Turn Inward and Forgive
Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari
Kol Nidre
Sept 20, 2026
Watch
I would describe myself as a teshuvah groupie.
I love to process. To talk through problems and conflict.
I was, after all, socialized a lesbian before coming out as trans.
I take refuge in the idea that teshuvah is always possible.
Jewish tradition teaches that when the Temple stood, sacrifices atoned for our transgressions. But now, without the Temple, what we have is teshuvah.
הַתְּשׁוּבָה מְכַפֶּרֶת עַל כָּל הָעֲבֵרוֹת.
Teshuvah can atone for any harm. [1]
As a replacement for animal sacrifice, teshuvah is accessible to all of us.
Though I would argue it is not any more pleasant than bringing your most beloved goat to be burned on the altar.
I have participated in many teshuvah conversations.
Again and again, I have experienced the healing power of naming harm, understanding another person’s experience, apologizing, feeling heard, feeling remorse. I have experienced the capacity to integrate feedback and change, in myself and in others. And it has been transformative. Even freeing. Because knowing teshuvah is possible makes it ok to make mistakes. There is always a path to repair.
But this year, I reached my teshuvah rock bottom.
I found the limits of what I had understood teshuvah to be. I found myself in conversations that were more hurtful than healing. Conversations that left me feeling shattered, like the broken blasts of the shofar.
It was honestly devastating.
I was genuinely surprised to learn that Teshuvah could not get me through some very painful conflicts.
Speaking very personally, this has been a difficult year. I have disappointed people I love and hurt their feelings. And they have hurt my feelings. I have made mistakes in my relationships and vice versa. And I arrive here tonight desperate for kaparah, for real reconciliation.
These conflicts have largely been the result of being human and being in relationship. Which can be hard.
Though they also have been exacerbated by the genocide in Gaza, the endless wars, Trump’s hateful rhethoric about trans people, targeted violence against immigrants and the erosion of democracy.
On the whole, I am more defensive, more on edge, more quick to judge, less slow to anger. Differences of opinion can feel existentially and personally threatening. My nervous system is activated and it makes me more prone to holding onto resentment and speaking reactively.
And I know I am not alone. This year I have sat with many Kol Tzedek members as they describe intractable interpersonal conflict, desperate for a way forward.
I am thinking of a member struggling to forgive her emotionally abusive grandmother, fearing that the stress hurt her mother's health, now that they are both gone.
I am thinking of a member whose partner died, and in his absence, is weighing the obligation to his racist family members.
I have received long heartfelt emails full of questions about how to forgive family members who, year after year, repeat the same harm. Harms that live in our hearts and in our bodies. Harm that is passed down from generation to generation.
And for the first time this year I have found myself thinking,
no amount of talking is going to help here.
As much as I would like to give you a very concrete example from my life or the life of our community, the truth is these conflicts are tender and delicate, and by nature unresolved. And in sharing any details, I risk aggravating the very healing I hope to encourage.
Tonight, what I want to do instead, is invite you to think of an example from your own life. I imagine we may each be haunted by our own unresolved conflicts.
I have cried these tears and felt so stuck. And I want to share what I have learned, from my broken heart to yours.
–
I have learned there are times when we can’t make amends, and we need the courage to walk away from the relationship. Particularing when navigating patterns of abuse.
I have also learned that there are times when we can't walk away, even if we wish we could, because we have shared responsibilities for others. We share care for an ailing parent, or we are raising children together, or we work together, or we are both members of the same synagogue, hypothetically speaking.
And there are also times when even though we can’t make amends, we don’t want to walk away, because the relationships are vital in our lives, even if we can’t get the apology we feel we are owed, or reach a shared understanding that will transform patterns of harm.
For me, this includes some of my oldest friends, study partners and teachers. These are relationships I refuse to give up on, because they are my family in the widest sense of the word.
What do we do when the repair we seek cannot happen interpersonally, between us?
Are forgiveness and healing still possible?
—-
As many of you know, I have spent years studying Maimonides’ Hilchot Teshuvah, translating and retranslating it, teaching it, even writing a book about it. (You’ll be hearing more about that this winter!)
For those who are new to it, Hilchot Teshuvah, or The Path of Repair, is a medieval text that outlines in detail the practice of teshuvah.
The second chapter begins with Maimonides asking, and answering, the essential question:
וּמַה הִיא הַתְּשׁוּבָה.
What are the steps of the Teshuvah process?
According to Maimonides, teshuvah begins when a person stops causing a specific harm. They contemplate their motivations, experience remorse and can articulate what they have done with clarity.
They can then resolve to not do it again,
and when relevant, pay for what was lost financially.
And only after all that, do they seek forgiveness.
The process of Teshuvah is complete when you encounter the same situation, but you act differently, and a confidant can vouch for your intentions. [2]
–
These are Maimonides’ steps to Teshuvah when you are the hoteh, the one who has caused harm.
