As I mentioned last week, one of the major themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is not written in the Torah but in the Talmud, in Rosh Hashanah 16b:
R. Kruspedai said in the name of R. Johanan: Three books are opened [in heaven] on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of life. The thoroughly wicked are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of death. The doom of the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement; if they deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of life; if they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of death.
Thus it is Yom Kippur that is our last chance according to this passage of Gemara. The Mishnah also mentions some of the power of the Day of Atonement
Mishnah. The sin-offering and the guilt-offering [for the] undoubted commission of certain offences procure atonement, death and the Day of Atonement procure atonement together with penitence. Penitence procures atonement for lighter transgressions: [the transgression of] positive commandments and prohibitions. In the case of severer transgressions it [penitence] suspends [the divine punishment], until the Day of Atonement comes to procure atonement. [Yoma 85b]
Yet the text goes further, saying this isn’t a free ride. The Mishnah continues:
If one says: ‘I shall sin and repent, sin and repent’, no opportunity will be given to him to repent. [If one says]: ‘I shall sin and the Day of Atonement will procure atonement for me’, the Day of Atonement procures for him no atonement. [Yoma 85b]
And the Gemara interestingly continues:
Why is it necessary to state I SHALL SIN AND I SHALL REPENT twice? — That is in accord with what R. Huna said in the name of Rab; for R. Huna said in the name of Rab: Once a man has committed a transgression once or twice, it becomes permitted to him. ‘It is permitted!? How could that come into your mind? — Rather, it appears to him like something permitted. [Yoma 87a]
This Gemara makes a very interesting statement about habit. After transgressing multiple times, the transgression becomes habit, and appears as if it is a permitted act, even when it isn’t. In my case, I am transgressing the milk and meat prohibition by having a piece of cheesecake after a grilled chicken breast. Although there is minority opinion of R. Jose the Galilean that this is permitted, for the majority it is not. For me, this prohibition has actually become practice.
In non-Orthodoxy, we find many of these types of issues. Driving on the Sabbath to synagogue would be another of such issues, or my late lighting of my Shabbat candles or a dozen other things. Many times, like my Shabbat candle practice of lighting somewhere around 10:00PM, since I’m neither home to light them earlier and too cautious of the fire hazard if I did, what is really a transgression has become spiritual practice. It thus makes it difficult to tell what really are our sins and what are not our sins given modern practices. And while it seems that Orthodoxy might have it easier here, Orthodoxy just gets more sensitive and detail oriented. It’s not the chicken and cheese that is the issue, but opening the refrigerator on Shabbat when the compressor is off -- and thus causing the thermostat to turn on, which causes a spark which is considered a prohibited fire. One can go nuts thinking about this stuff if we try to base everything on a halakaic standard, yet some try to do their best under these conditions.
Others might define sin by its human standard - that I hurt some other person, either physically or with Lashon Hara. The rabbis handle this issue too, and Yom Kippur isn’t much help here:
For transgressions as between man and the Omnipresent the Day of Atonement procures atonement, but for transgressions as between man and his fellow the Day of Atonement does not procure any atonement, until he has pacified his fellow. [Yoma 85b]
In short, the only one who can do the job in matters of people hurting people is people. One needs to get forgiveness from the person. This is also problematic for me, since many times I don’t even know I hurt someone in the first place, so I can’t even apologize. I’m sure there are times where I have inadvertently offended while giving a D’var Torah, making a speech or of course in my comments here in Shlomo’s Drash. Then there are the times where an apology may cause more harm than good -- the visual sight of the person giving the apology is enough to cause resentment and make the situation worse. There is story about a rabbi named Hanina who held a grudge against another Rabbi named Rab because he would not start a lesson from the beginning when he walked in late. As much as Rab would try to apologize on the Day of Atonement, he failed thirteen times, because R. Hanina would remember the slight and be offended again. Hanina eventually forced Rab to Leave Israel for Persia. [Yoma 87b]
In short, trying to do repentance to all this stuff is not easy, yet there is a way. We find in the Tanach a formula mentioned several times when someone is looking for forgiveness from God:
5. (K) We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly and have rebelled, and have departed from your precepts and from your judgments; [Daniel 5:9]
Besides this verse from Daniel, where the confession is applied, the books of Samuel, Kings, Psalms, and Chronicles has a similar formula, asking for forgiveness of God. While not in the same order, even to those who know no Hebrew some of the words might sound familiar: Chatanu, Avinu, Hirshanu, and Maradnu. Later generations found 22 versions of sins and put them in alphabetical order to come up with the Ashamnu beginning of the public confessional, said multiple times during the Yom Kippur service. Following that is of course the 40- verse confessional Al Cheit. Both of these confessionals are rather non specific on the sins involved, keeping to the general or even outright vague.
And the key to that vagueness, and its purpose, sounds to English ears like mere poetic rhyme. Yet, it is a serious grammar point in Hebrew. In Hebrew the nu ending means we. And interestingly, the only person in Hebrew grammar which does not have a gender is the first person. ‘We’ means everyone, regardless of gender. ‘We’ is the ultimate collective, completely unjudgemental of the individual. Individuals cannot know all of their own sins that need forgiveness. But as a collective we are more likely than not to have transgressed everything. To handle the unknown sin we say together “Chatanu, we have sinned.” While some might like to think one person or another it applies to, at that point in the service we are no longer individuals, we are a congregation and such thoughts are meaningless. When we traditionally beat our heart, we beat the heart of our entire community to change and repent sixty two times.
The Netana Tokef prayer states that prayer, charity and repentance turn the stern decree. That is based on teaching found in Midrash:
R. Judan said in R. Leazar's name: Three things nullify a decree [of evil], viz. prayer, righteousness, and repentance. And the three are enumerated in one verse: If My people, upon whom My Name is called, shall humble themselves, and pray (II Chron. VII, 14)-here you have prayer; And seek My face alludes to righteousness, as you read, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness (Ps. XVII, 15); And turn from their evil ways denotes repentance; after that, Then will I forgive their sin [Genesis Rabbah XLIV:12, Kohelet Rabbah V:4, VII:21]
All three of the requirements are mentioned, but even here they are mentioned as a collective 3rd person. It is not the individual, but the group which is important. In repentance, since the goat for Azazel, this had been the case, it has not been individual repentance, but collective repentance, because in a sense we are all guilty of something, and thus in a group we repent for all of our sins. The guy standing next to me might have been the guy who did something to me, yet I am repenting for both of us. We repent not just for ourselves but our neighbors as well, for we repent for what know we did and repent for what we didn’t know.
I still don’t have a clear idea of what is and is not sin. But I do remember that we all do sin, and together we all do repent as a community on Yom Kippur. With declining attendance even at High Holiday services, that of course is becoming less the case. And maybe that is the real sin.
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