Is it Really Possible for People to Change?
Yom Kippur: September 22, 2007/5768
Rabbi Jeffrey Summit

In the Midrash, the rabbis teach that some things were created even before the world was created. This is the way the rabbis stress that some things are so elemental to Jewish belief that they form a basis for the way we understand the human condition. One of those things that was created before the world was created was teshuvah, the possibility of change. The rabbis believed so deeply that we could turn towards the good, could reassess our lives and actions and then chose to live in a different way, that they used many metaphors to underscore their belief in the power and possibility of change. The rabbis taught that there are special times in the year, times that are propitious for change, the strongest being today, Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgment, the Day of Atonement. We’re motivated to change by the image of the gates of repentance slowly closing as the day progresses. When the Shofar blows at the end of the final Neilah service, the gates close. But wait, the rabbis say, they actually stay open a crack till the end of Sukkot, so there’s more time. And other rabbis in the Talmud object and say, no! You are totally wrong. The gates of teshuvah are always open. Our whole system of moral choice, of having the free will to chose our direction in life, is predicated on the understanding that it is always an option for people to change.

But. Our experience in life is often different. On a gut level, we know that basically, people don’t change that much. I don’t think that I’ve ever quoted Peter Seeger in a sermon before but he was he was moved to write a final verse to Paul Simon’s song, “The Boxer.” It goes like this: “The years are rolling by me, they’re rocking easily. I am older than I once was but younger than I’ll be; that’s not unusual. No, it isn’t strange. After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same. After changes we are more or less the same (lai, lai, lai…).” We see this in so many aspects of our lives. The person who says “Giving up smoking is easy; I’ve done it hundreds of times.” And don’t even get me started on diets and exercise. Is it really possible for people to change?

This morning, I want to explore some ideas about change, from our culture, from experience, from the Jewish tradition. I hope they can be helpful as we think about ways that we would like to be different in the new year that’s just now beginning.

Let’s start with the adds in the New York Times Magazine section. We are constantly sold products that prey on our hope that simply by buying something, by driving something, wearing something, ingesting something, we can be transformed into something we are not. We live in a culture that sells the idea that change is immediate and transformational. Then we are disappointed and discouraged when it doesn’t work out this way. I discussed this issue with Dean Bob Sternberg, who as you know, is an eminent psychologist. He reflected that the issue is not making a change, which is not so hard. The issue is maintaining that change over time. That’s the challenge! Then he observed, maybe that is the message behind the Hebrew phrase, “the gates of teshuvah” (shaarei teshuvah). It’s never shaar teshuvah, the “gate” of teshuvah.” Maybe the rabbis recognized that we have to go through many gates, lots of gates, a series of gates to achieve real change. From all of my experience, real change is slow and incremental. It happens like a gradual spiral moving upward, circling back on itself and then slowly progressing. The rabbis understood this too which is probably why they spoke about these holidays in metaphors that are cyclical: a challah that’s round, the book that begins over and over again, with clean pages each year.

While it’s important to view ourselves honestly, if we are too self-critical that can keep us from changing. Because change is difficult and incremental, it’s important to celebrate and acknowledge the impact of small changes in our lives. Perhaps you’ve learned a little more this year about what it means to love someone. Maybe you’ve managed to become a little more generous, a little less self-centered. Perhaps you’ve started to read a Jewish book or taken other steps to become somewhat more knowledgeable or committed Jewishly. Even as we work for larger change, take encouragement from the smaller changes you’ve achieved in your life. There’s a mishna where the rabbis say that, when you blow the shofar, you are obligated to blow into the small end of the shofar. It doesn’t fulfill your obligation if you blow into the big end. What could they possibly mean by such an obvious law? Perhaps this teaches that when we have a tendency to only think big, blowing into the large end of the Shofar, we end up with a lot of hot air. But focusing and concentrating our energy on the small end, on achievable goals, we can produce something real, a strong blast.

And then there’s the issue of insight and change. Alan Wheelis, a psychologist and wonderful writer, says that the most common illusion in therapy, both of patients and even experienced therapists, is that insight produces change. The most common disappointment of therapy is that it does not. Insight is instrumental to change, it’s often an essential component of the process, but insight alone doesn’t directly achieve change.