But what about when you have been harmed [3] and the process to interpersonal repair is not possible?
How do we access forgiveness when we don’t expect the people in our lives to change?
--
Tonight I want to share a pathway to forgiveness that is possible even when accountability is not.
In the teachings, as they are commonly understood,
the focus on teshuvah is external and interpersonal.
At Kol Tzedek, we have spent years developing a teshuvah process which we are piloting this year. And almost every conversation is about what will happen between the people involved in the conflict.
But what this year has taught me, is that there is a crucial step that precedes all conversation, and can in moments even replace some of these conversations.
A step that is entirely contemplative, that happens within us,
long before anything happens between us.
--
Because I have been living inside of this text and breaking apart each and every word, I found what I believe is the most important and most misunderstood instruction on teshuvah.
And they are these two words:
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
Classically these words are translated as “turn away from your thoughts”.
For years I accepted the conventional interpretation, which is basically, distract yourself, don’t think about the harm lest your thoughts lead you to repeat it. As if to suggest, change begins in our thoughts.
But I know in my bones that is not how change happens. It is not enough to shift our mind from something destructive to something productive, from this thought to that thought.
What we need is to turn our minds from external circumstances and blame, towards our own hearts, to plumb our subconscious.
Which is why I think these words are more aptly translated as, turn inward.
Turning inwards is what makes it possible to develop compassion for ourselves, for the harm we have incurred,
and compassion for the people who have harmed us.
And compassion protects us, it is like spiritual bubblewrap.
With compassion, I have been able to set healthy boundaries that make it more possible and less painful to stay connected.
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
Turn inward.
This is the overlooked second step in the Teshuvah process. It is the moment in the process where we are asked to develop insight into our own actions and experience.
And this is essential because it is insight into our own experience that has the capacity to sustain change within us.
The resolve to change, and the ability to forgive, I believe, are the result of time spent in contemplation.
And the time can be long.
I kid you not, I have been working on this sermon for 3 years.
--
Turning inwards helps whether we are the person trying to find the right words with which to apologize, or the willing heart with which to forgive.
Either way there is so much internal investigation that must take place, so that I am aligned and clear with my deepest knowing – Yodea Ta’alumot.
Most often, Yodea Ta’alumot is translated as the One who knows our deepest thoughts and dreams, the one from whom we cannot hide. And that classically, is God, an everpresent externalized witness.
But now I realize that Maimonides’ charge to each of us is to be the deepest knower of ourselves, to connect with the hidden mystery within. To see ourselves the way God sees us, clearly and without judgement. To know ourselves fully.
And in that fullness, there is release. We can let go of the need to be right and the shame of being wrong. We can be sorry and we can be supple. We can access a well of compassion for our own pain and for the pain of all the people who have hurt us.
This is the Source of our teshuvah whether or not accountability is possible.
The last three years of protracted conflict have taught me that much of the work of forgiveness, even when the harm is interpersonal, still happens in our own hearts.
I have spent countless hours in prayer, in therapy, in meditation, in song, in shul, in the woods.
I have sat on my cushion and recited the metta phrases. [4] I have asked my ancestors for help during the Amidah. I have leaned against big old trees in the woods and asked them to be my witness. I have taken inspiration from mushrooms sprouting up on the damp forest floor, decomposing toxins. I have released my pain into the vast ocean. I have wept and emptied myself of disappointment and hurt. I have limited my interactions and experimented with new ways of being, new boundaries, new expectations.
And all of this, taken together, has opened in me a pathway to forgiveness that I did not know was possible.
--
Throughout Yom Kippur, we chant the thirteen attributes, describing God as slow to anger and quick to forgive. We do this to remind ourselves that we too are striving to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Easier said than done.
Maimonides teaches we are not supposed to be aczari // cruel - and refuse to forgive.
I now realize that he teaches this out of concern for the one who has experienced harm, for all of us.
Forgiveness benefits the person offering forgiveness,
even more so than the one who is forgiven! [5]
And still, Jewish tradition does not require you to forgive someone who does not do teshuvah with you. And I am not suggesting otherwise!
I am not even suggesting forgiveness is necessarily instead of accountability. So many social movements have been organizing towards greater accountability for sexual harm and racist violence, and I am so grateful.
And we as a congregation, Kol Tzedek, we remain committed to accountability within our community.
But I am suggesting forgiveness is possible even when accountability is not.
--
In 1962, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, of blessed memory, preached a sermon entitled “Love in Action: Practical steps for forgiveness. In it he said, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”
The meaning of the words would come to life some 53 years later on June 19, 2015 when, just two days after 9 members of their church family were murdered during bible study, members of Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina would grant Dylann Roof forgiveness.
