Rabbi Leora's Kol Nidre D'var Torah |
On not being ready to forgive
In the week following the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October, I spoke at a vigil in Boston. I remember that it was cold and dark, and the candles we held in paper cups in our gloved fingers brought little light or warmth. I remember feeling unmoored, confused and disoriented, as I had since I heard the first reports of violence in a sanctuary, violence on Shabbes. It was so hard to wrap my head around what happened, and I felt alternatively sad, scared, and numb. At that vigil, I remember we huddled together in sorrow, and in fear, and also in outrage.
After the ceremony, a reporter approached me to ask a few questions, and then he said, “Can I ask you something off the record?” “Sure,” I said, not knowing what to expect. “Does Judaism teach anything about forgiveness in a moment like this, and do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive the white supremacist who brutally murdered Jews in prayer?”
I was stunned, and I didn’t know how to respond. My first instinct was “Absolutely not. I don’t think that forgiveness is what is called for in this moment.” I wanted to direct all of my emotional energy towards comforting the mourners and praying for the injured. And after that, I wanted to be thinking and talking about the context in which such a horrific act took place. And I wanted to get active, to fight the ideology of white nationalism that motivated the shooter, and which targets Jews alongside Muslims, immigrants, and all people of color.
But then my mind was filled with images of the survivors of the massacre at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. Some of those survivors forgave their attacker in the days and weeks following the shooting. It was controversial, and certainly not all of the survivors felt the same way. I found it surprising, but I also felt a kernel of understanding -- as I heard them explain it, they didn’t want to add hate and anger into hearts already overflowing with sorrow and grief. They had to affirm that love is stronger than hate - and for them, that meant forgiving.
I told the reporter that I felt inspired by their example, but I wasn’t ready yet to forgive the Pittsburgh shooter - or the Charleston shooter, for that matter. I continued to wrestle with his question, however, and I later wished I had told him something else: I wished I had told him that Judaism teaches that each of us has a Divine spark within us, and each of us has a core of goodness in our soul. It can become thickly obscured, leading us to do terrible things. But Judaism teaches the ongoing possibility of teshuva, of returning to that core spark of goodness - Judaism teaches that change, repentance, and forgiveness are always possible. And - forgiveness is not what comes first. Rather, Judaism emphasizes that the responsibility lies with the person who committed the wrong to take the necessary action to demonstrate that they have changed. I am in no way ready to forgive any white nationalist who commits mass murder in a house of worship, but I do believe that teshuva is possible - I believe that that person could change, could take action to demonstrate their change, and could give deeply of themselves to signify their remorse. I believe that they could engage in teshuva and that I would, one day, be able to forgive them.
Judaism is an action-oriented tradition, and for us, forgiveness must be preceded by action.
This idea is rooted in our Biblical text, and especially in the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. If Beresheit, or Genesis, is the book of Rosh Hashanah, the first beginning and many other new beginnings, Vayikra is the book of Yom Kippur, the book of discipline and ritual, the hard, often messy work of living a spiritually rooted life. Vayikra is spiritual practice made concrete, in the form of an elaborate system of sacrifices. The form and aesthetic of sacrifice is difficult for us to connect to today, but if we read beyond the modality for the essence of the practice, the take-aways are powerfully relevant. Early on in the book of Vayikra, we are given the system of sacrifices known as guilt offerings, or offerings one was to make after committing some kind of transgression. The message is clear: when a transgression takes place - when some kind of rupture or harm is done - real concrete action is needed in order to recover. The model is our relationship with God: when we do something offensive to God, we must respond by giving a sacrifice, which entails giving something materially significant and engaging in demanding spiritual work, the intention of which is transformation. God’s forgiveness is called kapparah, which shares a root with kippur. God’s forgiveness is a kind of transcendent cleansing or purification; but it is on the spectrum with, in the same realm as, human forgiveness.
