Yizkor: A True Kindness

My first encounter with death was as a young child, in early elementary school. A close family friend of ours, at whose house we used to gather every year to break the fast at the end of Yom Kippur, died of AIDS. I didn’t even know he was sick. I vividly remember parking our car outside the hospital, and my parents telling me and my siblings that they were going in to visit him, and that we were to wait in the car -- but I had no idea the nature of the visit. Even a few days later, when they told me he had died, I didn’t fully comprehend. I must have been seven or eight years old. Even after all the eulogies in the sanctuary, even after seeing his bereaved husband weeping over the casket, even after seeing the casket lowered into the grave -- I could tell that something very sad was happening, but I couldn’t quite understand it. 

It was not until I found myself standing in a line at the cemetery that slowly wound its way up towards the grave, and I reached the front of the line, and my parents pointed to a shovel that was firmly stuck in a mound of earth, and gestured that I should take it and offer a shovelful of earth into the grave, and I did so -- only then, as I watched the clods of earth break apart as they fell from the shovel, separate in the air as they seemingly endlessly tumbled into the grave, landed with a loud thud on the lid of casket, and broke apart into pieces -- only then, did it hit me. He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. 

Is there any ritual more vivid than this one? It has often been said that different religions have their different strengths -- and that Judaism is particularly strong when it comes to our rituals around death and mourning. In the immediate aftermath of bereavement, when it is hard to know exactly what one ought to say or to do, our tradition provides a detailed script: we gather with friends, they bring us food, we sit on low chairs, we cover our mirrors, we do not shave, we light a candle that burns for seven days, we speak the words of the mourner’s kaddish. But among all these rituals of grief, perhaps none is more stirring or striking than the ritual of literally helping to bury the dead, by offering a shovelful of earth into the grave. 

Rituals are powerful experiences. There’s a whole academic field known as ritual studies. It is a multidisciplinary field, combining elements of religious studies, anthropology, philosophy, and aesthetics. The field of ritual studies seeks to explain what exactly constitutes a ritual, compared to, say, a routine -- and more importantly, seeks to explain why and how rituals achieve their effects. It is a complex field of study, which is beyond our purposes this morning -- but suffice it to say that a ritual is a physical expression of an idea. Experiencing a powerful ritual gives us access to our truths that are usually just beyond the horizon of our consciousness. A powerful ritual serves as a bridge or a gateway, allowing us to gain access to thoughts and feelings that we do not usually have at front of mind in our day-to-day existence. 

For me as a child, at my first ever funeral, as I offered a shovelful of earth into the grave, the thud of the earth as it landed on the casket activated something deep inside of me -- told my heart and my brain that death is final. It spoke to me in a language that was deeper than visiting the hospital, deeper than hearing the eulogies, deeper than seeing our friend’s bereaved husband weeping over the casket. It was, by all measures, a powerful ritual. 

A few years ago, standing with a WRT funeral at the graveside of their loved one, the power of that ritual only grew deeper for me. The sons of the deceased, one of whom is our congregant, both delivered stirring eulogies, about how much their father had done for them in their life: from the time they were children, and their father worked two jobs in order to feed and clothe them, through their young adult years, when their father helped to pay for college and get them each started in business, and even into his final decade, helping them to navigate the complexities of marriage and raising children. 

We had already recited the words of 23rd Psalm, “The Eternal One is my Shepherd,” had already sung the Memorial Prayer El Malei Rachamim, had already spoken the words of the Mourner’s Kaddish. The graveside ceremony was drawing to a close, and we had but one ritual left to perform -- to help to bury the dead. 

In rabbinical school, they teach us what each ritual means -- where it comes from, why we do it. And if you’re lucky, you have good mentors who can help you find a meaningful way to explain a ritual before it is undertaken. And so, at this point in the ceremony, I relied on what I learned from my teachers and my mentors and said something like what I usually say during that part of the service. I will often say something like: Our tradition calls this act of helping to bury the dead a chesed shel emet -- which means a “true kindness.” We call it a “true kindness” because we know that the person we are doing this for will never be able to repay the kindness and do it for us. 

