On a Sunday morning in March, Rhonda asked
me to copy two pages from the teacher’s guide of her class’s history textbook, The
Mystery of the Coins, by Chaya M.
Burstein.
I opened the book to the pages that she
wanted copied. Something at the bottom
of the second page caught my eye.
It was a poem entitled “From You to You,”
written by Solomon Ibn Gabirol, a scholar, bible commentator and philosopher
who lived in Spain in the 11th Century.
Here is the poem:
When
all within is dark,
and
old friends turn aside
From
them, I turn to You
And
find love in Your eyes.
When
all within is dark,
and
I my soul despise
From
me I turn to You
And
find love in Your eyes.
When
all Your face is dark,
and
Your just angers rise
From
You, I turn to You
And
find love in Your eyes.
The words were penetrating and stayed with
me throughout the morning, enough that I was driven to create a melody that
very afternoon for this haunting thousand year-old piece.
Ibn Gabirol described, in this poem, the sense
of abandonment and the darkness of the soul we may experience in moments when
we feel separated from people who are close to us, when we see ourselves as
being far from the type of person we want to be, and when we sense that we are distant
from God.
The Priestly blessing, which we recite at
times of celebration, and in our High Holy Day services, contrasts that
darkness with light in its second phrase: YA-EIR ADONAI PANAV EILECHA
VIY’CHUNEKA - “May the light of God’s
face shine upon you and may God be gracious to you.”
What happens to us when the lights of our
lives, upon which we depend, have been withheld, or when we perceive that they
are no longer with us? We may feel that
there is no way to rediscover that radiance so that we can experience kindness
and grace from God or from our fellow human beings.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol reassured us in this
poem that God is still with us, and that God still loves us, even when we have
been abandoned by our friends, even when we have given up on ourselves, even
when we have acted in a way that, we believe, might rouse God’s anger, and even
when all seems dark.
It’s like those moments when you thought
your parents were going to be eternally angry at you about something you did
wrong. You may have expected that they
would never take you back. Hopefully,
because of their depth of concern and love for you, and their sense of
responsibility in guiding you to learn and to live better, they quickly let go
of most of their displeasure. In those
times, it was love that won the day.
I believe that is what Solomon Ibn Gabirol
was trying to express in this poem. The
love about which Ibn Gabirol speaks reflects unbreakable connection, undying
concern, and the ever-present trust that, even when we stray from the right
path, there is love still present that can reaffirm our humanity and bring us
back to a place of self-acceptance.
This poem reminds us that we don’t have to
be perfect to be worthy of God’s love. It reiterates that, as human
beings, we are lovingly imperfect. Sometimes our friends abandon us, and it may
not even be because of something we did, but their avoidance of us makes us
feel like we were in the wrong.
Sometimes the feeling inside that we are not good enough may take us to
a dark place, with no light to lead us out.
But at those times when we have been in the wrong, if we are contrite,
if we admit our error in judgment or action, and if we apologize, the blessing
and presence of God can still encompass us.
For Ibn Gabirol, the just anger
of God was focused on facilitating our return, our TESHUVAH, to goodness rather
than on the necessity of meting out punishment. With love, and blessing, we can become and
remain whole.
The prayers of Yom Kippur attempt to make
us whole by putting our chronic human imperfection before us and enabling us to
live with that reality. According to
our tradition, God did not create us to be perfect, but gave us the ability to
have faith in ourselves that we will do our best, that we will seek to act with
kindness and goodness, and that we will strive for excellence. Excellence is not neessarily
perfection. And that’s still all
right.
One of the prayers in Mishkan T’filah that
we didn’t read earlier in the service tonight calls to mind the covenant
between God and the Jewish people that brings us to our observance of Yom
Kippur and to the warm embrace of community in this holy space. Our prayers on this night reiterate a close
relationship with God alongside multiple prayers of confession. We express our hope on Yom Kippur that the
Jewish people’s historical and personal bonds, expressed in terms of the
covenant with God, will catch the eye of
the divine and reaffirm that we, as imperfect human beings, are still worthy of
God’s light and love.
Please turn to page 103 and join me in
reading the English of the prayer Ki Hinei Kachomeir:
Consider
the clay in the potter’s hand, stretched and rolled as the artist desires.
So
are we in Your hand, our loving Protector.
Look
to the covenant, not our imperfection.
Consider
the stone in the mason’s hand, broken or kept whole as the stonecutter sees
fit.
So
are we in Your hand, Creator of life and death.
Look
to the covenant, not our imperfection.
Consider
the iron in the welder’s hand, held to the flame or removed at will;
So
are we in Your hand , Provider for the poor and afflicted.
Look
to the covenant, not our imperfection.
Consider
the helm in the seafarer’s hand, steering or drifting as the sailor wills it;
So
are we in Your hand, our God of goodness and forgiveness.
Look to the covenant, not our imperfection.
Consider
the glass in the glazier’s hand, rounded and melted as the artist desires;
So
are we in Your hand, the one who pardons our errors and our wrongdoing.
