October 6th: Erev Simchat Torah
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
The following is Rabbi Ostrich’s Kol Nidre sermon:
Though our focus today is on our sins, we are also urged to consider the sins of others. Sometimes, their sins do not affect us. We may read about them in the paper—or not, and, though we believe that sins should not happen, we do not feel the pain that they cause. Other times, however, we bear the brunt of others’ sins, and we do feel the pain. These can be communal sins and pain, or international sins and pain, or individual sins and pain. Such sins—and pain—often lead us to anger, and we can understand why King David wrote these verses.
From Psalm 92 (verse 12):
וַתַּבֵּט עֵינִי בְּשׁוּרָי בַּקָּמִים עָלַי מְרֵעִים תִּשְׁמַעְנָה אָזְנָי:
“I shall see the defeat of my foes, my ears shall hear of their downfall.”
From Psalm 104 (verse 35),
יִתַּמּוּ חַטָּאִים ׀ מִן־הָאָרֶץ וּרְשָׁעִים ׀ עוֹד אֵינָם...
“May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.”
Yes, the evil deserve their punishment, and we who are good often feel a kind of moral satisfaction when they get their rightful comeuppance. I have seldom, in my very fortunate life, come in contact with true evil, but I must admit a fascination with movies that pit the good guys against the bad guys. Think of all the action movies where evil must be confronted—and how we get drawn into the emotional intensity of the story. They always start with the bad guys being really, really bad—which is a dramatic set up for the final showdown. Often the good guys get battered terribly before they come back with a roar. There are so many examples with James Bond, Jean Claude Van Damme, Stephen Segal, and, of course, Sylvester Stallone, but the one final scene that stands out to me is in the 1986 film Cobra. In that final fight scene, a police detective played by Sylvester Stallone stands on a platform over a super cruel and murderous villain—a guy who has gone above and beyond in perpetrating evil and cruelty. The bad guy tries to shoot Stallone, but his bullet punctures a barrel of flammable liquid, and the oil splatters all over the villain. Stallone’s character, a man of few words, says, “You have the right to remain silent,” lights a match on the grip of his pistol, and drops it. I don’t think of myself as a cruel or vengeful person, but I’ve got to tell you, that moment is sweet. More than vengeful, it is morally cathartic. “May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.” (Psalm 104.35)
But, we are in synagogue now, and we are supposed to be considering sin and punishment and teshuvah—how we can become more godly. Is what happens in action films really the end for sinners for which we should pray?
Such is the discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 10a: “There were some hooligans in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood who caused him a great deal of anguish. Rabbi Meir prayed to God (to have mercy on them) that they should die. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Beruriah, said to him: What are you thinking? On what basis do you pray for the death of these hooligans? Is it the verse from Psalm 104, ‘Let sinners cease from the land’ (Psalms 104:35)? You are interpreting it to mean that the world would be better if the wicked were destroyed. But notice: it is not written, ‘Let sinners cease.’ It is written, ‘Let sins cease.’” She interprets the wordחַטָּאִים not as sinners, but as sins. She continues, “One should pray for an end to their transgressions, not for the death of the transgressors themselves. More proof comes from the end of the verse: 'And the wicked will be no more.’ If, ‘transgressions shall cease’ means the death of the evildoers, then they cannot fulfill the passage about ‘the wicked being no more—in other words, that they will be wicked no more. The only way that can happen is for them to repent from their evil. So, pray for God to have mercy on them, that they should repent. If they do repent, then the wicked will be no more because they will no longer be wicked.”
“Rabbi Meir saw that Beruriah was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented.”
Though we certainly want our sinfulness to be treated this way, there is something in us that lusts for the punishment of the wicked—other than us. Like we began, there is something to be said for David’s emotional poetry in Psalm 92.
וַתַּבֵּט עֵינִי בְּשׁוּרָי בַּקָּמִים עָלַי מְרֵעִים תִּשְׁמַעְנָה אָזְנָי:
“I shall see the defeat of my foes, my ears shall hear of their downfall.”
