Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, Oregon

Atonement: Being Resonant with the Ultimate

Sunday, October 05, 2008
by Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods

from High Holy Days for Humanists by Sherwin Wine

The day of atonement is a time when we feel at one with all our vital connections. We feel at one with the living world of nature, now displaying its glory in the beauty of autumn. We feel at one with ourselves searching for the integrity of our mind and body. Of our purpose and action. We feel at one with our family and friends, without whom our struggle would have little meaning. We feel at one with all creatures who bear our human form. Their needs and desires are also our very own. Above all, we feel at one with a living people whose unique style gives us a special identity. We are Jews. We share that destiny with each other and with millions beyond.

. . . The style of a healthy religion allows for many degrees of commitment and for many expressions of identity. If we all dance to the same Jewish tune, we will bore ourselves with uniformity. . . We take what we receive and we mold it to our needs.

This morning, just four days before Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, we consider the theological concept of atonement: the notion that we might find ways to feel at one and resonant with all of life and to do so we must release what binds us to ego and keeps us from greater consciousness. This requires effort and attention to our self and our relationships. I believe the Jewish people developed a special awareness of the possibilities of atonement, but it took me a long time to understand it myself.

From the time I was five years old until I married and moved, I lived in the New York Metropolitan area, specifically, on the New Jersey shore. I knew many Jewish people. Sputnik went up when I was in fifth grade, and I was homogeneously tracked in school from seventh grade on. Therefore, I was one of two or three students actually in my classes during the High Holy Days. I was occasionally invited to a seder, but I did not understand the religion of “God’s chosen people.”

When I attended Asbury Park High School (a bit before Bruce Springsteen), my best friends (and this is not the set-up for a joke) were a Jew and an African-American. Unfortunately, Susan, my Jewish friend, was more interested in converting to Christianity, which she later did, than in teaching me about Judaism. I remained in the dark.

As an adult, I deplored the Holocaust and studied aspects of Judaism, but recognized that I had no idea of their experience. Their fortitude in the face of genocide was inspiring, but difficult for me to fathom. I was riveted at a Chautauqua (New York) presentation on “Faith and Reason” in the mid 1990’s when Michael Barenbaum, then Director of Research for the Holocaust Museum, said that nothing meaningful can be said theologically that does not take into account “burning children.” I was over-whelmed. I realized that the experience of Jewish people was more powerful than I could imagine and I owe a debt of attention.

As luck would have it, I was accepted into the Kenneth Jewell Chorale and sang for several major Jewish events. I was privileged to participate in a production of “The Last Dance,” a musical play telling the story of a pogrom after which Jews were forbidden to dance in their Russian village. I was deeply moved by the story and entranced by the principal dancer. I was disappointed when I asked a friend who was singing in the production what she thought of the dancer’s work. Her reply: “Nice buns!” Transcendence is in the eye of the beholder!

Several years later, I was hired to sing with a choir for the Holy Days. Since then I have been hooked on Jewish liturgy and music. More important, I had the opportunity to experience the celebration of the mysterious High Holy Days that seemed so foreign in my childhood. I found myself, through the music, experiencing a deeply spiritual sense of connection with all of life – yet again!

So, what is the message of “atonement?” The Ten Days of Penitence begin on Rosh Hashanah and close on Yom Kippur. In Talmudic times, they were viewed as an especially appropriate period for introspection and repentance. Penitential prayers (selihot) are recited prior to the daily morning service and, in general, during this period, scrupulous observance of the Law is expected.

Rosh Hashanah (New Year) According to Mishnaic teaching (oral law), the New Year ushers in the Days of Judgment for all mankind. Despite its solemnity, the festive character if Rosh Hashanah is in no way diminished. In scripture it is called “a day when the horn is sounded;” in the liturgy “a day of remembrance.” In the land of Israel and in the Diaspora (any area outside of Israel), Rosh Hashanah is celebrated on the first two days of Tishri. Considerable speculation in recent literature concerning the origin of the Jewish New Year festival proves mostly that its early history can only be conjectured, not reconstructed.

A most distinctive part of the Rosh Hashanah observance is the sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) at the synagogue service. Medieval commentators suggest that the blasts acclaim God as ruler of the universe, recall the divine revelation at Sinai, and are a call for spiritual reawakening and repentance. It isa true spiritual “wake-up call!” An expanded New Year liturgy stresses God’s sovereignty, his concern for man, and his readiness to forgive those who repent and expand their awareness.

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah (except when it falls on a Sabbath), it is customary for many to recite penitential prayers at a river, symbolically casting their sins into the river; this ceremony is called “tashlihk (thou wilt cast”). Other symbolic ceremonies, such as eating bread and apples dipped in honey, accompanied with prayers for a “sweet” and propitious year, are performed at the festive meals. This year the children of Beit Am had their bread and honey service outside here.