Nadine Collier was the first to speak at Roof’s bond hearing. She was furious and hurt, and recounts the moment this way:
“When the Judge asked if anyone wanted to speak, I got up, I said who I was, and something just came over me. I kind of went blank, matter of fact, didn’t know what I was going to say.’ [Then I said] – “God forgive you and I forgive you.” — [I] could not deny the lasting shift in [my] outlook. [I[ became calmer, more patient, less judgmental, slower to anger.”
CHANT: Adonai, Adonai, el rachum v’chanun…
The following year, Nadine Collier would tell an audience, “Forgiveness is power,”
“[Forgiving] had removed Roof’s grip on the rest of her life” (341). [6]
In Kevin Sack's book, Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church [7], he writes:
“In interviews over the years, each of the six family members who spoke mercifully toward Roof…have explained that they did so for their own spiritual release, not his.”
Their forgiveness is part of a longstanding tradition in the AME church in response to not just this one tragedy, but centuries of abuse and racism starting with the middle passage and slavery.
Forgiveness is a spiritual and cultural technology to metabolize unthinkable suffering and to remain human in the face of unspeakable indignities, to protect against living life angry and embittered.
I feel indebted to the Black church for showing me this is possible.
Sack explains that by no means is this approach universal. Many were equally justified in denying Roof mercy.
Quoting, “But for those who did forgive, the choice for them was primarily a psychological mechanism, long utilized by African American Christians to purge themselves of self-destructive toxins. It served as an unburdening, not an undoing” (338).
--
Before this year, the kind of forgiveness that the survivors of Mother Emanuel church expressed was unbelievable and rather foreign to me.
I was not surprised by Sack’s description of the encounter between Mother Emanuel and the Tree of Life communities.
Quoting: “When Mother Emanuel’s pastor, Eric Manning, traveled to Pittsburgh in 2018 to console survivors of the shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue, he found admiration for his church’s commitment to forgiveness but little interest in replicating it. Rather, Pittsburgh’s indignant Jewish mourners held fast to the concept of teshuvah, or repentance, rooted more in the emphasis on accountability… (343).
This makes good sense. It is what I have been taught,
maybe even how I am naturally wired.
But what I have learned this year is that the possibility of forgiveness is very limited if we are waiting for the perfect apology, or even an apology at all.
At his bond hearing, Dylann Roof was described as “remorseless.” The survivors of Mother Emanuel have taught me that we can still forgive without accountability, on our own behalf, for our own benefit.
But how?
–
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
It begins with a turn inward.
Use every tool, any tool available to you to develop compassion for yourself, for the people you have hurt and for people who have harmed you. And with that compassion it becomes possible to access forgiveness.
We do this for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of all beings. This kind of forgiveness is described as middat hasidut - it is a righteous posture that is not required, but is possible.
Like Dr. King said, “a permanent attitude.”
I know that what I am suggesting here may be deeply uncomfortable. Even agitating.
I am inviting you to do something hard.
I know it’s hard, because I am asking the same thing of myself.
--
It is not a coincidence that I am doing so on Yom Kippur.
The key to Yom Kippur actually lies in understanding the unique power of this day to effectuate kaparah, which is more than forgiveness, it is reconciliation.
Shortly after I finish speaking, we will together sing in unison the core refrain of Yom Kippur:
SING: “Slach Lanu, Mechal Lanu, Kaper Lanu…”
Forgive us, pardon us, help us reconcile.
Each time we sing these words,
they will soothe, like honey on a sore throat.
But what comes of our singing?
What do these words really mean?
--
Selicha and mechila are synonyms, both roots meaning to pardon or forgive. Their doubling offers emphasis, perhaps conveying urgency, and at times even desperation.
As in please, please forgive us.
The request for selicha and mechilah is actually not unique to Yom Kippur.
In fact, we ask for selicha and mechilah in every weekday Amidah, all year long. [8]
--
But the final word in this spiritual trilogy, kaparah, is unique to Yom Kippur.
Kaparah makes a bigger request.
Kaparah comes from the Hebrew root kaf peh resh, meaning to cover over. Often translated as atonement, I imagine this covering like the moment when you get a cut, and it scabs over. Under the scab, new skin grows, until the wound has fully healed and the scab falls off. The skin is restored. This is kaparah.
You may know the word from the act of kapores in yiddish, in which one waves a live chicken over their head as if to transfer their fate, such that the person is written into the book of life.
The chicken is then slaughtered and given as charity.
This custom, a shtetl-style sacrifice, still persists in some hasidic communities. (I brought some just in case!)
And perhaps by now you can hear the more familiar conjugation of this root – kippur – as in Yom Kippur.
It is significant that Yom Kippur takes its name from this particular verb. All year long we seek selicha and mechilah – forgiveness and pardon. But once a year we seek kaparah.