Then, one by one, the mourners lined up, and each offered a few shovelsful of earth into the grave. It was a particularly hot afternoon, and we had been baking in the hot sun for more than 45-minutes -- so as the final mourners took part in the ritual, and the crowd’s focus began to turn towards greeting the family, I expected that we would soon grab an icy bottle of water from the cooler that the family had brought, and make our way back to our air conditioned cars. 

But then, as the crowd was dissipating, our congregant, the son of the deceased, took the shovel in his hand again, and continued shoveling. Although I knew that it was customary in some Jewish circles for the mourners themselves to fill the grave to the top, this was the first time I had actually seen someone choose to do so. He took off his suit jacket, and sweating through his white dress shirt, and dirtying his black dress shoes, he began to vigorously fill the grave. His brother came over and joined him, and together, they worked at completing the task -- stopping at several points to catch their breath, wiping the perspiration from their brows, saying nothing to each other, as their spouses, children, and friends, watched in profound silence, until the earth that covered the casket was level with the grass, and their knuckles were white from exertion, and they wiped their sweaty palms on the legs of the pants and rubbed their calloused fingers.

There is no class in rabbinical school, no book explaining the meaning of Jewish mourning rituals, that could ever give that be so profound a teacher. Here were these two sons who, only moments ago, had spoken about how much their father had done to help them -- and now it was they who were helping him. Just as they could not feed and clothe themselves as babies, so too, now their deceased father could not lay himself to rest, could not fill his own grave with earth. And so these children demonstrated at a very deep level the meaning of the phrase chesed shel emet -- that to help to bury the dead is a true kindness, one that we do knowing full well that the person we are doing it for will not be able to return the favor. But on this particular day, it was not a favor that needed returning. Their father had already paid them so many kindnesses, with his own sweat and calloused hands. And now, it was they who repaid the kindness unto him. 

Of course, not all bereavements are alike -- and not all people will experience the ritual of burying the dead in the same way. But it is my hope for all of us who are gathered in this moment of Yizkor, this moment of remembrance, that we might each, in our way, whatever the shape of our sorrow, that we might experience a ritual that touches our soul and helps us to live with our grief. 

Even though we may fill the grave with earth -- in our hearts, we never completely bury our dead. They are with us always in our lives, even if just beyond the realm of our day-to-day consciousness. 

Rituals are powerful experiences. They give us access to truths that are usually just beyond the realm of our consciousness: to me as a young boy, the finality of death; to these two bereaved sons, the many kindnesses their father had paid them. May this moment of remembrance help us reach beyond our day-to-day existence -- and in turn, be reached by those whom we have loved and lost. 

Amen.

East of Eden

It happened late last fall, in that most stressful part of the pandemic -- when everybody was on edge, and every day felt as if we were living in a pressure cooker. We could not see many of the people we love or do the things that bring us joy -- and without those familiar comforts, we began to no longer recognize ourselves. For many of us, the boundary between work and home completely disappeared -- and we ran ourselves ragged trying to keep up the pace. With infection rates skyrocketing, and the promise of a vaccine still several months away, it seemed, during those dark and dreary days, as if this exhausting ordeal might never come to an end. And it was in that incredibly stressful context that I did something I am not proud of -- the moment from this past year that I most regret. 

The particular thing that I did is almost irrelevant. The point is that we all have done things that we are not proud of. We all likely have a moment from this past year that we most regret. And I wonder: what is yours? 

It might make us feel uncomfortable to talk about such things. In our religious idiom, there is a word we use to describe the things we are not proud of. We call them “sins.” But it is not only the word that might make us feel uneasy. The whole topic makes us feel uneasy. We prefer the friendlier spiritual practices, like cultivating gratitude or noticing beauty. We do not like to dwell too much on the things we have done wrong. 

And yet, wrongdoing is one of our most distinctively human traits. There is no other animal that is conscious of wrongdoing -- no other creature on earth that has the capacity for feeling guilt.[1] Sin is a uniquely human problem. 

If it does nothing else, Yom Kippur asks us to get more comfortable with this particularly uncomfortable topic. It asks us to claim the things we have done wrong -- to acknowledge our own participation in the uniquely human problem of sin. 

