The following sermon was given by Rabbi Ariana Katz at Hinenu on September 25, 2023 on Yom Kippur Morning.
You’re sitting in a circle surrounded by your closest friends. And your ex. And that one person that you’re not really sure where you stand but its felt funky for a while. And you’re exploring where you have by intention or by mistake embodied oppressive behaviors. First, you confess. Then you get GROUP FEEDBACK. You take turns back and forth. Here’s what I did. Here’s what you did! Here’s what I think about that. Well here’s what I think about that.
You’re doing crit-self crit–criticism, self criticism, a Marxist practice of self examination and group accountability, allegedly (y’all, 2 HiHo sermons in a row mentioning Marxism. I’m an anarchist. Whatever.) Y’all, the people I bring in in this sermon starts weird and gets weirder. Vladimir Lenin explains of crit-self-crit:
The attitude of a political party to its mistakes is one of the most important and surest criteria of the seriousness of the party and of its fulfillment in practice of its obligations to its class and the masses of working people. Openly to admit error, to reveal its causes, to analyse the situation that gave rise to it, attentively to discuss the means of correcting the error – this is the sign of a serious Party, this is the fulfillment by it of its obligations, this is training and educating the class and then the masses.
Hey, that sounds great, right? Openly admitting to failure, the group acknowledging it, moving through it to find what could be different, a happy healthy group. Right?
Howard Matchinger, landsman founding member of the Weather Underground explains how it was implemented:
This brings us directly to the notorious arrogance of the Weather people. During that first crazed year of willing “the underground” into existence, we perceived other activists as loath to go the last mile and risk their futures; we had no embarrassment in calling out other activists for not being “with the program.” We held a general contempt for all parts of the movement who failed to heed our call. This coincided with abusive internal criticism and self-criticism sessions to purge bourgeois “individualism” and gird members for the struggle.
Because you’re not just looking neutrally at your actions and considering how to improve, your nearest and dearest are taking turns accusing you of not really believing what you claim to believe, making mistakes that reflect inherent battles against what you all deem Good and Evil. Using it as an opportunity to dunk on the people you just aren’t getting along with.
See, this practice claims to bolster people into becoming thoughtful and reflective, and eradicating from themselves internalized behaviors that could otherwise go unchecked. It sounds great, to get better at admitting error, understand its causes and the situation that set it up, make it a communal project to plan to make it better. So why does it end up such a painful process that itself is a means of control?
Alongside some pretty violent revolutionaries, I am obsessed with the Al Cheit this year. “For the sin I have committed before you by wicked speech, for the sin I have committed before you by running to do wrong, for the sin I have committed before you by intention or by mistake.” We rise to beat our chests at the recitation of the Al Cheit, confess our transgressions out loud. When we recite a line that speaks to our where we personally have missed the mark, our breath catches in our chest, and we feel exposed. We keep singing, we keep rapping our chests.
What is different between crit-self-crit and the Al Cheit? Why is public confession of failure on Yom Kippur any different than this destructive tool of leftist organizing that tears us all down in order to build us back up?
Jewish articulation of where we have missed the mark is invested in the last piece of that–building back up. The beauty of the confessions comes with knowing we are all accountable for one another, for creating a society in which harm can happen. We recite these words 10 times over Yom Kippur, and make vidui as part of the bedtime Shema. The Vidui demands that when we miss the mark, we not keep it separate. Reminds us that accountability, transformation, these are things that can only happen in public.
And perhaps even more important of a distinction is that our Yom Kippur liturgy knows that failure is guaranteed. It is in fact desired! It gives us the opportunity to begin again. One who makes teshuvah, who makes repair, is better than one who (allegedly) never erred in the first place.
The Gemara’s bad boy rabbi Reish Lakish, noted bisexual, former circus performer, and petty criminal, said of teshuvah (1):
Great is penitence, because it reduces one’s deliberate sins to mere errors.
But the editor comes in with a bit of a problem:
But did not Resh Lakish say at another time: Great is penitence, because it transforms one’s deliberate sins into merits?
Which is it, Lakisha? Does teshuvah downgrade sins to minor errors, or does teshuvah upgrade sins into marks in our favor? Don’t worry, the text responds:
There is no difficulty here: The latter statement refers to penitence out of love, the former to penitence out of fear.
Teshuvah is ALCHEMY. Transforming not just the future, but the past (2). Teshuvah out of fear can transform profound wrongdoing into a smaller harm. But teshuvah out of love? That brings goodness into the world, is counted as merit.
