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October 12, 2024

A More Forgiving World is a World Redeemed (Yom Kippur 5785)

Angela W. Buchdahl

Click here to access formatted version of this sermon.

A More Forgiving World is a World Redeemed
Rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl, Yom Kippur 5785

Two Jews, long-time rivals,
see each other at the synagogue,
on the Day of Atonement.
One crosses the aisle, in a gesture of good-will,
and says to the other:
"I wish for you what you wish for me."
And the other says:
"Already you’re starting with me?”

Who in your life have you written off this year?
No need to answer out loud.
But really—think about it for a moment.

Perhaps this person did something
that really hurt you.
Or hurt someone you care about,
and never really apologized.
Perhaps it’s not even what they did,
but what they said—
maybe they expressed opinions
completely opposite to yours—
on the most urgent moral questions of our time,
a political race, or an actual war.
Whatever the grievance,
you’ve decided that they’ve shown you
who they really are,
their true character
and they are not worthy of your friendship,
your loyalty, or your empathy anymore.

We live in such an unforgiving time.
We decide that someone’s actions,
even thoughts, are so beyond the pale,
that they are not just wrong, but immoral.

It’s as if we’ve lost the muscle of knowing how to
talk about what offended, hurt, or alienated us.
We double down on our righteous anger.

Family estrangement is at an all time high.
Today at least one in four Americans[i]
say they have permanently cut off contact with a close family member.
This excommunication happens
on a societal level as well.
You can find long lists of authors, musicians,
and scholars whose work we have decided
we must expunge, because they have done
or said things we believe are condemnable.

Human beings are capable of doing terrible,
hurtful, and even violent things.
I am not excusing any of it.
We have every right to be angry
about the transgressions
people have perpetrated on us,
on people we care about, on decent society.
Justice demands consequences for bad actions.
And forgiveness is not required without an apology.
But we now seem to default to cutting off
and discarding human beings, permanently,
for their sins—
more than at any other time in human history.

This punishing culture comes at a great cost.
Withholding forgiveness not only hurts the
other person, but us as well
as holding onto anger can be toxic.
People try to understand why
our children these days, are so anxious,
pointing the finger at social media,
or snowplow parenting.
But imagine what it’s like for our kids today,
forced to absorb all that rage around them.
Fearing that when they make a mistake,
which they inevitably will, they may never recover.
That this mark might stay with them
for the rest of their lives.

I think our children
are the most anxious generation
because we have become
the most unforgiving generation.

Today is Yom Kippur,
our communal day of teshuva, of repentance.
Our tradition says teshuva is not only the
most important work of this holy day,
but among the primary spiritual tasks of our lives.
But the very notion of teshuva
that you can forgive someone for a terrible sin—
is almost scandalous today.
We are not only angry at the sinner,
but anyone who dares forgive the sinner.

Why? Maybe because we aren’t willing to believe
that people can change.
Because too often, we conflate people’s actions
with their character.
If you tell a lie, you become a liar.
If you cheat, you become a cheater.
How could we be expected to forgive
someone’s dreadful misdeed,
if we believe it’s not just what they did,
but who they are?

But that’s not how Judaism sees it.
Pirke Avot teaches:
“The world is judged with goodness
and according to the preponderance
of our deeds.”[ii]
In other words: we’re judged
with the benefit of the doubt,
because we are all born with a neshama tehora,
a pure soul.
Jews don’t subscribe to the notion of original sin—
we all start with a clean slate.
And we are not judged by our worst act,
but by the bulk of our deeds.

This doesn’t make forgiveness
a forgone conclusion.
Forgiveness is earned through remorse, apology,
consequences, and changed behavior.
But our tradition believes people are
capable of taking those steps,
and making those changes.

