On Sukkot, honoring the homeless | Jewish Journal

On Sukkot, honoring the homeless | Jewish Journal

Celebrate Bisexuality Day! (Jewish version...)

Celebrate Bisexuality Day!
(Keshet lists some notable bisexual Jews...)

Postcards from ימים נוראים: Overdue Thoughts on Kol Nidre

7 Tishri, 5773

The backstory: Although I have been going to my synagogue since Spring of 2010 and then converted in 2011, this year – 5773 – will be the first time I will be witness, and indeed a part of, Kol Nidre. As fate would have it, I did not make it during the previous two HHD seasons. The first year I was honestly lost in and subsequently overwhelmed by the High Holy Days – as strange as it sounds, the only way I could get through my first Yom Kippur was to be absent for Kol Nidre. Last year I was in bed with an awful head cold, which, as I had also stopped eating or drinking, and along with a change in meds, would contribute to my fainting in the middle of YK services the very next day. (Text received during my ER visit from one of my rabbis: “Are you all right? Did you mean to faint right before Mi Shebeirach?” Heart my clergy!)

Today I can relate that I am neither over-awed nor under-the-weather and am excited for this long delayed first Kol Nidre, especially with some new understandings I have recently come across.

Continuing backstory: A few months ago, Kol Nidre was the subject of a pre-Elul Torah study. As it was one of my HHD mysteries, and having been absent from it over the last two years, I immediately sat up to catch the discussion as it flew around me and ricocheted off the walls and ceiling. (My Torah Study group is wonderfully if not fearlessly active in their spiritual wrestlings. The WWE has got nothing on us.) Many characteristics of Kol Nidre I understood immediately – it was a legal formulation and not a prayer (check), written in Aramaic and not Hebrew, (check) wrapped in a beautiful haunting melody (check), which basically begins the Yom Kippur Services for the next 24 hours (check check check).

Yet there was one aspect I kept intellectually tripping over: the disavowing of vows. Um, why would there be a legal document read before Yom Kippur (the day of forgiveness/atonement) which seemed to allow any oath mentioned over the last year to be disavowed? Confusion reigned. Why bother genuinely asking for forgiveness and atonement from both another individual and God if we were saying any oath we made could be so broken?

You can probably guess what happened next. I raised my hand and voiced that question. No sooner had the words formed in the air than someone along the back row muttered “She’s wrong”. (Which is kinda the last response you want to hear in Torah Study.) The rabbi leading the group that morning responded by using my question to discuss how Kol Nidre was historically the basis of so many age-old anti-Semitic justifications. (Which, on second thought, is REALLY the last response you want to hear in Torah Study.) [1]

(Note to the designers of the ubiquitous “Intro-to-Judaism” courses: please consider including some special discussion regarding Kol Nidre in HHD lessons. That is all.)  

Now, some moons later, I am delving into a set of books called Rosh Hashanah Readings and Yom Kippur Readings, both edited by RabbiDov Peretz Elkins, so I can better understand, appreciate and participate in the HHD, which is unabashedly my favorite season of the Jewish calendar. Needless to say, I am pouring over the Kol Nidre section in search of some context to hang my questions on. And finally, upon reading more deeply the liturgical/halakhah/Biblical/historical background of Kol Nidre, I heard the clilk! of understanding from within, like that moment the key opens the tumblers of a particularly stubborn lock .   

* * *

(If the following aspects of Kol Nidre is all remedial Sunday School for you please skip to last line. No worries; I forgive you.)

My understanding now of the halakha roots to Kol Nidre can be traced all the way back to the Torah’s admonition against making frivolous oaths and promises. (Remember, this caution came in the ancient time of Balaam and blessings and curses, when it was thought that what came out of our mouths not only spoke of what was within ourselves but had power to create and destroy, heal or harm, in the real world. Much as it does now, even though we seem to forget this loaded truth online and off in the real world.) Your word was – or at least should be – bond. Specifically to each other and especially to God.