Once a year, on Kol Nidre we are instructed to set an intention to reconcile with anyone with whom we have hostility. [9]
This is a very big ask.
--
Yet classically it is understood that Yom Kippur alone does not resolve interpersonal harm or conflict.
We learn in Mishnah Yoma (8:9),
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר…
Yom Kippur does not resolve transgressions between people …
This is both confusing and challenging!
While it may be true that we each have what to repair in our relationships with ourselves and with the Great Mystery, for most of us, myself included, when I imagine the work of Teshuvah, the primary reconciliation I seek is with people in my life.
Every question I have received from our community has been about how to navigate conflict between people, bein adam l’havero.
Based on the Mishnah, you would think Yom Kippur can’t help with interpersonal conflict.
As if Yom Kippur is the deadline for making such reconciliation.
But in fact, Yom Kippur is its own portal, an opening made by turning inwards.
When we turn inward, we can unlock not just forgiveness, but kaparah, which is a deeper kind of reconciliation that is only possible today, on Yom Kippur, bein adam l'makom, in our own hearts, between us and the Ineffable.
And this is why we are here.
To turn inward
so that we can forgive ourselves
and the people in our lives.
--
My greatest insight from this year is equal parts painful and liberating:
In these most stuck places, the work we each have to do,
it can only happen within, no one can resolve this for us.
But neither is it beyond our reach.
Time spent in contemplation opens us to something unexpected and miraculous.
It unlocks kapara, the spiritual magic of this day.
Trust this day.
--
Which leaves one final question.
What do we do with the hurt that we carry,
the hurt we carry from conflict that can’t be resolved,
that can’t be acknowledged by those who caused it?
--
We learn in the Talmud that when the Israelites traveled in the wilderness, they carried both sets of tablets that Moses brought down from Sinai.
לּוּחוֹת וְשִׁבְרֵי לוּחוֹת מוּנָּחִים בָּאָרוֹן
Luchot v’shivrei haluchot munachim ba’aron.
The tablets and the broken tablets were placed side by side.
My teacher, Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld points out,
“There is a quality of gentleness to the word munachim
Especially when contrasted with the verb used in the Torah to describe what Moshe did with those first
tablets
When he first came down the mountain:
Vayashlech.
He cast them,
Hurled them,
And they lay shattered at the base of the mountain.
The same tablets that were once hurled
In anger
Are now placed gently in the aron.
Let me note the obvious here --
the shattered tablets are not repaired.
Perhaps Rav Yosef is inviting us to consider the possibility
That even when we cannot fix the broken places in our lives
We might learn to carry them differently –
And more gently – Over time.”
To close, I leave you with an invitation from Marge Piercy in her poem, The Head of the Year:
The moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.
Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.
It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin of
all you must grow to be.
Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.
May it be so. Gmar Hatimah Tova!
Footnotes:
[1] Hilchot Teshuvah 1:3, “בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה שֶׁאֵין בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּם וְאֵין לָנוּ מִזְבַּח כַּפָּרָה אֵין שָׁם אֶלָּא תְּשׁוּבָה.”
[2] For each of us, different steps present different challenges. Sometimes we can’t find the resolve to stop the harm. Sometimes we can’t find the courage to articulate aloud the wrong we have done. For some of us remorse is so bound up with shame, it overwhelms us.
[3] Maimonides does not have a term for the person who has been harmed because his focus is on transformation for the hoteh, the person who is causing harm
[4] Metta means lovingkindness in Pali. It is a buddhist purification practice that happens through the repetition of specific phrases that can be directed at yourself or other people. For example, “May you be well, may you be free from harm, may you live with ease, may you be free.” Metta is one of the four Divine Abodes, and each abode has its own phrases intended to cultivate the specific inner state.
[5] Research suggests that resentment and hostility negatively impact our health. Reducing hostility can benefit both our mental and physical health. Psychologist Fred Luskin explains that “Anger does the most harm to the vessel that stores it. Rather than soothing our pain, anger and rumination blend into pain pathways. Grudges exacerbate our experience of chronic suffering and can lead to inflammation and chronic pain.” For more information, listen to: https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/no-hard-feelings/
[6] Sacks, Kevin. Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
[7] Thank you Abby McCartney for pointing me to the epilogue of this book! I never would have found it on my own!
[8] Three times a day, in every amidah, we are invited to knock on our hearts and seek God’s pardon.
סְלַח לָנוּ אָבִינוּ כִּי חָטָאנוּ. מְחַל לָנוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ כִּי פָשָׁעְנוּ. כִּי מוחֵל וְסולֵחַ אָתָּה. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’, חַנּוּן הַמַּרְבֶּה לִסְלחַ
We are daily invited to seek forgiveness from the Gracious One who abounds in forgiveness.
[9] Rosh Yoma 8:24. See Hadar High Holidays Reader 5787, p. 23.
