Rabbi Ari LEv: And we shall not feel shame [1]
Kol Nidre 5783
October 4, 2022
View the video here.
You are welcome here. Just as you are.
Of the many words that I speak throughout the Days of Awe, and by the end I will have spoken a lot of words, I think the words I just spoke are the most important and sometimes the most difficult to hear. And they are not words that are unique to the Days of Awe or even Yom Kippur. They are words that I say almost every time we gather as a community.
Sometimes I fear I sound like a broken record. But every time I say it, I really mean it. And I know that there may be someone new in the room, for whom it is their first time hearing these words. And I also know that many of us need to hear them over and over again, and for many of us it is hard to believe that one could be welcomed in a religious and spiritual community just as they are.
You are welcome here. Just as you are.
I am also aware how risky these words are because they have the potential to communicate a universal welcome, as though there are no boundaries or shared commitments that define our community. Which is not the case.
But I keep saying them because these words are attempting to communicate a kind of belonging that so many of us long for but have not or do not feel.
For so many of us this goes against both the direct and indirect messages we received in our formative years. Not just in religious spaces. But in our lives at large. And I imagine that even as I speak these words, some people are thinking that parts of them are exempt from this radical welcome. I assure you, that is not the case. But I can begin to imagine why you would feel that way.
I am not by nature a joiner. I am generally not good at going with the flow. I don't like sleep-overs unless it's a very familiar place. I am forever trying to be more flexible and easy going. To trust that I will be able to get my needs met in any given situation. I am not good at traveling to places I haven't been before. To trust that if I show up somewhere I will feel seen and safe in my body. I am forever shedding my childhood identity of being "the difficult" child.
And yet I feel called to extend this radical welcome to you, over and over again, because being part of the Kol Tzedek community is one of my most important spiritual practices. It has taught me how vulnerable, how risky, and how healing joining is. What holds us back is often directly correlated to the many layers of identities we each hold that may not be easily seen, appreciated, or respected in communal space. And I do not take that for granted.
But I also must credit my teacher, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who modeled this radical welcome when I was her student at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.
You are welcome here if you came alone or with your family.
If this is your first Yom Kippur or your 70th.
You are welcome here if you know the prayers or if you don't.
You are welcome here if you feel represented on the bima or if you don't.
You are welcome here if this is your first time at KT and if you come here every week.
I feel especially compelled to speak to this tonight, on this Kol Nidre, when we are our widest web, because this is a moment of not only personal transformation but also collective. We are, once again, reimagining and reconstituting ourselves. We are, for the first time, having truly hybrid Yamim Noraim services. Attempting to create community across time and space in important ways. This is a fragile and complicated moment to be a community and we need to be mindful of how we move forward together.
I want to begin tonight by sharing one of my most favorite stories from the Talmud. The story that most animates my rabbinate and now appears at the top of our community's vision statement.
It was taught that on the day that they removed Rabban Gamliel as head of the House of Study and appointed Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria in his place, permission was granted for all of the students who wanted to enter...
Bo bayom, on that very day hundreds of benches were added...
some say 300, some say 700... [2]
Ever since I learned this text, I have remained captivated by the image of rows upon rows of once alienated, now eager learners unlocking the mysteries of our sacred texts.
I personally owe a debt of gratitude to so many generations before me who have undermined authority figures to add benches to our houses of worship and study.
But you may be asking, why did they need to remove Rabban Gamliel as the head of the Yeshiva? Why had he kept out all of those seemingly eager learners?
The text explains,
:שֶׁהָיָה רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל מַכְרִיז וְאוֹמֵר
ׇּכל תַּלְמִיד שֶׁאֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ, לֹא יִכָּנֵס לְבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ
Rabban Gamliel used to say with conviction, that any student whose insides did not match their outsides could not enter the Beit Midrash.
Which is to say, he had a litmus test for who was welcome to come and study in the beit midrash and who was not.
Now, as a teacher of Torah, I try to stress the importance of having both a generous and a critical read of every text. So let's start with the generous read.
Perhaps Rabban Gamliel was looking for students whose actions aligned with their ideas, people with integrity. Isn't this what we are trying to do on Yom Kippur? To be the people on the inside that we purport to be on the outside. To align our thoughts and our actions to live lives of integrity.
