seen. What would people say if I started meditating? If I started closing my eyes more in services, or talking about our souls more than I used to? Would they still take me seriously? Would I still take myself seriously?

            Those were real questions I had to ask, real fears I had to face. It would have been so much easier to just dodge them by staying how I was, by remaining who I was. But, I was tired of who I was, I was dissatisfied with how I was living. I had to find a way to get past those fears, those doubts, and to be willing to try something different, even if I wasn’t sure it was possible. Even if I wasn’t sure I could do it. Kol Nidrei says to me, says to all of us, try. Try. Strive. Reach. Dream. What do you have to lose? You are forgiven before you even begin, so begin already!

            Can I promise myself, right now, that I’ll be better? That I’ll change, that I’ll grow? Even knowing that I will fail, that I will never live up to the version of myself I dream of tonight, can I swear to God that I’ll be that person? Even if, even when I fall short, will I be better for the effort? Can I get myself 5% of the way there? And, would I get that 5% if I didn’t dream tonight? If I didn’t strive beyond the boundaries of my own realism? Tonight is a night for dreaming about the best versions of ourselves, and for promising ourselves, vowing before God, that we’re going to be those people. We’re going to be our best selves. And, to realize that, when we fail, it’s not because we’re failures, but because we’re striving. That I fall short, because my reach exceeds my grasp.

            Throughout the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, we constantly use the word “chet.” Not that long ago, the most common translation of that word was “sin,” but that wasn’t a great translation, since chet doesn’t really carry all of the moralistic overtones of “sin.” More and more, we used the phrase “missed the mark,” which is actually a pretty good rendering of the word, which originally come from the world of archery and such. But, maybe the best translation of it for this generation isn’t “sin,” or “missed the mark,” but “falling short.” That’s what we’ve done. We’ve fallen short. It’s not that we’ve been bad. We just haven’t done enough. We haven’t been enough. To use an often lighthearted phrase in a serious way, we aren’t living our best lives, at least not in the ways which really matter.

            One of my favorite teachings from these past few years comes from the prayer Modeh Ani. It’s a prayer which is meant to be said first thing upon waking up, every day. As soon as we open our eyes, before we say anything else, we’re supposed to say, “Modeh Ani Lifanecha Melech chai v’kayam, shehechezarta bi nishmati b’chemla. Rabah emunatecha-- I thank You, living and eternal God, for returning my soul to me with compassion. Great is Your trust.” Our ancestors believed that sleeping was a tiny taste of death. And so, waking up wasn’t just waking up, but rather having our soul returned to us, every day. But, it’s the last couple of words which really grab me. Rabah emunatecha -- great is Your trust. Because, that could be read a couple of different ways. It could mean how great it is to trust in God. But, it could also be praising God for how great, how endless God’s trust in us is.

            Yesterday, God, You gave me my soul. And, I wasted it. I didn’t use it to anything like its full potential. Not even close. The same thing happened the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. And, despite my constant failure to live a life worthy of this precious soul which You gave me, day after day, here You are again, trusting me with it, one more time. Rabah emunatecha.

            Are we using this day, are we using this soul, this chance, to its full potential, or even something close to it? Is this the life we want to live? Is this the legacy we really want to leave behind? If they had to be written today, would we be satisfied with our eulogies, if they were told honestly? If I’m being honest, I’m not worried that people will say bad things about me. But, I am very worried that if they are clear eyed and truthful, there won’t be enough good things to say.

            Ask yourself tonight: are you truly satisfied with the life you’ve been living? Would you be content with the eulogy you could write for yourself, today? If not, then what are you waiting for? We don’t have a lot of time, and it may well be less than we think. That’s the overwhelming, desperate message of Yom Kippur, with all of its imagery and talk of death. It is a brutally honest reminder that we are mortal, and that therefore our days are limited. Are we doing the things, planting the seeds that will make the best use of the limited time that we have? Are we living in ways which truly, deeply give testimony to our having been created betzelem Elohim, in the image of God?

            It’s not easy. We really are busy and overtaxed and overwhelmed. But, if we don’t let ourselves feel the depth of our desire, the depth of our aspiration, and the pain of our failures, then we won’t be motivated enough to take our shot when we have the chance. Tonight is the night to dream of what we could be, so that when the opportunity presents itself, we don’t respond with that tired “oy.” We respond instead with the fulness of ourselves. Our lives are meaningless unless we give them meaning. There is no day to begin other than today. So let’s begin.