 | The High Holy Days – the Season of Meaning, the timeless Jewish call to repentance and repair. Rosh Hashanah and especially Yom Kippur always come too soon: we're never quite ready. We might even spend the summer in denial. What came of last year's vows – the promises we made to ourselves and each other, our commitment that this time we'd be different? Inner walls have a way of regrowing and old habits die hard. Naturally we develop amnesia ... ... that is, until something reminds us. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Matot-Masei 5784 (2024)
Click here for last year's D'var Torah on this portion.
It's happening. Local sunsets are 20 minutes earlier than at June's summer solstice. By August's end, sunset will come an hour earlier: each day will have two hours less daylight.
Rosh Hashanah won't be until early October, but already first hints are here. Noticeably shortening days are one of them. Our Repentance and Repair series will begin August 13. (Register now!) And this week's Torah portion opens with a first hint of the upcoming Season of Meaning that's anything but subtle (Numbers 30:2-3):
Matot-Masei 5784 (2024)
Click here for last year's D'var Torah on this portion.
It's happening. Local sunsets are 20 minutes earlier than at June's summer solstice. By August's end, sunset will come an hour earlier: each day will have two hours less daylight.
Rosh Hashanah won't be until early October, but already first hints are here. Noticeably shortening days are one of them. Our Repentance and Repair series will begin August 13. (Register now!) And this week's Torah portion opens with a first hint of the upcoming Season of Meaning that's anything but subtle (Numbers 30:2-3):
| וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־רָאשֵׁ֣י הַמַּטּ֔וֹת לִבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר זֶ֣ה הַדָּבָ֔ר אֲשֶׁ֖ר צִוָּ֥ה יהו''ה׃ אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לַיהו''ה אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ כְּכָּל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃ | Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of Israel, saying: "This is the matter YHVH commanded: If one makes a vow to YHVH or binds their soul by oath, they must not breach their word: they must do all that crossed their lips." |
The phrase makes a vow (יִדֹּר נֶדֶר / yidor neder) aims at Kol Nidre ("all vows") – Yom Kippur's pinnacle ritual of atonement. Here it is, plain as day: our first hint at what's to come.
In honest moments that maybe feel too soon, we begin to ask: What came of our promises from last year's High Holy Days? What happened to our commitments that this year we'd be different, that we'd shift old behaviors and lay aside old resentments? What came of our most open, resilient and forgiving hearts?
Inner walls have ways of regrowing: old ways resist change even in the best of times. That's why tradition gives us another chance, and another. Whatever we did or didn't do, it's our best efforts to seek repentance and repair – passionately, urgently, as if we and the whole world depend on it – that are most precious and transformative.
So why doesn't Torah say so here? Why does Torah instead insist that we must keep our vows, without qualification or exception?
In honest moments that maybe feel too soon, we begin to ask: What came of our promises from last year's High Holy Days? What happened to our commitments that this year we'd be different, that we'd shift old behaviors and lay aside old resentments? What came of our most open, resilient and forgiving hearts?
Inner walls have ways of regrowing: old ways resist change even in the best of times. That's why tradition gives us another chance, and another. Whatever we did or didn't do, it's our best efforts to seek repentance and repair – passionately, urgently, as if we and the whole world depend on it – that are most precious and transformative.
So why doesn't Torah say so here? Why does Torah instead insist that we must keep our vows, without qualification or exception?
As to vows we make to ourselves and God but were unable to keep, Kol Nidre remits them by deeming them not to be vows at all. Kol Nidre doesn't nullify our vows to others: it's about us and the Sacred. It honors the Jewish truth that souls are pure and hearts must be freed of guilt so we can become our best selves. It also recognizes that circumstances beyond our control can hinder us from keeping our promises and living by our brightest lights.
This truths wend through Torah's next words of this week's portion. After insisting that we keep our vows, Torah continues (Numbers 30:4): וְאִשָּׁ֕ה כִּֽי־תִדֹּ֥ר נֶ֖דֶר ליהו''ה וְאָסְרָ֥ה אִסָּ֛ר / "If a woman makes a vow to YHVH or takes an oath," then Torah proceeds to subjugate women's oaths to their fathers and husbands (Numbers 30:5-15).
Huh?
Context matters here. In the 1300s BCE, Israelite women made vows and contracts, and were responsible for them, equally with men. It was a radical Jewish advance of "women's lib" given Mideast cultures of that era, but equality needed time to fully manifest. Mideast life was patriarchal: power was vested in fathers (for women never married) and husbands (for married women), and pretending otherwise would be pointless. So as a first step to transform the patriarchy, Torah continued male power to block a woman's vow but strictly limited this power to the first day the man heard of it, then absolved women if men inhibited them.
This truths wend through Torah's next words of this week's portion. After insisting that we keep our vows, Torah continues (Numbers 30:4): וְאִשָּׁ֕ה כִּֽי־תִדֹּ֥ר נֶ֖דֶר ליהו''ה וְאָסְרָ֥ה אִסָּ֛ר / "If a woman makes a vow to YHVH or takes an oath," then Torah proceeds to subjugate women's oaths to their fathers and husbands (Numbers 30:5-15).