As the rabbinic tradition developed ideas about repentance and forgiveness, following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem where all of those sacrifices took place, the messy work of repair had to become more localized, and thankfully for us, came to involve less blood and guts, but just as much spiritually demanding work.
The Mishnah states (Yoma 8:9):
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַמָּקוֹם, יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר. עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר, עַד שֶׁיְּרַצֶּה אֶת חֲבֵרוֹ.
For transgressions between a person and HaMakom, the Divine, Yom Kippur effects atonement, but for transgressions between a person and her neighbor, Yom Kippur does not effect atonement, until she has appeased her neighbor.
That is, we can do our work in this sanctuary tonight and tomorrow to repair our relationship with the Divine, but to repair our relationships with other human beings, the work must happen first outside of the sanctuary, in relationship with those whom we have harmed.
The essence of both the sacrificial system and teshuvah is relationship. The sacrificial system is entirely premised on the idea of a relationship between the Divine and the human, a relationship that needs care and attention, that needs to be maintained and, when disrupted, repaired. The Hebrew word for sacrifice is l’kareiv - to come close. The whole system is about how to get closer to God - in a relationship that is mutual, in which both parties are bringing something to the table. Teshuvah is also premised on relationship: I must go to my neighbor whom I have harmed, take responsibility, express remorse, offer material reparation, and reckon with my own soul before they are expected to forgive me.
And so when that reporter asked me if I could find it in my heart to forgive the shooter, it was not a question I could answer. We don’t have an idea of forgiveness without relationship, forgiveness that is one-sided.
And yet. My soul is in pain. I don’t presume to speculate on what healing looks like for the members of the three congregations who meet at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and especially not for those whose loved ones were brutally murdered on Shabbat morning. But every Jew in the United States was harmed that morning, as a Shabbat sanctuary was violated. We were harmed by the person who entered that sanctuary shouting that all Jews must die, and we were harmed by the politicians who refuse to condemn white nationalism in all its forms, and we were harmed by a country’s refusal to limit our access to guns. Without teshuvah - without a full reckoning by the shooter himself and without transformation of the systems that motivated and enabled him to do such tremendous damage - forgiveness may not be possible. But healing is still necessary. Can there be healing without teshuvah?
Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt writes,
“What about those whom we hoped would turn their lives around and genuinely ask for our forgiveness, who haven't even acknowledged that they've hurt us?
Jewish tradition is clear that not only is it not necessary to forgive someone like that, but that forgiving someone who does not admit their own wrongdoing does both them and us a disservice. There's important wisdom there. And,” she goes on, “I also know that holding on to my hurts doesn't ultimately serve me, nor help me to serve God. Yom Kippur invites me to release my grudges so that my own heart and spirit can flow freely. Even if I can't forgive, I can try to let go of the story I tell myself about my own suffering. Because the story can weigh me down, can limit me, as surely as do unfulfilled promises.”
She isn’t writing about something as systemic as anti-Semitism, as egregious as a mass shooting. But her point is true. Again I am reminded of the survivors of the AME church in Charleston, who almost immediately extended forgiveness to the racist shooter. Reverend Anthony Thompson, whose wife Myra, of blessed memory, was killed that day, said: “I've told people that the forgiveness is not for the perpetrator or the offender. Forgiveness is for the victim. I didn't let Dylann off the hook. Dylann is in prison, but I'm free.”
In the rabbinic teachings on teshuvah, when we are the transgressor, we are “required to seek forgiveness in order for Yom Kippur to do its inner work on us and in us.” However, even if the other person refuses to forgive us, “the fact that we've sought it is what matters. The fact of making teshuvah and earnestly seeking forgiveness opens us up to the spiritual possibility of release.” I wonder if it works the other way around as well: If we trust the inherent goodness deep within each soul, and believe that someone can make teshuvah, even if they do not do it - can that give us a sense of healing, a sense of release, even if forgiving them is not possible?
