Kol Nidrei 2018: The Vow of Shalom
“All vows that we have vowed upon ourselves from this Yom Kippur until the following one - may it come upon us for good - all of these we regret. They shall be permitted, abandoned, put to rest, voided and made void, invalidated and made nonexistent. Our vows are not vows, and our oaths are not oaths.”
This traditional text of Kol Nidrei has powerful folkloristic origins. It is said to be a relic of Medieval Spain, where Jews were being forced to convert to Christianity. The formula of the prayer annuls vows even before they are taken, alleviating fear for those who were living in a place and time where Jews were being made to recant their beliefs and identities under threat of death.
Kol Nidrei touches upon one of the most foundational aspects of the Jewish worldview- the power of words. By preemptively revoking vows and oaths for the coming year, Jews were able to heal the wounds of persecution before they happened- they were able to define their own identities, regardless of their contexts. Words build worlds- “God said let there be light, and behold, there was light.” Humanity may not be able to form things from thin air with our words, but we know that words have incredible power. The words we use to describe ourselves; basic identity markers, such as our gender, ethnicity, religion, or familial ties, hold within them commitments that we make to ourselves about who we are - that is, multitudes of vows. Each of these identity markers ascribe values and expectations to us based on social and cultural forces operating at often-subconscious levels. When our core values don’t align with those held within one of our identity markers, a dissonance arises within us that can be quite destructive.
An example:
A baby was born to a marginalized group of people, the Hebrews, who were being brutally oppressed and enslaved by an Egyptian ruler. His mother decided that, rather than risk her infant son be killed for his ethnicity, she would put him in a sealed basket in the river, in hopes that he would be found and adopted. As luck would have it, he was - by the daughter of the oppressive ruler. She raised him as her own, and he grew up knowing his original ethnic background, but very much a part of Egyptian culture, even as royalty within it. One day as he was out walking, he saw an Egyptian guard beating a Hebrew slave. Our hero was torn - which kind of person was he? Would he call himself a Hebrew, or an Egyptian? Would he stand idly by while the guard beat this man, or would he stand up for him? In his confusion, anger, and dissonance, he struck out at the guard and killed him, then hid the body. Fearing for his safety, he fled his home, the only place he had ever known, and found a new one - another country, not far away, where he met a woman, fell in love, got married, and became part of her family. His wife’s father just so happened to be the high priest of the Midianite people, and our hero learned all about his job and became enmeshed in their culture. In his new home he became a shepherd: A peaceful life. But nothing ever felt quite right. All of his history, all of the many vows he had taken, or that had been ascribed to him, to be this person or that person, would not stop crying out from within him. The dissonance was deafening - who was he to be?
Then, one day it came upon him. He had a vision while out shepherding his flock - a bush, burning, that was not being consumed by the flames. In it he saw the dissonance he felt. Fire, destruction, torment - but, it did not destroy him, just as it did not destroy the bush. Amidst this vision was unity - was consonance. He need not be only one of these things, he need not pretend that one of his vows could stand for his whole person. Instead, he could be all of them at once. He could find consonance by paying respect to each of them, and he decided to return to his home, to confront the Pharaoh, and to free the Israelite people.
Kol Nidrei comes to teach us that vows are serious things, and that if we are not mindful of the vows we make, and careful with what they contain, we risk complete destabilization. Our hero, Moses, may have believed himself unable, or unwilling, to fill the expectations of the roles he encountered: Hebrew slave, Egyptian royalty, heir apparent to the high priest of Midian, or even simple shepherd. He could have continued to run from the vows he had taken, but instead he chose to rethink them all. Rather than just picking one, he was able to bring together the many dissonant pieces and become the prophet of the Israelites’ journey to freedom, the greatest hero of our people. He was able to bring shalom, peace and wholeness, to his seemingly conflicted identities.
We all have many vows and identities that compete within us, but let’s investigate one shared by a lot of people in this room. Close your eyes for a moment, and see what image pops into your mind when you think “an authentic Jew.” What do you see? How close are you to the image you see? What would it take for you to embody and fulfill that image? How does it feel to note these inconsistencies?
