Kol Nidre 5769 (2008)
October 8, 2008
Don’t Say a Word. Don’t Say Anything.
“What’s the magic word?” my mother used to ask me, teaching me manners when I still a young boy.
She wanted me to say “Please” or maybe “Thank You”.
“Abracadabra,” I’d always respond, and not just to be a smart-alec… well, mostly just to be a smart-alec.
Did you know that Abracadabra is a Jewish word? It comes from the Aramaic, a sister dialect to Hebrew that our forbearers were speaking 2,000 years ago. The Aramaic words, Abra kedabra means “I will create as I will speak” And fans of the Harry Potter books will know the killing curse, Avada Kedavra, in which J.K. Rowling combined the Aramaic source of abracadabra with the Latin cadaver, a dead body. The lesson of the magic word, of course, is that words are powerful. Words can create, and words can kill, Our sages have been wary of the power of words since the earliest days of our people.
Never were words more powerfully employed than by the revered Rabbi Judah Loew, known as the Maharal of Prague. As legend recounts, in the year 1580, the Jews of Prague were accused by a fanatical Catholic priest of having killed a Christian child, and of then using his blood in their preparation of Passover Matzah. These so-called blood libel accusations were frequent in medieval Europe, and the Jews of the ghetto were often in danger of suffering a pogrom at the hands of an incited, vicious mob.
As the legend describes, Rabbi Loew received instructions through a prophetic dream as to the means by which the Jewish community might be saved from their enemies. The instructions were delivered as an alphabetical acrostic, “Ata Bra Golem Devuk Hachomer V’tigzar Zedim Chevel Torfe Yirsrael: “Make a Golem of clay and you will destroy the Jew-hating mob!” So Rabbi Loew took his son-in-law, a Kohen, and a student who was a Levi, and instructed them in the mystical secrets by which they would animate their creation.
After midnight, the three men went to Rabbi Loew’s house where they chanted the Chatzot, the midnight lament for Jerusalem, and in deepest devotion, they recited the appropriate Psalms. They then took out the Sefer Yezirah, the Book of Creation from which Rabbi Loew read several chapters aloud. Finally, they made their way to the outskirts of the city, to the banks of the River Moldau. There, they found a clay bed and at once set to work.
By torchlight and amid the chanting of Psalms, the work was undertaken with feverish haste. They formed out of clay the figure of a person, three meters in length. And the Golem lay before them with his face turned toward heaven.
The three men then stationed themselves at its feet, so that they could gaze fully into its face. It lay there like a dead body, without any movement. Then, Rabbi Loew instructed the Kohen to walk seven times around the clay body, from right to left, confiding to him the Tzirufim, the incantations which he was to recite while doing this.
When that was done, the clay body became red, like fire.
Then Rabbi Loew bade the Levite to walk the same number of times, from left to right, and taught him also the proper formulas. As he completed his task, the fire-redness was extinguished, and water flowed through the clay body; hair sprouted on its head, and nails appeared on the fingers and toes.
Then Rabbi Loew himself walked once around the figure, and inscribed in the clay forehead of the Golem the first, the middle, and the final letters of the Hebrew Aleph-bet (Aleph – Mem – Tov) , spelling the word “Emet” “Truth”. And, bowing to the East and the West, the South and the North, all three men recited together words taken from the Book of Genesis: “And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (1)
The three elements, Fire, Water, and Air, brought it about that the fourth element, Earth, became living. The Golem opened his eyes and looked, astonished, around him. Rabbi Loew said to him: “Stand up!” And he stood up…
At midnight, three men had walked to the River. At daybreak, four men went homeward.
Words are powerful. We are taught that words can create, and that words can even kill. And on this night of Kol Nidre, the holiest eve of the Jewish year, we are cautioned about the power of our own words; cautioned to use them wisely; cautioned to use them sparingly.
Kol Nidre is a prayer about vows; promises we might utter tonight. For many years, of course, and in fact, for the better part of the 20th Century, the Kol Nidre was absent from our Reform High Holyday prayerbooks. But tonight, this haunting chant attracts to our house of worship many for whom other words and other melodies from throughout the ages carry little of its evocative power.
But the actual meaning of Kol Nidre is really quite problematic, for according to the literal wording, it is not merely a supplication for release from vows and promises we made in the past year yet were unable to fulfill. Rather, the prayer is a legal formula which looks ahead, to the year to come, and creates absolution in advance for vows we might utter, and renders them null and void from this night forward. Listen again to its words:
“All vows, promises, obligations and oaths wherewith we have vowed… from this Day of Atonement until the next Day of Atonement, they shall be absolved, released… they shall not have any power. Our vows shall not be vows; our oaths shall not be oaths.”