In the Jewish tradition, while introspection and insight (heshbon hanefesh) is important, it actions that count. Our tradition is quite expansive in terms of what people feel, what people understand and believe, but the tradition is much more demanding when it comes to doing the right thing. One could give many examples; one of my favorites is our choice for the Hebrew word for giving money to the poor, tzedukah, which means righteousness. You give money because it’s the right thing to do: feelings play little part in your obligation. This approach is quite different from the meanings embodied in the words charity (from the Latin, caratas) and philanthropy (from the Greek, philio,) both meaning love. It’s your actions, not your feelings that ultimately matter and this approach can be applied to change as well.

In order to change who we are, the first step is to slowly change what we do. I never really thought of myself as a runner until I realized that every week, a number of times, I’d go out and run two, three, four miles. And eventually, it became clear to me that I am a runner. As human beings, we are defined by our actions. We are what we do. In that free will is an essential component of Jewish theology, we deeply believe that we can do what we choose. While it’s difficult to change who we are, it’s in our power to slowly change what we do, and in turn, those actions will slowly transform us into the people we most want to be.

Sometimes we are ripe for change but we need a catalyst to set us on the path, to move us along. I was speaking with a friend about this topic, a former student who is now a top executive in a large multi-national corporation. We spoke together about change and he said, “You want to know about a change in my life? I’ll tell you about a change that happened in college about how I understood people who were gay, lesbian and bi-sexual. It was the 1980s and not as many people were out as are today. Now, I’m not saying I was a bad person, I just embodied the language and prejudice that was common in my high school. It wasn’t until I made friends who were gay, who were active in AIDS/HIV education, that I realized how ignorant I was about what it meant to be gay in our society. Maybe I was ripe for a change but these friendships were a catalyst that changed how I understood, felt and spoke about being gay.” But it was the next thing he said that I found especially powerful: “Actually, now I’m the senior sponsor in our corporation of the Gay/Lesbian/Bi-sexual Caucus. I think it’s really important for straight white males like me to set an example. You know, change isn’t just about what you think. It’s about what you do.”

When the rabbi, physician, philosopher Maimonides examined teshuvah, he spoke about three components in the process of change: vidui, karatah and azavah. The first stage, vidui, means confession and Maimonides talks about two levels to confession. The first level is to tell ourselves what we did wrong. The second is to recognize that whatever we did wrong was essentially our own fault. We get nowhere unless we begin this process correctly, basically telling ourselves the truth and assuming full responsibility. I recently had a powerful, successful businessman on the Hillel governing board tell me about the tremendous weight he felt lifted off his shoulders when he finally learned that it was all right to occasionally, simply say “I was wrong. It was my fault.” He had grown up feeling that if he ever admitted to being wrong, this was a sign of weakness. In fact, it was just a sign of being human and rather than closing him off from his friends and employees, it opened them up to him. The prayers on Yom Kippur help us rehearse this fact and remind us that we are human, “We’ve sinned, we’ve trespassed, we’ve told lies ….” Once we accept that we are human and we make mistakes, we see that it’s in our power to make changes. But if we live constantly blaming other people for our failures, it’s always beyond our reach, out of our hands, and we never have to power to make positive changes.

Maimonides’ second stage in the process of change and repentance is karatah, which means “to cut out.” We recognize how much the part of us that we want to change hurts. We acknowledge how much we want to eliminate that action or pattern from our mode of behavior. After these two stages of introspection, the third stage is about action and is called azevah, from l’azov, to leave. We leave it behind. We do our best to stop acting that way. We slowly construct a new way of acting that is more in line with the person we most want to be in the new year.

Do you think it’s possible for people to change? What has helped you make changes in the past? How might you integrate that knowledge into your life to chart your future?

In his book on repentance, Rav Joseph Solveitchik speaks about the tremendous pull that makes us want to change our lives for the better. When we act in ways that don’t reflect who we deeply want to be, we feel like exiles, shut out of our home, separated from our family, alienated from our true selves. This process of teshuvah, of return, pulls us home. We work to return to a place where we feel comfortable, acting how we most want to act with people we love, living with personal integrity. While this process of returning is sometimes slow, while change is hard-won, I believe it is possible for people to change. May this year be a year of insight, strength and action as we build these changes into our lives.