Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg
Rosh Hashana 5767

Kol Nidre, the medieval prayer with the stunning melody which we will chant just nine days from now is the ultimate disclaimer.  Think of it as a letter in which we say: 

Dear God,

Just so you know, All-knowing One, we’re going to try really hard this year, but chances are we’re going to say some things that we don’t really mean.  So, just in case that happens, we want you to pay attention to all the things we say which we should have said… and ignore the ones that we shouldn’t have. 

Sincerely, your eternally trying and perpetually failing people,

The Jews

Thanks

So, I guess it’s fitting then, that I begin my remarks this afternoon with my own disclaimer: This year I’m giving my Yom Kippur Sermon on Rosh Hashanah, and my Rosh Hashanah sermon on Yom Kippur.  So often rabbis, including this one, use Rosh Hashanah to speak about the new year and newness, the infinite possibilities that are contained within it – the warm and fuzzy stuff.  The fire and brimstone speeches, then, are reserved for Yom Kippur.  “You’d better shape up” preach the rabbis, because the gates are closing and you don’t want to be left out in the cold.  But Rosh Hashanah is not the secular new year.  And unlike New Year’s Day, it demands a bit more from us.  The poet, Dana Gioia, sums up his impression of January 1st with the following words (“New Year’s”):

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality,
The most mundane and human holiday.

He picks up a few stanzas later:

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along-to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

Gioia’s poem is beautifully pagan, depicting images of a self-renewing world, pregnant with possibility and promise.  And yet, though Rosh Hashanah is certainly about renewal,  it does not grant us tabula raza.  As we stand on the threshold of a new year, we are faced not with an untainted blanket of freshly fallen snow, but with the footprints of yesteryear.  Our Jewish tradition views the new year as a palimpsest, not an open canvas.  We will paint the experiences of 5767 over the memories of 5766, trying to improve the image from last year.  That is why, I think, Yom Kippur comes after Rosh Hashanah.  Because without the Day of Atonement looming before us, we might be tempted to simply see the new year as “the most mundane and human holiday” when, in reality, our Rosh Hashanah should “honor the miraculous,” and celebrate eternity.  What eternity do we celebrate? The eternity of the Kadosh Baruch Hu.  And the miraculous? We acknowledge the miracle of our having been giving the capacity to take an active role in our own lives, to create our own destinies. 

So today I want to speak about a topic which may feel a bit “Yom Kippur – ey.”  It may not be fire and brimstone per se, but I’m hoping that it will steer us toward a more conscientious engagement with the Days of Awe.  Today I want to speak about guilt.

That’s right, guilt: the time-honored Jewish tradition of doing bad stuff and then feeling lousy about it afterward.   Or, as Ruth Andrew Ellenson puts it (with just slightly more eloquence), “Between the ideal of who you should be, and the reality of who you are, lies guilt.”  Ellenson is the editor and recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for her recent collection: The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt.  She was also a guest and speaker for Anshe Emet’s YAD program this past spring.  Now, I am not ashamed to admit that I, a young, heterosexual male have read and very much enjoyed this book.  Of course, I also eat quiche… but that’s not important right now.  If you haven’t read the book, male or female, young or old, you should.  It’s funny, heartbreaking, thoughtful and poignant.  It brings together some of the best Jewish women authors of our era to tackle a sensitive but important topic: How does Jewish guilt affect those who experience it?  How does it bring people together?  How does it tear them apart?  To help us to begin to answer these questions, I’d like to take a few moments to share brief descriptions of some of the more memorable pieces from the book.

The essays range quite a bit in their outlook and scope.  Some of them depict the insidiousness of guilt, when we feel guilty for things that are not really our fault, or for things that we simply cannot control.

One author tells of how her chance encounter with a disciple of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (at a Grateful Dead concert no less) led her to rediscover her Jewish roots and found Heeb Magazine.  But, when the magazine flourished and the author was inundated with interview requests and fan mail from young Jews wearing t-shirts that said, “Yo Simite,” she balked and left the publication.  She felt guilty for having created something popular and cool.  The magazine had become her personal Frankenstein.  She didn’t want to be cool, she simply wanted to reach out to other Jews who felt as disconnected and marginalized as she did. 

Another essay, by Sharon Brous of Los Angeles describes the difficulty, as a rabbi, of having to bear the burden of other people’s anger and disappointment with Judaism.  She writes: “To those critics, I say, “Look, I’m sorry that Judaism’s not an easy entrance religion.  I’m sorry that Religious School was so lame.  I’m sorry that Hebrew makes your head spin.  I’m sorry that Rosh Hashanah services are so damn long.  I’m sorry I don’t have a big white beard.  Most of all, I’m sorry for musaf – but it’s really not my fault!  Everything worthwhile takes hard work and discipline.”

