Yom Kippur is the annual day for atonement: for forgiving, being forgiven, and reuniting with God. This year my congregation, P’nai Or of Portland, chose an alternative  Torah reading for the Minchah (afternoon) service, from Shelach Lekha in the Book of Numbers/Bemidbar:

God said to Moses:  How long will this people disrespect Me, and how long will they not trust Me, despite all the signs I have made in their midst?  Let me strike them with the plague and disinherit them, and I will make you a greater and mightier nation than they.  Then Moses said to God: …Please forgive the sin of this people according to the greatness of Your kindness, and as You have carried this people from Egypt until now.  And God said:  I forgive, as you have spoken.  (Numbers/Bemidbar 14:11-12, 14:19-20)

I am pleased to post this thoughtful guest commentary that Chellema Qolus delivered  on Yom Kippur 5776 (2015).

 

by Chellema Qolus

Our Torah reading today is from the Book of Numbers, or Bamidbar. It’s the one where twelve scouts journey to check out the holy land. Ten come back and say “Oh no! It’s full of giants and scary stuff!” Two come back and say “It’s the land of milk and honey.”

Imagine you are God. You just gave your people some wonderful land. But instead of being grateful, 10 of 12 responses are “oooh no – it’s scary!” God in this case reacts like many of us often do when we feel unappreciated—God gets mad and says to Moses “Oh these people! I’m done with them! Forget it, I’ve changed my mind – I’m not going to play with them anymore!”

This happened before – when the Israelites made the golden calf God said the same thing. And who talked God out if it? Moses. Moses does a repeat performance here. Moses says “You promised—it’ll look bad if you go back on your promise. Come on, please? Forgive your people.”

Now, how is it that the all-knowing omniscient Infinite Oneness makes an agreement, gets mad, wants to break that agreement and then is convinced to keep it? I mean, if God knows everything that’s going to happen, how does this make sense?

God is infinite. All possibilities exist. God makes light and dark, good and evil. How this plays out at this level has a lot to do with us. If we are made in the image of God, then our portrayal of God in the Torah is also a reflection of us. Our relationship with God is a participatory process. That means we have to make the case, like Moses did, that forgiveness is included in the covenant.

If you look at the stories in Torah – the golden calf, the scouts, pretty much every story, people are breaking promises or betraying trusts right, left and sideways – EVERYONE!   Even Moses literally breaks the tablets of the covenant when he comes down from the mountain and sees the people dancing around the golden calf.

Here’s the thing. We ALL break our promises. We ALL betray trusts. We ALL hurt each other whether we mean to or not. That’s the way the world is. That’s the way we are. The great Kabbalist Isaac Luria said that when the universe was first created God’s infinite light was too much for the vessels of existence to hold and they shattered. So our universe has brokenness and so do we. Or, as the ten scouts would say “There’s giants and scary stuff! Oh no!”. The two scouts would say “Our souls are pure—direct from the Infinite. In nature we see the Glory, the cosmic pattern of wholeness of The Eternal. And in our kindness with each other, our hearts are one with God.”

These two perspectives, together, fuel our hopes and fears. We get so hurt and mad sometimes because it means so much. Early in my time with this congregation, I enjoyed a wonderful service and a warm and friendly oneg meal. I was feeling so much love for everyone and it struck me – I saw the patterns, my own patterns: how much community means to me, how much I love  the people here… and how I stumble, make mistakes, am misunderstood, and how inevitably, my heart is broken. After this wonderful service where I felt so much love … I went home and cried. Because I knew—I knew my heart would break with this community. And it did—in small ways, and large ways. But one thing is different from my previous experiences of this—I’m still here. And right now, in this moment, we’re all here.

We are all the characters in the story. Sometimes, like the two scouts Caleb and Joshua, we are in tune with God’s dance and understand how everything fits together and revel in God’s glory. Sometimes, like the ten scouts, we are overwhelmed by our pain and our fears and we project and perpetuate the negative. Sometimes, like God in this story, the God-spark in us feels unappreciated and we are hurt and lash out and just want to call everything off. Sometimes, like Moses, we plead with each other and the Divine Infinite for mercy and compassion.

To call on the Infinite for forgiveness that is attuned to us, here, on this level, we must first forgive ourselves and each other. Our forgiveness is like a homing beacon for God’s forgiveness. It creates a container made from the pieces of our brokenness, made to receive God’s Shalom, God’s Wholeness.

…I call to Torah everyone who wants to bring our broken pieces together, creating a container to receive the Infinite One’s forgiveness and wholeness. Shalom.