Kol Nidre
Sept 20, 2026
Watch
I would describe myself as a teshuvah groupie.
I love to process. To talk through problems and conflict.
I was, after all, socialized a lesbian before coming out as trans.
I take refuge in the idea that teshuvah is always possible.
Jewish tradition teaches that when the Temple stood, sacrifices atoned for our transgressions. But now, without the Temple, what we have is teshuvah.
הַתְּשׁוּבָה מְכַפֶּרֶת עַל כָּל הָעֲבֵרוֹת.
Teshuvah can atone for any harm. [1]
As a replacement for animal sacrifice, teshuvah is accessible to all of us.
Though I would argue it is not any more pleasant than bringing your most beloved goat to be burned on the altar.
I have participated in many teshuvah conversations.
Again and again, I have experienced the healing power of naming harm, understanding another person’s experience, apologizing, feeling heard, feeling remorse. I have experienced the capacity to integrate feedback and change, in myself and in others. And it has been transformative. Even freeing. Because knowing teshuvah is possible makes it ok to make mistakes. There is always a path to repair.
But this year, I reached my teshuvah rock bottom.
I found the limits of what I had understood teshuvah to be. I found myself in conversations that were more hurtful than healing. Conversations that left me feeling shattered, like the broken blasts of the shofar.
It was honestly devastating.
I was genuinely surprised to learn that Teshuvah could not get me through some very painful conflicts.
Speaking very personally, this has been a difficult year. I have disappointed people I love and hurt their feelings. And they have hurt my feelings. I have made mistakes in my relationships and vice versa. And I arrive here tonight desperate for kaparah, for real reconciliation.
These conflicts have largely been the result of being human and being in relationship. Which can be hard.
Though they also have been exacerbated by the genocide in Gaza, the endless wars, Trump’s hateful rhethoric about trans people, targeted violence against immigrants and the erosion of democracy.
On the whole, I am more defensive, more on edge, more quick to judge, less slow to anger. Differences of opinion can feel existentially and personally threatening. My nervous system is activated and it makes me more prone to holding onto resentment and speaking reactively.
And I know I am not alone. This year I have sat with many Kol Tzedek members as they describe intractable interpersonal conflict, desperate for a way forward.
I am thinking of a member struggling to forgive her emotionally abusive grandmother, fearing that the stress hurt her mother's health, now that they are both gone.
I am thinking of a member whose partner died, and in his absence, is weighing the obligation to his racist family members.
I have received long heartfelt emails full of questions about how to forgive family members who, year after year, repeat the same harm. Harms that live in our hearts and in our bodies. Harm that is passed down from generation to generation.
And for the first time this year I have found myself thinking,
no amount of talking is going to help here.
As much as I would like to give you a very concrete example from my life or the life of our community, the truth is these conflicts are tender and delicate, and by nature unresolved. And in sharing any details, I risk aggravating the very healing I hope to encourage.
Tonight, what I want to do instead, is invite you to think of an example from your own life. I imagine we may each be haunted by our own unresolved conflicts.
I have cried these tears and felt so stuck. And I want to share what I have learned, from my broken heart to yours.
–
I have learned there are times when we can’t make amends, and we need the courage to walk away from the relationship. Particularing when navigating patterns of abuse.
I have also learned that there are times when we can't walk away, even if we wish we could, because we have shared responsibilities for others. We share care for an ailing parent, or we are raising children together, or we work together, or we are both members of the same synagogue, hypothetically speaking.
And there are also times when even though we can’t make amends, we don’t want to walk away, because the relationships are vital in our lives, even if we can’t get the apology we feel we are owed, or reach a shared understanding that will transform patterns of harm.
For me, this includes some of my oldest friends, study partners and teachers. These are relationships I refuse to give up on, because they are my family in the widest sense of the word.
What do we do when the repair we seek cannot happen interpersonally, between us?
Are forgiveness and healing still possible?
—-
As many of you know, I have spent years studying Maimonides’ Hilchot Teshuvah, translating and retranslating it, teaching it, even writing a book about it. (You’ll be hearing more about that this winter!)
For those who are new to it, Hilchot Teshuvah, or The Path of Repair, is a medieval text that outlines in detail the practice of teshuvah.
The second chapter begins with Maimonides asking, and answering, the essential question:
וּמַה הִיא הַתְּשׁוּבָה.
What are the steps of the Teshuvah process?
According to Maimonides, teshuvah begins when a person stops causing a specific harm. They contemplate their motivations, experience remorse and can articulate what they have done with clarity.
They can then resolve to not do it again,
and when relevant, pay for what was lost financially.
And only after all that, do they seek forgiveness.
The process of Teshuvah is complete when you encounter the same situation, but you act differently, and a confidant can vouch for your intentions. [2]
–
These are Maimonides’ steps to Teshuvah when you are the hoteh, the one who has caused harm.
