Knowing where my work is—Yom Kippur 5787

Shanah Tovah! G’mar Chatimah Tovah and for those fasting - a Tzom Kal...

So, Andy had been on the trail before and knew this hike well. Along with him on this particular day were his family, his partner Jamie and their two kiddos, as well as his buddy Jesse and family. Jesse’s family, a little less familiar with hiking; not practiced at being in the forest, or the mountains - or really much outside the suburbs.

Jacob, Jesse’s son, asked Andy, “How long is the hike?” Andy pulled out the map, pointed out where they were, where they were going and asked back, “So, how far is that?” Jacob responded unsure of his reply, “About three inches?”

Jacob wasn’t wrong, it was almost exactly three inches on the map. And Andy, being who he is, said, “Yep, three inches!”

What Andy did not share, or teach, until lunch after the hike, was that every map has a legend and a scale, and each inch is about a mile on this map! The three-inch measurement was exactly right, but was the measuring right?

It is similar to arriving at a trailhead or trail junction. We see the sign as we approach. We anticipate learning which direction we will take and how long it will be. “Oh look, it says Crag Lake is only 3 miles away!” And then the real questions begin:

Is that three miles flat? Or uphill? Does it involve a mountain pass? Am I at sea level or 8000 feet? How far have I already hiked? How heavy is my pack?

Three miles sounds lovely! But these three miles are unlike any other three miles - which is true of so much in this beautiful and varied world. There are differences. The three inches was correct...on the map. The trail signs are right - 3 miles - but our measures are not always right.

This is real for so much of our lives, too. I thought I knew what forty meant? What success looked like? Where I was headed in life? And it is not just about having the wrong yardstick; often, the yardstick is simply inadequate. Three miles is really three miles. I can count the years of my life and you yours. Income does reveal something about our financial realities. Our accomplishments do reflect on our abilities and our efforts. Yet, there is not a complete guidebook for life, nor does anyone tell us everything we need to know for the journey.

On this Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, we gather as a community, as Jews are around the world, and engage with the meaning of this day, with its liturgy as tools to consider ourselves, our lives...what we are, have been, and are becoming. It is a day of measuring - the cheshbon hanefesh - the accounting of our souls. But maybe we’re looking at the map and forgetting the scale, or just the trail sign and not considering terrain, temperature, elevation, how far I’ve come... These measures work as they should, but maybe the measurement isn’t taking into consideration all that it ought to. What if we’re doing this with our lives? It is not quite, “are we measuring up?” but rather what are we measuring ourselves against?

Forming our own identities, in part, is through difference. We notice something others are or represent that we do also, or we don’t. From early childhood we begin to learn that each of us sees and experiences the world differently, we think differently, and we live out our lives differently. These differences enable each of us to glean and understand who I am...who each of us is. Our rabbis identify this as a cause for blessing. When we see a great multitude of people, the Talmud tells us to bless God as Chacham HaRazim - the Knower of Secrets - for just as our faces are different from one another - our differences - so too are our minds. And the secret God knows, according to our sages, is exactly those differences. (1)

Difference itself becomes an occasion for blessing. Yet somehow, what our tradition teaches us to bless, we learn to measure.

Sure, we celebrate these differences. Yet, they begin to become another measurement tool - another three inches on the map. Being: Ahead or behind, successful or unsuccessful, normal or abnormal, enough or not enough. The Rabbis teach that God alone is Knower of Secrets, yet we humans seem focused on knowing everybody’s secrets anyway: Who’s doing better? Who’s accomplishing more? Who’s winning?

The Rabbis know this challenge is real. They teach, “I am God’s creature and my fellow is God’s creature, I work in the city, he in the field. Lest one say, ‘I accomplish much and he little’...whether one does much or little, provided one’s heart is directed toward Heaven.” (2)

Even the ancient rabbis, two thousand years ago, were already dealing with folks looking over each other’s fences wondering how we measured up. Keepin’ up with the Joneses, or should I say the Cohens, isn’t a new thing.

The differences that we talk about celebrating become catalysts for comparison. And, as we consider just how pervasive comparison has become, we do not need others standing beside us, nor fences to peer over; we internalize the measurement tools, the yardsticks. We feel this when we consider: In my life by now I should have.... A successful Jewish community has hundreds of members and.... Or good grades must all be..... A meaningful life must include.. A good parent always....