One of the most thought-provoking essays is entitled The House of Love and Bragging.  In it, the author describes her recurring fantasy that she is having a really good day, happy and content, when a baby grand piano, which had not been properly secured in the freight airplane thousands of feet above her head, comes crashing down from the sky, flattening her into a pancake.  “Better keep my eyes up,” she writes.  “Better be vigilant, particularly on those good days.  Any good day not marked by worry and vigilance will be met with tragedy.”  Her epiphany comes when she is telling a friend about an upcoming trip to Italy for a reading of her second book.  She is excited, but anxious.  “I’m so scared the plane will crash!” she confesses to her friend, “because I have a book out!”  The friend replies slowly, “Well, you know, the plane might crash.  But it won’t be because you have a book out.”  The author describes how freeing it was when she realized that she simply wasn’t all that important.  God doesn’t drop pianos on people’s heads because they’re having a good day.

Yet, other essays in the collection betray a different side of guilt.  Sometimes guilt can be constructive, instructive, even life-changing.  One author describes how she bought a phone with caller ID simply to free herself from her mother’s incessant phone calls.  Her mother, in turn, learns to block her ID so that the display reads “Private Caller.”  By the end of the essay the cat and mouse game has led to such derision between the two women, that the daughter disables her caller ID.  

Still another essay describes how the author sat in a nail salon waiting for the paint on her toenails to dry as the minutes ticked away to the beginning of Yom Kippur.  She ended up missing Kol Nidre that evening.  To be sure, her tardiness was as much a product of her ambivalence toward God and Judaism as it was about her ambivalence toward her affluent Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side, as it was (to be fair) about her genuine desire not to show up at said synagogue with imperfect toenails.  Even still, she describes breaking into tears upon her arrival at home that evening and says with regard to her daughter who witnessed this, “I like to think she understood that my abiding sense of conflict spoke to some sort of passion, a connection rather than a severance.  How else to explain my perplexing behavior… the following day, when I attended shul from late morning until the end of the fast, barely lifting my head from the Machzor like a person in a trance?”

Guilt can be redemptive.  It can lead us back to our tradition, our families or back to ourselves.  Guilt can tear us down, but it can also build us up, motivating us to move closer to the ideal.  Moreover, guilt is not simply about disappointing ourselves.  In fact, it’s most often about the twinge we feel in our kishkes when we’ve disappointed others: our loved ones and our community, when we’ve disappointed God.  But, here’s the thing: God wants us to succeed.  The Kadosh Baruch Hu, through our tradition, has provided us a road map, a way to lead lives of blessing and righteousness.  And God believes in us.  That’s why it hurts so much when we fail.  That’s why we feel guilty.  We see ourselves through God’s eyes, and we don’t like what we see.

There’s a story of a king who visits a small town.  The people of the town are so excited to greet the king that they decide to present him with a gift, a barrel of good wine.  But, alas, there was not enough money in the town coffers purchase a cask, so each person agrees to pour a bottle of his own best wine into an empty cask placed in the town square. 

That night one person thinks to himself, “I have so little and some people in town have more than I.  I will simply pour in a bottle of water.  Everyone else will bring wine and the king will never know the difference.

Another person has a similar thought, “Why would I waste my good wine on someone I have never met?!  I’ll just add a bottle of water.  No one will be the wiser.

When the day finally arrives, the whole town welcomes the great king in the town square.  The mayor presents him with the barrel.  The king dips a goblet into the cask, draws it out and brings it to his lips.  A look of sadness comes over his face as he pours the contents out upon the ground.  In that moment it is apparent to all who are gathered that the barrel contains only water. 

A little bit of guilt can be a good thing.  The story is compelling because we can all imagine the hush that falls over the crowd, the embarrassment they feel as they realize that each has held back his best.  Now we all know that the King in the story is, of course, not an ordinary king, but the King of kings, Hamelekh Malchei Ham’lakhim.  And we, each of us, are the subjects.  We know what it feels like to punt, to phone it in, to withhold our best when our best is what’s needed.  And we know what it feels like when we realize that we are not alone in our failure. 

