Some loose thoughts about this time of year

When Yom Kippur is just beginning, we will all say the Kol Nidrei prayer. This prayer is designed to absolve us from the consequences of unfulfilled oaths. I'm not going to get into the question of whether the prayer is on past vows, or on future vows, but on another point -- it doesn't absolve all vows. So, yeah, we chant it 3 times. It seems to be a really spiritual and affective moment. But it is incomplete. Then we have Yom Kippur. Full of awe and prayer and demanding of us that we deny ourselves food and other pleasures, we like to think that we emerge forgiven but in truth, it just isn't so! While we might be gain forgiveness for certain sins, there are others that are not covered by the prayers of Yom Kippur! (both these points are mentioned here and I'm sure you can find all sorts of other web pages which mention them including this one)

In temple times, we had sacrifices -- in fact, we had ones designed to bring about forgiveness. But the truth is, these sacrifices only dealt with a specific slice of sins and certainly not intentionally committed ones. What we have are a whole lot of incomplete systems. I'm going to couple this with another strange thing I noticed recently about Jewish ritual. These ideas might not really go together but to me they complement each other nicely.

There seems to be a fascination in Judaism with guests. Not only is there a biblical commandment to welcome guests, and not only do certain holidays include the giving of things to others and sharing meals, but there are a number of instances in which we actually invite conceptual/spiritual guests in to our practices as part of our obligation.

Every week, we say a prayer welcoming the Sabbath Queen -- the Sabbath, itself, is likened to a Queen or a Bride and we usher her in and we long for her to stay. Eventually, we escort her out. Elijah has a cup of wine set for him at the Passover seder as we invite him to visit. On Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, we invite a series of guests, one each night, to join us in the Sukkah. Elijah gets another nod at each brit milah/circumcision. So we are constantly bringing in others -- human and supernatural alike, to share in what we are and what we have. It seems that, like our other atonement rituals, what we have on our own is incomplete.

The holidays are not about completing a ritual and moving on. We cannot be complete unless we complement our thoughts with actions. Our atonement must reflect a change, not a prayer, a repentance, not an ritual. Our celebrations have to acknowledge that we are part of a community which transcends time and space. If we want to have a complete result, we have to move beyond simply doing the letter of the law and expecting it to do the job.