And yet, every time I read this line in the story, I feel alienated. As a trans person, I do not know what it would mean for my insides to match my outsides, but I do know that it is not how I feel or move through the world.
I know so many of us hold complex layers of identity, some more visible than others, including experiences of immigration, ethnicity and trauma, chronic illness, anxiety, and depression, which permeate and define our internal experience. We are wrestling with our insides. Hurting and healing. And longing to feel safe and at home in this world.
What would it even mean for our insides to match our outsides? And who would be the judge of that?
We are a community that keeps adding rows upon rows of benches to people of all stripes, including those of us who have previously been kept out of religious communities. Including those of us who have felt unable to bring our full selves into Jewish community.
I am especially grateful for the pillars of this community who have built this ever-expanding spiritual home. This story is an invitation for all of us to see ourselves as insiders to Jewish tradition.
This is not an easy transformation.
I am not sure if Rabban Gamliel would have welcomed us into his house of study. But we don't have to wonder. Because our sages decided thousands of years ago that this could not be the sole rubric by which to measure belonging.
It is as if the Sages of the Talmud are reaching across thousands of years and many generations to say to us tonight, "You are welcome here just as you are."
The sentiment of these words is not just captured in this story, nor is it limited to the house of study. It actually is a refrain in Jewish prayer as well.
If you turn to page 148, you will see that every morning as we prepare to say the Shema, whether on Shabbat, Yom Kippur or a random weekday, we invoke the great expansive love of the Holy One - Ahavah Rabah. And in it we sing,
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Lo neivosh, v'lo nicalem, v'lo nikashel, l'olam va'ed
That we should not feel shame, or humiliation or falter because of who we are...
This is a core teaching in Jewish prayer. That we should not be ashamed of ourselves. That we are welcome and loved as we are.
It is not an accident that we find this sentiment as we prepare for a moment of collective unity embedded in the Shema.
I honestly feel teary when we sing these words at B'nei Mitzvah. As I think about each of the young Jewish adults finding their way in the world. That they should not feel ashamed or embarrassed to be Jewish, to be who they are on so many levels. At such a fragile and formative time in their lives.
I remember my own B'nei Mitzvah, my own awkward, closeted, teenage self, feeling so much shame and fear about the person I was becoming. I am abundantly grateful to my teachers and rabbis, especially Rabbi Karen Bender, who was in the first generation of Lesbian rabbis. Her presence made me feel at home in the walls of my synagogue from such a young age. There is no doubt I am a rabbi at least in part because of her.
I can remember like it was yesterday sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts with my fellow youth group presidents planning the annual Purim carnival. That might have been my first synagogue committee! It is not a coincidence that several of us went on to become queer rabbis.
But it is not just a core Jewish tenet that we shouldn't feel shame for who we are. The rabbis also stress that we also shouldn't bring shame upon each other.
In fact, when they define what it means for a person to cause another person harm, they actually articulate five categories of harm:
:החובל בחבירו חייב עליו משום חמשה דברים
:בנזק בצער בריפוי בשבת ובושת
When a person injures another person, they are responsible to compensate them for five types of harm:
for physical damages, for pain, for medical costs, for a loss of livelihood (aka sick time), and for humiliation. [3]
The first four types of harm are relatively concrete. There is some way to measure them, even if it is subjective. As the one who caused injury, you are responsible for the actual damage, for the pain a person experiences as a result of the harm, for doctors' bills and the time the injured party couldn't work.
For each of these four kinds of harm, the rabbis ask, "How is the damage assessed?" In other words, how does one know how much they owe, if they cause injury to another? And then they spend many pages figuring that out.
But the fifth type of harm is boshet, which means humiliation or shame. To shame someone is to cause them harm.
It is an emotional consequence that is understood by our Sages to be worthy of compensation. But it is much harder to assess than the other categories.
The Mishnah states,
:בושת
:הכל לפי המבייש והמתבייש
How is payment for humiliation assessed?
It all depends on the one who humiliates and the one who is humiliated.
Which is to say, it is entirely personal and subjective. But no less real.
