Existential Hangovers: How to forgive ourselves Kol Nidrei Sermon 2021
Forgive
The most difficult, of course, is myself.
No one else sees my failings half so clearly.
Every word I should have said and didn't, or
should have known better than to speak.
And my heart that flows in ways not wanted.
And the harsh decrees I ached so to sweeten
and wasn't strong enough, or wise enough...
Sometimes I skirt the edges of despair, but
you remind me that through the eyes of love
every flaw is softened, every misstep becomes
part of the path…
One of my favourite modern Jewish sages is the rabbi and poet Rachel Barenblatt who, in this poem, reminds us how difficult it is to forgive ourselves.
Forgiveness, whether ourselves or others, is not about rewriting the past, or erasing it, or pretending it didn’t happen. There is no wand that can magically undo our mistakes. Instead it’s about recognising, regretting and resolving.
It was an article by the journalist Eva Wiseman that made me realise why we need to especially focus on self forgiveness this year:
You have gone out, out after a year inside... You’ve put on a ritzy top and a jazzy lip, and trotted into town. You were moved by the care with which a waiter placed the bowl of pasta down in front of you, and [have been] inappropriately enthusiastic to a taxi driver, and then the next day, the guilt came. You have scrambled for a lateral flow test, and blown your nose. This wasn’t your typical hangover, this was an existential thickening, the worry that by choosing to go on last night’s merry little jaunt you might have set off a series of airborne events that will result in somebody’s death. You have come to terms with carrying this guilt around with you like a big bottle of water, spilling a bit more with every stumble. (Eva Wiseman, Guardian)
If we were to characterize our experiences these past 18 months, I’d say that we’ve been living with an existential hangover nearly every day, or as Eva Wiseman puts it - ‘an existential thickening’. What choices yesterday or today might have set in motion events that could have directly harmed others? Though most of us have, by now, done more than that first jaunt into town, we may still be carrying some guilt or worry, spilling a few drops every time we stumble, every time we are in a new place.
There are very few situations where our actions have a potentially deadly impact on others. Perhaps driving is one of the few exceptions to this, and even then, just being in a car on the road is not necessarily a threat to others. Few everyday situations in life have ever felt as potentially dangerous as our trips to the supermarket, our desire to hug a relative, or to share dinner with a friend. Or even just going out of the house to do our jobs. We were used to danger being ‘out there’ but rarely ever did we see ourselves being the possible agent of that danger.
I think we can even pinpoint the moment when we realised the potentially devastating impact we could have on others. It was when masks went from being a protection we chose for our own safety (many of us were rather blase about the risk to ourselves), and instead we realised they were mainly about minimising the impact we could have on others, unwittingly, unknowingly, and with the best of intentions.
How do we slowly emerge from this existential thickening? This emotional hangover? How do we once again enjoy family reunions, lunch with friends, going on the tube, or working in an office without the guilt and the fear? How do we let go, when only on Wednesday we were again told that we are entering a period of uncertainty when a new autumn and winter Covid plan was published? And implicit in that will be more uncertainty and more existential choices.
As with any hangover, time is a major factor. But this kind of hangover cannot be cured with a day in front of the TV, even though it’s tempting. We have all been through an ordeal, and it looks as if we are facing another one. We have made good choices, and we have made choices that in hindsight might have not been right, or even lawful, but we felt were needed at the time. There were times when we tacitly ‘forgot’ about social distancing in the golden glow of meeting friends and loved ones. There were times that we made choices that might have been within the letter of the law but not the spirit; we’ll never know, but maybe they caused outbreaks. Perhaps even, despite doing everything right, we still managed to cause ourselves or loved ones to get the virus. I suspect many of us carry some kind of COVID guilt.
And then there’s the added guilt of not being able to visit and help elderly friends or relatives, some of whom desperately needed social contact, and some of whom died without us being there for them. Or maybe we carry guilt from using COVID as an excuse to not visit them. And then there’s also the guilt we carry from not having ‘proper’ funerals, nor being able to mourn together, nor support those who were in mourning.
And then there were the times when we hated and spoke with venom - the anger towards those who blatantly flouted the rules for the sake of a party or their own enjoyment; anger towards those who did not care enough to protect others, those who deliberately spread misinformation or attacked people working on the frontline, and those who sought to profit from the pandemic. And also I suspect the everyday frustration and anger felt towards those who did not wear a mask properly.
How do we get past this hangover? Teshuva - the main ‘action point’ of the high holy days is an obvious answer, and yet there’s a step missing in this ancient recipe for repentance and renewing.
The process of teshuva involves three steps- first we have to acknowledge what happened, then approach the person involved and ask their forgiveness (if possible), and when in a similar situation, not repeat the same behaviour again.
We know about forgiving others or being forgiven by others. It’s interpersonal, it's relational, always reaching outwards, to people, to God. I forgive you, you forgive me, God forgives. But what about me forgiving myself, you forgiving yourself? How do you forgive yourself?
Forgiving ourselves is not a ‘get out of jail free card’ to do whatever we want, or rewrite the past, but it is an essential step to be able to live with the existential uncertainty, about how we affect each other wittingly and unwittingly. Sometimes there was no other choice, sometimes we did make the wrong choice. We have learnt to accept how vulnerable we all are as well as the responsibility that comes with this.