It has been said that the Hebrew Bible is not primarily a work of theology, but rather, is a work of religious anthropology.[2] That is to say: it is not primarily a book about God, but rather, it is a book about what it means to be human. It is a book in which flawed human characters struggle to make sense of their lives. They rise and fall, try and fail -- doing things that they likely would not be proud of, filling the scroll with stories that they likely would rather we forget. 

To help us achieve our task on Yom Kippur, let us look at two different stories from the Hebrew Bible that, when taken together, present us with two contrasting views of sin. Let us start our examination as the Bible does. Let us start: “In the beginning….” 

 

***

 

We likely all know one of the Bible’s first stories: in the beginning, Adam and Eve are placed in the luxurious Garden of Eden, where all of their needs are met, where no effort is required of them.[3] Trees of every kind, which they did not plant and need not tend, are always ripe with fruit -- with plums, cherries, mangos, and avocados ready for the picking and always in season. Only one tree, at the center of the garden -- the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil -- is off limits to them. But of course, because they are human, the one tree that is off limits is the one tree that most captures their interest. A talking snake convinces them to eat the forbidden fruit -- and the rest, we might say, is human history. 

This story describes not only the creation of human beings, but also, along with them, the creation of original sin and the fall of man. For classical Christian thinkers, in particular, the story of Adam and Eve shows that sin is so inextricably a part of human nature that we are completely powerless over it.[4] Our only available defense, in the Christian worldview, is for God to take on human form in order to save us from our sinfulness. 

But even outside of this religious context, we might recognize other parts of our culture that similarly view human beings as powerless. In the world of literature, for example, we talk about the hero’s fatal flaw -- that narrative device where a protagonist is stuck with a character defect that, try though they might, they are never able to overcome, and will ultimately lead to their downfall. Whether it is Achilles’s heel, Medea’s thirst for vengeance, or Hamlet’s indecisiveness -- great writers throughout history have depicted a human nature in which we are doomed to failure, and the final, insurmountable obstacle is ourselves. 

We might sometimes see ourselves this way. Each of us has our Achilles’ heel. Whether it is with anger, sarcasm, anxiety, or perfectionism, each of us might sometimes feel as if we are on the losing end of a lifelong battle -- that we are powerless over some character defect that is always leading us astray, always causing us to do things that we are not proud of. 

Well, what did we expect? We are, after all, the children of Adam and Eve. 

***

The idea of original sin might be prevalent in our culture -- but Judaism has always been a force for counter-culture. The late Rabbi Dr. Eugene Borowitz has argued that the core disagreement between Judaism and Christianity is not Hebrew Bible versus New Testament, not the supposed Jewish focus on actions versus the Christian focus on faith, as it has so often been described -- but rather, Dr. Borowitz argues, the core disagreement on which the others stand is that we Jews do not believe in original sin.[5]

If we look carefully at the Book of Genesis, we will find that the word “sin” does not appear even once in the story of Adam and Eve. That word does not make its first appearance in the Bible until one story later[6] -- until after we have left the luxurious fantasy world of Eden, until after we have entered the harsh reality that waits for us outside the Garden. We Jews trace the origins of sin to Cain. 

***

His story is short, only 16 verses -- and yet, it is perhaps one of the most well-known stories in all of Western literature.[7] While his parents enjoyed the sumptuous Garden of Eden, where their every need was met and nothing was required of them, Cain must learn to survive in the unforgiving conditions of the real world. To earn his food, he must become a farmer -- laboring for his own meals with his own muscle and sweat. When, at last, his efforts bear fruit, he is grateful for his hard-earned success -- and decides, at his own initiative, to offer a sacrifice of thanks to God, who had helped him bring forth bread from the earth. And his brother, Abel, recognizing a good idea when he sees one, copies Cain’s initiative, and also makes a sacrifice to God. 

