September 21, 2007 - IS CHANGE POSSIBLE? - (Kol Nidre, 5768)

To say that human beings are all capable of repentance is to invite skepticism. I say this because there are those individuals whose backgrounds are so filled with violence and all sorts of terrible kinds of abuses that the possibility of their ever being able to live psychologically and morally balanced lives is slim to none. And then, there are those poor unfortunates who suffer from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses for whom teshuvah, true repentance will never be an issue. Until or unless the medical world can devise medications to offset their maladies, we can also consider them beyond the pale.

But to come to this evening, this Kol Nidre, and to take it in only as observers but not participants is to deny the power, true meaning, and purpose of this night. For, this evening, this service opens to us the full potential of setting our lives back on course. It whispers to us that we can bridge the gap that has grown over the past year between ourselves and God. It shouts at us like a blaring shofar that we could have done better last year as people who are supposed to treat each other better. We were supposed to have recognized the image of God in each other. We were supposed to have observed the commandments by honoring our parents and by lifting up rather than tearing down and bearing down on our children. Given a freer choice, we were supposed to have been forthcoming in full and generous support of the synagogue and of Jewish institutions in general instead of actually reducing our pledges and minimizing our contributions. We were to have studied God’s word and assimilated something of the festivals and holidays into our lives, not make excuses about having so many other things to do.

But in order to approach Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement, with anything more than our “Observer Badges” on, in order to more fully participate in the powerful potentials of this process of returning, it is critical that we believe, indeed, that change is possible. Because, if we assert that we are who we are, and that we are, essentially, incapable of being other than who we are, then all of this is simply a show, sham…a charade.

It isn’t a matter of knowing ourselves well enough. Living as we do, with friends, family, students, co-workers, bosses and myriad others surrounding us and giving us feedback, taking the time during these days to have done a chesbon ha-nefesh, a personal inventory, an evaluation of our souls, we have at least a modicum of understanding of who we are and where we generally fit in our lives. The question also isn’t whether we should change. None of us is as perfect a human being as we could be; none of us is at peace enough, successful at the art of living enough; adept enough with family members and friends as we, in our heart of hearts, would like to be. The question, then, isn’t whether we need to modify things in our lives. The question is whether we actually can! Do we believe that we are capable of changing? Or are we, through nature and nurture, stuck forever and always in t hese sin-spotted skins that we wear? Are these shortcoming too ingrained ever to permit us to repent? Are we forever to be basically flawed in ways which condemn us to certain degrees of disharmony, disaffection, disdain and distance from others, God and our inner selves?

This is not a modern question. I didn’t just pull this issue up from my own soul some late night watching Letterman. Nor did it arise from the machzor…because, for the prayer book and the authors of these prayers, the answer was an obvious one. Of course, change must be possible...or, exactly, what are we doing here? But it actually was the ancient Mishnaic and Midrashic rabbis who raised this question themselves. Perhaps it was that they, too, observed how stuck their baalabateem, their constituent worshippers, seemed to be. Year in and year out, they came and mumbled or chanted or shouted these same prayers; they sang the Kol Nidre, the Al Chayts, the Aveenu Malkeynus either under or with the fullness of their breathes as the shalliach tzibor pleaded their case with God; but year in and year out they seemed to stay pretty much stuck as they were. Were they capable of making strides in improving upon what gifts and defects they had been born with? Were they capable of overcoming their upbringings and all the mistakes their parents like all parents inevitably were to have made?

In an effort to make a case for the ability to change, the rabbis spoke about the case of Cain. Cain was a louse, a cheat, a liar and a murderer. You remember Cain? No, not the car salesperson who sold you your last lemon, although I am sure you might want to apply some of those self same appellations there. No, this Cain appears in the first chapters of Genesis. He is one of the sons of Adam and Eve. He was the tiller of soil, the one who was unwilling to give the best of himself and the fruits of his labor when he sacrifices to God. On the other hand, his brother, Abel, a shepherd, does not withhold, but offers the best-of-the-best of his flock. And when God ignores Cain’s offering, in his distress and rage, Cain rises up and slays his brother. In the aftermath of this act, God questions Cain. Cain demurs and answers that he doesn’t know where his brother is or what happened to him. God rebukes Cain by telling him that his lies, like his sacrifices, are useless and that the ground cries out with the blood(s) of his brother, providing the proof of what Cain has just denied. In punishment, God cuts Cain off from the earth, telling him that the soil which received his brother’s blood will hence forth reject his efforts. He is condemned to wander the world for the rest of his days.

Cain, in his misery, cries out to God in Genesis 4:13, “Gadol avoni minso---my punishment is too great to bear!” The rabbis, instead of reading this pain-filled utterance as grievance, comment on the word, avoni, my punishment, and translate it as “my sin,” a readily possible reading of that word. And by interpreting avoni this way, the Rabbis convert what Cain is saying from complaint to confession, for now what he is saying is that his sin (!) is too great for him to bear. In others words…in words meant to establish a philosophical position…the rabbis have posited that even a criminal the likes of Cain is capable to reaching out to God and making contrition for his transgressions…evils that were, to that point in time, the worst ever committed.

The rabbis establish Cain as a paradigm for those who believe that they are too lost or do not have the strength to reach all the way back to God. Cut off as he is from the earth which defines him, rife with self alienation—with having lost a great part of the goodness that he had embodied, he nonetheless makes the reach, and God, reaching back to Cain, accepts his confession and forgives him.

In what is a wonderful follow-on midrash, instruction to us tonight as we contemplate what lies before us tomorrow, Adam runs into Cain during his journeys and is surprised to see him alive. “I thought God took your life for your killing your brother,” Adam exclaims. “No,” replies Cain, “I repented to God and the Lord accepted my confession and forgave me.” “Really!” Adam says…very much taken aback and instantly agitated by this new piece of information. “Oh, if I had only known…” he begins lamenting; if I had only known the power of repentance, then I would still be in the Garden of Eden!”

The inference that the rabbis want us to draw is, of course, if a slug, a sleaze, a scoundrel like Cain can find a way back into God’s good graces, can not you and I? This is the power and message of this day we have begun tonight: that we have within our power this ability to make changes in our personal histories to affect, for the better, our futures, by owning up to our misdeeds, mistakes and shortcomings.

The Torah portion we’ll be reading tomorrow morning, Nitzaveem, encourages us to realize that the power to understand God’s word is well within our ability. It isn’t some esoteric or exclusive province approachable only by priests, oracles or soothsayers. And just as Torah is accessible to us all, so, too is the ability to repent. Yes, Torah says. We can change. Unlike the realm of the natural world where once something has occurred, it can no longer ever be called back or undone, we human beings can turn back; we can seek to undo the damage we have done; and we can reach out to God’s unending acceptance, forgiveness and mercy if we but engage in this process of contrition of which we are each capable and through which we can, rather than suffer the deaths of our souls, renew our relationship with the Divine…as the phrase following our returning of the Sefer Torah to the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark…the Holy abode, promises: that we may, indeed, renew our days as of old.