My neighbor Ben is a very average golfer, like me, but we try to
get together at least once each summer in friendly competition. Somehow the
golfing date this summer got away from us, until last week when we played 18
holes together.
After some small talk, Ben sighed and remarked that Rosh Hashanah would
begin at sundown on Wednesday, September 24. "It is the Jewish New Year's, and
my family always celebrates it in the full Jewish tradition," Ben told me.
I was curious about this event. Being a Christian, I really did not
understand much about it, so I asked Ben to tell me more.
"The Jewish New Year differs in some fundamental ways from the secular New
Year," my neighbor said. "The observance, for example, is far more muted. This
is because the Jewish New Year is largely a period of introspection that begins
with Rosh Hashanah and extends for ten days until Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement. This ten-day period is meant to be a time of stock-taking, of
self-reflection."
"It is customary during this time, for example, to seek out in person those
whom we may have offended in the preceding year and ask forgiveness. So, this
period of ten days is a time principally to reflect on how we are conducting our
lives and specifically, how we may have messed up. Given the scope of that
task, sometimes I think ten days is not nearly enough time!" he said.
I had to say that as a Christian I regularly search for the same things in
my life, and then I ask God to forgive me.
"The ten days beginning on Rosh Hashanah concludes on Yom Kippur, October
3," my friend said again. "If there is any day of the year when even the most
non-observant, non-believing Jew goes to Temple, this is it. Anyone my age
remembers with pride when in 1965 Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers
refused to pitch in Game One of the World Series because it fell on Yom
Kippur."
I asked Ben, "Why do virtually all Jews in the world go to Temple on Yom
Kippur? What happens there on that day that is so compelling?"
"Well," Ben said, "in the broadest sense, what Jews do in Temple on Yom
Kippur is stand as a community and publicly confess their sins. The Jewish
concept of sin differs in some important ways from that of other religions.
Judaism teaches that humans are born with free will, and morally neutral, with
both an inclination toward goodness, leading to a productive life, and being
concerned for others ---- but, also an inclination toward evil, baser instincts
and selfishness. The moral laws in the Torah ---- starting with the Ten
Commandments, but including hundreds of other commandments, are meant to help
steer one's behavior toward the good. To Jews, sinning is like an arrow missing
the target. Sinning, in short, is missing the mark."
My friend continued, "The ways in which individuals can miss the mark
during the course of a year are many, and in the Yom Kippur service we stand all
together and recite them out loud. The list we recite ---- and we do it
multiple times ---- runs through the alphabet with each letter corresponding to
a different sin. This does not mean we have committed only 24 sins (the number
of letters in the Hebrew alphabet) but that we have committed the whole range of
sins (from A to Z), the full gamut of possible human failings. For every mark
that could have been missed someone among us surely has missed it; and sometime
in our lives, we have missed it. So we stand together and say aloud,
"We have been arrogant, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we've corrupted our
own character, we have corrupted others' characters, we've been deceitful, we've
ridiculed good people, we've made misleading statements.' And every seven or
eight sins or so, we stop and ask God for forgiveness (presumably we've already
asked forgiveness from the people we've actually hurt). We say, 'For all these
sins, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.' And then we continue with the
list of sins."
Ben added that this full day at Temple is done while observing a complete
24-hour fast!
My friend was silent for a few moments. Then he said, "I like the Yom
Kippur ritual because it presupposes that human beings are fallible, that we all
miss the mark sometimes, and that with effort, we can control some of our baser
urges and maybe do better next year. I find reciting the litany of possible
failures is a good way to take stock ---- as I say the list out loud together
with the congregation, I often think to myself, 'Yup, did that one. Yeah, did
that one, too. Oh, there's one I'm not guilty of ---- at least not this year.'
For me, there are always more 'guiltys' than 'non-guiltys,' but it is
interesting year to year to see how my failings either remain consistent or
shift with circumstances," he said.
We had just completed the 18th hole and I wished I had more time to talk to
Ben about the management of sin. As a Christian, I did not believe that
I was born morally neutral ---- it seemed that I was born biased toward sinning,
so I was grateful that someone named Jesus had made a very great sacrifice to
redeem me. But, both Ben and I are in possession of free will. The problem is
that often we don't use our free will effectively to live as God directs
us.
As I drove home, I began comparing these two very different styles of sin
management. As Ben described the Jewish approach, there is intensity and
depth, with sins specifically named and acknowledged. But, formally done
only once a year. However, I did assume that Jews are always free to
make a "sin self-examination" informally at any time.
In my experience as a Presbyterian, I recall that every Sunday in Worship
we formally acknowledge in general terms that we are sinners, without
publicly being specific about the whole range of possible sins. But, we do this
every week. Perhaps we only give our sinfulness a glancing blow, but we
do it frequently.
I began to wonder if there might be some real value in each
approach. Do we need a little more intensity and depth, as well
as a little more frequency, in seriously addressing our personal
sinfulness? Perhaps it depends on each of us knowing what self-effacing
discipline will best help us individually to manage the personal use of our
free-will for God's purposes.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development
Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this fall
at CPC.
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