But what about when you have been harmed [3] and the process to interpersonal repair is not possible?
How do we access forgiveness when we don’t expect the people in our lives to change?
--
Tonight I want to share a pathway to forgiveness that is possible even when accountability is not.
In the teachings, as they are commonly understood,
the focus on teshuvah is external and interpersonal.
At Kol Tzedek, we have spent years developing a teshuvah process which we are piloting this year. And almost every conversation is about what will happen between the people involved in the conflict.
But what this year has taught me, is that there is a crucial step that precedes all conversation, and can in moments even replace some of these conversations.
A step that is entirely contemplative, that happens within us,
long before anything happens between us.
--
Because I have been living inside of this text and breaking apart each and every word, I found what I believe is the most important and most misunderstood instruction on teshuvah.
And they are these two words:
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
Classically these words are translated as “turn away from your thoughts”.
For years I accepted the conventional interpretation, which is basically, distract yourself, don’t think about the harm lest your thoughts lead you to repeat it. As if to suggest, change begins in our thoughts.
But I know in my bones that is not how change happens. It is not enough to shift our mind from something destructive to something productive, from this thought to that thought.
What we need is to turn our minds from external circumstances and blame, towards our own hearts, to plumb our subconscious.
Which is why I think these words are more aptly translated as, turn inward.
Turning inwards is what makes it possible to develop compassion for ourselves, for the harm we have incurred,
and compassion for the people who have harmed us.
And compassion protects us, it is like spiritual bubblewrap.
With compassion, I have been able to set healthy boundaries that make it more possible and less painful to stay connected.
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
Turn inward.
This is the overlooked second step in the Teshuvah process. It is the moment in the process where we are asked to develop insight into our own actions and experience.
And this is essential because it is insight into our own experience that has the capacity to sustain change within us.
The resolve to change, and the ability to forgive, I believe, are the result of time spent in contemplation.
And the time can be long.
I kid you not, I have been working on this sermon for 3 years.
--
Turning inwards helps whether we are the person trying to find the right words with which to apologize, or the willing heart with which to forgive.
Either way there is so much internal investigation that must take place, so that I am aligned and clear with my deepest knowing – Yodea Ta’alumot.
Most often, Yodea Ta’alumot is translated as the One who knows our deepest thoughts and dreams, the one from whom we cannot hide. And that classically, is God, an everpresent externalized witness.
But now I realize that Maimonides’ charge to each of us is to be the deepest knower of ourselves, to connect with the hidden mystery within. To see ourselves the way God sees us, clearly and without judgement. To know ourselves fully.
And in that fullness, there is release. We can let go of the need to be right and the shame of being wrong. We can be sorry and we can be supple. We can access a well of compassion for our own pain and for the pain of all the people who have hurt us.
This is the Source of our teshuvah whether or not accountability is possible.
The last three years of protracted conflict have taught me that much of the work of forgiveness, even when the harm is interpersonal, still happens in our own hearts.
I have spent countless hours in prayer, in therapy, in meditation, in song, in shul, in the woods.
I have sat on my cushion and recited the metta phrases. [4] I have asked my ancestors for help during the Amidah. I have leaned against big old trees in the woods and asked them to be my witness. I have taken inspiration from mushrooms sprouting up on the damp forest floor, decomposing toxins. I have released my pain into the vast ocean. I have wept and emptied myself of disappointment and hurt. I have limited my interactions and experimented with new ways of being, new boundaries, new expectations.
And all of this, taken together, has opened in me a pathway to forgiveness that I did not know was possible.
--
Throughout Yom Kippur, we chant the thirteen attributes, describing God as slow to anger and quick to forgive. We do this to remind ourselves that we too are striving to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Easier said than done.
Maimonides teaches we are not supposed to be aczari // cruel - and refuse to forgive.
I now realize that he teaches this out of concern for the one who has experienced harm, for all of us.
Forgiveness benefits the person offering forgiveness,
even more so than the one who is forgiven! [5]
And still, Jewish tradition does not require you to forgive someone who does not do teshuvah with you. And I am not suggesting otherwise!
I am not even suggesting forgiveness is necessarily instead of accountability. So many social movements have been organizing towards greater accountability for sexual harm and racist violence, and I am so grateful.
And we as a congregation, Kol Tzedek, we remain committed to accountability within our community.
But I am suggesting forgiveness is possible even when accountability is not.
--
In 1962, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, of blessed memory, preached a sermon entitled “Love in Action: Practical steps for forgiveness. In it he said, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”
The meaning of the words would come to life some 53 years later on June 19, 2015 when, just two days after 9 members of their church family were murdered during bible study, members of Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina would grant Dylann Roof forgiveness.