Describing the healing that became possible in Charleston, Reverend Thompson went on, “And it changed Charleston… where there was this undertone of racism that… we just didn't talk about. But we came together, you know, as one people. The Confederate flag came down when nobody was talking about the flag. …Forgiveness just opened everybody's minds up and started to heal our city. There's a lot going on since that day. You know, God took this tragedy and brought the good. And it all came from acts of forgiveness.”
The hope for healing comes in the recognition that we get to look for it beyond the individual who has caused us harm. What I know is that after the synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked, the thing that felt like it held out the hope of the possibility of healing, was the offerings that came from communities around the world. The Muslim communities in Pittsburgh immediately raised nearly $200,000 for the families of the victims of the Tree of Life shooting. Here in Attleboro, a local church offered us a financial donation for security improvements; a local lawyer sent flowers; and dozens of community members, Jewish and non-Jewish, showed up to services that week. Across the world, people came out strongly against anti-Semitism and all expressions of white nationalism and white supremacy.
All of those were offerings of repair. They may not have made forgiveness possible, and our tradition doesn’t ask for that. But they did change the landscape of healing. For me, affirming that love is stronger than hate comes not from forgiving the shooter before he has made teshuvah, but from the Christian clergy and laypeople in Boston who are offering security to their neighborhood synagogues today. It comes from understanding, recognition, and solidarity.
Because we cannot make an individual repent, but we can transform systems. We can uproot white supremacy. We can build networks of mutuality and solidarity that are so much bigger than white nationalism. Those relationships, with our neighbors and community, are the ones that will be affirmed in the process.
In many rabbinic discussions of teshuvah, the last step, the moment when we know complete teshuvah has been achieved, is when a person has the opportunity to repeat their transgression, and they don’t do it. For us, perhaps healing will come when no one chooses to enter another house of worship - or school, or theater, or community - to kill the worshippers. It will come from systemic teshuvah - from the transformation of systems. I may not be ready to forgive, but I am ready to build a world where no one is killed by gun violence, anti-Semitism, or white supremacy, alongside my neighbors and community. On this Yom Kippur night, that’s what I am ready to commit to.
In the week following the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October, I spoke at a vigil in Boston. I remember that it was cold and dark, and the candles we held in paper cups in our gloved fingers brought little light or warmth. I remember feeling unmoored, confused and disoriented, as I had since I heard the first reports of violence in a sanctuary, violence on Shabbes. It was so hard to wrap my head around what happened, and I felt alternatively sad, scared, and numb. At that vigil, I remember we huddled together in sorrow, and in fear, and also in outrage.
After the ceremony, a reporter approached me to ask a few questions, and then he said, “Can I ask you something off the record?” “Sure,” I said, not knowing what to expect. “Does Judaism teach anything about forgiveness in a moment like this, and do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive the white supremacist who brutally murdered Jews in prayer?”
I was stunned, and I didn’t know how to respond. My first instinct was “Absolutely not. I don’t think that forgiveness is what is called for in this moment.” I wanted to direct all of my emotional energy towards comforting the mourners and praying for the injured. And after that, I wanted to be thinking and talking about the context in which such a horrific act took place. And I wanted to get active, to fight the ideology of white nationalism that motivated the shooter, and which targets Jews alongside Muslims, immigrants, and all people of color.
But then my mind was filled with images of the survivors of the massacre at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. Some of those survivors forgave their attacker in the days and weeks following the shooting. It was controversial, and certainly not all of the survivors felt the same way. I found it surprising, but I also felt a kernel of understanding -- as I heard them explain it, they didn’t want to add hate and anger into hearts already overflowing with sorrow and grief. They had to affirm that love is stronger than hate - and for them, that meant forgiving.