Judaism understands that every one of us is
susceptible to mistakes, transgressions,
even grave sin.
That’s because even though we start
pure and pristine
we also carry two forces within us at all times:
a yezter harah—a so-called “evil inclination,”
And a yetzer hatov, a “good inclination.”
Picture the cartoons of our childhood,
where these two yetzers are depicted as
a little devil sitting on one shoulder,
and a little angel sitting on the other,
whispering competing advice in our ears.

But we should not understand the yetzer harah
as a demonic force—
it’s more like Freud’s id,
our unconscious drive to fulfill passions,
sensual or sexual pleasures,
or the urge for material things, property, power.
The yetzer harah in itself is not evil,
but if left unchecked
is the drive that leads to cheating,
coveting, megalomania,
selfishness, deceit, and even murder.

But since an uncontrolled yetzer harah
is the source of all sin,
why didn’t God, in God’s Omnipotence,
just get rid of it?

The rabbis had the same question—
and a solution.
A story from the Talmud tells of
when the ancient Sages decided
to capture the yetzer harah,
and imprison him in a lead box.
The yetzer harah demanded to be freed,
warning them that if they killed him,
the world would be finished.
The Sages didn’t buy it.
But indeed, while the yetzer harah was caged,
the world lacked the inclination to build,
procreate, or acquire—
not one baby was conceived,
no building was erected,
even the chickens stopped laying eggs.
Creativity ground to a halt.
The rabbis looked at each other
and realized the world needed the yetzer harah
so they poked his eyes out, and let him go.[iii]

For the rabbis the moral person is not the one
who slays the yetzer harah,
but the one who learns how to channel it.
As Pirke Avot teaches:
Eizehu gibor? Ha-kovesh et yitzro.
“Who is Strong?
The one who subdues his evil inclination.”[iv]

So if we contain both urges within us,
what helps us choose the good?
Well as your Rabbi, I will be perfectly on brand
and answer: Mitzvot.
Which are God’s commandments.
Mitzvot are not just about religious observances,
but how to treat others,
be generous, protect the vulnerable,
and yes, forgive.
In Pirke Avot, the rabbis claim:
Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah.
A mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.
Averah Goreret Averah.
And sin leads to another sin.[v]

The entire system of Jewish law, prayer
and study practices are engineered
to proscribe and reinforce holy habits
that strengthen our yetzer hatov—
our inclination to good, which leads to more good.
“Character” is simply the habit of
doing good, over a lifetime.

But as a society, we remain convinced that
someone’s moral character
is inborn at an early age, something immutable,
stable and fixed.
We believe that we know the ‘good’ people
from the ‘bad’—
so when someone ‘good’ sins,
we are shaken to the core.
We say: this was SO ‘out of character,’
Or, more often, we overcompensate
and convince ourselves
that THIS must be their true character,
who they have been all along,
and we rethink past experiences through the lens
of what has now been revealed.

But the Hebrew word for “moral” is musar,
which derives from ‘discipline’ or ‘correction.’
It reinforces Judaism’s understanding
that moral character
is not innate, intrinsic, nor permanent.
Morality is a discipline of habit,
of perpetual course correction.

Dr. David DeSteno, a professor of psychology
who studies moral behavior,
confirms this ancient Jewish view in his book,
aptly titled: “Out of Character.”
He asserts through numerous studies that:
“character isn’t a fixed, deep-seated trait
but rather a variable state;
a dishonest act doesn’t make a person
dishonest across the board…
[and] many of the decisions people believe
reflect character are actually swayed by
forces of which they are not aware.”[vi]

It’s that yetzer harah at work again!

Separating actions from “moral character”
is essential to teshuva.
It enables us to forgive
when we understand a sin
is not the whole of someone’s character—
and to believe that change is possible.

It also allows us to be more honest about
our own actions.
None of us can banish our yetzer harah,
which tries to amplify our fear, jealousy,
self-preservation, anger,
and urges us to act on our worst impulses.
But because we believe ourselves to be “good,”
and I think you all are—
when we inevitably lapse,
we find justifications for what we do
and fail to see our wrongdoing as a sin.
So we don't take responsibility
for our bad behavior.
We excuse or whitewash it.