Kol Nidre seems to understand that despite the Torah’s warnings and the best of intention from us Jews, “frivolous”[2] oaths will pass from our lips to God’s ear. (Welcome to the human condition.) Therefore, before we can ask for God’s forgiveness and mercy, we must first deal with processing all those unfulfilled promises. This strikes me as amazingly functional in religious, emotional, psychological and even sociological terms. In this respect, Kol Nidre is the vehicle that helps us get from one side of Yom Kippur to the other. (I also now understand that Kol Nidre is specifically for oaths between us and God. We're still on the hook for buying that round next Saturday night because the Red Sox lost. Again.)

Additionally, there is a strong historical connection between Kol Nidre and the Conversos of Spain. [3]Faced with conversion to Christianity or death, they chose life in anti-Semitic medieval Spain as hidden Jews. How important Kol Nidre must have become for them in keeping their spiritual integrity intact during such times! (And from a socio-political p.o.v., it is therefore no surprise that anti-Semitics would hold up Kol Nidre as proof-positive that Jews would not keep to their forced conversions, embrace another belief system under the threat of torture and death could not be trusted at their word.) A beautiful drash in YKR also draws a connection between the Conversos of Spain and those of the Queer Community who find that too must hide their true identity in an unforgiving and cruel world. (I really cannot recommend these books enough.)

What Kol Nidre means in 5773 is something I am still gleaning and certainly welcome any-and-everyone else’s interpretation. (Anti-Semites excluded. Clearly.) 

With only two-and-a-half days (daze?) to go, may you have an easy fast this Yom Kippur, may your name be sealed in the Book of Life and may you (continue to) have the sweetest of years!

---

[1] Torah Studies assume some background knowledge of the topics under discussion.

[2] Yom Kippur Readings: Inspiration, Information, Contemplation, p20 – ed. Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins

[3] ibid (p. 22)

"Giving to The Needy is a Jewish Obligation"

Rabbi On The 47 Percent: Giving To Needy Is A Jewish Obligation
(Rabbi Soffer is one of my Rabbis at Temple Israel. And an all-around cool guy.)

And yes, as some of the commentators of this article point out, giving to the needy should be a human obligation which transcends spiritual beliefs - but clearly it's not practiced as such, which for me makes Tzedakah all the more urgent, important, and meaningful.

שנה טובה 5773!

It is daylight now, a cool autumnal Rosh Hashanah morning. The sun has just cleared the 

Boston skyline and found the blue sky blameless. Sigh - I am not quite as innocent but 

then, who is? The roommate is up, shaking off the Monday blues to get ready for work. 

Meanwhile I am happy to note all my professors have responded to my notice of absence 

from their classes today with "Happy New Year!"'s. It is still disorienting (although less so 

than in previous years) to me how the secular world goes on during Rosh Hashanah. Yet 

this year - 5773 - there is something else. From within the disorientation a sense 

of special divergence, a distinguishing difference, emerges. I am appreciating how this day, 

these Days of Awe, this Tishri, and this year of 5773, exists outside the norm. It imbues 

each moment with a profound and celebratory quality that I cannot quite define, nor am I 

sure I want to. I feel no need to analyze it more than that; I am at peace and joy just being 

in it.    


Goals: 

Embrace more question marks. (One of my rabbis is quoted as saying the question 

mark is the quintessential Jewish symbol. Couldn't agree more.) Keep feeling my feelings 

(rough one, that). Trust more. Love more. Read more Jewish texts - liturgical, Holocaust, 

philosophy, Israeli fiction and non-fiction. (Fun one, that. There are not enough hours in a 

day.) Learn and speak Hebrew, Biblical and modern. Get more present with and my 

congregation (another rough one, as I am socially awkward to a fault. And yet people keep 

asking me to sit with them. See Goal #1.) And, always, keep walking that narrow bridge...
                                                                   
                                                                          * * *

I do not know who you are, where you come from, what makes you laugh and cry or how 

you love. But may you be inscribed in The Book of Life and your new year be sweet...

Call Your Zeyde

Yes, I know it is a year old. But its joy has no expiration date...

Rosh Hashanah Rock via AISH

(Mitt Romney's people called. His Rosh Hashanah message is forthcoming...)

STREET SHOFAR

"Tekiah G;dolah!"