Perhaps you noticed that our Gates of Repentance creatively translates the Kol Nidre so as to soften the force of its potentially disheartening message by adding the words, “Should we after honest effort, find ourselves unable to fulfill our promises,” But the essence of Kol Nidre was hardly ignored by anti-semites through the ages, who cited this, our beloved Yom Kippur supplication, as evidence that Jews could not be trusted to serve as witnesses in court proceedings, or to certify legal documents, given their Yom Kippur declaration releasing them from the validity of vows they might utter during the coming year.
Even today, if you “Google” the words “Kol Nidre”, you will find yourself directed to some of the most vile and horrific screeds of Jew hatred and prejudice imaginable, some of which cite historical claims going back to the early 13th Century. So for more than 800 years, Jewish legal experts have had to make clear that the intent of the prayer has to do with vows made to God – not between one person and another. But in essence, Kol Nidre declares that this night you shall make no vows; no promises; no resolutions, no pledges. In other words, or to quote an old Elvis Costello song, “Don’t say a word. Don’t say anything.”
Surprising, is it not, for we often think of these High Holydays, and especially this night of Yom Kippur as precisely the time to change our ways, to imagine our future changed for the better in the aftermath of our honest soul-searching and atonement. In a manner even more profound than the secular New Year, is this not the time for making resolutions that we promise to keep, no matter what?
Kol Nidre says ‘no’. Don’t say a word; don’t say anything. Because for one thing, Judaism recognizes that words are powerful, and so our vows must be taken with the most extreme seriousness and caution. And for another thing, this night of all nights forces us to come to terms with our own, human weaknesses.
Our Yom Kippur prayers and Kol Nidre are consistent with how vehemently the rabbis of old opposed the practice of making vows. The Rabbis didn’t want us making vows AT ALL, because as life unfolds, things happen that we cannot control, and to assume that we will most certainly prevail against an uncertain future was considered downright chutzpadik. So the Talmud declares, “If one makes a vow, it is as if one has built a bama – an idolatrous alter, and if one fulfills that vow, it is as if one had sacrificed upon it.”
What is a vow? A vow is solemn promise to act a certain way in the future. Thinking more deeply, a vow is also a prediction, generally about our moral behavior. Vows are statements of who we are at the present moment, our current values, hopes and ideals, and transporting that self; willing that self into the future. When we make a vow, we promise that our future self will be identical with our present, ideal self.
But you might be thinking: What of our most cherished vows, our most sacred promises – which would be the idea of a marital vow? Well, in Jewish practice, there are no marital vows – no promises are made with our ritual formulae that might risk being broken in future days. Does this surprise you? Yes, it’s true – for those of you whose weddings I’ve officiated, we have a moment of “I Do” – Do you Mr. Groom, take her, Mrs. Bride to be your wife, promising to cherish and protect her, whether in good fortune or in adversity, and to seek together with her a life hallowed by the Jewish faith?” And my brides are generally asked the same question. And so far at least, everyone’s always said “Yes!”
But this is hardly a compulsory “till death do us part, so help me God!” In fact, there is no such thing as a “marital vow” in Jewish practice. As our lives go on, the unexpected often happens, and in fact, the unexpected ALWAYS happens, so one can’t be asked to make a binding vow for all time, even given the joyous moment’s most precious hopes. Instead of uttering a vow that might be broken someday, we sign a ketubah. The ketubah developed as a contractual obligation expressing the groom’s promised financial protection for his bride should, in some future time, the marriage be ended. Divorce was always seen as a sad possibility, even though our rabbis used to teach that when a man and woman divorce, the very altar of heaven sheds tears. And that is why we make no vows, even under the chuppah, so that at some future time, God forbid, one or the other partner would say “My vow was a vow, but I didn’t know THEN all that I know NOW.”
The reason we are moved to make vows tonight is the result of our High Holyday introspection. If we’ve been taking our liturgy seriously at all, and if we’ve been engaging in the depth and wisdom of the High Holyday season, perhaps we’ve also discovered some new clarity about who we are, and who we hope to become moving forward. But still, at its best, a vow is simply a hopeful prediction, and Kol Nidre reminds us that none of can really know the future, certainly not enough to risk our integrity by making an oath. For our word is truly our bond; we are held accountable for what we say.
A young athlete named Aquib Talib was the 20th pick in the NFL draft last year, and I’ve paid attention a bit because last January, he intercepted a pass that he ran back for a touchdown to help my alma mater, Kansas win the Orange Bowl. But the kid got himself in trouble pretty much right away for being late to an NFL Rookie Camp workout. When a reporter asked him later on if he was sorry for his infraction, Talib said yes, but was hesitant to promise that it would not happen ever again.
“I’m not Miss Cleo,” Talib said of the psychic hotline TV star. “I can’t predict the future. The plan is for it not to happen again, but I can’t predict the future. This time, I get fined, so I’ve got to try for it not to happen again.”