And that’s the difference between a Marxist-Leninist crit-self-crit session and the Al Cheit. We know we are going to fail. We might, as R’ Julia reminded us last night, fail in the same way next year. Judaism teaches us that how we fail, how we choose to react and try again, is where the holiness is.
עַל חֵטְא שֶׁחָטָֽאנוּ לְפָנֶֽיךָ בְּזָדוֹן וּבִשְׁגָגָה
Al cheit shechatanu lefanecha bzadon u’bishaga.
For the wrong we have done before you whether by intention or mistake
So if that’s the case, why is failing so hard? And why is it so, so damn hard to fail in public?
I have had the opportunity in the last few months to have conversations with many in our community who are deeply struggling with the idea of failure. Professional failure, losing jobs, never launching the career they dreamed of, projects going sideways. Interpersonal failure, relationships ending, loneliness, rifts in family systems. Existential failure, fear for the planet and our inheritance, the future rise of fascism, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the denial thereof. Some more moments we’ve failed, missed the mark, included:
Wasn’t as active in my community as I should have been.
Hid behind my privilege
Lost my patience with my children
Withdrew from my family when things were difficult
Let some debts go unpaid bc of fear
Didn't keep up my end of the bargain & didn't communicate to fix it
Was dishonest in so many big & small ways
Was unkind to loved ones & others who did not deserve it, was full of blame & judgement
Talked [smack] so wantonly bc of my own discomfort
Refused to take care of myself time after time
Gave up way too easy so many times (3)
Why do we hate failure? Because it hurts! Because we feel shame, because we fear retribution, because we want to be thought of as a person who does not err or at least not in that way! Because we really do keep trying.
It takes profound courage to fail, to admit things didn’t go as you imagined. It takes holy vulnerability to allow yourself to be disappointed, grieve what could have been. It takes deep strength to pick yourself up again. It is hard to miss the mark. But seeing where we land, perhaps where we were headed all along? Ah, that is its own lesson too.
וְעַל חֵטְא שֶׁחָטָֽאנוּ לְפָנֶֽיךָ בְּלָצוֹן:
V’al cheit shechatanu lefanecha b’latzon.
For the wrong we have done before you by expressions of contempt.
We are so afraid to fail in public that we invent some pretty impressive maladaptations.
A shande fir de goyim–an embarrassment before non-Jews. That is, airing out our dirty Jewish laundry in front of outsiders, that is, showing the rest of the world that things are not all hunky dory. That is, naming that sometimes we mess up. That is, making the Jews look bad. Has this ever been whispered (hissed) at you? And if you’re not Jewish, the same “don’t let the neighbors see…”? A shande.
(After services, talk to Heidi about her favorite read of the year, perhaps, “Shande.”)
Now of course, the alt-right has started using the word goy and goyim to harass and mock and threaten Jewish people, with phrases like “the goyim know” underlining awful anti-Semetic ideas about Jews holding power in a secret cabal. So this phrase carries many different valances in its suitcase (4). And goy isn’t a word I use in my own lexicon, because how could I use goy as the degrading word it sometimes is used as, when my Shabbes table is full of Jews and non-Jews singing the blessings over kiddush together? Your mileage may vary.
But feelings about the word goy aside (coming to a Shabbat sermon near you!), “a shande fir de goyim” of course comes from a place of fear–don’t let the dominant group know that we’re actually a…little idiosyncratic about money. Or medicine. Or politics. Don’t let the dominant group know SO ON. It works for other identities too, of course right? And it is tied up so deeply in respectability politics. Don’t let Them know we aren’t aligned with the narrative that makes us seem palatable and successful and safe.
Sometimes failing in public makes us vulnerable to harm–we fear our imperfections will be used against us in legislation, community-level harm, and certainly in dysfunctional relationships. How we are perceived can at times come with great risk.
And sometimes…because we know we’re failing, and we fear any retribution, we double down.
When I watch the mainstream Jewish institutional world double down on the Occupation of Palestine, I see a fear of failure (5). We see an opponent so powerful and dangerous to Jewish Wellbeing and Security in the Land that we have no room for internal variance, for fear of failure, the stakes are too high. And we say, don’t let the non-Jews see that there is any division within the Jewish community.