Nadine Collier was the first to speak at Roof’s bond hearing. She was furious and hurt, and recounts the moment this way:
“When the Judge asked if anyone wanted to speak, I got up, I said who I was, and something just came over me. I kind of went blank, matter of fact, didn’t know what I was going to say.’ [Then I said] – “God forgive you and I forgive you.” — [I] could not deny the lasting shift in [my] outlook. [I[ became calmer, more patient, less judgmental, slower to anger.”
CHANT: Adonai, Adonai, el rachum v’chanun…
The following year, Nadine Collier would tell an audience, “Forgiveness is power,”
“[Forgiving] had removed Roof’s grip on the rest of her life” (341). [6]
In Kevin Sack's book, Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church [7], he writes:
“In interviews over the years, each of the six family members who spoke mercifully toward Roof…have explained that they did so for their own spiritual release, not his.”
Their forgiveness is part of a longstanding tradition in the AME church in response to not just this one tragedy, but centuries of abuse and racism starting with the middle passage and slavery.
Forgiveness is a spiritual and cultural technology to metabolize unthinkable suffering and to remain human in the face of unspeakable indignities, to protect against living life angry and embittered.
I feel indebted to the Black church for showing me this is possible.
Sack explains that by no means is this approach universal. Many were equally justified in denying Roof mercy.
Quoting, “But for those who did forgive, the choice for them was primarily a psychological mechanism, long utilized by African American Christians to purge themselves of self-destructive toxins. It served as an unburdening, not an undoing” (338).
--
Before this year, the kind of forgiveness that the survivors of Mother Emanuel church expressed was unbelievable and rather foreign to me.
I was not surprised by Sack’s description of the encounter between Mother Emanuel and the Tree of Life communities.
Quoting: “When Mother Emanuel’s pastor, Eric Manning, traveled to Pittsburgh in 2018 to console survivors of the shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue, he found admiration for his church’s commitment to forgiveness but little interest in replicating it. Rather, Pittsburgh’s indignant Jewish mourners held fast to the concept of teshuvah, or repentance, rooted more in the emphasis on accountability… (343).
This makes good sense. It is what I have been taught,
maybe even how I am naturally wired.
But what I have learned this year is that the possibility of forgiveness is very limited if we are waiting for the perfect apology, or even an apology at all.
At his bond hearing, Dylann Roof was described as “remorseless.” The survivors of Mother Emanuel have taught me that we can still forgive without accountability, on our own behalf, for our own benefit.
But how?
–
וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ
It begins with a turn inward.
Use every tool, any tool available to you to develop compassion for yourself, for the people you have hurt and for people who have harmed you. And with that compassion it becomes possible to access forgiveness.
We do this for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of all beings. This kind of forgiveness is described as middat hasidut - it is a righteous posture that is not required, but is possible.
Like Dr. King said, “a permanent attitude.”
I know that what I am suggesting here may be deeply uncomfortable. Even agitating.
I am inviting you to do something hard.
I know it’s hard, because I am asking the same thing of myself.
--
It is not a coincidence that I am doing so on Yom Kippur.
The key to Yom Kippur actually lies in understanding the unique power of this day to effectuate kaparah, which is more than forgiveness, it is reconciliation.
Shortly after I finish speaking, we will together sing in unison the core refrain of Yom Kippur:
SING: “Slach Lanu, Mechal Lanu, Kaper Lanu…”
Forgive us, pardon us, help us reconcile.
Each time we sing these words,
they will soothe, like honey on a sore throat.
But what comes of our singing?
What do these words really mean?
--
Selicha and mechila are synonyms, both roots meaning to pardon or forgive. Their doubling offers emphasis, perhaps conveying urgency, and at times even desperation.
As in please, please forgive us.
The request for selicha and mechilah is actually not unique to Yom Kippur.
In fact, we ask for selicha and mechilah in every weekday Amidah, all year long. [8]
--
But the final word in this spiritual trilogy, kaparah, is unique to Yom Kippur.
Kaparah makes a bigger request.
Kaparah comes from the Hebrew root kaf peh resh, meaning to cover over. Often translated as atonement, I imagine this covering like the moment when you get a cut, and it scabs over. Under the scab, new skin grows, until the wound has fully healed and the scab falls off. The skin is restored. This is kaparah.
You may know the word from the act of kapores in yiddish, in which one waves a live chicken over their head as if to transfer their fate, such that the person is written into the book of life.
The chicken is then slaughtered and given as charity.
This custom, a shtetl-style sacrifice, still persists in some hasidic communities. (I brought some just in case!)
And perhaps by now you can hear the more familiar conjugation of this root – kippur – as in Yom Kippur.
It is significant that Yom Kippur takes its name from this particular verb. All year long we seek selicha and mechilah – forgiveness and pardon. But once a year we seek kaparah.
Once a year, on Kol Nidre we are instructed to set an intention to reconcile with anyone with whom we have hostility. [9]
This is a very big ask.
