Coats
i
The Creation was simply an expression of God’s want.
Let there be…and there
was.
But when God created the man, the man ate the Fruit. And God sent the man,
naked, into the world.
*
Then God gave the man and his wife coats; and God dressed them.
ii
Sinning, the man worked against God’s Creation. God sent him away.
Dressing the man, God said: even so, I will care for you.
iii
Rosh HaShanah is the anniversary of God’s creating
It is like the time when God asked, Have you eaten of the Fruit?
*
After Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur will come.
God will let us atone for our sins.
God will dress us. God will give us coats.
iv
Creation, and Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, tell the same story: God will
clothe us in our nakedness, despite everything.
Yom Kippur is the Day
of Atonement
i
Every fiftieth year, on
Yom Kippur, the shofar is sounded in the Land. Real estate goes back to its
first owners and slaves go free.
For God has said: the Land may not be sold off permanently, for the Land is
Mine.
And God has said: Your
brethren may not be sold into a true sale of slavery, for they are My
slaves.
*
All things are God's. To acknowledge this is to make all pretense of ownership
fall away.
Things are freed. People
are freed.
ii
Repentance comes after you declare that your rebellion against God was a
fiction of the mind. That your rebellion against God was a rebellion against
Truth.
For all of life is God's: and so your life outside of God was a fiction.
In declaring this, you consecrate to God the life that was always His. In the
same way that sounding the shofar on the fiftieth year gives back to God the
things that He already owns.
iii
Such a declaration is the beginning of atonement. We make such a declaration
each year on Yom Kippur, that is the Day of Atonement. We set ourselves
free.
Intimacies
i
The text speaks of Laws of food.
And then the text speaks of Laws of childbirth.
Then the text speaks of Laws of skin, and clothes, and houses.
Then the text speaks of Laws of touching between people.
*
Then the text speaks of Laws that are kept between a woman and a man.
ii
Then we see the Laws of how the High Priest, on Yom Kippur, must enter the Holy
of Holies—the room that is God’s chamber.
iii
We learn to live in our small world.
We learn to be with each other in that world.
*
This education brings us to God.
It readies us to share His intimate space.
Holy of Holies
God tells how the high
priest may enter the Holy of Holies, the innermost holy chamber of God’s
Then God says: the High
Priest must enter the Holy of Holies each year, on Yom Kippur.
*
Yom Kippur is the day on
which you ask how far you can progress into the world of God.
You enter into the place
which is the answer to that question.
The High Priest in
i
On Yom Kippur the High Priest removes his everyday golds and fine garments and
jewels, and wears only simple white linen.
He rests his hands upon a
goat, and confesses the people's sins upon this goat, and it is the goat—and
not the people who have sinned—that is sent away to a barren land.
And he enters the Holy of
Holies: the innermost sanctum of the
*
After the Sin, the first man is made to put on clothes.
And he—and not a goat in
his stead—is sent from his
ii
When God asks the first man, Have you eaten of the Tree?, the first man
answers: The woman whom you did give to be with me—she gave me of the Tree,
and I did eat.
*
On Yom Kippur, the High Priest makes atonement for himself, and for his
household, and for all the congregation of
iii
The one who takes the
responsibility for his own sin and for the sins of the people around him—he is
the one who is let to be naked and pure once again.
He is brought back in to
the Holy of Holies, the place of God.
Community is the Starting-Point of Forgiveness
(On the Book of Jonah)
i
God tells Jonah to warn the people of Ninveh to repent from sin.
Jonah flees from God in a ship, heading out to the waters.
Later, Jonah tells God
why he has fled: he fears that the people of Ninveh will repent, and God will
spare them.
*
And so Jonah flees the community of people—heading out on a ship—to flee from
the mercy of God.
Perhaps Jonah wants a
world of only Justice, of strict Truth.
*
But the people of Ninveh do repent, together, as one city.
And, seeing the people
repent together, as one city, God spares them.
ii
Jonah is a man of solitude. He goes on a ship; he flees the company of people.
In solitude, in aloneness,
sin brings only guilt; sin calls for Justice.
For Jonah, Justice is what
is right; it is what is just.
iii
But even so: when we are close with one another, we can say to God—You, too, be
close to us.
And from God’s closeness
to us, He will be merciful.
From our closeness to each
other, we can ask God to look beyond our sin—to look to our togetherness that
lies beyond Truth.
From our closeness to one
another comes God’s forgiveness.
*
And Ninveh comes to God as one community; and God spares Ninveh.
_
This idea based,
in part, on Rav Ezra Bick’s thoughts on God's mercy.
Special thanks to my wife Kathi for her tireless editing, on all of these
pieces.
___