The Meaning of Atonement
Yom Kippur: October 2, 2006/5767
Rabbi Jeffrey Summit

What’s the essence of Yom Kippur? People talk about Yom Kippur as “the holiest day of the Jewish year,” and “a solemn day of fasting.” Of course, the literal translation of Yom Kippur is the “day of atonement.” Yet to many of us, it’s unclear what the word “atonement” really means. In the traditional afternoon service, we’ll read how the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, would slaughter a goat to atone for the people’s sins, but now that we don’t do goats any more, many of us don’t find that image very helpful. There’s some sense that “atonement” means making things that feel wrong, feel right. But how does that happen? How do we understand “atonement” in a way that can help us as we live our lives day to day, bring us closer to the people we love, create a place of peace for ourselves in our communities as we move forward into the new year?

My jumping off point this morning is to deconstruct the word “atonement” itself. I want to suggest that we consider “atonement” as “at one-ment.” While I’ve suggested this before in passing, this morning I want to explore it more deeply. Atonement is about moving toward the feeling of being at one: at one with the people who are important in our lives, at one with our community. Ultimately, this should help us feel at one with ourselves. So much of attaining peace in the world is about our ability to create real, productive relationships with those around us. So much seems to get in the way of establishing that “one-ness” with other human beings. I’d like to tell three stories, true stories, that I’ve collected over the course of the past year. I hope they will illustrate some of the difficulties and opportunities before us as we do the essential work of “atonement” – “at one-ment” – in our lives.

My first story starts very close to home, as in, in my home, last week at the close of Rosh Hashana. Now, our home on holidays is quite wonderful: family coming and going, everybody talking at once, obscene amounts of food. It’s great. And of course because one member of the family is a rabbi, it’s maybe even a little more hectic than usual during the holidays. So when Rosh Hashana ends, my wife and I finally collapse on the living room couch and I’ve got to say, with all the craziness of the holiday, maybe I was feeling just a little ignored and I was focusing pretty narrowly on that and the words began to form in my mouth, “You’ve been so busy. You haven’t even asked how my Rosh Hashana’s been going.” Luckily, I’ve started this new thing where I try to stop and think before I open my mouth. And so I looked at my wife and widened my focus, and I saw all of the work she did to take care of our family and cook on top of being a doctor and instead of saying, “You’ve been so busy, I feel like we haven’t even had time to talk,” I said, “You’ve been so busy. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make the holiday so great.” To which she responded, “Thank you. It’s been crazy. How are you doing?” Now, in truth, it’s taken me years to learn how to do that, but I’ll share the lesson that I’ve learned over time. When we narrow our focus and see only ourselves and our own needs and concerns, that cuts us off from the people we care about. When we widen our focus, just like opening the wide-angle lens on a camera, all of a sudden we see a fuller, truer picture, and that larger picture opens the possibility of connection with the people we care about.

There’s a Hasidic saying that goes: “Just as a small hand placed in front of your eyes can shut out the largest mountain, too much focus on ourselves can shut us off from the people we care about most in the world.” When we widen our focus, it doesn’t make us disappear: in truth it creates the space for us to connect with others in ways that are real and meaningful.

My next story happened close to home as well, right here on the Tufts campus a number of years ago. I’m disguising the players a bit but it basically went like this: A freshman came into my office, right around this time of year. He was a big guy and I wasn’t surprised when I found out that he was on the football team. He was really upset because the team had a game on Yom Kippur and when he told the captain that he wasn’t able to play, the captain was not sympathetic in the least and basically said, “You’re not missing that game for some holiday. As far as I’m concerned, you’re playing!” The captain had transferred to Tufts from a school in the South and the Jewish student was not only upset; he had created a whole scenario in his head that went something like this: “His family probably belongs to the Ku Klux Klan. I’m the only Jewish player on the team and I’m not surprised that he’s picking on me! Anti-Semite!” When I asked if he had talked to his coach, he said he hadn’t, and when we talked more about this it seemed he hadn’t even really talked a lot with the team captain. So I offered to call the captain and when I did, I was surprised what I learned. First off, the captain was nice enough and talked about how important the upcoming game was and how valuable the freshman player was to the team. Then he said, I really don’t understand why it’s a problem for him to play on a holiday. We play football on Thanksgiving and New Year. You don’t work on holidays. I don’t see what the problem is here.” While it was hard for me to imagine, this student had no idea of the nature of Yom Kippur. When I explained that Jews fasted and that it was a solemn time to be in synagogue, he began to understand. He said the first time he met any Jews was when he came to Tufts, but the few Jewish students he knew weren’t at all observant and it was hard for him to understand that a student could be on the football team and also be serious about observing Yom Kippur.