The rabbis take shame very seriously. They even articulate the difference between shame caused by an action or a physical injury and shame that is caused by words. Shame that is caused by words falls into the category of harm called Ona'at Devarim - literally, the harm we cause with our words.
There are all sorts of wise and practical teachings that emerge here.
If you are perusing in a shop, don't ask the merchant how much something costs unless you really might buy it.
Which is to say, don’t get their hopes up and then disappoint them.
If a person has done Teshuva for something they did wrong, don't remind them, "Hey, remember when you did such and such thing...?"
Which is to say, we should not remind people of their past wrongdoings, because they're in a process of growing and changing. Which is, after all, why we are here tonight!
If a person is the child of someone who converted to Judaism, don't invoke their ancestors in order to out their parents' status as people who converted to Judaism.
Which is to say, don't bring up sensitive truths about other people without their consent.
The Talmud even warns against calling someone by a derogatory nickname, even if they consent to it, lest we reinforce the shame and pain that a person has become accustomed to and underestimate the unconscious, psychic, and spiritual impact.
What I love about these examples is how different they are from each other. And yet how relatable. There are so many subtle and common ways that we cause each other harm through our words. B'zadon or bish'gaga. Whether on purpose or by accident.
This is something I have learned I need to be extra mindful of.
As an extrovert, I am likely to share something about a friend, or my partner, or one of my kids, that they would actually have kept private. I have learned how humiliating this can be. I often do this to connect in conversation but end up causing someone I love harm.
The rabbis explain that when we harm each other with words, it actually impacts our entire beings and our bodies. If we steal money, we can always return it. But it is much harder to actually repair the harm we cause each other with our words. [4]
This is why so much of the collective Viddui on Yom Kippur is actually about the impact of our words and speech.
Al chet shehatanu le'fanecha, b'dibur peh.
For the wrong we have done before you through the words we speak.
V'al chet shehatanu lefancha, b'lashon harah.
And for the wrong we have done before you through harmful speech.
The rabbis feel so strongly about how much harm we can cause each other with our words that they even go so far as to say that to humiliate a person in public is akin to murder.
כל המלבין פני חבירו ברבים, כאילו שופך דמים
Quoting, "Any person who humiliates another in public, it is as if they spilled their blood."
They explain that when a person is humiliated they tend to blush, growing red in the cheeks. But then the red leaves their face and they turn white with embarrassment; it is as though you spilled their blood, because it drains from their face.
Not only that, but for the rabbis, to insult a person in public or call them a derogatory name was the same as humiliation.
And lest we think it's just with our words, we can cause such harm with our body language, our eye rolls, our social media reactions, even our emojis that roll their eyes.
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
We are at once reminded to not feel ashamed of who we are and to not cause others shame.
We are invited to be who we are and to create a space where we can each be who we are together.
To quote the poet and disability justice activist Laura Hershey, "You get proud by practicing":
If you are not proud
For who you are, for what you say, for how you look;
If every time you stop
To think of yourself, you do not see yourself glowing
With golden light; do not, therefore, give up on yourself.
You can get proud.
You do not need
A better body, a purer spirit, or a Ph.D.
To be proud.
You do not need
A lot of money, a handsome boyfriend, or a nice car.
You do not need
To be able to walk, or see, or hear,
Or use big, complicated words,
Or do any of those things that you just can't do
To be proud. A caseworker
Cannot make you proud,
Or a doctor.
You only need more practice.
You get proud by practicing.
And our liturgy actually invites us to practice as well.
In the same series of blessings leading up to the Shema, there is a preliminary Kedusha that Rabbi Mó and I have been studying all year together. It was a section that we have historically skipped on Shabbat mornings to conserve time. But this year we decided we needed the practice.
The prayer describes the angels singing in awestruck unison,
וְכֻלָּם מְקַבְּ֒לִים עֲלֵיהֶם עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַֽיִם זֶה מִזֶּה, וְנוֹתְ֒נִים בְּאַהֲבָה רְשׁוּת זֶה לָזֶה
And they all take it upon themselves to find a way into relationship with the Divine. And then they all lovingly give each other permission to do the same.
Which is to say, the angels are trying to create a sacred community where they can connect to each other and to God.
