by Ruth Abrams
I was going to write up a blog post about current events, but I find that I can’t breathe at all when I attempt to do that. Instead, I’m sharing my notes from Yom Kippur morning.
This year, I am doing some tutoring for b’mitzvah. One of my students is going to be reading from the book of Genesis, the portion of Vayera, a part that we coincidentally read on the first day of Rosh HaShanah, and the other student is going to be reading from the book of Leviticus, the portion called Aharei Mot, the first chapter of which we read on Yom Kippur.
I therefore had to explain some of the key ideas of Leviticus about atonement, and how they are different from what we do today. It was the first time that I’ve referred to animal sacrifices as “bribing God with meat,” but it will certainly not be the last time I do so.
I had a thought as I was trying to explain why the ancient Israelites offered sacrifices to atone for their sins. Why were these ancient people doing all these mysterious rituals to atone? Wouldn’t it just be easier to try to improve themselves, to repair their connections, to make things right?
I think the answer is probably no! It doesn’t seem very easy.
Friends who grow up in the Christian tradition experience a lot of negative emphasis on the need for the person who is offended to forgive. Now, I’ve read a few works on Jewish ethics, not many, but the focus in those texts is just like the focus of Yom Kippur. It’s on the person who did harm, about our individual and communal struggles with that role. If we do wrong, what can we do about it?
These are some questions I found online that people doing restorative justice work can ask someone who has done harm:
What happened?
What were you thinking at the time?
What have you thought about since?
Who do you think has been affected by what you did? In what way?
What do you need to do to make things right?
How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?
Can you see why someone might have chosen not to ask these questions? Isn’t it a little easier to fast than to have to ask yourself that very first question, “What happened?” What if there is nothing you can do to make things right?
These are the questions to ask someone who was harmed:
What did you think when it happened?
What have you thought about since?
How have you been affected?
Who else has been affected?
What’s been the hardest part?
What’s needed to make things right?
How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?
What if you can’t reach the people who have been harmed? If they are far away, if you didn’t know them, if you will never meet them, then what? Can you get help from someone you have harmed to make sure you will never participate in harming them again? That seems so hard on them.
This is why we ask God for forgiveness, and we don’t ask alone, but as a community. Because if someone is asking you, “What happened?” you want them to say, “What happened, honey?” You want to be in a close relationship with the person asking you that.
Once when I used to be a parent…I’m still a parent! I used to be a parent of a young child. Once a long time ago, my child actually said out loud, “Mommy, I really need you now,” because they were sad. Because something went wrong in an interaction with someone else, and I was the best person to make them feel better in that situation. (Which was something I found surprising and never forgot.)
This is why I lean into malkhut and images of transcendence on Yom Kippur. I want someone else to be the adult, someone who is on my side and will back me up. Someone who is bigger than I am, and someone I know will care about the people I might have harmed even if I cannot reach them and be in the room with them.
Restorative Justice offers a very compelling model for resolving harm. Yet sometimes when it is put into practice, people have strong critiques about the ways it pressures the person who has been harmed to accept the repentance of the person who has harmed them. We have to keep attempting new methods to make things right, whether we are the ones harmed, the ones who harm, or the observers.
This year, I am doing some tutoring for b’mitzvah. One of my students is going to be reading from the book of Genesis, the portion of Vayera, a part that we coincidentally read on the first day of Rosh HaShanah, and the other student is going to be reading from the book of Leviticus, the portion called Aharei Mot, the first chapter of which we read on Yom Kippur.
I therefore had to explain some of the key ideas of Leviticus about atonement, and how they are different from what we do today. It was the first time that I’ve referred to animal sacrifices as “bribing God with meat,” but it will certainly not be the last time I do so.
I had a thought as I was trying to explain why the ancient Israelites offered sacrifices to atone for their sins. Why were these ancient people doing all these mysterious rituals to atone? Wouldn’t it just be easier to try to improve themselves, to repair their connections, to make things right?
I think the answer is probably no! It doesn’t seem very easy.
Friends who grow up in the Christian tradition experience a lot of negative emphasis on the need for the person who is offended to forgive. Now, I’ve read a few works on Jewish ethics, not many, but the focus in those texts is just like the focus of Yom Kippur. It’s on the person who did harm, about our individual and communal struggles with that role. If we do wrong, what can we do about it?
These are some questions I found online that people doing restorative justice work can ask someone who has done harm:
What happened?
What were you thinking at the time?
What have you thought about since?
Who do you think has been affected by what you did? In what way?
What do you need to do to make things right?
How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?
Can you see why someone might have chosen not to ask these questions? Isn’t it a little easier to fast than to have to ask yourself that very first question, “What happened?” What if there is nothing you can do to make things right?
These are the questions to ask someone who was harmed:
What did you think when it happened?
What have you thought about since?
How have you been affected?
Who else has been affected?
What’s been the hardest part?
What’s needed to make things right?
How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?
What if you can’t reach the people who have been harmed? If they are far away, if you didn’t know them, if you will never meet them, then what? Can you get help from someone you have harmed to make sure you will never participate in harming them again? That seems so hard on them.
This is why we ask God for forgiveness, and we don’t ask alone, but as a community. Because if someone is asking you, “What happened?” you want them to say, “What happened, honey?” You want to be in a close relationship with the person asking you that.
Once when I used to be a parent…I’m still a parent! I used to be a parent of a young child. Once a long time ago, my child actually said out loud, “Mommy, I really need you now,” because they were sad. Because something went wrong in an interaction with someone else, and I was the best person to make them feel better in that situation. (Which was something I found surprising and never forgot.)
This is why I lean into malkhut and images of transcendence on Yom Kippur. I want someone else to be the adult, someone who is on my side and will back me up. Someone who is bigger than I am, and someone I know will care about the people I might have harmed even if I cannot reach them and be in the room with them.
Restorative Justice offers a very compelling model for resolving harm. Yet sometimes when it is put into practice, people have strong critiques about the ways it pressures the person who has been harmed to accept the repentance of the person who has harmed them. We have to keep attempting new methods to make things right, whether we are the ones harmed, the ones who harm, or the observers.
Ruth Abrams is a long-time member of Havurat Shalom.
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