Being moral isn’t a static mode of existence.
It requires us to constantly wrestle
with the yetzer harah within us,
and be mindful of how it can lead
even the best of us astray.
Perhaps no Biblical story illustrates this more
than that of King David.

David began as a simple shepherd
and gifted musician,
who played so beautifully that he freed King Saul
from a debilitating depression.
David modeled unusual bravery,
slaying the giant Goliath with wits,
courage and a slingshot.
And once David became King,
he united the disparate twelve tribes
into a single monarchy,
with Jerusalem as our capital.
David was considered the
most important King of Israel
and the Torah described him as
“a man after God’s heart.”

But at the height of his powers, one fateful night,
David sees a breathtaking Bathsheba
bathing on her rooftop.
Even though he knows she is married,
David cannot control his yetzer harah,
and he sleeps with Bathsheba.
When she becomes pregnant, David panics—
as the sages said, one sin leads to another—
and he plots to have her husband,
the warrior Uriah, killed in battle.
David committed grave offenses.
And if David were a leader today,
many would argue
he should be stripped of his role,
every statue of his likeness should be torn down
and we should boycott his music forever.

But David’s legacy is ultimately judged
by the preponderance of his good deeds
and his genuine teshuva.
We still sing his psalms.
We still laud his leadership and bravery,
even as we remember his wrongs.
David is viewed neither as a perfect hero,
nor as a total villain.
He is, like every other figure in our tradition, human.
Flawed, yet forgivable; wrong, yet redeemable.
And the Torah asserts that from the lineage
of this deeply complex figure,
the future messiah, and our redemption, comes.

As we sit here in synagogue on Yom Kippur,
We pray to subdue our inclination to evil.
we pray that we can return—
to our better angel, on our shoulder.
Did you know it says in the Talmud
that God also prays?
Of all the things that God might want in the world,
what does God pray for?:
“Please let mercy overcome my anger.
So that I might be more forgiving.”[vii]
God begs to feel mercy.
Forgiveness is always possible,
but it takes some work—even for God.

King David was not easily forgiven.
We can see from the
many Psalms ascribed to him,
that he reckons with the gravity
of his transgressions, and he repents.
And there are consequences for his bad actions,
including being denied his dream of
building the Temple in Jerusalem.

In a later Talmudic text,
King David pleads to God for atonement;
first for unintentional sins,
then for sins done in private
and finally for his sins of adultery and murder.
With each petition, God responds:
“These are forgiven.”

But then David asks God
to leave out his worst sins from history,
saying essentially:
“Can you please just not put that part in the Bible?”
And God draws the line. “That I cannot do.”[viii]
In our tradition, forgiving does not mean
forgetting the bad.
But neither does it erase all the good.

The 12th Century Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda said:
“Our days are scrolls,
write on them what we want to be remembered.”
Think today about how
you want to be remembered.
What will you write on your scroll?
This year, can you write a scroll
that is more merciful?
Can you imagine approaching that person
across the proverbial aisle,
and actually wishing for them
what you wish for yourself?
Can you judge them for the good, and according to
the preponderance of their deeds?
To let them feel not only
God’s mercy and forgiveness,
but maybe also yours?
Who could know—
if that sinner is in the line of the messiah?
But I do know a world that is more forgiving
is a world more redeemed.


[i] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202212/latest-poll-1-in-4-are-estranged-from-a-family-member
[ii] Pirke Avot 3:15
[iii] BT Yoma 69b
[iv] Pirke Avot 4:1
[v] Pirke Avot 4:2
[vi] DeSteno, David. Out of Character: Surprising truths about the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) lurking in all of us. Pg 25.
[vii] BT Berachot 7a
[viii] BT Sanhedrin 107a


Watch our sermon above or on Youtube, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or read the transcript above.