Now, I didn’t think I’d ever speak his name in shul, let alone on Yom Kippur, but…Alan Dershowitz (?!?) wrote in the Jerusalem Post this week decrying rabbis preparing to protest outside the UN against the Netanyahu government’s support of judicial reform in Israel. He said, “...let there be no mistake about it: this protest will be seen by Israel’s enemies — and there are plenty of them at the UN — as an attack against Israel by American Jews.” He goes on to say that those rabbis protesting will be “giving credibility to those blood libels against Israel by falsely claiming that the proposed judicial reforms will end democracy in Israel.” What are we so afraid of that a debate in public, a machloket l’shem shamayim, debate and protest for the sake of Heaven, is seen as supporting the Blood Libel? What is so dangerous about discord? What is so warped within our Jewish community that our deepest technology–ARGUING, is now suspect.
What are we holding on to so tightly that public dissent will be a catastrophe? What story of yourself as someone who doesn’t make mistakes are you holding on to so tightly that a mistake or failure makes it all crumble?
And it’s not just at the UN headquarters where this suspicion and silencing flows. The Jewish institutional world in Baltimore is terrified of any Jewish voice that speaks out against Israel’s policies, the 75 years of dispossession of Palestinian people, the ongoing Nakba, maintaining Gaza as the “largest open air prison in the world,” a hope for a peaceful and just future for the Israeli and Palestinian people.
What was so terrifying to the Associated Jewish Communities of Baltimore about a group of Jewish and Palestinian protesters standing outside and disrupting inside an event that was uplifting automated robot machine guns, along with other technologies? Was the complaint about tactics? Or is the vitriol that is months later still directed against the organizers so strong because it is airing out Jewish dirty laundry, showing that there is not uniformity in the ways that Jews relate to Israel? I think so.
We are so afraid of what we deem to be failure that we trip ourselves before even starting down the path.
But it is in our community too, and all over the progressive left–the stakes are so high, we are so afraid for the future of Israel and Palestine, that conversation in our own community between people who have been in relationship for years is frozen, fraught. I have been told by people along the full political spectrum at Hinenu– as much as it is, that “I am afraid to be in a position of learning in Hinenu around Israel Palestine, because I don’t want to be scolded, told how wrong I am, or I’m uninformed, or I’m a genocidal monster, or if I cared I would know more already.” It isn’t just the Dersh that we have to be worried about silencing voices raised l’shem shamayim, it is a culture that is so invested in getting things right, that we are afraid to be messy, be in process, continue to trust each other, and instead jump down one another's' throats. Our Jewish community is unequivocally for Palestinian liberation, there is no question. But our Jewish community needs to become a place where Jews and the people who travel in Jewish community can be in conversation, be in learning, and perhaps not land in the same exact positions but still be ready to move forward on things they care about together. If we wait for perfection, we will never get going.
A chaplaincy classmate of mine gifted me this phrase, when trying an idea out in a group that you’re not ready to stake claim to. “Try it out in pencil,” Hilary said. It’s very useful when sharing and hoping people will look at something shoulder to shoulder with you, not expect you to fully agree with or understand it quite yet. “I’m saying this in pencil” is an ask for support, and an invitation for the hearers to respond with curiosity and compassion, not condemnation. Just yet. “Say it in pencil” means we can erase and re-write. It means we get to greet one another’s in-process-ness with joy.
וְעַל חֵטְא שֶׁחָטָֽאנוּ לְפָנֶֽיךָ בִּפְלִילוּת:
Al cheit shechatanu lefanecha b’flilut.
For the wrong we have done before you by our quickness to oppose.
Earlier this year in our membership Facebook group there was some discussion about a local Black owned business and concerns around anti-Semetism. Did anyone else just feel their heart rate go up? Was it “oh god, my rabbi is about to try her hand at nuanced racial politics again” or “oh god, not another Facebook thread?” I got you.
The discussion in the thread ranged topics of anti-Semitism, anti-Blackness, calling in non-Jewish Black neighbors, Black life and survival, white solidarity, Jews of Color at the intersection of a white dominant Jewish community and Black non-Jewish community being stuck right in the middle and brokering the whole dynamic.
I’m not even interested in talking about the issue itself, but rather how the crit-self-crit played out. After the discussion blew up multiple times over a few hours–how do you not care about Holocaust denial? How can you condemn a Black neighbor you don’t have relationship with? I spoke with the most vocal people in the discussion, and do you know what? Everyone was hurting. Why do people that I’m in community with not care about the legitimate concerns around anti-Semetic material I am witnessing? Why do my fellow congregants think that white feelings are more important than Black survival? How dare they speak to me like that? Why would someone assume they know what I think? Why did no one care about what I was asking for?