Huh?
Context matters here. In the 1300s BCE, Israelite women made vows and contracts, and were responsible for them, equally with men. It was a radical Jewish advance of "women's lib" given Mideast cultures of that era, but equality needed time to fully manifest. Mideast life was patriarchal: power was vested in fathers (for women never married) and husbands (for married women), and pretending otherwise would be pointless. So as a first step to transform the patriarchy, Torah continued male power to block a woman's vow but strictly limited this power to the first day the man heard of it, then absolved women if men inhibited them.
It was an imperfect first step, but just Judaism's first of many to transform patriarchy. Today we still have ways to go: there's still misogyny and gender bias to transform. So how should we respond to Torah's gender-biased words, and what could they possibly have to do with the call of the season ahead?
Today I receive Torah's gendered words more in terms of power than gender itself. Torah's deep focus here isn't really about gender, but an external force overpowering our agency to keep promises and become our best selves.
We live in an unhinged time. Rage politics, corruption, natural disasters, wars, bigotry, hate, isolation, fear, trauma and other mental health challenges all swirl around. Sometimes these external forces overpower us. They can leave us feeling small, weak, pessimistic, detached or defeated. Our very hearts whose openness and sensitivity we need to become our best selves are, by design and necessity, also vulnerable to the slings and arrows of unhinged times. Try as we might to rise above them, sometimes we come up short.
It's easy (maybe too easy) to blame unhinged times for the times we fall short. How much this unhinged year pulled us from our best selves – and whether we tried our best anyway – are questions for discernment between us and conscience, between us and the Sacred.
As the High Holy Days come into view on the distant horizon, Torah's timely point, I'd offer, is that we should go both hard and easy on ourselves. It's time to begin turning deeply within, to ask hard questions and hold ourselves accountable. But as we do, in this unhinged year, maybe Torah also asks us to note the external forces that overpowered us – ones that maybe inhibited our best selves and heisted our agency to fully keep our commitments.
If we're reticent to do so, we might take a cue from social psychologists. The fundamental attribution error we tend to make about behaviors is to under-emphasize the circumstances and instead "attribute" behavior to character only. Turns out that all of us are products of our circumstances as well as our character and choices.
So maybe we can extend ourselves grace and understanding that this unhinged year has been what it was – full of beauty and promise, and also full of tumult. And if so for us, then so too for others who hurt or disappointed us. This unhinged year was unhinged also for them. Maybe we can extend to others the grace and understanding that we crave for ourselves.
Perhaps this inward turn, and this nuanced approach, can help us pivot from a year unhinged to a new year just waiting to be redeemed. Our hearts and souls, our relationships and community, our nation and our world all hang in the balance.
May this season of slow turning be blessed with grace and wisdom, love and truth, repentance and repair. Here we go.
Today I receive Torah's gendered words more in terms of power than gender itself. Torah's deep focus here isn't really about gender, but an external force overpowering our agency to keep promises and become our best selves.
We live in an unhinged time. Rage politics, corruption, natural disasters, wars, bigotry, hate, isolation, fear, trauma and other mental health challenges all swirl around. Sometimes these external forces overpower us. They can leave us feeling small, weak, pessimistic, detached or defeated. Our very hearts whose openness and sensitivity we need to become our best selves are, by design and necessity, also vulnerable to the slings and arrows of unhinged times. Try as we might to rise above them, sometimes we come up short.
It's easy (maybe too easy) to blame unhinged times for the times we fall short. How much this unhinged year pulled us from our best selves – and whether we tried our best anyway – are questions for discernment between us and conscience, between us and the Sacred.
As the High Holy Days come into view on the distant horizon, Torah's timely point, I'd offer, is that we should go both hard and easy on ourselves. It's time to begin turning deeply within, to ask hard questions and hold ourselves accountable. But as we do, in this unhinged year, maybe Torah also asks us to note the external forces that overpowered us – ones that maybe inhibited our best selves and heisted our agency to fully keep our commitments.
If we're reticent to do so, we might take a cue from social psychologists. The fundamental attribution error we tend to make about behaviors is to under-emphasize the circumstances and instead "attribute" behavior to character only. Turns out that all of us are products of our circumstances as well as our character and choices.
So maybe we can extend ourselves grace and understanding that this unhinged year has been what it was – full of beauty and promise, and also full of tumult. And if so for us, then so too for others who hurt or disappointed us. This unhinged year was unhinged also for them. Maybe we can extend to others the grace and understanding that we crave for ourselves.
Perhaps this inward turn, and this nuanced approach, can help us pivot from a year unhinged to a new year just waiting to be redeemed. Our hearts and souls, our relationships and community, our nation and our world all hang in the balance.
May this season of slow turning be blessed with grace and wisdom, love and truth, repentance and repair. Here we go.
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