My first response, as both a fan and Alum was to think: Hey, Kid – show some backbone, express some remorse and tell them that you’ll never do it again. But then I thought again about vows, and how whenever we make a vow, we’re only making a prediction. The young man was honest and he was correct – he can’t tell the future, and neither can we. All we can do is imagine who we would like to become, and keep working to achieve that vision.
Have you ever made a resolution, a vow, only to break it later? Of course you have – we all have. But think about why. When we break our vows, we sometimes feel a new clarity, and we say to ourselves: What could I have been thinking when I made that vow? But for the most part, that moment of clarity is an illusion. And we have to admit that it is an illusion, because we are almost always giving ourselves permission to give in to weakness.
If we were absolutely honest, we would say: My vow was a vow, and it was unmistakable. But I am weak. We would say before we made our vow: I am frail. I am not likely to keep my promises, not because I don’t intend NOW to keep them, but because I can honestly predict my future weakness. We should say, in the words of my friend, Rabbi Mordecai Finley: “My vows are shaky, but you can absolutely depend on my faults.”
The Chassidim describe how every night, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev examined in his heart what he had done on that day, and repented every flaw he discovered. He said: “Levi Yitzchak will never do this again.” Then he chided himself: “Levi Yitzchak said exactly the same thing yesterday!” And then he added: “Yesterday, Levi Yitzchak did not speak the truth, but he does speak the truth today.” However, he said the same thing day after day after day.
Of course, this is hardly but a Jewish problem limited to our High Holyday season. For non-Jews who focus on the secular calendar for their time of making resolutions, the results are hardly any better. Franklin Covey, a leading time management consulting firm polled some 15,000 of its customers after the first of January this past year, and found that the most popular resolutions continue to be hardly unique or exotic vows; just the typical and widespread promises to save more money, lose weight, to get more organized, or spend more time with family and friends. The firm also found that by the end of the month, a third of them had already broken their New Year’s resolutions, and in short order, barely a fifth remained on-track.
So if we aren’t to make vows tonight, what are we to do with what is hopefully a renewed sense of commitment and determination to become the best men and women we might be? I suggest that we utilize this Day of Atonement and the upcoming festive days as a time to envision the goals we might wish to achieve; to identify our best qualities and imagine them as ideals towards which to grow in the coming year. Don’t make a vow, but envision a goal towards which to work. Track your progress. Take small steps. Tell family and friends so that you have support along the way. And don’t get discouraged or give up if you take steps backwards. In fact, expect some failure or disappointment along the way.
A final thought about that Golem, animated by the power of words. In the 16th Century, stories emerged of how the Golem would protect the people of the ghetto in Prague. But when the threat of their enemies had passed, and the Golem’s size and strength threatened greater harm than good, Rabbi Loew rubbed away the first Hebrew letter from the Golem’s forehead – the aleph, leaving the letters Mem and Tov, spelling the word “mayt” , meaning “death.” The Golem reverted to an inert figure of clay, wrapped in a tallit, and was placed in the attic of the Altneuschul in Prague, where, as legend has it, the Golem lies to this very day.
Three hundred years later, a leading Rabbi thought about the legend of the Golem, and he remarked “Rabbi Loew of Prague created a golem, and this was a great wonder. But how much more wonderful it is to transform a corporeal human being into a mensch?”
Kol Nidre forces us to recognize that we can’t do everything we promise, and on Yom Kippur, God tells us “Salachti kidvarecha” – “I have forgiven in response to your words.” God knows who we are – our weakness does not separate us from God, but our striving itself draws us closer. A virtuous life isn’t some sort of box into which we try to fit ourselves into, but a vision towards which we aspire to reach. To recall the wonderful expression of playwright, Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Once it happened that two hunters hired a pilot and a light airplane to carry them deep into the forest, where they could seek out their big game with the greatest possibility of success. As he landed, the pilot warned the hunters, “I will return tomorrow, but remember, my plane only has the power to carry the three of us plus one, medium-sized animal.” But the hunt was successful beyond their expectations, and when the pilot returned the next day, the hunters crammed two large, prize moose into the passenger seats, stretching the carcasses across their laps.
The plane took off, and became airborne, but the weight of the animals proved too great. Try as he might, the pilot was unable to guide his craft over the top of a nearby mountain, and the plane fell crashing to the earth. Fortunately for the three men, the two moose carcasses cushioned their fall, and amid the destruction and the carnage, they somehow remained alive.
Climbing out of the wreckage, the first hunter asked, “Where are we?”
The second hunter looked around, surveying the crash site, and then he answered, “I think we’re about a mile further than last year.”
(1) Rabbi Israel Salanter.