Does Jewish tradition then encourage or even command self-forgiveness? We see a glimpse of an answer in the beginning of the Kol Nidrei service today, where we say “Let the whole community of Israel, and all who live among them, be forgiven, for knowingly and unknowingly, all the people have sinned (Numbers 15.26). We have all sinned, we have all fallen short, we are all imperfect. And within this lies the idea that mistakes and shortcomings are normal, they are part and parcel of being human. If mistakes are not aberrations, then giving us the tools for solving them aren't either. Acknowledging that we fall short, also implies that we can forgive ourselves.
And though it feels contradictory to say that we need to forgive ourselves for all the ways we could have done something but didn’t, nevertheless it is important, for in forgiving there is also a reckoning. Instead of a mountain of ‘should haves’ in front of us, that makes it seem impossible to change,
forgiving ourselves can give us the clarity and the energy to see what we can do, what we can choose. By forgiving ourselves we can let go of regret and pity, of anger and bitterness. It can help us find healing for ourselves. And it can give us the strength to focus and to act.
There’s an interesting rabbinic list that should also give us pause for thought. In it, the ancient rabbis write a list of that which they think was created before the actual creation of the world;
Six things preceded the creation of the world … Torah, the throne of glory, the fathers, Israel, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah.
Rabbi Ahava ben Rabbi Ze’era said: So too repentance. (Bereshit Rabba 1:4)
I find this text fascinating. Most of what it mentions are the foundation stones of Judaism; the Torah, our forefathers, the tribe of Israel, the temple as the sacred meeting point, even the name of the Messiah. And then rabbi Ahavah adds something completely different. Not a person, or a thing, or a place, but a quality, an action. Amongst these pillars of Judaism is the ability to forgive and be forgiven. Woven into the very fabric of the world is an understanding or a promise that forgiveness is a possibility.
And this forgiveness is not only for others, but also for ourselves. If we were to play with the well known “Love your neighbour as yourself” maxim, we may be reminded to “Forgive yourself as you would forgive your neighbour”. So, if you are able to forgive others, which we usually are, so too should we be able to forgive ourselves.
The challenge with our actions during Covid is that there isn't necessarily a victim you can ask forgiveness from. You might not even know the impact you have had, so how do we go about the process of forgiveness?
Our situation is much like in this story;
A person who had told many malicious untruths about the rabbe was finally overcome by remorse. He went to the rebbe and begged his forgiveness. The rebbe cheerfully forgave him, but this did not altogether ease the person’s conscience. ‘Rebbe’, he pleaded, ‘tell me how I can make amends for the wrongs I have done.’ The rebbe sighed. ‘Take two pillows, go into the public square, and there cut the pillows open. Then wave them in the air. Then come back .’ Quickly the penitent went home, go to pillows, and a knife, hastened to the square, cut the pillows open, waved them in the air, and hurried back to the rebbe’s chambers. ‘I did what you said, Rebbe!’ ‘Good!, now go back to the square…’ ‘Yes?’ ‘...and collect all the feathers.’
Our actions are like feathers which have spread far and wide. We will never be able to retrieve them all. Some we might, but some will float away on the wind, disappear down alleyways, some into a house, others will keep on floating for days and weeks, maybe even months, settling somewhere far away and causing harm.
This story is so poignant because it reminds us that though we are remorseful, and we seek and find teshuva, our actions cannot be undone. This can be a depressing thought, but I think its power lies in the realism of the situation. The rebbe does forgive, but the person needed more than that. And some of us are in that situation - we need more than forgiveness, or rather as there isn’t anyone to ask, we are at a loss.
I think we can find an answer in cases when someone has caused unintentional harm, and as with any Jewish ethical discussion worth its salt, the rabbis take the most extreme situation - unintentionally causing the death of another person. The discussion begins from the understanding that people who have caused an accidental death feel deep remorse and want to do teshuva for killing another human being. In the responsa literature from the 13th to the 20th century the suggestions are a form of penance, something physical to help the process of teshuva and hopefully, eventually, a sense of forgiveness. Many of them, such as fasting and lashing are meant to physically punish the person, but as the much respected contemporary Rabbi Professor David Golinkin points out:
“I personally do not see much point in these types of self-inflicted punishments. The person who caused the accidental death already feels terrible remorse; he [they] doesn’t require further physical and psychological punishment. I believe it is more constructive to do positive acts of teshuvah which are related to what actually happened, such as:
observing the yahrzeit and visiting the grave of the person who died,
giving tzedakah to the children of the deceased,
naming a child for the deceased,
adopting an orphan,
supporting a cause related to the accidental death such as gun control or traffic safety. (7)”
Rabbi Golinkin highlights the importance of positive acts of teshuvah. In our case when we don’t know who we have harmed, we could help support a cemetery, or visit a Covid memorial on the yahrzeit of the pandemic, we can give tzedakah to charities that support those bereaved by Covid, or we can help support a cause that focuses on preventing such a devastating loss of life again.
We have been through an ordeal, where we have had to make heartbreaking decisions, where we have had to question our actions and our own morality, and the existential hangover isn’t over yet.
Yom Kippur is a space where we can process, do teshuva and hopefully forgive ourselves for actions we have done in the past year. These next 25 hours are a humbling reminder of who we are, but also of who we can be.
By forgiving ourselves for our wrong choices, we can give ourselves the space to do a positive teshuva. Let us be wise enough, and gentle enough, to realise that in forgiving ourselves there is hope, there is teshuva.
Amen