Weekly D'var Torah

This coming Shabbat's Parsha Ha'azinu isn’t a narrative like the Creation of the World, nor a set of laws like the Ten Commandments.  Instead, it’s a song:

Give ear O heavens and let me speak!  Let the earth hear what I say!  

In stirring and stark verses, Moses recounts our history and its lessons.  When we stick with the Covenant, we fulfill our historic role as G-d’s witnesses, a reminder to humanity of a moral absolute.  We endure, we flourish, we serve but when we betray the Covenant, we are swept away by the blind forces of history and vanish into the chaos.  But there is a way back: repentance/teshuva: 

If there, in the land of your exile, you seek HaShem your G-d with all your heart and all your might, if you return to G-d, then G-d will return to you.

Yom Kippur, the day of fasting and repentance, is filled with prayers where we take responsibility, regret past mistakes and ask for Divine guidance in moving forward in a better direction. We also read a Torah portion describing the atonement rituals practiced in the desert and the Temples.   The night before the fast, we recite the stirring declaration of Kol Nidrei where we regret all the commitments, promises and vows we made to G-d and failed to keep.  If we do those things, G-d promises in the Torah, then “v’Nislach kol Adat B’nai Yisrael”- the whole congregation of Israel will be forgiven. This is the straightforward theology of Yom Kippur.  We try, we err, we fail, we fall, we get back up, try to repair, learn and determine to go forward.  The fasting, giving money to tzedaka, adding prayers,  all of it helps us make it matter, give us a firm foundation for reflection and change.   It’s not a passing fancy, not a momentary whim and regret.  It’s a process of self-examination and relaunch.  We do it every year because we know that we will fail again and again.  Each time, we try to rise higher, to learn higher, to live higher, more kindly, more compassionately, more calmly, more majestically.  Our lives, the Torah says, are a song.   On Yom Kippur, we strive to hear that song.  Is our song harmonious, is it in tune, is it it true to who we are?

Atonement?  Think Attunement.   On Yom Kippur, whether you are in shul for five hours or five minutes, listen intently, not to the Rabbi or Cantor, but listen to yourself and really say the prayers.  Which words jump out at you, which words make an impression if we allowed them to, which thoughts and values and intention behind the words are in tune with our inner melody, which ones bother or irritate us and which ones touch us?  Those are the markers that can help us listen to our inner melody and bring our song back to what it was truly meant to be.  Yom Kippur isn’t a day of sorrow or pain. It is a day of cleansing, a day of restoration.  When you take that first drink of water and morsel of food at the end of it all, take a nice long sigh, kiss someone you love and let the light and strength of the moment hold you up and lift you up into a year of blessing!

G’mar Chatimah Tova!