Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank

My least popular sermons have been those where I have chosen to chastise the community for some wrong doing, perceived or real. No one likes to be reprimanded. And so it is that each year, with great wonder, I ponder the unpopularity of the prophet Isaiah (circa, sixth century BCE) who boldly—was it courage or insanity that moved him?—chastised the people as recorded in the words of the Yom Kippur Haftarah—

Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies?
…Do you call that a fast, a day when ADONAI is favorable?
No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry… (Isaiah 58:5-7)

In the address above, Isaiah gets honest, brutally. To sum up—don’t think ritual makes you a good person. Being a good person makes you a good person. The fast is not the end of our return to godliness; it is only a beginning.

Let’s get honest, brutally. Do the High Holidays really work? The bottom line of these holidays can be summarized in one word: forgiveness. Let’s see how you’ve done? Think of someone you dislike. How long have you disliked this person? a) less than a year; b) less than three years; c) less than five years; d) less than ten years. There is no right or wrong in this test.

You will not be graded or judged. If you answered anything but “a,” then the High Holidays, for you, have not worked. That does not mean that the holidays will never work, but they haven’t worked up until now, and if that is the case, like Isaiah, I ask—what was the point of your fasting, or your praying, or your standing up or sitting down, or your singing, or your dipping apples in honey? Here comes a dose of brutal honesty. There was no point. You missed the basic thrust of what the holidays are supposed to do.

As a Jewish community, we tend to be a little neurotic about anti-semites, but in truth, there are people in this world who deeply hate us. Good news: None of them belong to Midway. Better news: Few belong to the international Jewish community. The Torah taught us to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), and the rabbis interpreted this to mean to love our fellow Jew. Not that we shouldn’t love non-Jews, but in the case of “your neighbor,” we refer only to the Jewish people, and it is a really big mitzvah to find ways to love one another.

Some people will carry their hatred and their grudges for decades, and only after years of therapy will they be able to cast these emotional black holes to the winds. Others will carry their hatreds to their graves and never know the relief of living without them. But for those of us who truly hear the message of the holidays, we will find a way to relieve ourselves of this unnecessary emotional debt, forever paying homage to our fantasies about how terrible another person is, how miserable they have made our  lives, and how better the world would be if they were dead. If you are breathing, there is still time to make this world whole again.

Contrary to what others might tell you, religion and honesty are like ice cream and cones, or sand and sea, or autumn and color—the two are inseparable. This is a time for teshuvah, repentance, and it is a time for honesty. Do the holidays work for you? This year, take time off, but make the holidays work.