Because we are afraid to fail, because the things we care about matter so deeply to us, we double down. Hold on tightly to our position, our stated beliefs, the right way to say something. If you’ve written it in pencil, I’m too worked up to tell.
When it comes to matters that matter, we are sometimes so afraid of failing that we never try, instead policing every detail and nuance, instead of the huge issues of human dignity that we agree on. I wonder, what can we learn from that painful interaction? Why do the stakes feel so high internally, when the threats to human life are the real stresses? Is it easier to fight with one another?
If we do so we will continue to be stuck. Perhaps instead we might keep failing and falling over ourselves, but propelling us down the road to liberation.
עַל חֵטְא שֶׁחָטָֽאנוּ לְפָנֶֽיךָ בְּיֵֽצֶר הָרָע:
Al cheit shechatanu lefanecha byetzer hara.
For the wrong we have done before you by through an evil inclination.
Tema Okun, who in 1999 wrote (or more accurately in her description, transmitted) the paper on the characteristics of white supremacy, clarified this past February what she meant by the first point on her list, that perfectionism is a characteristic of white supremacy. She said:
So when I’m talking about perfectionism, I’m not talking about excellence and I’m not talking about hard work. And so many people — and certainly, a lot of white people that I know — really resonate with this idea that there is this place to land that is perfect. And so it just destroys our ability to enjoy the process of whatever it is that we’re doing. It makes it much more difficult to collaborate with other people. If we think there’s one way to do it, we have to find the perfect way to do it. It begs the question: Who’s deciding what perfect is? It’s nonsense.
Now, in our context, you might say, well G!d on Her High and Exalted Throne is deciding, of course! But in this lifetime, when transmissions from the Divine are not as clear as they once were, we have less clarity on Perfection.
If we hold so tightly on to the idea of a perfect response edited within an inch of its life, we will be unable to respond. If we hold on tightly to the idea of conversation going perfectly or not being worth it at all, there will be no communication. If we think we have to know every nuance of the problem we’re staring down before being ready to respond,, we will be frozen.
We–your rabbi included, Lord knows, must stop waiting for perfection to act.
My friends, we’re going to fail no matter what. Trying to prevent it will only cause you and other people harm, so fail gloriously. Turn it into something beautiful.
When the world was created, it was full of every miraculous thing it could possibly need. Teshuva, truth, compassion, creepy crawling things, fruit bearing trees, human beings, talking and walking snakes, tongs, worms to cut stone…all the good stuff. And the first beings fall for the first setup–they eat the apple. Was it a failure? I’m not so sure. Did the first people look down and realize they were naked, and feel shame? Yep.
Ten generations later, God decides to call it. “You know what, this draft was not good either. Let’s scrap it, let’s start over.” Imagine a bigger failure than literally all of creation? Imagine your biggest failure of all time being chanted out loud every year from the scroll, being remembered every time it rains and stops in just the right way for a rainbow to appear?! No thanks!
According to our foundational myths, the world that we are currently living in is at least the 2nd draft, or according to my favorite Yamim Noraim midrash, 974 worlds (6). That’s a lot of Divine Failure.
We live in a world that is the beautiful outgrowth of messing up. We are surrounded in the love of a Divine that intimately understands failure. To err is human, to err is Divine. To forgive is human, to forgive is Divine.
In the coming year, let’s make mistakes. Let’s fail. Let’s totally face plant in public. Let’s take a huge risk for ourselves, the people we love, the world we love.
Let’s embrace failure for what it is, momentum, of some kind. Let us have the courage to not let failure remain failure–that is, allow ourselves to learn from it and be transformed by it. Let us make teshuvah, repair, when we have missed the mark, alchemize harm into merit where we can.
Whatever failures you are digesting from 5783, may they be your teacher, and not your tormenter.
Whatever failures you will certainly have in 5784, may they illuminate your path forward.
End notes:
Check out Mother Country Radicals for more about the Weather Underground.
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b
Dr. Louis E. Newman, The Challenges and Unexpected Rewards of ‘Teshuvah.’
Submitted anonymously by Hinenu community members September 2023.
Rabbi Sarra Lev uses the term “suitcase” to describe terms of art that have a civilization and context behind them, and that are implied when the word is deployed.
Hat tip to pre-Rosh HaShanah shmooze with Sholem Berger.
Midrash Tehillim says 974 worlds, which were said to have been created and destroyed over 2,000 years.