We remind ourselves of this every time we say the Shema, so that we too can create the kind of community where we lovingly give each other permission to be our full selves and to know God.
This requires so much care, so much bravery, so much mindfulness.
The Rabban Gamliel story also allows us to have some compassion for ourselves. The Talmud says that on that day, they figured out all the existing thorny halakhic issues. But you have to imagine that adding 700 benches in one fell swoop meant they had a whole bunch of new stuff to figure out. Opening the doors means that the community includes new perspectives, experiences, and situations that it hasn't dealt with before. There are going to be great discoveries and innovations and also bumps in the road.
As the benches of this community keep growing, I have learned that it is not enough to just throw open the doors and undo the decree of Rabban Gamliel. It may not be that our insides need to match our outsides. But we do need a shared rubric for how we understand ourselves and relate to one another.
It is sweet to imagine that in the yeshiva shel'mata, here in the earthly realm, we say to each other, "You are welcome here exactly as you are." And in the yeshiva shel'mala, in the heavenly realm, the angels say it to one another.
This Yom Kippur, I invite us to get a little closer to that heavenly reciprocity.
The story of Rabban Gamliel is an invitation to see ourselves as insiders. And with this shift in self-perception comes an important shift in responsibility. We are each powerful and important members of this community. Our presence, our actions, and our words have the power to lovingly give each other permission and the power to cause harm and shame.
וְכֻלָּם מְקַבְּ֒לִים עֲלֵיהֶם זה לזה
As a community, we are taking responsibility and inviting each other to practice new ways of being.
Which is why this past June, after three years of community conversation and process, we adopted a community brit which articulates shared values for how we want to be in community with one another. You can find it at www.kol-tzedek.org/values.
It begins, "How we relate to one another and embody our values is the foundation of transformation for ourselves and the world."
The ten values that follow are meant to support us individually and collectively in ways that will encourage our shared dignity and protect us from shame and disgrace.
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
There is no sense that any of us individually or that we collectively are perfect. That is not what it means to welcome each other fully. We are instead invited to bring our full imperfect, evolving, growing, awakening selves to this community. There is comfort and discomfort in this way of being together.
Yom Kippur is an important support system for creating this kind of sacred community. The very fact that we need to do teshuva is not intended to cause shame, though it often does. It is part of what it means to be human. In the words of Brene Brown, "Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change."
Yom Kippur is not a giant shame spiral. It is a safety net. It is the antidote to shame. It is meant to unstuck us.
This Yom Kippur we are inviting each other in, and giving each other permission to be fully human, to be open to change, to be willing to forgive and apologize as a way to begin again together.
Sebene Selassie, a self-identified nerdy Black Immigrant Tomboy Buddhist Weirdo, wrote a new book entitled "You Belong." In it she writes, "Belonging happens through the body...When we feel belonging, there's an ease that is palpable, like feeling a deep exhale or the release of vigilance" (71, 96).
As we prepare to recite the prayers of forgiveness, in which we will call out collectively the ways we have missed the mark, I want to invite you to take a moment to close your eyes and connect to your body.
To breathe deeply and exhale slowly.
To remember that you were made in the Image of the Divine.
And to send the message that you belong to every cell in your body.
To release your vigilance.
May we have the courage and the compassion to give each other permission to be fully human, to celebrate our insides and our outsides, and to protect each other and ourselves from shame and disgrace.
Gmar Hatimah Tova! May we be sealed for a year of life and goodness.
[1] With tremendous gratitude to my editors Steve Cohen, Elsie Stern, and Shosh Ruskin. To my hevrutas Rabbi Avi Killip and Rabbi Mónica Gomery. And to my teachers Rabbi Jane Kanarek, Rabbi Shayna Rhodes, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and Rabbi Benay Lappe.
[2] See B.T. Brachot 28a.
[3] Mishnah Nezikin, 8:1. B.T. Bava Kamma 83b.
[4] See B.T. Bava Metzia 58b: "ויראת מאלהיך ור' אלעזר אומר זה בגופו וזה בממונו רבי שמואל בר נחמני אמר זה ניתן להישבון וזה לא ניתן להישבון"
October 4, 2022
View the video here.