 
Sermons
Sermons

October 12, 2024

A More Forgiving World is a World Redeemed (Yom Kippur 5785)

Angela W. Buchdahl

Click here to access formatted version of this sermon.

A More Forgiving World is a World Redeemed
Rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl, Yom Kippur 5785

Two Jews, long-time rivals,
see each other at the synagogue,
on the Day of Atonement.
One crosses the aisle, in a gesture of good-will,
and says to the other:
"I wish for you what you wish for me."
And the other says:
"Already you’re starting with me?”

Who in your life have you written off this year?
No need to answer out loud.
But really—think about it for a moment.

Perhaps this person did something
that really hurt you.
Or hurt someone you care about,
and never really apologized.
Perhaps it’s not even what they did,
but what they said—
maybe they expressed opinions
completely opposite to yours—
on the most urgent moral questions of our time,
a political race, or an actual war.
Whatever the grievance,
you’ve decided that they’ve shown you
who they really are,
their true character
and they are not worthy of your friendship,
your loyalty, or your empathy anymore.

We live in such an unforgiving time.
We decide that someone’s actions,
even thoughts, are so beyond the pale,
that they are not just wrong, but immoral.

It’s as if we’ve lost the muscle of knowing how to
talk about what offended, hurt, or alienated us.
We double down on our righteous anger.

Family estrangement is at an all time high.
Today at least one in four Americans[i]
say they have permanently cut off contact with a close family member.
This excommunication happens
on a societal level as well.
You can find long lists of authors, musicians,
and scholars whose work we have decided
we must expunge, because they have done
or said things we believe are condemnable.

Human beings are capable of doing terrible,
hurtful, and even violent things.
I am not excusing any of it.
We have every right to be angry
about the transgressions
people have perpetrated on us,
on people we care about, on decent society.
Justice demands consequences for bad actions.
And forgiveness is not required without an apology.
But we now seem to default to cutting off
and discarding human beings, permanently,
for their sins—
more than at any other time in human history.

This punishing culture comes at a great cost.
Withholding forgiveness not only hurts the
other person, but us as well
as holding onto anger can be toxic.
People try to understand why
our children these days, are so anxious,
pointing the finger at social media,
or snowplow parenting.
But imagine what it’s like for our kids today,
forced to absorb all that rage around them.
Fearing that when they make a mistake,
which they inevitably will, they may never recover.
That this mark might stay with them
for the rest of their lives.

I think our children
are the most anxious generation
because we have become
the most unforgiving generation.

Today is Yom Kippur,
our communal day of teshuva, of repentance.
Our tradition says teshuva is not only the
most important work of this holy day,
but among the primary spiritual tasks of our lives.
But the very notion of teshuva
that you can forgive someone for a terrible sin—
is almost scandalous today.
We are not only angry at the sinner,
but anyone who dares forgive the sinner.

Why? Maybe because we aren’t willing to believe
that people can change.
Because too often, we conflate people’s actions
with their character.
If you tell a lie, you become a liar.
If you cheat, you become a cheater.
How could we be expected to forgive
someone’s dreadful misdeed,
if we believe it’s not just what they did,
but who they are?

But that’s not how Judaism sees it.
Pirke Avot teaches:
“The world is judged with goodness
and according to the preponderance
of our deeds.”[ii]
In other words: we’re judged
with the benefit of the doubt,
because we are all born with a neshama tehora,
a pure soul.
Jews don’t subscribe to the notion of original sin—
we all start with a clean slate.
And we are not judged by our worst act,
but by the bulk of our deeds.

This doesn’t make forgiveness
a forgone conclusion.
Forgiveness is earned through remorse, apology,
consequences, and changed behavior.
But our tradition believes people are
capable of taking those steps,
and making those changes.