I told the reporter that I felt inspired by their example, but I wasn’t ready yet to forgive the Pittsburgh shooter - or the Charleston shooter, for that matter. I continued to wrestle with his question, however, and I later wished I had told him something else: I wished I had told him that Judaism teaches that each of us has a Divine spark within us, and each of us has a core of goodness in our soul. It can become thickly obscured, leading us to do terrible things. But Judaism teaches the ongoing possibility of teshuva, of returning to that core spark of goodness - Judaism teaches that change, repentance, and forgiveness are always possible. And - forgiveness is not what comes first. Rather, Judaism emphasizes that the responsibility lies with the person who committed the wrong to take the necessary action to demonstrate that they have changed. I am in no way ready to forgive any white nationalist who commits mass murder in a house of worship, but I do believe that teshuva is possible - I believe that that person could change, could take action to demonstrate their change, and could give deeply of themselves to signify their remorse. I believe that they could engage in teshuva and that I would, one day, be able to forgive them.
Judaism is an action-oriented tradition, and for us, forgiveness must be preceded by action.
This idea is rooted in our Biblical text, and especially in the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. If Beresheit, or Genesis, is the book of Rosh Hashanah, the first beginning and many other new beginnings, Vayikra is the book of Yom Kippur, the book of discipline and ritual, the hard, often messy work of living a spiritually rooted life. Vayikra is spiritual practice made concrete, in the form of an elaborate system of sacrifices. The form and aesthetic of sacrifice is difficult for us to connect to today, but if we read beyond the modality for the essence of the practice, the take-aways are powerfully relevant. Early on in the book of Vayikra, we are given the system of sacrifices known as guilt offerings, or offerings one was to make after committing some kind of transgression. The message is clear: when a transgression takes place - when some kind of rupture or harm is done - real concrete action is needed in order to recover. The model is our relationship with God: when we do something offensive to God, we must respond by giving a sacrifice, which entails giving something materially significant and engaging in demanding spiritual work, the intention of which is transformation. God’s forgiveness is called kapparah, which shares a root with kippur. God’s forgiveness is a kind of transcendent cleansing or purification; but it is on the spectrum with, in the same realm as, human forgiveness.
As the rabbinic tradition developed ideas about repentance and forgiveness, following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem where all of those sacrifices took place, the messy work of repair had to become more localized, and thankfully for us, came to involve less blood and guts, but just as much spiritually demanding work.
The Mishnah states (Yoma 8:9):
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַמָּקוֹם, יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר. עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר, עַד שֶׁיְּרַצֶּה אֶת חֲבֵרוֹ.
For transgressions between a person and HaMakom, the Divine, Yom Kippur effects atonement, but for transgressions between a person and her neighbor, Yom Kippur does not effect atonement, until she has appeased her neighbor.
That is, we can do our work in this sanctuary tonight and tomorrow to repair our relationship with the Divine, but to repair our relationships with other human beings, the work must happen first outside of the sanctuary, in relationship with those whom we have harmed.
The essence of both the sacrificial system and teshuvah is relationship. The sacrificial system is entirely premised on the idea of a relationship between the Divine and the human, a relationship that needs care and attention, that needs to be maintained and, when disrupted, repaired. The Hebrew word for sacrifice is l’kareiv - to come close. The whole system is about how to get closer to God - in a relationship that is mutual, in which both parties are bringing something to the table. Teshuvah is also premised on relationship: I must go to my neighbor whom I have harmed, take responsibility, express remorse, offer material reparation, and reckon with my own soul before they are expected to forgive me.
And so when that reporter asked me if I could find it in my heart to forgive the shooter, it was not a question I could answer. We don’t have an idea of forgiveness without relationship, forgiveness that is one-sided.
And yet. My soul is in pain. I don’t presume to speculate on what healing looks like for the members of the three congregations who meet at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and especially not for those whose loved ones were brutally murdered on Shabbat morning. But every Jew in the United States was harmed that morning, as a Shabbat sanctuary was violated. We were harmed by the person who entered that sanctuary shouting that all Jews must die, and we were harmed by the politicians who refuse to condemn white nationalism in all its forms, and we were harmed by a country’s refusal to limit our access to guns. Without teshuvah - without a full reckoning by the shooter himself and without transformation of the systems that motivated and enabled him to do such tremendous damage - forgiveness may not be possible. But healing is still necessary. Can there be healing without teshuvah?
Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt writes,
“What about those whom we hoped would turn their lives around and genuinely ask for our forgiveness, who haven't even acknowledged that they've hurt us?
Jewish tradition is clear that not only is it not necessary to forgive someone like that, but that forgiving someone who does not admit their own wrongdoing does both them and us a disservice. There's important wisdom there. And,” she goes on, “I also know that holding on to my hurts doesn't ultimately serve me, nor help me to serve God. Yom Kippur invites me to release my grudges so that my own heart and spirit can flow freely. Even if I can't forgive, I can try to let go of the story I tell myself about my own suffering. Because the story can weigh me down, can limit me, as surely as do unfulfilled promises.”
She isn’t writing about something as systemic as anti-Semitism, as egregious as a mass shooting. But her point is true. Again I am reminded of the survivors of the AME church in Charleston, who almost immediately extended forgiveness to the racist shooter. Reverend Anthony Thompson, whose wife Myra, of blessed memory, was killed that day, said: “I've told people that the forgiveness is not for the perpetrator or the offender. Forgiveness is for the victim. I didn't let Dylann off the hook. Dylann is in prison, but I'm free.”
In the rabbinic teachings on teshuvah, when we are the transgressor, we are “required to seek forgiveness in order for Yom Kippur to do its inner work on us and in us.” However, even if the other person refuses to forgive us, “the fact that we've sought it is what matters. The fact of making teshuvah and earnestly seeking forgiveness opens us up to the spiritual possibility of release.” I wonder if it works the other way around as well: If we trust the inherent goodness deep within each soul, and believe that someone can make teshuvah, even if they do not do it - can that give us a sense of healing, a sense of release, even if forgiving them is not possible?
Describing the healing that became possible in Charleston, Reverend Thompson went on, “And it changed Charleston… where there was this undertone of racism that… we just didn't talk about. But we came together, you know, as one people. The Confederate flag came down when nobody was talking about the flag. …Forgiveness just opened everybody's minds up and started to heal our city. There's a lot going on since that day. You know, God took this tragedy and brought the good. And it all came from acts of forgiveness.”
The hope for healing comes in the recognition that we get to look for it beyond the individual who has caused us harm. What I know is that after the synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked, the thing that felt like it held out the hope of the possibility of healing, was the offerings that came from communities around the world. The Muslim communities in Pittsburgh immediately raised nearly $200,000 for the families of the victims of the Tree of Life shooting. Here in Attleboro, a local church offered us a financial donation for security improvements; a local lawyer sent flowers; and dozens of community members, Jewish and non-Jewish, showed up to services that week. Across the world, people came out strongly against anti-Semitism and all expressions of white nationalism and white supremacy.
All of those were offerings of repair. They may not have made forgiveness possible, and our tradition doesn’t ask for that. But they did change the landscape of healing. For me, affirming that love is stronger than hate comes not from forgiving the shooter before he has made teshuvah, but from the Christian clergy and laypeople in Boston who are offering security to their neighborhood synagogues today. It comes from understanding, recognition, and solidarity.
Because we cannot make an individual repent, but we can transform systems. We can uproot white supremacy. We can build networks of mutuality and solidarity that are so much bigger than white nationalism. Those relationships, with our neighbors and community, are the ones that will be affirmed in the process.
In many rabbinic discussions of teshuvah, the last step, the moment when we know complete teshuvah has been achieved, is when a person has the opportunity to repeat their transgression, and they don’t do it. For us, perhaps healing will come when no one chooses to enter another house of worship - or school, or theater, or community - to kill the worshippers. It will come from systemic teshuvah - from the transformation of systems. I may not be ready to forgive, but I am ready to build a world where no one is killed by gun violence, anti-Semitism, or white supremacy, alongside my neighbors and community. On this Yom Kippur night, that’s what I am ready to commit to.