You are welcome here. Just as you are.
Of the many words that I speak throughout the Days of Awe, and by the end I will have spoken a lot of words, I think the words I just spoke are the most important and sometimes the most difficult to hear. And they are not words that are unique to the Days of Awe or even Yom Kippur. They are words that I say almost every time we gather as a community.
Sometimes I fear I sound like a broken record. But every time I say it, I really mean it. And I know that there may be someone new in the room, for whom it is their first time hearing these words. And I also know that many of us need to hear them over and over again, and for many of us it is hard to believe that one could be welcomed in a religious and spiritual community just as they are.
You are welcome here. Just as you are.
I am also aware how risky these words are because they have the potential to communicate a universal welcome, as though there are no boundaries or shared commitments that define our community. Which is not the case.
But I keep saying them because these words are attempting to communicate a kind of belonging that so many of us long for but have not or do not feel.
For so many of us this goes against both the direct and indirect messages we received in our formative years. Not just in religious spaces. But in our lives at large. And I imagine that even as I speak these words, some people are thinking that parts of them are exempt from this radical welcome. I assure you, that is not the case. But I can begin to imagine why you would feel that way.
I am not by nature a joiner. I am generally not good at going with the flow. I don't like sleep-overs unless it's a very familiar place. I am forever trying to be more flexible and easy going. To trust that I will be able to get my needs met in any given situation. I am not good at traveling to places I haven't been before. To trust that if I show up somewhere I will feel seen and safe in my body. I am forever shedding my childhood identity of being "the difficult" child.
And yet I feel called to extend this radical welcome to you, over and over again, because being part of the Kol Tzedek community is one of my most important spiritual practices. It has taught me how vulnerable, how risky, and how healing joining is. What holds us back is often directly correlated to the many layers of identities we each hold that may not be easily seen, appreciated, or respected in communal space. And I do not take that for granted.
But I also must credit my teacher, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who modeled this radical welcome when I was her student at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.
You are welcome here if you came alone or with your family.
If this is your first Yom Kippur or your 70th.
You are welcome here if you know the prayers or if you don't.
You are welcome here if you feel represented on the bima or if you don't.
You are welcome here if this is your first time at KT and if you come here every week.
I feel especially compelled to speak to this tonight, on this Kol Nidre, when we are our widest web, because this is a moment of not only personal transformation but also collective. We are, once again, reimagining and reconstituting ourselves. We are, for the first time, having truly hybrid Yamim Noraim services. Attempting to create community across time and space in important ways. This is a fragile and complicated moment to be a community and we need to be mindful of how we move forward together.
I want to begin tonight by sharing one of my most favorite stories from the Talmud. The story that most animates my rabbinate and now appears at the top of our community's vision statement.
It was taught that on the day that they removed Rabban Gamliel as head of the House of Study and appointed Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria in his place, permission was granted for all of the students who wanted to enter...
Bo bayom, on that very day hundreds of benches were added...
some say 300, some say 700... [2]
Ever since I learned this text, I have remained captivated by the image of rows upon rows of once alienated, now eager learners unlocking the mysteries of our sacred texts.
I personally owe a debt of gratitude to so many generations before me who have undermined authority figures to add benches to our houses of worship and study.
But you may be asking, why did they need to remove Rabban Gamliel as the head of the Yeshiva? Why had he kept out all of those seemingly eager learners?
The text explains,
:שֶׁהָיָה רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל מַכְרִיז וְאוֹמֵר
ׇּכל תַּלְמִיד שֶׁאֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ, לֹא יִכָּנֵס לְבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ
Rabban Gamliel used to say with conviction, that any student whose insides did not match their outsides could not enter the Beit Midrash.
Which is to say, he had a litmus test for who was welcome to come and study in the beit midrash and who was not.
Now, as a teacher of Torah, I try to stress the importance of having both a generous and a critical read of every text. So let's start with the generous read.
Perhaps Rabban Gamliel was looking for students whose actions aligned with their ideas, people with integrity. Isn't this what we are trying to do on Yom Kippur? To be the people on the inside that we purport to be on the outside. To align our thoughts and our actions to live lives of integrity.
