Roadmap to Repair
Rev. Douglas Taylor
9-24-23
Sermon video: https://youtu.be/-sbABswwfG4
“We feel the season turning. The early sunset glancing through the red-tinged leaves. (These words penned by a UU lay worship associate for the Yom Kippur season) The newspaper arriving in the cool morning air. The flock of migrating swallows. A feeling of being on the edge of something new. These are the Days of Awe. A time to welcome a new year and a time to make the old year right before we lay it in its place on the shelf of our memories. We bless the wine and drink. We bless the braided bread and eat. We dip apple in honey, and savor its sweetness. May the sound of the shofar carry us across the threshold where lie the possibilities we imagine for ourselves and our children.“
(Author – Ben Soule, UU lay Worship Associate)
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. It comes as the tenth day of the Days of Awe, the first of which is Rosh Hashanah, the new year. The ten days of the new year are called the Days of Awe because people feel fear as well as reverence during this special time of judgment and forgiveness. Yom Kippur, in particular is a day of fasting, of self-reflection, and repentance.
Yom Kippur’s new year is a time to do an inventory of our living. In one story about the Days of Awe, it is not simply a self-inventory we are invited to do. Each human’s deeds are reviewed and judged by God. This is where we hear about the Book of Life. Each year there are three books open before God. The Book of Life, the Book of Death, and the Book of Judgment. The names of good and saintly people are already inscribed for the year in the Book of Life. The names of the wicked are already inscribed for the year in the book of death. The rest of us have our names listed in the third book, the Book of Judgment.
Throughout the Days of Awe, each person’s name comes up for review. The three books remain open for the whole ten days, during which time people are confessing, atoning, and repenting to help assure that their name will be found in the Book of Life for another year. Nothing is final for the year until the books are sealed shut at the end of Yom Kippur. This is the prompt, then, to do your repentance work so the deeds of your past year will result in your name being inscribed in the book of life.
There was a clever side story I’ve heard before. A humble shopkeeper sits down to make a list of all his misdeeds and sins over the course of the year. At the same time, however, the shopkeeper made a second list as well, detailing the woes in the world attributable to God. When he finished, he looked at the two lists and said out loud. “All right. I was not honest about the freshness of that fruit I sold last month, but you let that little girl down the street die from disease. I let my temper get the best of me when I was talking with my brother, but you created mosquitoes. I took your name in vain when I hit my thumb with the hammer, but that storm a few weeks back ruined a lot of the crops for the farmers in this area. …” And on it went until at last the shop keeper said, “So I’ll tell you what; If you’ll forgive me, I’ll forgive you. We’ll call it even and start fresh with the new year.”
I find this little side-story delightful. Unfortunately, that’s not what true repentance is about. True repentance, the real work of Yom Kippur, is to change our behavior and return to our better selves. In our little story, the shopkeeper bargains with God but doesn’t ever change or improve.
The text I’m using for today’s sermon, and for the UUA Common Read workshops we will have in October, is Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair. Her book is an exploration of the teachings of Maimonides on the topic of repentance. She tells us that Maimonides Laws of Repentance outlines five steps for this work.
- Naming and Owning Harm
- Starting to Change
- Restitution and Accepting Consequences
- Apology
- Making Different Choices
I read you this list not to in hopes that you will memorize it and get to work, but so you will become curious and want to know more. Let me tell you a little more.
The whole process starts with a form of confession, “Naming and Owning Harm.” In our society, this is a non-starter for a lot of people. Lawyers will tell you to never admit fault or culpability. Instead, we have a cultural norm of making non-apology apologies, of minimizing situations, focusing on our intentions, listing our glowing character and reputation, or simply out-right denial – all instead of “naming and owning harm.”
But ultimately this is an act of truth-telling. The thing is, you are invited into doing this truth-telling on yourself. “I caused harm.” And this is not just on the level of teaching our children to not lie. This is also about speaking the truth about how our institutions have caused harm or how our country has caused harm. If we can’t name and own the harm caused – with specifics – then we will never be clear as we try to move forward.
This is a pretty big deal. And it is a very hard step if you don’t understand how you have caused harm. So often we cause harm without noticing or understand that we’ve do so. As Rabbi Ruttenberg clarifies:
“This is true for the person who chronically picks up the phone while their partner is talking; the person who borrowed, without permission, something they didn’t realize was an heirloom; the cis person whose curious question of their trans neighbor dehumanizes them; the organizational culture that habitually silences women’s voices at meetings; the city whose zoning laws reinforce structural racism and decades of disenfranchisement.” (p 27)
To even get to the first step of Maimonides’ stages of repentance is significant. Yet, to name and own harm to another is still just step one. The next step is to “begin to change.” When I first read through the list I thought, “That’s subtle. All we do in that step is start to change, we don’t have to fully change.” Another way to think of it though is to say, step one is to admit we’ve been doing harm and step two is to stop.
