Silly Goats and Real Community
Yom Kippur 5775
Temple Beth Jacob
Rabbi Larry Freedman
In another
year or two, there will be a new machzor called Mishkan Hanefesh. The title means “dwelling place of the soul”
and it will be edited in a similar style to our regular Mishkan Tefilla siddur,
the “dwelling place of prayer.” We’re
using an advance unproofed copy for our afternoon service this year again. If you’re in the Orthodox world, the machzor
doesn’t change all that much but over in the Reform Movement, with our use of
English translation and poetic interpretation, the book can become routine and
dated. Our current machzor was published
in 1978 so it really is due for a modernization.
Some of you
may remember the machzor that came out before the one we are using. That was the small UPB or Union Prayer
Book. That machzor had a relative
sprinkling of Hebrew and the English was filled with “thee” and “thou” and
other language we might find arcane. It
also had a section for a personal vidui, the personal confession. It had, among others, a section for parents
and a section for spouses and a section for children. My mother, about whom I usually tell
inspiring and instructive stories, would pull out the full blown guilt at this
moment. She would take her finger and
start jabbing the page that had the vidui for children. “Read this.
You have to read this.”
Grrrrr. Even as a child, the majesty of Yom Kippur
can sink in and between the grand melodies and the formality and the sitting
there, you got a sense of something powerful going on. You began to think about things larger than
yourself, the very start of spirituality.
And then your mother starts jabbing your machzor hissing “read
this”. I am aware the attempt was to
focus my attention on something written for my age bracket but it kind of came
down like, “read this and repent you rotten child.” That was not the way to go.
Yom Kippur
is extremely personal. It really is all
about you, you, you. But it is
experienced communally. It takes place
best among us, us, us. The best example
of this in our liturgy is the al chet where we as a group acknowledge our sins
as a group. No one could face the
crushing truth of reciting in front of a group his or her sins. It’s easier if we all declare all our sins
together while inwardly acknowledging which ones among the group’s list
actually apply to you specifically. Only
you need to know and only you need to do something about that. It’s nobody’s business. And yet the process of teshuva seems to work
better if we make it everyone’s business to share the experience. You are not alone. You with your sins are not alone. We all have sins. We all have things that are keeping us from
being our best. We all have issues we
are struggling with. Your sin may be unique
but that you sin is not. You are in good company.
And this
brings me to the eScapegoat. For those
of you who don’t know because you ignored two postcards, haven’t visited our
FaceBook site or stuffed cotton in your ears as I promote it endlessly, let me
explain what it is. EScapegoat is a
website telling the story of the Biblical scapegoat. This is a real thing. As part of the ancient Yom Kippur ritual,
when the Temple stood, two goats were selected.
One of them was sacrificed as a burnt offering. The other one received
all the sins of the community. The Cohen
Gadol would lay his hands upon the goat to transfer the sins and then the goat
would be taken off to the desert and sent off or, in some understandings,
pushed off a cliff. It’s rough, I
know. But the idea is that the goat
would carry away your sins and you did not want those
sins returning.
The
eScapegoat website tells this story in less graphic detail. Safe for kids. After telling the story, it asks you to
upload, anonymously, your sins. After
you do that, you can see what others have posted. Again, it’s all anonymous.
Why did I
sign us up? First of all, it has goats,
and in my family, we have a thing about goats.
Number two: the graphics are adorable.
How can you turn away from this face?
Number
three: in its cartoonish way, the eScapegoat speaks to a very profound
issue. Can we articulate those things
that are holding us back? It’s a
spiritual exercise. Can we, using
primary color graphics, quiet our minds enough to be honest with ourselves and
allow dark thoughts to surface? Because
teshuva can’t happen until we’re honest with ourselves. And judging by the list, we have been very
honest.
All of the
responses to our own unique Temple Beth Jacob eScapegoat are important to the
people who wrote them. Some seem light,
some seem heavy but all are issues keeping the writer from being the best
person he or she can be. At a time when
we are called upon to declare that this year will be better, we have to face
those things that have kept us from that goal last year. As of my writing this we had 67 responses
from members of our community. The
answers are anonymous but can be viewed by anyone on the website. Listen and take seriously the issues your
friends are facing:
I spend
time on twitter at work.
Four people
regretted laziness.
Not being
attentive enough to family was a recurrent theme: “I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with my
children.” “For my daughter not being able to know all her cousins” and “I
often hurt the feelings of the people I care about and love the most” or “I
have lied to family about my availability to attend certain functions.“ “Find
the strength to listen with understanding to my children.”
Marriages
came up often: “I have felt resentment
towards my husband who is a good man and doesn't deserve to be thought of
badly.” “I did not support my husband during a hard time; I acted like a
spoiled brat instead.”