And yet, every time I read this line in the story, I feel alienated. As a trans person, I do not know what it would mean for my insides to match my outsides, but I do know that it is not how I feel or move through the world.
I know so many of us hold complex layers of identity, some more visible than others, including experiences of immigration, ethnicity and trauma, chronic illness, anxiety, and depression, which permeate and define our internal experience. We are wrestling with our insides. Hurting and healing. And longing to feel safe and at home in this world.
What would it even mean for our insides to match our outsides? And who would be the judge of that?
We are a community that keeps adding rows upon rows of benches to people of all stripes, including those of us who have previously been kept out of religious communities. Including those of us who have felt unable to bring our full selves into Jewish community.
I am especially grateful for the pillars of this community who have built this ever-expanding spiritual home. This story is an invitation for all of us to see ourselves as insiders to Jewish tradition.
This is not an easy transformation.
I am not sure if Rabban Gamliel would have welcomed us into his house of study. But we don't have to wonder. Because our sages decided thousands of years ago that this could not be the sole rubric by which to measure belonging.
It is as if the Sages of the Talmud are reaching across thousands of years and many generations to say to us tonight, "You are welcome here just as you are."
The sentiment of these words is not just captured in this story, nor is it limited to the house of study. It actually is a refrain in Jewish prayer as well.
If you turn to page 148, you will see that every morning as we prepare to say the Shema, whether on Shabbat, Yom Kippur or a random weekday, we invoke the great expansive love of the Holy One - Ahavah Rabah. And in it we sing,
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Lo neivosh, v'lo nicalem, v'lo nikashel, l'olam va'ed
That we should not feel shame, or humiliation or falter because of who we are...
This is a core teaching in Jewish prayer. That we should not be ashamed of ourselves. That we are welcome and loved as we are.
It is not an accident that we find this sentiment as we prepare for a moment of collective unity embedded in the Shema.
I honestly feel teary when we sing these words at B'nei Mitzvah. As I think about each of the young Jewish adults finding their way in the world. That they should not feel ashamed or embarrassed to be Jewish, to be who they are on so many levels. At such a fragile and formative time in their lives.
I remember my own B'nei Mitzvah, my own awkward, closeted, teenage self, feeling so much shame and fear about the person I was becoming. I am abundantly grateful to my teachers and rabbis, especially Rabbi Karen Bender, who was in the first generation of Lesbian rabbis. Her presence made me feel at home in the walls of my synagogue from such a young age. There is no doubt I am a rabbi at least in part because of her.
I can remember like it was yesterday sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts with my fellow youth group presidents planning the annual Purim carnival. That might have been my first synagogue committee! It is not a coincidence that several of us went on to become queer rabbis.
But it is not just a core Jewish tenet that we shouldn't feel shame for who we are. The rabbis also stress that we also shouldn't bring shame upon each other.
In fact, when they define what it means for a person to cause another person harm, they actually articulate five categories of harm:
:החובל בחבירו חייב עליו משום חמשה דברים
:בנזק בצער בריפוי בשבת ובושת
When a person injures another person, they are responsible to compensate them for five types of harm:
for physical damages, for pain, for medical costs, for a loss of livelihood (aka sick time), and for humiliation. [3]
The first four types of harm are relatively concrete. There is some way to measure them, even if it is subjective. As the one who caused injury, you are responsible for the actual damage, for the pain a person experiences as a result of the harm, for doctors' bills and the time the injured party couldn't work.
For each of these four kinds of harm, the rabbis ask, "How is the damage assessed?" In other words, how does one know how much they owe, if they cause injury to another? And then they spend many pages figuring that out.
But the fifth type of harm is boshet, which means humiliation or shame. To shame someone is to cause them harm.
It is an emotional consequence that is understood by our Sages to be worthy of compensation. But it is much harder to assess than the other categories.
The Mishnah states,
:בושת
:הכל לפי המבייש והמתבייש
How is payment for humiliation assessed?
It all depends on the one who humiliates and the one who is humiliated.
Which is to say, it is entirely personal and subjective. But no less real.
The rabbis take shame very seriously. They even articulate the difference between shame caused by an action or a physical injury and shame that is caused by words. Shame that is caused by words falls into the category of harm called Ona'at Devarim - literally, the harm we cause with our words.