This experiment shows us a deep truth about the vows that make up our identities. Rarely do we match up to the representational version of the things we vow that we are. And when we are confronted with an ideal that we can not live up to, yet are unable to separate our identities from that vow, it leaves a crack in our hearts, making us feel not quite whole. Or, it may lead us to attempt to separate ourselves from those vows in unhealthy ways. One can imagine that Moses’ killing of the Egyptian guard may have come from a very dark place, as opposed to just being a mistake. This could have been a reaction to his realizing that the identities projected upon him, the vows that he had been born and adopted into, were more than he could live up to. The internal conflict of being both a Hebrew slave and Egyptian royalty grew to be too much for him.
That feeling of brokenness that accompanies such an experience can cause terrible dissonance in our lives. It may start out as barely noticeable, but often it will grow, and plague us with doubts about who we are. The reflexive approach to feeling these inconsistencies is to hide, destroy, or change the aspects of ourselves that we feel we can not live up to, or that don’t fit within social expectations. The opposite, though - choosing to redefine ourselves towards consonance - is more effective, if more difficult.
It is often very challenging to describe why or how we are Jewish. It is easy to identify the clearest outward performer of Judaism as the bearer of authentic Jewish identity, even if we do not feel any desire to emulate them. But, it is much more useful to deeply investigate the identity itself and to see what is making it tick. In doing so, we can heal our relationship with it, and bring about shalom for ourselves as Jews. So, to start:
Is Judaism a religion? If so, how can so many Jews identify as Jews of no religion, or even as atheists? And how can the Jewish people have so many irreconcilable opinions on what constitutes the religion?
Is Judaism an ethnicity? If so, how is it possible to convert? And how is it possible that our ethnicity can be so diverse as to include every race on the planet? And can you be Jewish and another ethnicity?
Is Judaism a nation? If so, does that make us remiss in not moving to the Jewish nation state, the State of Israel? I know that I am very happy living in America as a Jew, and although I enjoy visiting Israel, I want to remain here.
Kol Nidrei recognizes the dissonance that vows can bring us, and allows us to forgive ourselves for trying to make ourselves into something we’re not. Yom Kippur gives us the opportunity to reconfigure what matters to us, to work on salvaging those pieces of ourselves that may simply need to be redefined. The vow we take to be Jews is the source of our Jewishness. We need not try to embody the most-often-represented version of the “authentic Jew.” Rather, the vow of Jewishness is the covenant which has been developing since the time of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, and has continued renewing and reforming until today - a covenant of shalom that can help us to find peace and wholeness amongst our many identities.
The struggle to redefine and understand what it means to be a Jew is an age-old one. In a moment not too dissimilar from ours, one of the early rabbis of this congregation, Rabbi Kauffman Kohler, wrote, “Such is the problem Reform has to solve. Under the influence of time the old forms crumble and fall. We have to see to it/ that the fragrance, the spirit of the old be not lost as we pass on to the new.”
A new definition or conception of what constitutes an “authentic Jew” must be one that reaches well beyond our historically inherited forms, but can not exclude the spirit of those inherited values. We can proudly and publicly be Jews, we can be the representative face of what it means to be a Jew, without falling prey to traditionalisms that box out contemporary values and ideals. We can join together to work on refining and revisioning what it means to represent the Jewish people in America today, carrying forward the inherited spirit of the old without adhering to forms that bring us personal dissonance.
A large part of my work with the Young Members Initiative here at Temple Emanu-El will be helping young people find and create ways of being Jewish that fit our day and age. Through building strong, open, and caring community; through learning about the many pathways Judaism provides for daily meaning; and through empowering the young members of this community to build these things in their image, this Initiative will help guide the upcoming generation of Jewish leaders towards lives of shalom, wholeness and freedom, beyond vows that no longer serve them. But, I am also here as a rabbi to the entire community, and available to help all people seeking this shalom. We can consciously and carefully work to weave a web of malleable communal Jewish vows that magnify our greatest visions for ourselves and the future, and that is open enough to include a wide variety of Jewish identities.
In this new year of 5779, take the opportunity of Kol Nidrei to discard or rethink those vows which only bring you dissonance, trouble or pain. Try to be mindful in choosing and defining the vows you live by - seek those that bring you a sense of consonance, wholeness- shalom. Seek, as well, both the new and the ancient vows of our people which can help you find this consonant version of yourself, and allow you to be proudly representative of what Judaism means to you, while making room for others to do so in their own ways as well. May our personal works of healing towards shalom bring shalom to our communities, the Jewish people as a whole, our nation, and the world beyond.