Judaism understands that every one of us is
susceptible to mistakes, transgressions,
even grave sin.
That’s because even though we start
pure and pristine
we also carry two forces within us at all times:
a yezter harah—a so-called “evil inclination,”
And a yetzer hatov, a “good inclination.”
Picture the cartoons of our childhood,
where these two yetzers are depicted as
a little devil sitting on one shoulder,
and a little angel sitting on the other,
whispering competing advice in our ears.

But we should not understand the yetzer harah
as a demonic force—
it’s more like Freud’s id,
our unconscious drive to fulfill passions,
sensual or sexual pleasures,
or the urge for material things, property, power.
The yetzer harah in itself is not evil,
but if left unchecked
is the drive that leads to cheating,
coveting, megalomania,
selfishness, deceit, and even murder.

But since an uncontrolled yetzer harah
is the source of all sin,
why didn’t God, in God’s Omnipotence,
just get rid of it?

The rabbis had the same question—
and a solution.
A story from the Talmud tells of
when the ancient Sages decided
to capture the yetzer harah,
and imprison him in a lead box.
The yetzer harah demanded to be freed,
warning them that if they killed him,
the world would be finished.
The Sages didn’t buy it.
But indeed, while the yetzer harah was caged,
the world lacked the inclination to build,
procreate, or acquire—
not one baby was conceived,
no building was erected,
even the chickens stopped laying eggs.
Creativity ground to a halt.
The rabbis looked at each other
and realized the world needed the yetzer harah
so they poked his eyes out, and let him go.[iii]

For the rabbis the moral person is not the one
who slays the yetzer harah,
but the one who learns how to channel it.
As Pirke Avot teaches:
Eizehu gibor? Ha-kovesh et yitzro.
“Who is Strong?
The one who subdues his evil inclination.”[iv]

So if we contain both urges within us,
what helps us choose the good?
Well as your Rabbi, I will be perfectly on brand
and answer: Mitzvot.
Which are God’s commandments.
Mitzvot are not just about religious observances,
but how to treat others,
be generous, protect the vulnerable,
and yes, forgive.
In Pirke Avot, the rabbis claim:
Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah.
A mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.
Averah Goreret Averah.
And sin leads to another sin.[v]

The entire system of Jewish law, prayer
and study practices are engineered
to proscribe and reinforce holy habits
that strengthen our yetzer hatov—
our inclination to good, which leads to more good.
“Character” is simply the habit of
doing good, over a lifetime.

But as a society, we remain convinced that
someone’s moral character
is inborn at an early age, something immutable,
stable and fixed.
We believe that we know the ‘good’ people
from the ‘bad’—
so when someone ‘good’ sins,
we are shaken to the core.
We say: this was SO ‘out of character,’
Or, more often, we overcompensate
and convince ourselves
that THIS must be their true character,
who they have been all along,
and we rethink past experiences through the lens
of what has now been revealed.

But the Hebrew word for “moral” is musar,
which derives from ‘discipline’ or ‘correction.’
It reinforces Judaism’s understanding
that moral character
is not innate, intrinsic, nor permanent.
Morality is a discipline of habit,
of perpetual course correction.

Dr. David DeSteno, a professor of psychology
who studies moral behavior,
confirms this ancient Jewish view in his book,
aptly titled: “Out of Character.”
He asserts through numerous studies that:
“character isn’t a fixed, deep-seated trait
but rather a variable state;
a dishonest act doesn’t make a person
dishonest across the board…
[and] many of the decisions people believe
reflect character are actually swayed by
forces of which they are not aware.”[vi]

It’s that yetzer harah at work again!

Separating actions from “moral character”
is essential to teshuva.
It enables us to forgive
when we understand a sin
is not the whole of someone’s character—
and to believe that change is possible.

It also allows us to be more honest about
our own actions.
None of us can banish our yetzer harah,
which tries to amplify our fear, jealousy,
self-preservation, anger,
and urges us to act on our worst impulses.
But because we believe ourselves to be “good,”
and I think you all are—
when we inevitably lapse,
we find justifications for what we do
and fail to see our wrongdoing as a sin.
So we don't take responsibility
for our bad behavior.
We excuse or whitewash it.