But here is where the reality outside of Eden begins to show how truly harsh it can be. For reasons that are never fully explained,[8] and despite the sacrifices having been Cain’s idea in the first place, God delights in Abel’s offering, and completely ignores Cain’s. And it stings, this act of rejection. It hurts down deep to the core -- humanity’s first encounter with the pain of feeling unloved, unwanted, invisible. 

How well do we know this feeling -- the pain of feeling unseen? Even while we condemn the violent reaction that we know is coming, in our gut, we might be able to identify with Cain’s painful feeling of being invisible. We spend every free minute helping our child, with rarely so much as a thank you. We grind at our job to the point of exhaustion, but someone else gets the promotion. We burn ourselves out trying to take care of others, but no one, it seems, ever thinks to take care of us. 

And feels unfair. It hurts in a way that defies reason. The pain of feeling invisible runs down deep to a place in the human soul that is beyond all rational thought -- down to the primal pit of raw and conflicted feelings, where we are at once both shy and fierce, at once both bruised and on the attack. 

And it is from this place beyond reason that Cain commits an act beyond reason. Although it was not his brother who had caused the hurt, although it does nothing whatsoever to redress his grievance, Cain goes out and kills his brother, Abel -- and the Bible records its first sin. 

This is a serious crime -- much more extreme, I imagine, than the moment from this past year that any of us most regrets. But even if our misdeeds are drastically less severe than Cain’s, we nevertheless share more in common with him than we might realize. Like Cain, we never had the luxury of the Garden of Eden. Like Cain, we have always been forced to contend with the harsh conditions of the real world -- where we are susceptible to great pains, and find ourselves capable of grave misdeeds. 

***

These two stories present us with two contrasting views of sin: one that traces the origin of sin to Adam and Eve, the other that links sin to Cain; one that believes that sin is our inescapable fate, a cruel legacy over which we are powerless -- the other that believes that sin arises from the harsh conditions of the real world, a reaction to the overwhelming pains that come with being human. 

To help us see the differing implications between these two ideas, the ancient Rabbis created a midrash[9] -- an imaginary scene that they invented, which does not appear in the Torah. The ancient Rabbis imagined a reunion between Adam and Cain, to see how life might eventually unfold for each of them -- a reunion that might have some wisdom to offer us in our observance of Yom Kippur. 

***

Many years have passed before father and son meet again. Cain is no longer an explosive teenager, and Adam has, by now, become a grizzled old man. They have not seen each other since the fateful day that Abel died. And although they have spent the intervening decades physically estranged, they have, in ways they do not recognize, shared more in common than they know: each of them expelled from his home and forced to wander the earth, each of them forever searching for the meaning of his guilt -- one who ate a forbidden fruit, the other who rose up and killed his brother, but each of them forever filled with regret over the singular mistake that had so profoundly shaped each one’s life. Like parent, like child. 

They are surprised to see each other. And quickly, Adam is filled with bitterness and rage. Seeing Cain’s face stirs up something painful in Adam. It reminds him not only of his son’s bitter crime, reminds him not only of the anguish of losing one child by the hand of the other, reminds him not only of the insatiable fury at his son he has carried for all these decades -- not only this, but also, on some deep level that he does not quite understand, seeing Cain’s face reminds Adam of his own feelings of guilt. He sees in his son the consequences of original sin, the proof of the fall of man -- an inescapably sinful person, condemned to a life of wrongdoing. He always knew that Cain would be a failure. And now, standing face to face with his son, he is filled both with rage and with guilt. 

But then, something unexpected happens. Something quiet. Something gentle. “I’m sorry,” Cain says softly. “I was my brother’s keeper.”[10] 

What Cain has learned in the intervening years -- and his father, Adam, has not -- is that we human beings are more than just our sins. An idea like the fall of man might help to explain why we are so prone to error. But it also creates a problem. It causes us to feel guilty not only for what we have done, but also, for who we are. It causes us to feel not only guilt, but also shame. 

On Yom Kippur, we confess not to the sin of being bad people, but rather, to the sin of having done bad things. And with that comes the promise that we do not have to be forever defined by our own worst action. There is some core part of us that always remains unscathed,[11] some better part of ourselves to which we always can return. 