There are all sorts of wise and practical teachings that emerge here.
If you are perusing in a shop, don't ask the merchant how much something costs unless you really might buy it.
Which is to say, don’t get their hopes up and then disappoint them.
If a person has done Teshuva for something they did wrong, don't remind them, "Hey, remember when you did such and such thing...?"
Which is to say, we should not remind people of their past wrongdoings, because they're in a process of growing and changing. Which is, after all, why we are here tonight!
If a person is the child of someone who converted to Judaism, don't invoke their ancestors in order to out their parents' status as people who converted to Judaism.
Which is to say, don't bring up sensitive truths about other people without their consent.
The Talmud even warns against calling someone by a derogatory nickname, even if they consent to it, lest we reinforce the shame and pain that a person has become accustomed to and underestimate the unconscious, psychic, and spiritual impact.
What I love about these examples is how different they are from each other. And yet how relatable. There are so many subtle and common ways that we cause each other harm through our words. B'zadon or bish'gaga. Whether on purpose or by accident.
This is something I have learned I need to be extra mindful of.
As an extrovert, I am likely to share something about a friend, or my partner, or one of my kids, that they would actually have kept private. I have learned how humiliating this can be. I often do this to connect in conversation but end up causing someone I love harm.
The rabbis explain that when we harm each other with words, it actually impacts our entire beings and our bodies. If we steal money, we can always return it. But it is much harder to actually repair the harm we cause each other with our words. [4]
This is why so much of the collective Viddui on Yom Kippur is actually about the impact of our words and speech.
Al chet shehatanu le'fanecha, b'dibur peh.
For the wrong we have done before you through the words we speak.
V'al chet shehatanu lefancha, b'lashon harah.
And for the wrong we have done before you through harmful speech.
The rabbis feel so strongly about how much harm we can cause each other with our words that they even go so far as to say that to humiliate a person in public is akin to murder.
כל המלבין פני חבירו ברבים, כאילו שופך דמים
Quoting, "Any person who humiliates another in public, it is as if they spilled their blood."
They explain that when a person is humiliated they tend to blush, growing red in the cheeks. But then the red leaves their face and they turn white with embarrassment; it is as though you spilled their blood, because it drains from their face.
Not only that, but for the rabbis, to insult a person in public or call them a derogatory name was the same as humiliation.
And lest we think it's just with our words, we can cause such harm with our body language, our eye rolls, our social media reactions, even our emojis that roll their eyes.
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
We are at once reminded to not feel ashamed of who we are and to not cause others shame.
We are invited to be who we are and to create a space where we can each be who we are together.
To quote the poet and disability justice activist Laura Hershey, "You get proud by practicing":
If you are not proud
For who you are, for what you say, for how you look;
If every time you stop
To think of yourself, you do not see yourself glowing
With golden light; do not, therefore, give up on yourself.
You can get proud.
You do not need
A better body, a purer spirit, or a Ph.D.
To be proud.
You do not need
A lot of money, a handsome boyfriend, or a nice car.
You do not need
To be able to walk, or see, or hear,
Or use big, complicated words,
Or do any of those things that you just can't do
To be proud. A caseworker
Cannot make you proud,
Or a doctor.
You only need more practice.
You get proud by practicing.
And our liturgy actually invites us to practice as well.
In the same series of blessings leading up to the Shema, there is a preliminary Kedusha that Rabbi Mó and I have been studying all year together. It was a section that we have historically skipped on Shabbat mornings to conserve time. But this year we decided we needed the practice.
The prayer describes the angels singing in awestruck unison,
וְכֻלָּם מְקַבְּ֒לִים עֲלֵיהֶם עֹל מַלְכוּת שָׁמַֽיִם זֶה מִזֶּה, וְנוֹתְ֒נִים בְּאַהֲבָה רְשׁוּת זֶה לָזֶה
And they all take it upon themselves to find a way into relationship with the Divine. And then they all lovingly give each other permission to do the same.
Which is to say, the angels are trying to create a sacred community where they can connect to each other and to God.
We remind ourselves of this every time we say the Shema, so that we too can create the kind of community where we lovingly give each other permission to be our full selves and to know God.