Our Tradition has for a long, long time realized this kind of elemental human desire, and it provides a text to help us reconsider our urges. When we read The Book of Jonah, we are tempted to focus on the storm and the giant fish—and I must admit that my favorite verse when I was a child was,
וַיָּקֵא אֶת־יוֹנָה אֶל־הַיַּבָּשָׁה:
“...the fish vomited him out upon dry land.” (Jonah 2.11)
However, the real message of the story is about how Jonah’s desire for Nineveh’s destruction is totally and shockingly inappropriate. Once he embarks on God’s mission and speaks prophecy, he looks forward to its fulfillment, which to him is the annihilation of Nineveh and its inhabitants. Why? Perhaps it is a matter of protecting his prophetic reputation. “When Jonah pronounces a Divine message, it is going to happen!” Or it could be a sense of self-righteousness in which the destruction of the evil-doers props up his own faith and theology. “If I am not allowed to sin, how can they get away with it?”
In any event, Jonah sits on the hill, gleefully looking forward to the imminent fire and brimstone, and, when it does not come, he is furious. He lashes out at God and infuses his temper tantrum with theology and a Biblical quotation:
“O Lord, isn’t this just what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish.
כִּי יָדַעְתִּי כִּי אַתָּה אֵל־חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
וְרַב־חֶסֶד וְנִחָם עַל־הָרָעָה:
For I know that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment.” (Jonah 4.2)
One would think that Jonah would be pleased that his prophetic message works, that the Ninevites listen to him. They all, including the animals, put on sackcloth and cover their heads with ashes. They fast and pray for forgiveness. They repent!
“God saw what they did, how they were turning back from their evil ways.
And God renounced the punishment planned to bring upon them,
and did not carry it out.” (Jonah 3.10)
One would think that Jonah would be satisfied. However, in a stunning but very human burst of anger, he evidences no compassion for the Ninevites. The Lord is astounded and disgusted at Jonah’s immaturity and callousness and sends the brutal east wind and the gourd in an attempt to get him to open up his moral eyes. Sadly, Jonah’s heart is closed, and finally the Lord states what Jonah and we all need to understand.
“Should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than
a 120,000 persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left,
and also much cattle?!” (Jonah 4.11)
The point is, as we read in Ezekiel (18.23) and our Machzor:
“Is it my desire that the wicked die?—says the Lord God. No!
It is rather that they turn from their evil ways and live.”
This is what God thinks about them—those sinners out beyond these synagogue walls, and this is what God thinks about us.
This desire for sinners to repent is one we should keep in mind as we approach the conflict and anger that often consume our political lives. Is the goal to destroy our opponents? Or is the goal to convince them that our path is the better way? Is the goal to identify our opponents as enemies and vanquish them? Or, is the goal to recognize them as human beings who are either incorrect or simply have different opinions?
In the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, the goal has not been to destroy the racists; it has been to show them that people of color are human beings who deserve respect and rights. In the ongoing fight against anti-Semitism, the goal has not been to destroy those with senseless prejudice and hatred but to guide them to wiser and more respectful thinking.
This attitude can also help guide us in dealing with cancel culture, in the “got’cha” dynamic that so frequently graces our public discourse. A public figure is caught saying or doing something inappropriate—often in the distant past, and they are smeared and vilified. Is our goal in Tikkun Olam/the Perfection of the World to find flaws in people’s past and to expel them from the body politic, or should the goal be to ascertain their current understanding and guide them to a more perfect appreciation of humanity in all of its diversity? Paraphrasing Ezekiel, we could say that our goal should not be the political or professional death of sinners but that they should repent, turning from their ignorant or prejudiced path and striving for godliness. Or, in the words of Beruriah, we should pray “for an end to their transgressions...” so that they can be “wicked no more.” If we believe in repentance and atonement, then we should believe in its possibility on days other than Yom Kippur and in places other than the synagogue.
What we should want—and what God wants—is not that sinners will cease but that sins will cease. If it is true for us, it should be true for our fellow human beings.