Jewish tradition teaches that through the act of repentance, willful sins from our past are transformed -- and are accounted as if they had been merits.[12] This is a bold, if counterintuitive, idea. It means that the things we have done wrong do not need to be sources of shame, but rather, can be transformed into opportunities for pride. This does not mean that we are pleased by our misdeeds. Rather, it means that we can feel deeply proud of ourselves when we learn to overcome them. 

This is why our hearts are so powerfully stirred when we hear stories of people who stumble and recover: the father who has struggled to show his emotions at last telling his children how much he loves them; the friend who has wrestled with substance abuse celebrating the achievement of a decade of sobriety; the siblings who have not spoken to each other in more than twenty years slowly finding ways to warm the icy waters between them. Or Cain -- admitting to his guilt, apologizing to his father, realizing that he was, in fact, his brother’s keeper. 

It may be true that sin is a uniquely human problem. But it is equally true that these moments of triumph are also uniquely human -- these moments of recovery, a summit so high that they cannot be reached by any other creature on earth.[13] 

This is the reason why we Jews do not trace the origins of sin to Adam and Eve. We believe that when our mythic ancestors ate the forbidden fruit, they did not curse us with original sin. They did not induce the fall of man. Rather, when they ate the fruit of that tree -- the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil -- they gifted us with a uniquely human ability.[14] They blessed us with the capacity to distinguish right from wrong, to know when we have made a mistake, to feel a sense of regret -- and thereby, to do the most human thing of all: to change. 

***

On Yom Kippur, we observe a fast, to help us focus our attention on the things we have done wrong this past year. As the hours go by, and our bellies begin to cry out in hunger, perhaps in place of food, we might instead find sustenance by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

Then, although our bellies will still be empty, we will have nevertheless filled our hearts with insight. Although we will be newly conscious of all the many moments from this past year that we regret, we will nevertheless have no reason to feel ashamed. After all, we cannot change the things that we have done. The only thing that we can change is ourselves. This is what makes us human. And what could be more beautiful than that?

__________

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/do-dogs-feel-guilty/: “There is plenty of evidence for what scientists refer to as primary emotions - happiness and fear, for example - in animals. But empirical evidence for secondary emotions like jealousy, pride, and guilt, is extremely rare in the animal cognition literature.” | Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, Ph.D., We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism, p. 14: “Back in 1899, when psychology was still in its infancy, Kaufmann Kohler, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in New York, … defin[ed] sin as ‘the power of evil dwelling in no other being but man.’ It is a part of human (and only human) nature. ‘The angel, as we conceive him, who cannot do wrong, and the animal, which cannot be good in a moral sense, are both free from sin.’” | John Steinbeck, East of Eden, ch. 22, p. 269: “The human is the only guilty animal.”

[2] Alan L. Mittleman, Human Nature & Jewish Thought: Judaism’s Case for Why Persons Matter, p. 18: “This is a book about philosophical anthropology, not theology per se. (Pointedly, the modern Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heschel called the Bible a book about human beings, not about God.)”

[3] Genesis chs. 2-3

[4] The Apostle Paul argues that because we are all descended from Adam and Eve, we have all, as a matter of lineage, inherited their sinful nature (Romans 5:12-21). Saint Augustine later adds that, because of original sin, even newborn babies enter the world already tainted by wickedness (Saint Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book II, Chapter 24, “What Covenant of God the New-Born Babe Breaks”).

[5] Eugene Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought, p. 125: “The general Jewish view of humankind differs radically from that of Christianity and many scholars consider this difference the root disagreement between them. For Judaism, sin is heinous but not the central reality of humanity’s relation to God. The classic Jewish sources reveal no more than an intellectual flirtation with the doctrine of original sin.”

[6] Genesis 4:6-7: “And the Eternal One said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, and why is your face fallen? Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right, sin (chatat) couches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” | See also the entry on “chatat” in Avraham Even-Shoshan’s New Concordance of the Hebrew Bible.