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) The most solemn of the Jewish festivals, Yom Kippur is a day when sins are confessed and expiated, and God and Man are reconciled. It is also the last of the Days of Judgment and the holiest day of the Jewish year. Celebrated on Tishri 10 (October 9-10 this year), it is marked by fasting, penitence, and prayer. Working, eating, drinking, washing, anointing one’s body, sexual intercourse, and donning leather shoes are all forbidden.

In Temple times, Yom Kippur provided the only occasion for the entry of the high priest into the Holy of Holies; details of the expiatory rites performed by the high priest and others are recorded in the Mishna and recounted in the liturgy. Present day observances often begin with a festive meal shortly before Yom Kippur eve. The Kol Nidre prayer (recited before the evening service) is a deeply moving song which absolves Jews from fulfilling solemn vows, thus safeguarding them from accidentally violating a vow’s stipulations. The formula first appears in the gaonic sources (derived from the Babylonian Talmudic academies, 6^th –11 centuries Ace) but may be older; the haunting melody that accompanies it is medieval in origin. Virtually the entire day is spent in prayer at the synagogue, the closing service concluding with the sounding of the ram’s horn.

(source, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1975 ed.)

The mood of the season, for traditional Jews, is captured in the introduction to Shaarei Teshuva (Gates of Repentance : The New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe ):

At this season we turn from our ordinary ways to contemplate extraordinary issues, to ponder large – and largely unanswerable – questions: Who are we? Whence do we come? Whither are we going? What is the divine, and what our relation to the One whose name conceals more than it reveals? Measuring ourselves against our ideals during this season, we are moved to express regret for past errors and to reaffirm our aspirations for the future. This, our tradition calls cheshbon hanefesh, “the examined life.” This is the season of self-judgment, of struggle, of inward turning, the season when a whole people labors heroically to remake itself. Though year after year that effort meets with little success, still we believe that it must ultimately succeed. To the extent that our effort is honest and undeceived, constant and undespairing, we gain strength, though it comes in small, undramatic, perhaps unnoticed accretions. And this is a season equally for the individual and the folk. Universal is its message, reaching out to all humanity, it derives much of its power from its particularity: it is our searching, our aspiration, our effort, our unique path to self-transcendence and self-renewal. Hence, its timeless hold upon the imagination of the Jew. One confronts this season, its stern demands, its awesome potentialities, with trepidation.

This is the essential meaning of the Ten Days of Repentance which began on the evening of September 30 of this year. It is a powerful time for Jews, an awesome time. One must make peace with oneself, with one’s family and friends, and with what is ultimate in one’s life. Ten days are set aside for this effort and a special prayer made to absolve one for possible mistakes along the way. It is the holiest time of the year, this beginning of a New Year.

Yom Kippur reminds us of the task of seeking forgiveness. It reminds us that we may not find wholeness and holiness, if we are carrying around old pain and sorrow, either for what we have done or what another has done to us. It is a time to remember and release, rather than hang on to the past. As some of you already know, I believe this is not a project of cheap grace, and we need to lead lives that are clear of stacked-up kharma. It is a good way to begin again in love. Days of Repentance can be a time of liberation, of freeing our energies for more creative experiences.

In addition, who among us does not hunger for connection (at-one-ment) with something more than our selves: to our families, to our communities, Nature, Life, God. When we seek forgiveness, we truly seek union, to be reconnected to that which has meaning for us.

What it boils down to is recognition for all of us that the web of life is delicate and easily broken. Our deepest hunger is to mend the web, first in ourselves, then in the fabric of community, then in our suffering planet. This longing is probably the deepest longing within human beings and is so expressed in the eloquent prayer, Kol Nidre, which states, in Wine’s High Holy Days for Humanists:

“We affirm all promises and resolutions

we have made for the sake of love.”

Sing “Kol Nedrei”

So Be it! Blessed Be!

CLOSING WORDS: from The Gates of Repentance

Kol Nidre: a whisper of wings, as promises are remembered.

Saint and sinner alike commune with the Most High. We are at one.

So be it! Blessed Be!

“Atonement: Being Resonant with the Ultimate”

Order of Service

Sunday, October 5, 2008

9:30 AM and 11:00 AM

Welcome

Choral Introit: “Gathered Here” by Phil Porter

Chalice Lighting

Opening Words

Opening Song: #402 “From You I Receive”

Story for All Ages: “Pennies For Peace” with Sandi Houtman

Sung Response: “As You Go”

Announcements

Reading: “This I Believe” by John Reiman

Celebrating with Music: “You Needed Me” by Charles Randolph Goodrum

Sermon: “Atonement: Being Resonant with the Ultimate”

Sung Response: #83 “Winds Be Still”

Spoken Response

Candles: Milestones of Joy and Sorrow/Offertory

Meditation

Closing Song: #126 Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (verses 1 & 2)

Closing Words

Closing Song: #126 (verse 3)

Celebrants: John Reiman, the Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods, Etc.