Following those first two steps are the parts about making amends and making apology. Step 3, according to Ruttenberg is “Restitution and Accepting Consequences,” Although she acknowledges that Maimonides didn’t specifically include ‘accepting consequences’ as a concept in his writings, it is clear to her our society needs the reminder. And following all that, the apology as step 4. It is interesting to note that there are several action steps prior to the part where we say the magic words of apology. Often, (and I do this too – so I mean it when I say, “we,”) – often we rush to begin the process with apology.
“Let me begin by offering my deepest apology …” But in Maimonides’ outline, before we apology we have already named and own the harm we’ve done. We’ve begun to process why it happened and start to change our behavior. We’ve even begun to make restitution and amends for the harm – and then we apologize. The apology at this point is less likely to be a non-apology.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” “I’m sorry if you were offended.” “I’m sorry but it takes two to tango.” “I was just kidding; can’t you take a joke?” “Ugh, fine! I’m sorry. Are you happy now?” There are countless ways to fake an apology, to pretend you care, to go through the motions just to get it over with.
Because the real work is not to just say sorry or get forgiven. The real work is to repair what has been broken. This is not about forgiveness, but about repentance. The real work is to change. I saw a line a few weeks ago that said, “Changed behavior is the best apology.”
The last step in Maimonides’ list from the Laws of Repentance is to Make Different Choices. We start with ‘Naming and Owning Harm,’ followed by ‘Starting to Change.’ From there we offer ‘Restitution’ and eventually make our way to ‘Apology.’ All that brings us to ‘Making Different Choices.’
Throughout the book, and if you join me for the Common Read workshops in October, you’ll notice Rabbi Ruttenberg regularly calls the process of repentance a process of transformation. The end result is to be people who makes different choices, who choose to live in a way that is more in keeping with the better version of ourselves we long to be.
There are some people who witness the process involved in Yom Kippur and the work of repentance and think – it is all so focused on what you’ve done wrong and about what a bad person you must be. In fairness, that is certainly one aspect of the holy work. But it is also fair to say, this process provides a way to face what is going on in the world and in our lives.
The troubles in our lives and in the world will not be improved or repaired with cheap apologies and false declarations of humility. The make the world a better place we need to make ourselves into better people. That means we do the work of repentance when we are called upon to do so. Yes, it means we need to face our faults and flaws. It means we must face the ways we have caused harm to others. But listen to this perspective from Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nahman of Breslove,
“If you believe that you can damage, believe that you can fix. If you believe that you can harm, believe that you can heal.”
This reframing, I think, is quite important. It reminds me of one of the traditional prayers recited during Yom Kippur. It is a prayer of confession with the lines “We have sinned,” offered by the whole community. One year, I had us enact this confessional prayer together during a service. We place our fist over our heart and with each line we thump our fist against our chest. The lines are statements of confession like “We have lied. We have stolen.” Everyone at the service recites a number of possible sins, partly so everyone has a chance to publicly confess to any sins they have committed in the preceding year while still saving face. But following the service in which we did this prayer together, I heard from several people about how strong a negative response they had to it. Yom Kippur is hard work!
This year, a rabbi colleague posted the “Ahavnu Viduy: A Loving Confessional for Yom Kippur” composed by Rabbi Avi Weiss. I offer it to you in the spirit of the earlier quote: If you believe you can harm, believe that you can heal.
I invite you to place your open hand over your heart and – if you are willing – repeat each line after mean, tapping your heart each time.
We have loved,
We have blessed,
We have grown,
We have spoken positively.
We have raised up,
We have shown compassion,
We have acted enthusiastically,
We have been empathetic,
We have cultivated truth.
…
We have been merciful,
We have given full effort,
We have supported,
We have contributed,
We have repaired.
Now is the time for turning, for the turning of the season and the turning away from old habits that no longer serve. As we witness the turning of the leaves and of the birds in migration, we turn as well, with the new year. Now is the time for turning away from the harm we have caused, away from the wrongs we have done; it is time for turning toward the holy and the good, for returning to the better, more loving versions of ourselves.
In a world without end,
May it be so
Rev. Douglas Taylor 