So my advice to the Jewish student was a dictum that has saved me much grief over the years: In accessing a conflict between you and another person, never attribute anything to malevolence when it can be explained by ignorance or incompetence. (I’ll repeat that because it’s such a helpful thing to know.) Usually, people are not out to get you, they simply don't know or are focused in different directions, or usually, they’re not thinking about you at all (they’re too busy thinking about themselves). If you respond to someone like he/she is your enemy when she is not, you will have a hard time repairing the damage and ultimately making her into a friend. Rather than be the angry, wronged party, it’s a stronger role to be an educator, first explaining the nature of the situation rather than running straight to man the barricades.

It’s difficult to feel connected, to be at one with people in our communities, if our first response to conflict is to see ourselves in opposition to other people. In the Mishna, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachia taught “Judge everyone favorably, on the positive side of the scale,” (1:6). That may seem like a lot to ask of ourselves, but the rabbis felt that this open approach not only shaped supportive communities, it also made each of us more perceptive and open to creative resolutions when assessing difficult situations. I’m not saying that we should be naïve, but if our goal is to build productive relationships, we shouldn’t be quick to rush to judgment. On this Day of Atonement, this approach can create an atmosphere of connection rather than separation, of open opportunities for deeper communication, and make us more aware of common ground.

I want to share one final story with you. This is a story from a wonderful book called “The Kosher Pig,” written by my friend and teacher Richard Israel, whom I mentioned last night. Dick tells the story of how he participated in an intensive program to learn how to be a group facilitator in the 1960s. He told how this group of ten people, from different universities and religious communities, had met together eight hours a day for two weeks. He said he felt very close to the group, except that he was the only Jew and the topic of his Jewishness had never really come up. So on one Friday night, the other members were expressing how close and intimate they had all become. But Dick had just left his family at the Shabbat table to join the group and that evening, he felt very apart from the rest of them. He asked, if they all knew so much about each other, why didn't they know that for him, it was Shabbat? And also, they were completely unaware of the difficulties he had keeping kosher on the retreat. He said, you’re all part of the great majority, but in fact, he felt quite isolated and different.

And then, it became very quiet in the group until the guy sitting next to him said, "I don't know if any of you has noticed, but my left leg is shorter than the right. I wear these special shoes to compensate for it and I’ve always been painfully self-conscious about it. The rest of you are fortunate – your bodies are fine, but I’m very different from the rest of you.”

The person next to him continued without a pause. "You folks are all from big cities. I was born and raised on a little farm. You are all so sophisticated. I am just a country boy.” Then the woman to his left said that surely the group had all noticed that English was not her native tongue, that she spoke with an accent. She said, “You’re all real Americans. I’m the one who’s really different.” One after another, all the members shared the ways that they felt different, and Dick noted that to his astonishment, each of them had a significant and often hidden characteristic that made them feel as separate as his Jewishness made him feel.

And I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with new members of the Tufts community, including freshmen, transfer students and new faculty, where the person says, “I’m doing alright, but everyone else seems to have quickly found their place and made friends and it seems like I’m still apart and adjusting.” When we think about the difficult process of becoming a part of a new community or group or class or organization, it’s important to remember the commandment that is repeated more times in the Torah than any other injunction and that commandment is: “Remember, you were a stranger in the land of Egypt: be sensitive to what it feels like to be a stranger.” It’s helpful for us to know that many people feel like strangers and that it takes a while before those real conversations happen where people really begin to reveal themselves and share what’s deeply important. And because I aspire to be the only rabbi in North America who’s quoting Jim Morrison of the Doors on Yom Kippur, remember what he taught: You can’t get a true assessment of the people around you if you focus too much on your own separateness. Or as Morrison sang it: “People are strange when you’re a stranger.” An important part of feeling at one with members of any community is not to assume that everyone else feels like they belong and that you are the only one who feels like an outsider.

This has practical considerations as well. I spoke with a great freshman who mentioned to me that he came to Hillel on Rosh Hashana but felt a little isolated because people didn’t say hello to him. I tried to ask nicely, “Did you say hello to other people?” He smiled and said, “Not really.” Communities don’t happen as if by magic. Each of us have to take risks to extend our hand, to reach out and treat others in the way we would ideally want to be treated.

When we think about atonement on this Yom Kippur, a good place to start is the category that the rabbis call “ben adam l’havero,” the relationship between us and our friends, our family, the communities that shape our lives. The extent to which we can make those connections stronger, more real, more honest, can deepen our happiness and our peace of mind. We can widen our focus so we don’t concentrate too narrowly on ourselves, but take in a fuller picture and be sensitive to the people around us. We can pause before deciding that other people are acting out of malice and do our best to first judge them positively. We can be sensitive to the fact that we are not the only ones who might feel alone. Many people might be feeling like a stranger in a new situation. These perspectives are one way to think about atonement and help us move from separateness to connection. As this New Year begins, there are many things to be set right, and it’s important for us to know that it is so in our power to shape our friendships, our families and our communities.

May you be sealed for blessings in the book of life.