Look
to the covenant, not our imperfection.
This prayer portrays God as guiding and
shaping us and playing a part in charting the direction in which we will
go. The African American Spiritual,
“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” offers an echo of this theme of how
God takes part in molding who we are and who we can be. In this well-known spiritual, God shapes
every person, the birds of the air, and
the fish of the sea. In this case, the
lyrics specify that God holds in divine hands the “gamblin’ man” and the
“sinner man.” This reflects the themes of the High Holy Days: God is always
with us and willing to take us back when we are ready to move to a path of
righteousness, honesty, and goodness.
Sometimes we need to shape and mold
ourselves in a way that affirms that we can be good and excellent and kind,
even if we are not perfect.
That is the central message of Dr. Brené
Brown’s book, THE GIFT OF IMPERFECTION.
The chapter in her book entitled “Cultivating Self-Compassion” offers
this unusual but likely accurate description of what perfection and
perfectionism really are: “Perfectionism
is not the same thing as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is not about
healthy achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live
perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of
blame, judgment, and shame....Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug
around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really
preventing us from taking flight....Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying
to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised
for achievement and performance.... Somewhere along the way, we adopt this
dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I
accomplish it....Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve?
Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?”
Brené Brown roundly rejected the formula of
perfectionism that leads people to believe that they can minimize, if not
avoid, shame, judgment and blame if they only make themselves perfect in every
way.
Dr. Brown asserted that perfection
is an unattainable goal that we keep trying to reach because we desire positive
perceptions and affirmation from other people.
She explained, “When we invariably do experience shame, judgment, and
blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough.” So we keep trying to live, look and do everything
just right. She concluded that “feeling
shamed, judged, and blamed (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of
the human experience. Perfectionism actually increases the odds that we will
experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It’s my fault
that I’m feeling this way because “I’m not good enough.”
I recently watched the Netflix series, “The
Spy,” starring Sacha Baron Cohen. He
offered a stunning portrayal of Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen, who infiltrated
the upper echelons of Syrian society until his secret radio transmissions to
the Mossad were detected. At one point
in the retelling of this story, Eli
Cohen’s wife, Nadia, was talking to the Mossad agent closely monitoring Eli’s
progress. She said to him, “Eli told me
on his last visit home that one day he would be an ambassador and I would be an
ambassador’s wife. I don’t want to be
an ambassador’s wife. What worries me
about Eli is that he keeps pushing harder because he believes he isn’t
enough. But he is enough, just as he
is. I wish he would realize that.” Nadia was thrust into the international
limelight following her husband’s arrest, calling for his release, but to no avail.
Nadia’s words in the mini-series did not,
in any way, take away from the heroism
of the real Eli Cohen. They did bear a
message for us that is important on Yom Kippur as we consider the lives we lead
throughout the year.
According to Brené Brown, the best antidote
to perfectionism is to be compassionate with ourselves, to remember that we are
all in this together, and to temper our pain and disappointment in ourselves by
focusing on the gratitude and kindness that we can show to ourselves and to the
people around us.
That is the essence of Yom Kippur. We don’t recite confessional prayers to make
us feel less human. They remind us that
we ARE human, that we make mistakes, and that we can overcome what we have done
wrong by recognizing that we are not alone.
That is why the confessional prayers are stated in the plural and not in
the singular, because striving to do our best and sometimes missing the mark is
a common experience. It is about the
“we” of the human family.
And it is also about doing for ourselves what
God does for us. Several times in our
worship, we recite the passage from Exodus that lists God’s attributes: Adonai, the Eternal One, a God who is
compassionate, gracious, endlessly patient, loving, and true; showing mercy to
the thousandth generation; forgiving evil, defiance, and wrongdoing; and
granting pardon.
This
is how we can approach our own souls and the souls of our fellow human beings
on this day and every day to make the world more whole. Even if it’s not perfect, a world where
people treat each other with compassion, patience, mercy, and grace actually
can be a place of respect, comfort and peace when we strive to keep it that
way. That is what the covenant is all
about. It’s not only between the Jewish
people and God. This can be a covenant
for all humanity, as we seek to help one another feel that, even with our
shortcomings, if we strive to do better, we are, most definitely, enough.
And so, we pray on this day:
Eternal
One,
Bless
our striving
For
excellence
For
compassion
For
goodness,
For
mercy,
And
for patience with ourselves and with others.
Remind
us that it is not our perfection that makes us whole
But
our blessed humanity
Which
you have bestowed upon us
To
use as a gift
So
that we can join with our brothers and sisters
To
accept and acknowledge our imperfection
And
to affirm that we have the opportunity
To
support each other
On
a day like this.
We
can challenge and lead one another
To
be good,
To
be better,
To
be whole
And
to be enough
For
ourselves
For
one another
And
for a world that needs us at every moment
To
sustain faith
To
engender hope
To
achieve a measure of peace
To
see the love and light in Your eyes
And
to spread that love and light throughout the family of humanity.
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