Interpersonal
relationships: When a co-worker asked me
to record his ice bucket challenge, I deliberately did not hit record.
There were
a number of comments under this general heading of self-improvement like “I'm
sorry I wasn't more humble. Too often I'm just a kind of snooty little smarty
pants.” “I'm sorry that I am not as tolerant as I would like to be” and “I
would like to be more forgiving...of others as well as myself” and “I complain
too much about what is wrong and forget to say thank you for what is right.”
“I'm sorry I can't do more for my Temple.
Perhaps next year will be better.
Issues with
friends came up frequently: “I'm sorry for the miss understanding with a friend
whose feelings were hurt. We have now corrected our errors.” “I lied to my
friend for whom truth is everything.”
Our young
people added in sins too: “I broke up with someone over text message.” “I broke up with a girl because she was
irritating me off and still had braces.”
“I've slacked and cheated in school to maintain my grades.” “I lied to
my parents about going to the mall. I told them I brought x dollars, but really
I brought xx dollars.” “I'm sorry for not listening to my mom when I know I
should.”
And among
others?
I know I
need to change my eating habits but I choose not to.
I made my
daughter feel she is unworthy. Mostly, I
have lost my sense of spirituality and G-d and I want it back.
I made
people feel guilty.
I got drunk
in front of my college age daughter, bad example for her.
I'm sorry I
sometimes go for the laugh rather than thinking before I speak.
I have
guilt about not being able to let go of something I know I will NEVER be able
to have again.
I can't
give up an obsession that's harming me and making someone I love unhappy.
I am not
living up to my dreams.
I don't
have the courage to live my life and so I look for means of escape.
I am sometimes
manipulative.
If we want
to build community, and we do, we have to let our friends here at Temple Beth
Jacob know that we care for them.
Because the responses are anonymous, we can’t reach out but know this. To those of you in this room who posted, we
hear you. We feel for you. We are ready
to help you in your struggles. You are
not alone. You are part of a community
where many, many people have their own struggles. We all face struggles. We all have burdens. We all have regrets. Together we can help each other.
This is why
I love this goat. The interface is
juvenile but the meaning is extremely serious.
The other
great example of this interplay of communal and personal is the very fact that
Yom Kippur draws a crowd. The themes of
the day, the introspection, seem to be most effective when we are
together. You could pick up a used
machzor on Amazon and thumb through it at home but that’s no fun and I would
think boring. If we’re going to have a
serious day of reflection, it’s more meaningful to do so all together.
We are all
in this experience together. We are
all partners in this day.
I’ve been
thinking of that word a lot in terms of how we organize our synagogue. For decades the membership model for
synagogues has been the only model. It’s
filled with words like dues and statements and member and non-member. It has a fee-for-service connotation, it has
an exclusivity connotation but perhaps worst of all is that it has a sense of
you vs. us. There is this institution,
Temple Beth Jacob, and there is some group that runs it and you can join or
not, you can be a member not. But then
what? So you’re a member. That entitles you to various services that
you can demand from the powers that be.
You vs. them.
It doesn’t
function quite so harshly on a day to day basis but that is how it can feel to
a lot of people
What if we
changed our language? What if we looked
at this as more of a partnership? What
if, instead of a member, you were a partner of Temple Beth Jacob? What would that mean to you? What would that look like? What if we remove an us and them context and
make it just us? Right now, the
synagogue is trying to serve its members.
What would it mean if the partners, all the partners, contributed ideas
and energy towards the programming we have, the opportunities we can provide?
The
membership model for synagogues had its day but now, we need something
new. We need something where all of us
feel a responsibility towards the energy of the community and where all of us
feel our contributions of time and energy and ideas whether large or small is
received graciously.
One
synagogue, Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA has a policy where they don’t say
no. If you have an idea, they synagogue
will work to give you a space and dates to make it happen. They will support the program as much as they
can financially. But, you, the person
with the idea, have to make it happen.
You the member don’t tell the synagogue what you want. You the partner propose an idea that is
almost always approved and then you make it happen with staff and budgetary
support. That’s a partnership.
The notion
of partnership with a synagogue is the idea that you don’t buy a product; you
support your community. As a partner,
you have the right and duty to speak up so that the partnership meets your
needs. You become vested in the health
of the community and you become empowered to think creatively so that the
synagogue provides what you want at the stage of life you are in.
We’re all
in this together. Whether it’s baring
our souls via the eScapegoat or imagining a new relationship with this
congregation, we’re all in it together and that is moving and uplifting and
very inspiring. On a serious day, I see
a very happy future.
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