Being moral isn’t a static mode of existence.
It requires us to constantly wrestle
with the yetzer harah within us,
and be mindful of how it can lead
even the best of us astray.
Perhaps no Biblical story illustrates this more
than that of King David.

David began as a simple shepherd
and gifted musician,
who played so beautifully that he freed King Saul
from a debilitating depression.
David modeled unusual bravery,
slaying the giant Goliath with wits,
courage and a slingshot.
And once David became King,
he united the disparate twelve tribes
into a single monarchy,
with Jerusalem as our capital.
David was considered the
most important King of Israel
and the Torah described him as
“a man after God’s heart.”

But at the height of his powers, one fateful night,
David sees a breathtaking Bathsheba
bathing on her rooftop.
Even though he knows she is married,
David cannot control his yetzer harah,
and he sleeps with Bathsheba.
When she becomes pregnant, David panics—
as the sages said, one sin leads to another—
and he plots to have her husband,
the warrior Uriah, killed in battle.
David committed grave offenses.
And if David were a leader today,
many would argue
he should be stripped of his role,
every statue of his likeness should be torn down
and we should boycott his music forever.

But David’s legacy is ultimately judged
by the preponderance of his good deeds
and his genuine teshuva.
We still sing his psalms.
We still laud his leadership and bravery,
even as we remember his wrongs.
David is viewed neither as a perfect hero,
nor as a total villain.
He is, like every other figure in our tradition, human.
Flawed, yet forgivable; wrong, yet redeemable.
And the Torah asserts that from the lineage
of this deeply complex figure,
the future messiah, and our redemption, comes.

As we sit here in synagogue on Yom Kippur,
We pray to subdue our inclination to evil.
we pray that we can return—
to our better angel, on our shoulder.
Did you know it says in the Talmud
that God also prays?
Of all the things that God might want in the world,
what does God pray for?:
“Please let mercy overcome my anger.
So that I might be more forgiving.”[vii]
God begs to feel mercy.
Forgiveness is always possible,
but it takes some work—even for God.

King David was not easily forgiven.
We can see from the
many Psalms ascribed to him,
that he reckons with the gravity
of his transgressions, and he repents.
And there are consequences for his bad actions,
including being denied his dream of
building the Temple in Jerusalem.

In a later Talmudic text,
King David pleads to God for atonement;
first for unintentional sins,
then for sins done in private
and finally for his sins of adultery and murder.
With each petition, God responds:
“These are forgiven.”

But then David asks God
to leave out his worst sins from history,
saying essentially:
“Can you please just not put that part in the Bible?”
And God draws the line. “That I cannot do.”[viii]
In our tradition, forgiving does not mean
forgetting the bad.
But neither does it erase all the good.

The 12th Century Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda said:
“Our days are scrolls,
write on them what we want to be remembered.”
Think today about how
you want to be remembered.
What will you write on your scroll?
This year, can you write a scroll
that is more merciful?
Can you imagine approaching that person
across the proverbial aisle,
and actually wishing for them
what you wish for yourself?
Can you judge them for the good, and according to
the preponderance of their deeds?
To let them feel not only
God’s mercy and forgiveness,
but maybe also yours?
Who could know—
if that sinner is in the line of the messiah?
But I do know a world that is more forgiving
is a world more redeemed.


[i] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brothers-sisters-strangers/202212/latest-poll-1-in-4-are-estranged-from-a-family-member
[ii] Pirke Avot 3:15
[iii] BT Yoma 69b
[iv] Pirke Avot 4:1
[v] Pirke Avot 4:2
[vi] DeSteno, David. Out of Character: Surprising truths about the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) lurking in all of us. Pg 25.
[vii] BT Berachot 7a
[viii] BT Sanhedrin 107a


Watch our sermon above or on Youtube, listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or read the transcript above.