We know there are so many rubrics and metrics for how our lives are measured, by ourselves and by others. We can become quite adept at measuring ourselves, but are we asking if the measure itself is right? Three inches on the map? Three miles on the trail? Three flat, shady miles - or three miles up a steep, exposed mountain pass? The ruler may not be broken. The yardstick may simply be inadequate. The cheshbon hanefesh - accounting of our souls - the cheshbon needs evolving too.

The tools we utilize to measure, our yardsticks if you will, are amazing gifts bequeathed to us just by living our lives. We inherit them from our parents and family. We learn them from our teachers and role models. The television, newspapers, and social media that we consume place gauges in front of us all the time. American culture, and Judaism too, have their own benchmarks. Even earlier versions of ourselves become a kind of measuring stick. These lenses through which we compare begin early in our lives. We have goals and metrics to meet, and they were, are, and will remain valuable for so many things. But, is that the only way we should measure?

These matter...they have value and our task on this Day of Atonement is not to abandon the past, nor its measuring kit, but rather to learn a new question. It is good to borrow and utilize these yardsticks inherited from somewhere and someone else...some of the time. And, we must ask on this day of all days, “Have we examined our yardstick closely enough to know, especially today, is this still the right measure for my lived reality now?”

Eventually, though, we forget from where we received our yardsticks, or even that we received them at all. Whether from family, community, or colleagues; from teachers and mentors, or accepted norms of society, and even from Judaism, they gradually become our own...we forget they were handed to us. They have been part of our life long enough, they feel like our own.

Psychologists studying human motivation identify that we begin to internalize what were originally external expectations without choosing them ourselves. The voices outside become the collective voice within. (3)

It is not about rejecting the externally received values and information, the measuring tools, but rather the “how” of integrating them. We gain so much from others - we are a miracle to and for one another - parents, teachers, community, Torah, Judaism, and with discernment and reflection, we have the opportunity to make them genuinely our own.

And if the most powerful yardsticks are the ones we no longer recognize as such, perhaps our tradition gives us tools to do extraordinary things: Make them visible again.

In our Mishnah, Ben Zoma asks, “Who is wise?...Who is strong?....Who is rich?....Who is honored?” Ben Zoma doesn’t abolish the categories...nor should we. He changes the measurement. He responds to each of these questions in ways many of us are familiar with. Who is wise: The one who learns from everyone. Who is strong: The one who subdues his evil inclination. Who is rich: The one who rejoices in her lot. Who is honored: The one who honors others. (4)

While our world, our society defines wisdom by age, experience, and degrees, Torah reminds us and proposes that wisdom is about openness to learning. Our world defines wealth by dollar signs, yet Torah puts before us a vision of enough - of contentment.

Yom Kippur does not draw us to this place on this day to stop measuring, so much to the contrary it is a palace in time, as Heschel might say, to interrogate our tools of measurement. Are we remembering to look at the scale on the map, or discerning the terrain ahead of us, and looking beyond just the posted mileage? How do we know whether a measure is calling us to grow - or merely asking us to conform?

Psychologist Sunita Sah shares a story from her own life, her own parenting that spotlights this reality well. She spoke about how she was raised with a clear understanding of what it meant to be “good.” It meant being polite, obedient, and compliant. Yet, in a moment of frustration with her own child, years later, she heard her own voice reprimand him saying, “Why can’t you just be good?” Stopping in her tracks, she asked herself, “When has being ‘good’ come to mean being compliant?” (5)

She failed to notice how this metric, this yardstick was inherited. It had become her own. If “good” can slowly become another way of saying “compliant,” perhaps the answer is simply to throw away the yardsticks. Stop worrying about anyone else’s expectations. This is who I am.

Except, today is Yom Kippur.

This is where things and our lives become tricky. It is clear that if Yom Kippur itself were human, it would want us to be good, and surely this would be in ways that we do not always ask of ourselves. It is not about tossing the inherited metrics, nor is it simply, I am who I am. This is not only about the past, nor only about the present...it is also about the ever arriving future too - becoming. So, Yom Kippur does charge us to change.