This requires so much care, so much bravery, so much mindfulness.
The Rabban Gamliel story also allows us to have some compassion for ourselves. The Talmud says that on that day, they figured out all the existing thorny halakhic issues. But you have to imagine that adding 700 benches in one fell swoop meant they had a whole bunch of new stuff to figure out. Opening the doors means that the community includes new perspectives, experiences, and situations that it hasn't dealt with before. There are going to be great discoveries and innovations and also bumps in the road.
As the benches of this community keep growing, I have learned that it is not enough to just throw open the doors and undo the decree of Rabban Gamliel. It may not be that our insides need to match our outsides. But we do need a shared rubric for how we understand ourselves and relate to one another.
It is sweet to imagine that in the yeshiva shel'mata, here in the earthly realm, we say to each other, "You are welcome here exactly as you are." And in the yeshiva shel'mala, in the heavenly realm, the angels say it to one another.
This Yom Kippur, I invite us to get a little closer to that heavenly reciprocity.
The story of Rabban Gamliel is an invitation to see ourselves as insiders. And with this shift in self-perception comes an important shift in responsibility. We are each powerful and important members of this community. Our presence, our actions, and our words have the power to lovingly give each other permission and the power to cause harm and shame.
וְכֻלָּם מְקַבְּ֒לִים עֲלֵיהֶם זה לזה
As a community, we are taking responsibility and inviting each other to practice new ways of being.
Which is why this past June, after three years of community conversation and process, we adopted a community brit which articulates shared values for how we want to be in community with one another. You can find it at www.kol-tzedek.org/values.
It begins, "How we relate to one another and embody our values is the foundation of transformation for ourselves and the world."
The ten values that follow are meant to support us individually and collectively in ways that will encourage our shared dignity and protect us from shame and disgrace.
לֹא נֵבוֹשׁ וְלֹא נִכָּלֵם וְלֹא נִכָּשֵׁל לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
There is no sense that any of us individually or that we collectively are perfect. That is not what it means to welcome each other fully. We are instead invited to bring our full imperfect, evolving, growing, awakening selves to this community. There is comfort and discomfort in this way of being together.
Yom Kippur is an important support system for creating this kind of sacred community. The very fact that we need to do teshuva is not intended to cause shame, though it often does. It is part of what it means to be human. In the words of Brene Brown, "Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change."
Yom Kippur is not a giant shame spiral. It is a safety net. It is the antidote to shame. It is meant to unstuck us.
This Yom Kippur we are inviting each other in, and giving each other permission to be fully human, to be open to change, to be willing to forgive and apologize as a way to begin again together.
Sebene Selassie, a self-identified nerdy Black Immigrant Tomboy Buddhist Weirdo, wrote a new book entitled "You Belong." In it she writes, "Belonging happens through the body...When we feel belonging, there's an ease that is palpable, like feeling a deep exhale or the release of vigilance" (71, 96).
As we prepare to recite the prayers of forgiveness, in which we will call out collectively the ways we have missed the mark, I want to invite you to take a moment to close your eyes and connect to your body.
To breathe deeply and exhale slowly.
To remember that you were made in the Image of the Divine.
And to send the message that you belong to every cell in your body.
To release your vigilance.
May we have the courage and the compassion to give each other permission to be fully human, to celebrate our insides and our outsides, and to protect each other and ourselves from shame and disgrace.
Gmar Hatimah Tova! May we be sealed for a year of life and goodness.
[1] With tremendous gratitude to my editors Steve Cohen, Elsie Stern, and Shosh Ruskin. To my hevrutas Rabbi Avi Killip and Rabbi Mónica Gomery. And to my teachers Rabbi Jane Kanarek, Rabbi Shayna Rhodes, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and Rabbi Benay Lappe.
[2] See B.T. Brachot 28a.
[3] Mishnah Nezikin, 8:1. B.T. Bava Kamma 83b.
[4] See B.T. Bava Metzia 58b: "ויראת מאלהיך ור' אלעזר אומר זה בגופו וזה בממונו רבי שמואל בר נחמני אמר זה ניתן להישבון וזה לא ניתן להישבון"