Earlier this month, six children died in an apartment fire in Roger’s Park.  Twelve people from two families were living in the single crowded unit.  The families were burning candles for light having lived without electricity for several months.  The building owner denies responsibility, claiming the occupants should have notified him that the hard-wired smoke alarm was not functioning.  Whether the lack of electricity led to a failure of the fire alarm is still under investigation.  Mayor Daley is blaming the Alderman for not checking in on the families.  But, there is speculation that they, being undocumented immigrants, would likely not have turned to their elected officials for assistance with the electric bill.  Meanwhile, the community is asking how something like this could have happened.  Six children are dead and whatever checks might have been in place to prevent such a tragedy were not in place.  Everyone, the parents, the owner, the government, the neighbors, brought water, when they should have brought wine.  It seems to me that there is plenty of guilt to go around.

The story of the King echoes another story, this one from the book of Genesis.  Cain, too, denies God his best while Abel offers the choicest of his flock.  Cain kills his brother then, not because he is jealous of him, as is the most common understanding, but because he is ashamed.  The first murder occurs because Cain does not know how to handle his guilt, so he lashes out at its source.  How can we harness our guilt so that it does not destroy others; So that we do not destroy ourselves?  What would the world be like if Cain, instead of turning to violence had simply made a better effort?   God calls out to Cain, “eyh Hevel achicha?” “Where is Abel, your brother?” and Cain responds, “I do not know, “hashomer achi anochi?” “am I my brother’s keeper?”  Here, God is calling out to each of us.  How will we respond?  Will we remember that, yes, we are our brothers’ keepers?  Will it be water, or will it be wine?

Guilt is certainly not a new Jewish phenomenon.  Included among the various forms of sacrifices done in Temple-times is the “guilt-offering,” the asham.   This sacrifice is unique in that it is required of one who has sinned intentionally, but a sin not so severe as to incur the ultimate punishment: caret or divine excommunication.  For example, the misuse of sacred objects and the offering of certain kinds of false oaths are cause for bringing a guilt-offering. 

And this, I want to suggest to you today, can be our criterion for discerning the difference between destructive and constructive guilt:  What was our intention?  Did we sin knowing full well that what we were doing was wrong? Did we allow ourselves to justify an improper or even immoral act in the name of truth or ignorance or progress, or the common good?  In other words are we feeling guilty because we actually are guilty?  Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.  I’ve always loved that quote, but I have come to realize that it sets the bar perhaps just a bit too high.  The sin of indifference is a significant one to be sure, but today I want to suggest that we start with the sins we have committed b’mazid, with intent or with criminal negligence.  Then, if we play our cards right, by focusing on those things for which we are guilty, we will eventually come to a better understanding of our responsibilities with regard to the rest… But, first things first.  Meanwhile, anyone who has not committed an intentional sin this year is hereby excused from shul for the remainder of the holiday. 

So, in those cases when we are guilty, of anger or malice, of bribery or slander, what do we do?  What’s the next step?  To help us answer this question, we should look more closely at the ritual of the guilt-offering.  Though we no longer practice animal sacrifice, I think two further details can be instructive:

First, the asham is considered one of the Kodshei Kodoshim, sacrifices of the highest order, and may only be eaten on the day on which it is offered.  Guilt, unlike revenge, is a dish best served hot.  Think about a time you did something you know you shouldn’t have.  How does it feel the next day, a week or a year later?  Guilt tends to fester and rot if it is not dealt with immediately.  The more we postpone atoning for our sins, the more they tend to consume us. 

Second, the asham may only be offered with a ram and not any other animal.  In our tradition, the ram immediately makes us think of Rosh Hashanah.  The ram’s horn is the symbol of our new year, the shofar’s blast calling us to a different level of awareness.  The Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac, is read on Rosh Hashanah, in part, because it ends with the sacrifice of a ram.  When we think ram, we think of the new year, and here the asham comes to teach us a valuable lesson:  Guilt, at its best, can be a force for renewal.

So who or what can be our guide in this process?  I want to suggest that the mahzor can be of great assistance.  Think about it, the mahzor is the ultimate guilt trip!  The prayers and piyyutim included within these pages are dripping with the most profound guilt. 

Avinu Malkeinu, our Father our King: we have sinned before You!  Inscribe us in the book of life because we have had the courage to admit our wrongs and we have done our best to make amends.  And though we may not truly deserve to be forgiven for these wrongs, we know that you are a compassionate God, a God of Rachamim, who loves us despite our flaws.

What would this coming year be like if each person who said the viddui on Yom Kippur really believed it: Ashamnu, we are guilty!  What does it mean to be guilty?  So often, I think, we dismiss guilt as if it were a sickness passed down through the generations.  Or, we explain it away.  Or we rationalize it.  Can you imagine the confessional prayer translated by a post-modernist?

Ashamnu, we are guilty… except that I’m not really guilty because my truth is not your truth.  And anyway, I’m only behaving this way because of my parents, or my boss, or my 4th grade Hebrew school teacher.