We are here at this moment of the year to discern the difference, to strive to uncomplicate this thing called life just a little bit. What changes are we making that are conforming to the external pressures, the demands, and the expectations? Which ways are we evolving that are a form of growth? Asking ourselves these questions can help us navigate and begin grappling with the conformity that asks me to change so that I measure up as well as making space for transformation.

We still, though, need to discover the courage to follow that measure, to grow in those ways. Conformity asks us what I must become to measure up, while transformation asks what is worthy of changing me.

What yardsticks have I been using to measure my life—and which of them are worthy of the life I still have left to live? That feels like a question for today. We are often challenged by our tradition, or a friend, or a loved one pointing out something we need to hear. To know. And we want to declare, “This is just who I am.”

Yom Kippur is about knowing that what is being measured has changed too, not only the measurements taken. It is transformation, a kind of change that transcends conformity. It is the true growth of our humanity, our uniqueness - celebrating our differences, and being mindful of them too. Learning to discover when we are measuring up to become someone else or when we are discovering something true and authentic within - learning about who we are still capable of becoming is a recipe for today. For Yom Kippur.

“When we forget the essence of our own soul... everything becomes confused and in doubt.” Wrote Rav Kook. “The primary teshuva,” he continued, “that which immediately lights the darkness, is when a person returns to himself, to the root of his soul – then he will immediately return to God, to the ‘soul of all souls’.” (6)

We translate Teshuvah as turning, or returning. But return doesn’t have to mean going backward, trying to recover some earlier version of ourselves. Rav Kook invites us to imagine something different. Teshuvah isn’t a return to who I was. It is returning toward who I am still capable of becoming...and it requires measuring the measures.

Yom Kippur, however, does not allow this to remain individual, it is not a solitary project. The measuring is for all of us. It is communal - based on being a people. Al Cheit She’Chatainu - We have sinned before you. We engage in this as a kahal - a community - a collective voice even while simultaneously delving into the personal spiritual journeys of this season.

How do we measure this work as a congregation? We often slide into the known, easy, inherited metrics: the budget, the tushies in the pews, the students in religious school, new members. Those are all so crucially important. Without paying attention to those realities, we would be taking steps into the future with blinders on. Yet, have those yardsticks become internalized too? Do they lead us to conforming, when we are striving to also transform?

Parker Palmer, a great educational leader as well as a committed Quaker elder, suggests another measure for institutions and people teaching: Not only success or effectiveness, but faithfulness - a faithfulness to the gifts we possess and to the needs before us. (7)

We could be asking an additional set of questions. Did our congregation, our community become more generous this year? Are we more present with one another? Do we know more folks sitting around us? Did someone discover the courage to join us because we are more attune to what it means to welcome? Did someone experiencing a challenge discover and receive support? Are we continuing to honor our history while creatively approaching tomorrow?

Yom Kippur is, at least on the surface, about measuring up. The Kol Nidre words themselves are about living up to our own expectations of ourselves. We began this Yamim Noraim - Days of Awe by asking ourselves about whether or not we measure up. Yet, as we move closer to this day, and arrive here on Yom Kippur, now we are charged to ask, “What am I measuring myself against?” “Whose yardstick am I using?” Today, before we ask whether we measure up, we need to first measure the measure. Yom Kippur is not here to be an easy day...it is hard...very hard.

Jacob was right. It really was only three inches.... And the trail sign was right too, it was three miles left. Yet, neither of those measurements told us everything we needed to know about the journey. Yom Kippur invites us...no it charges us...to look again at the map. Pay attention to the details - notice the scale. It invites us to consider the terrain and remember how far I have traveled...who I have become. And then...it is not only how far do I have to go, but even more: Is this the direction in which I am called to grow?

Once we discern and trust that the measure is worthy of who I yearn to become, or even called to become, will I allow it to change me? Will I allow myself to grow in that direction...in those ways?

G’mar Chatimah Tovah - May we be sealed for growth, discovery, and possibility in this coming year.

Footnotes

(1) BT Berakhot 58a (2) BT Berakhot 17a (3) https://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2008_DeciRyan_CanPsy_Eng.pdf (4) Mishnah Avot 4:1 (5) https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/marching-to-your-own-drummer (6) Orot HaTeshuva, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (7) https://quakerpodcast.com/quaker-author-parker-palmer-on-how-to-let-your-life-speak/ (quakerpodcast.com in Bing)