Have you noticed the sign outside of Bikram Yoga on Mountain Avenue? “Never too old, never too sick, never too late to start from scratch.”
Today we are starting from scratch. We are suspended in a state of not living and not dying, pathless with fates uncertain.
We are old, we are sick, we are late—but we are here.
But what exactly are we here for?
We are here to forgive and be forgiven.
We are here to be with our loved ones, and our community.
We are also here to restore awe and wonder, to clarify our life’s purpose, and to connect with God or the godly in our lives.
How can we clarify the direction in which we are to walk our life’s path?
Teshuva – “the process of returning to the truest expression of ourselves.”
Tefillah -- “reaching towards God -truth -ultimate reality”
tzedakah -- “distributing our possessions with righteousness.”
Teshuva tefillah and tzedakah restore our relationships with self, God and other, and in so doing, soften the harshness of the inevitable decree -- who will live and who will die.
it is written in Tractate Taanit of the Mishna (2nd century) that was never a more joyous time in Israel than [Tu b’Av] and Yom Kippur.
If this is the day when we are asked to rehearse our own death, how can it be joyful?
What greater joy than ridding oneself of habits of thought, speech or behavior that no longer serve us?
What greater joy than releasing old grudges that prevent us from loving?
What greater joy than discovering that our inherent nature –that which we are at our core-- is joyous and brilliant, compassionate and creative, adventurous and enthusiastic and that we can be all this in our lives and express all this in our relationships?
But what if our negative habits have become so entrenched that they shape the very core of our identity? How can we open ourselves to entirely new ways of being in the world?
Mchadesh bkol yom btuvo maaseh bereshit (Morning Liturgy)
Every day the world (including each one of us) is created anew with goodness, allowing for the opportunity to start from scratch every day.
Yet on Yom Kippur our beings are the most malleable the most “morphable” the most conducive to shaping and being shaped like a Potter shapes clay.
“The rabbis [who developed Yom Kippur] wanted to bring us to the point of existential crisis. They wanted to bring us to the point of asking the crucial question, “what is my life about?” [before it is too late.]
Today is the day of our purification. What does this really mean?
A Cherokee medicine woman grandmother Selena once told me:
Let go of what no longer grows corn for you.
In order to fully take advantage of the power of this day we must let go a little bit.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable and approach every moment with “beginner’s mind” a concept we borrow from Zen Buddhism. “Beginner’s mind” refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when approaching a subject in this case Yom Kippur.
What are some moments in your life when you were truly able to let go, and operate with “beginner’s mind?” I want to share with you a time in my own life when I was able to do that. As I do so, think about your own experience.
In the spring of 1995 I drove down to Leslie County, Kentucky to volunteer with the Frontier Nursing Service, a rural medical center staffed mostly by midwives. It had been a difficult year and I was feeling lost and unsure. I had been working in New York City as an administrative assistant – without any connection to community, I was totally alone.
I remember driving and singing on the top of my lungs:
“How long ‘til my soul gets it right? Can any human being ever reach that kind of light?” -- Indigo Girls.
When the Dogwoods burst out with fresh green leaves, I felt the joy of being alive as if for the first time. Just regular old spring!? Where have I been all my life!? God was in the birthing of the leaves, the birthing of the babies and the birthing of myself.
When we experience a Force of Healing and Transformation (Rabbi Michael Lerner) we begin to understand that the universe is hard-wired towards love. This is what some of us call God.
Whether of not we choose to call it God, there is a Force for Healing and Transformation that flows through this universe.
Rabbi Michael Lerner presents the idea of “a new bottom line.” “Beyond efficiency and productivity, how can we shape a society in which there is time not only to Do and to Make but also to Be and to Love?”
Perhaps you have had an experience of being brought out of a personal Mitzrayim or in which you have stood at Sinai and discovered an eternal truth about life. Perhaps you have had an experience in which of a part of yourself dies to allow space for something else to take root.
The natural response to each of these is to utter words of thanks and praise whether or not you know the Hebrew.
Yet once these moments pass, we must harvest the “aha!” just like seeds. (Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)
Spiritual practice helps us to transcend the day to day buzz of our lives, become more aware of the moments of liberation and remind us of our experiences of revelation. This helps us integrate the lessons that each of these moments provides.
“How long ‘til our souls get it right? Can any human being every reach that kind of light?”
The work is never done yet we are blessed with this one life time, this one chance to sing what Rav Abraham Isaac Kook called “the song of the self, the song of our people, the song of humanity and the song of the world.”
Now and in the next 24 hours is your opportunity to do the work. We are sustained by each other, doing this work together in this place as a community.
May the Source of Healing and Transformation guide us to the place where our work must begin today, this Yom Kippur 5770—the day of our At-One-Ment.
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