…And so on and so forth until there is no one left to take responsibility for anything and the King of kings, HaMelech Malchei Ham’lachim, is left to drink only water when, with just a bit more effort, we could have offered wine. 

Rav Yosef Be’er Soloveitchik once observed that both King’s Saul and David committed great sins.  Why then was Saul rejected and David was hailed as progenitor of the messianic line?  Soloveitchik explains that it was simply David’s ability to acknowledge his mistake and ask forgiveness.  When guilt moves us toward conciliation and away from arrogant pride, it can be a powerful ally.
 
But, guilt can also be exhausting.  Enough to drive many of us to think, “age-old tradition or not, Jews would be better off without all the guilt.”  In the final essay of Ms. Ellenson’s book, entitled “Quitting Guilt,” Susan Shapiro a memoirist and writing instructor at NYU, tells her readers how in recent years she has managed to stave off the continuous onslaught of Jewish guilt.  As a recovering addict from what she calls “nice-Jewish-girl-itis,” she has discovered how to say no: to her mother, her relatives, her colleagues and students.  The essay contains the musings of a woman liberated from the guilt of always having to please everyone else, and losing herself in the process.  It’s inspiring and uplifting.  But, there’s also an edge to the piece, a degree of the mean-spiritedness one so often finds when confronting someone who has gone through a sudden life change and rejected, starkly, her past behaviors.  She lashes out at old acquaintances and colleagues, and I found myself disappointed with the tone even as I agreed with much of her message.  It takes all our powers of discernment to recognize when guilt is constructive and when it’s debilitating.  We shouldn’t allow our lives, our choices or our values to be dictated by other people’s agendas.  But neither should our own agendas be strictly characterized by hedonism and self-indulgence.  We are still our brothers’ keepers.
 
I submit to you that the answer lies not in quitting guilt, but in redeeming it from its stigmatized past, in knowing its value as well as its limitations.  My friends and teachers, It is no accident that the shofar service takes place on Rosh Hashanah, and not on Yom Kippur.  If the new year is about taking cheshbon hanefesh, an accounting of our souls, there is, perhaps, no greater tool than the shofar. The notes are piercing and true, and music has a way of entering our hearts faster and with greater impact than words ever can.   
 
But the shofar can only be blown in one direction, from the narrow end so that the sound emerges from the wider end.  Rabbi Louis Jacobs, alav hashalom, observes that with regard to this phenomenon the verse is quoted, ‘Min hameitzar karati ya, aneini bamirkhav ya,’ ‘Out of the straights I called upon the Lord; God answered me with great enlargement’ (Ps. 118:5).  Jacobs writes that the purpose of Judaism, and indeed all true religions is, “To help us emerge from the narrow, restricted, egoistic view to the wider, more exalted one, to help us achieve a more magnanimous view of life and to emerge into a world of broader horizons….” (Jacobs, A Guide to Rosh HaShanah). 

While it is true that some of us feel guilty about our happiness, most of us, I think, spend little time worrying about pianos falling on our heads.  For most of us, then, the guilt we experience comes in two varieties:  the guilt we feel when we’ve done something wrong and the guilt we feel when we haven’t done something wrong, but we or others think we have.  When we are consumed by this second kind of guilt, it’s like trying the blow the shofar from the wide end.  We get nowhere, end up drained of energy and out of breath.  Or we try to please everyone and feel guilty when we cannot.  This too is like blowing the shofar backwards.  But when we start from the narrow end, when we focus on the behaviors we can change, on the good we can do and on the person each of us would like to become, then we can emerge from egoism to broader horizons, then the notes ring true and clear. 

Ashamnu, we are guilty.  We feel the disconnect between the real and the ideal.  We know when we are not looking out for our brothers, our sisters and our friends.  We know when we have not reached for our highest principles, when we look back on the past year and realize that we have withheld our best.  Without a sense of guilt, we have no sense of purpose.  Without purpose, we cannot begin the arduous task of t’shuvah. 

If we can recognize the guilt that we feel as a wake-up call, if we can acknowledge the times when we have knowingly hurt others, when we have knowingly hurt ourselves, if we can incline our hearts and minds toward the path of righteousness and Godliness, then the guilt we feel will not have been in vain.  And when we see ourselves through God’s eyes, I suspect that we will better like what we see there.

So this year, let’s not wait until the closing of the gates at Ne’ilah, let’s get started right now.  This year, let’s not let the guilt rankle and eat us up inside, but listen instead to the call of the shofar.  This Rosh Hashanah, let us raise proudly our glasses of wine (not water) and toast the arrival of a better new year.