--
Yet classically it is understood that Yom Kippur alone does not resolve interpersonal harm or conflict.
We learn in Mishnah Yoma (8:9),
עֲבֵרוֹת שֶׁבֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר…
Yom Kippur does not resolve transgressions between people …
This is both confusing and challenging!
While it may be true that we each have what to repair in our relationships with ourselves and with the Great Mystery, for most of us, myself included, when I imagine the work of Teshuvah, the primary reconciliation I seek is with people in my life.
Every question I have received from our community has been about how to navigate conflict between people, bein adam l’havero.
Based on the Mishnah, you would think Yom Kippur can’t help with interpersonal conflict.
As if Yom Kippur is the deadline for making such reconciliation.
But in fact, Yom Kippur is its own portal, an opening made by turning inwards.
When we turn inward, we can unlock not just forgiveness, but kaparah, which is a deeper kind of reconciliation that is only possible today, on Yom Kippur, bein adam l'makom, in our own hearts, between us and the Ineffable.
And this is why we are here.
To turn inward
so that we can forgive ourselves
and the people in our lives.
--
My greatest insight from this year is equal parts painful and liberating:
In these most stuck places, the work we each have to do,
it can only happen within, no one can resolve this for us.
But neither is it beyond our reach.
Time spent in contemplation opens us to something unexpected and miraculous.
It unlocks kapara, the spiritual magic of this day.
Trust this day.
--
Which leaves one final question.
What do we do with the hurt that we carry,
the hurt we carry from conflict that can’t be resolved,
that can’t be acknowledged by those who caused it?
--
We learn in the Talmud that when the Israelites traveled in the wilderness, they carried both sets of tablets that Moses brought down from Sinai.
לּוּחוֹת וְשִׁבְרֵי לוּחוֹת מוּנָּחִים בָּאָרוֹן
Luchot v’shivrei haluchot munachim ba’aron.
The tablets and the broken tablets were placed side by side.
My teacher, Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld points out,
“There is a quality of gentleness to the word munachim
Especially when contrasted with the verb used in the Torah to describe what Moshe did with those first
tablets
When he first came down the mountain:
Vayashlech.
He cast them,
Hurled them,
And they lay shattered at the base of the mountain.
The same tablets that were once hurled
In anger
Are now placed gently in the aron.
Let me note the obvious here --
the shattered tablets are not repaired.
Perhaps Rav Yosef is inviting us to consider the possibility
That even when we cannot fix the broken places in our lives
We might learn to carry them differently –
And more gently – Over time.”
To close, I leave you with an invitation from Marge Piercy in her poem, The Head of the Year:
The moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.
Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.
It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin of
all you must grow to be.
Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.
May it be so. Gmar Hatimah Tova!
Footnotes:
[1] Hilchot Teshuvah 1:3, “בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה שֶׁאֵין בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּם וְאֵין לָנוּ מִזְבַּח כַּפָּרָה אֵין שָׁם אֶלָּא תְּשׁוּבָה.”
[2] For each of us, different steps present different challenges. Sometimes we can’t find the resolve to stop the harm. Sometimes we can’t find the courage to articulate aloud the wrong we have done. For some of us remorse is so bound up with shame, it overwhelms us.
[3] Maimonides does not have a term for the person who has been harmed because his focus is on transformation for the hoteh, the person who is causing harm
[4] Metta means lovingkindness in Pali. It is a buddhist purification practice that happens through the repetition of specific phrases that can be directed at yourself or other people. For example, “May you be well, may you be free from harm, may you live with ease, may you be free.” Metta is one of the four Divine Abodes, and each abode has its own phrases intended to cultivate the specific inner state.
[5] Research suggests that resentment and hostility negatively impact our health. Reducing hostility can benefit both our mental and physical health. Psychologist Fred Luskin explains that “Anger does the most harm to the vessel that stores it. Rather than soothing our pain, anger and rumination blend into pain pathways. Grudges exacerbate our experience of chronic suffering and can lead to inflammation and chronic pain.” For more information, listen to: https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/no-hard-feelings/
[6] Sacks, Kevin. Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
[7] Thank you Abby McCartney for pointing me to the epilogue of this book! I never would have found it on my own!
[8] Three times a day, in every amidah, we are invited to knock on our hearts and seek God’s pardon.
סְלַח לָנוּ אָבִינוּ כִּי חָטָאנוּ. מְחַל לָנוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ כִּי פָשָׁעְנוּ. כִּי מוחֵל וְסולֵחַ אָתָּה. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’, חַנּוּן הַמַּרְבֶּה לִסְלחַ
We are daily invited to seek forgiveness from the Gracious One who abounds in forgiveness.
[9] Rosh Yoma 8:24. See Hadar High Holidays Reader 5787, p. 23.