RH1 Sermons from Shomrei Torah on Vimeo.

I have to say that this is the strangest Rosh Hashanah I have ever experienced and I suspect that is true for many, if not most of us. Typically, I look out on Rosh Hashanah and see hundreds of people here at this annual religious gathering. But not this year, I am looking at a mostly empty sanctuary, at cameras and a large monitor, all from behind my Plexiglass shield; and you are at home participating in our service from the screen of your devise.  And yet, it is nonetheless Rosh Hashanah, another year has closed and new one has begun. I certainly hope that 5781 is a better year than 5780 was. In spite of the strangeness and the modifications, the annual theme of the High Holy Days remains the same – Teshuvah/Repentance.  

Each year on Rosh Hashanah we acknowledge that we have fallen short of our goals, express remorse, set new goals and strive to do better. So, if we find ourselves in the same place each year why do we continue on this merry go round? Because if we do it well, we are not in the same place as we were a year ago. We have grown and changed, but because we are human we have still fallen short of our idealized vision of what we imagine we could be.  Our best selves remain elusively out of grasp and can continue to be a goal towards which we strive.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that conversations regarding Jewish holidays plays a large role in our family.  My mother-in-law was telling me about the wonderful resources put out by the Hadar Institute on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  They had an interesting piece on teshuvah in which Rabbi Ethan Tucker points out that the most famous compilation on repentance, from the great rabbi and scholar Maimonides, actually consists of two incompatible parts. The Rambam states in his Laws of Repentance:  What is complete teshuvah? When a person again confronts a sin they committed, is capable of doing it again, but nonetheless refrains from doing so in order to repent, not simply because they are afraid of the consequences or too weak to carry out the act. (Hilchot Teshuvah 2:1)

The Rambam, another name for Maimonides, basis this on a passage in the Talmud:  What is a ba’al teshuvah—a penitent? Said Rav Yehudah: A case where a person encounters a sin for a second time and is spared. (BT Yoma 86b) In other words we know that we have repented when we find ourselves in the same situation, but we make a different choice. If find myself thinking about people recovering from an addiction, their challenge is to live their lives in a way that they don’t give in to their temptation again.

However, in that same passage, Maimonides also writes, but if a person only repented in old age, thus lacking the power to do what they would have done at an earlier point in life, this is not ideal teshuvah but it nonetheless counts and such a person is considered a ba’al teshuvah—a penitent person. Even if a person was a sinner their whole life and then repented on the day of death and died in a state of teshuvah, all sins are forgiven…

This is also based upon an earlier rabbinic text which teaches, R. Shimon says... If a person was wicked his whole life and then did teshuvah at the end, God accepts him, as it says, “The wickedness of the wicked will not trip him up on the day when he turns back from his wickedness” (Ezekiel 33:12). [Tosefta Kiddushin 1:15-16]

Rabbi Shimon is positing that teshuvah is an internal process and that it can be done at any point in life. While Rav Yehudah teaches that teshuvah is action driven and has to be done at a time when sinning is possible. Maimonides could have picked one of these as the model for teshuvah, but instead he tries to create a synthesis.  I know people for whom doing the personal work of repentance is challenging and yet real; while I also know others, who feel that if there is not some sort of action taken, it is not really teshuvah. Maimonides makes it clear that actions showing repentance is the ideal, but acknowledges that something is better than nothing.  

Our tradition is forgiving, which for us as sinners on this day of judgement is a good thing. Most of us do not think of Rosh Hashanah as Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment, but that is what the rabbis called it. They say that on this day, everyone is judged by the Almighty.  There are some of us who judge ourselves harshly and tend to judge others, focusing on their failings and shortcomings.  But as I said, our tradition is one of forgiveness – we should not judge ourselves too harshly and certainly we should not judge others harshly. We can never know with certainty what motivates someone to act as they do. The rabbis teach that we should give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

My father-in-law, was talking to me about how the Conservative Movement responded to the pandemic could be useful in a Rosh Hashanah sermon.  I agree, I think that being able to forgive is enhanced if one has a sense of flexibility in life, understanding that often there is not just one right answer, but multiple paths that can be followed and when someone chooses a different path from our own, it does not make it wrong or bad, just different. Conservative Judaism teaches this path, in most situations there is not a single Conservative answer, but often a range of legitimate Conservative Movement responses.  

The Coronavirus pandemic has shown the movement at its best as we responded religiously to an unprecedented situation. First, you should know that the way our movement responds to religious questions is that people ask questions of their rabbis. If we are not sure, we ask our own teachers, when they don’t have an answer either, we can submit our question to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS). The chair can give us an answer or it can be assigned to a committee member to research and write a Teshuvah, a religious position paper. It is a long and arduous process to get a teshuvah approved. It is not unusual for our movement to approve two position papers that are in conflict with one another, thereby reflecting the diversity of our movement, recognizing that some congregations do things one way and other communities do things differently and both are legitimate.

When the pandemic hit there were many questions that needed quick answers that the normal process could not accommodate, so to respond to the needs of the hour, the CJLS found an alternative process – members were invited to write responses to queries that were then vetted by the chair and co-chair and then published on the website with a disclaimer that this letter is not an approved position of the CJLS, just guidance. They produced a letter approving a virtual minyan over zoom which we implemented, but other synagogues did not. They produced a letter permitting zoom on Shabbat which we also implemented and others did not. They provided guidance on how to abbreviate the High Holy Day services and each rabbi applied it in a way that made sense for their community.  However, everyone took as their base position that protecting life supersedes all other considerations, there were just different responses as to how that best could be done.

Our Movements ability to change can and should inspire each of us to realize that we too can change that teshuvah is always possible. Life is not static, change is a constant. Our job is to change thoughtfully, not randomly. Our goal is to strive to do better, to be better. So, as you are invited to do each year, engage in Cheshbon HaNefesh, Soul Searching, examine the life that you live and contemplate how you can change it. It is important to remember that in our tradition a sin is simply missing the mark, the Hebrew word for sin is the same one used in archery when missing the target. We have a goal for which we aim and being human fall short of our expectations, and so we stop to take stock, reset our aim and try to do better. Doing teshuvah is a choice that we make, we can let these Ten Days of Repentance, the Aseret Yemei T’shuvah, pass not doing any personal work and be the same person were before the holidays began or we can make a commitment to ourselves, to God, to the community, to do more, to do better, to change – that is the essence of teshuvah. Your future is in your hands, don’t waste the opportunity.

Wishing you a Good Year, a productive year, a year of growth and change and most especially, a Year of Health – Shanah Tovah!