[7] Genesis ch. 4

[8] Nahum Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, comment on 4:1-16 (p. 31): “This narrative has often been interpreted as a reflection of the traditional conflict between the farmer and nomad, and its supposed bias in favor of the later is seen as representing a nomadic ideal in Israel. This is unlikely. The evidence for such an ideal in biblical literature is extremely flimsy. Further, there is not the slightest suggestion in the text of any comparative evaluation of the vocations of Cain and Abel, nor is there the slightest disparagement of the tiller of the soil. On the contrary, agriculture is regarded as the original occupation of man in the Garden of Eden as well as outside it. … Finally, the three pillars of seminomadic culture, as set forth in verses 20-22, are actually said to have originated with the descendants of Cain. The narrative, which is extraordinarily terse and sketchy here, gives no explicit reason for the unacceptability of Cain’s offering.” | While the text does say that Cain brought only “an offering” (4:3) and Abel brought “the choicest” among his flock (4:4), no reason is explicitly given to Cain (as Sarna notes) for God’s rejection of Cain’s offering and acceptance of Abel’s; at best, the reason can only be inferred.

[9] Genesis Rabbah 22:13

[10] A faithful translation of the midrash is provided by Rabbi David Flatto, https://images.shulcloud.com/727/uploads/sermons/RDF/RDFBereishitSermon5767.pdf: “‘And Cain departed from before the Eternal One’ (Genesis 4:16) … Adam encountered Cain, and inquired ‘What was your punishment?’ Cain responded, ‘I repented and settled [with God].’ Adam shuddered and exclaimed, ‘So potent is repentance, and I knew it not!’ Thereupon Adam arose and proclaimed: ‘A song for the Sabbath: it is good to confess unto the Eternal One!’ (Psalm 92:1-2).” | The biblical/textual evidence for Cain’s repentance is threefold: (1) See Cain’s comment to God, “My punishment is too great to bear” (4:13), which, according to Sarna (JPS Commentary, comment to 4:13, p. 34), could also faithfully be translated as: “Is my sin too great to be forgiven?” (2) Flatto argues: “Cain’s very communication with God after sin is in itself a form of restoring their relationship after it has been ruptured.” Flatto directs us to Rashi’s comment on Genesis 3:9: “God said Adam: ‘Where are you?’ (3:9) -- God knew where Adam was, but God asked this in order to open up a conversation with Adam, that he should not become confused in his reply if God were to pronounce punishment against him all of a sudden. Similarly in the case of Cain, God said to him: ‘Where is Abel thy brother?’ (4:9).” (3) Flatto adds: “Cain’s repentance is manifest in his absolute determination to not be destined to doom. Instead of dying the murderer’s deserved death, he secures a promise of life from God; instead of living a nomadic existence, he builds a city; instead of extinguishing more lives, he creates life. In this same vein, the midrash adds, instead of defiling others with sin, he lifts his father with spiritual inspiration.”

[11] Mittleman, p. 68: “The assertion [in the daily morning prayer Elohai N’shama] that the soul is pure (tehora) is usually understood to be a rejection of the Christian claim that all souls are corrupted by original sin. The daily return of a pure soul allows one to confront the moral choices and challenges of the hours ahead.”

[12] Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b, in an aphorism attributed to the sage Reish Lakish -- who, appropriate to his aphorism, spent his adolescence as a bandit and a gladiator, before eventually devoting his life to Torah study.

[13] Hoffman, pp. 31: “We have seen above how another nineteenth-century advocate of Enlightenment Judaism [Kaufmann Kohler] defined sin as ‘the power of evil dwelling in no other being but man.’ Nobility is its opposite, for, as [Kohler’s older German contemporary, Rabbi Gotthold] Salomon tells us, nobility too is distinctively human. Admission of one entails admission of the other.”

[14] For a similar argument, see Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, “Grandmother Eve,” p. 275: “Eating the apple made possible an enormous change in Grandmother Eve’s lifestyle. She no longer needed to live in God’s house in the nursery to be safe. She was able to leave this protected environment because she carried God with her. She could hear Him if she was willing to listen. When she ate the apple, she became an adult, and gained the freedom of an adult to go out into a world of complexity, adventure, responsibility, and change. To have her own life and make her own choices.”

Golden Apples

A story, for Rosh Hashanah