Rabbi Paskind’s Yom Kippur Sermon

Yom Kippur 5785: Death & Forgiveness

Rabbi Ita Paskind

Congregation Beth El, Norwalk

Here is a link to the video recording.

For the last year, the name Hersh Goldberg-Polin has become a household name, a symbol of all the hostages, and very well-known in this country for his dual citizenship.  His parents, Jon & Rachel, moved heaven and earth for 320 days to try to bring him home, and they continue to speak and act on behalf of the remaining 101 hostages.  Hersh was brutally executed just over one month ago, on September 1.  May his memory be not just a blessing, but a revolution.  I bring Hersh into this space today, again as a representative, this time of a phenomenon that has become common in Israeli society over the last year–devastatingly so.  At Hersh’s funeral, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog gave the opening eulogy.  I’m sure many of us read his words or watched the funeral or a recording.  Here’s the part that catches me.  He addressed Hersh directly:

“I apologize on behalf of the State of Israel, that we failed to protect you in the terrible disaster of Oct. 7, that we failed to bring you home safely. I apologize that the country you immigrated to at the age of 7, wrapped in the Israeli flag, could not keep you safe.”

He added, “Rachel, Jon, dear Leebie and Orly, grandparents, and the whole family – I ask for your forgiveness, forgiveness that we could not bring Hersh back home alive.”

It’s devastating, the whole thing.  And a little curious to ask forgiveness from Hersh after his death.  This exact thing has been happening all over Israel this last year, as families and communities gather to honor and mourn people whose lives ended abruptly, violently, and way too soon.  Under these extremely painful and sad circumstances, my take is that the request for forgiveness is a sort of mixture of taking responsibility and trying to walk the path of acceptance.

Hersh’s friends did a similar thing at the funeral. Fellow super-fans of Jerusalem’s pro soccer team, HaPo’el Yerushalayim, dressed in red shirts–the team’s color–to honor their friend, and they had printed on the front a picture of Hersh and the word s’licha, “I’m sorry”.

Part of what’s so heartbreaking about this is the way that these deaths–these murders–occurred.  It will be a long, long time before Israel and Israelis can forgive themselves–maybe never.

But another part of what’s hard about this is the same thing that’s hard when any death occurs without an opportunity to reconcile.

Jewish tradition, and this sacred day in particular, are really focused on reconciliation, on repentance, teshuvah.  And most of the time, we talk about and conceptualize this teshuvah as happening in one of two ways–either between an individual and God/bein adam lamakom or between two individuals/bein adam lachavero.  In both of these scenarios, there’s someone else to engage with.  But this widespread phenomenon in Israel really raises a universal question: how might we seek forgiveness, or perhaps grant forgiveness, when the other party has died?

Forgiveness and death are inextricably wound together.  Part of what motivates reconciliation during our lives, I think, is the knowledge that we will not live forever.  Death is a part of life, it is inevitable, and each of us desires that the end of our own lives be peaceful and full of love.  We want to know that we lived a good life, perhaps that we made a difference in others’ lives, and that we depart this world b’shalom, in peace.  It takes a lot of work to put that in place for ourselves, and a large part of it is tending to our relationships.

I imagine so many relationships that don’t have the opportunity for closure, for that sought-after peace.  A teacher who hurt a student.  A doctor who failed a patient.  A rabbi who offended a congregant–or vice versa. Siblings who never worked it out.  A rupture between a parent and an adult child.  Any relationship where someone died suddenly.  We all get into arguments, large and small, short-lived and sometimes multi-year or even lifelong… There’s something powerful about the finality of death that makes us wish we had reconciled.  It leaves us with unfinished business, at an already painful time.  And it can complicate the grieving process.  Perhaps some of us here have felt this before.

Our tradition worries about this.  A classic example comes from the Mishnah, Tractate Shabbat: “Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus taught[1] his disciples: ‘Repent one day before your death.’ The disciples politely questioned whether one can know the day of one’s death, so Rabbi Eliezer answered, ‘All the more reason, therefore, to repent today, lest one die tomorrow.’”  I might file Rabbi Eliezer’s teaching into the category of “easier said than done”.  It’s a tall order, and we know full well it’s not practical for most of us.

So let’s get specific here. We have two distinct scenarios to discuss–first, when we, the living, never got to ask for and receive forgiveness from someone who has died; and second, when we, the living, have not had an opportunity to forgive the deceased before they died.

When we are left holding the words of an apology we never got to offer–-when we never got the chance to be forgiven–we are overcome with emotions of regret, guilt, shame, disappointment.  All of this on top of our raw grief.  Perhaps we were ready for that conversation when our loved one left this world rather suddenly; perhaps it took a long time to work up the courage to seek forgiveness and we ran out of time.  Perhaps we are angry at ourselves for not making it happen quickly enough.  What do we do?

Oy.  This is hard.  The most important thing is to be kind to ourselves.  At the time of death and during the mourning process, we invoke the divine presence of El Malei Rachamim, God who is full of mercy or compassion.  Just as we pray for mercy for our loved one, we must also seek mercy for ourselves.  In the words of Rabbi Toba Spitzer[2], reflecting on her own mourning process:  “El Malei Rachamim – Source of compassion, may I have compassion on myself, as I seek forgiveness for all I might have done but couldn’t do for my loved one; for all that was left unsaid, for the pain that I couldn’t prevent.”

If we were prepared to ask forgiveness from our loved one while they were alive, that means that something had shifted in us already, from a place of conflict to a place of harmony.  That inner shift is the key to teshuvah, because it sets us up for future more harmonious interactions and relationships.

For some of us, it may be enough to acknowledge that inner turning.  Perhaps it brings us peace.  If we’re feeling that it’s not enough, though, we may consider asking forgiveness at any and every step of the mourning process.  Putting our emotions out into the world may help us.  And for those who grasp firmly onto the Jewish thread that our souls meander from our bodies over or up to the heavenly tz’ror hachayim, the bond of eternal life, then our words indeed have a chance of being received.  What would it be like to spend a few moments today, when we recite Yizkor prayers, to articulate our sincere regret?

The need to seek forgiveness from a deceased loved one doesn’t go away with any of these actions, though.  Compassion for ourselves, recognizing that we have changed for the better–these will enable us to receive comfort as we mourn, to navigate our lives without our loved one’s physical presence.

Let’s shift to the second category, when we lose a loved one, a friend, and we’re waiting for them to reconcile with us.  These emotions are different.  If we’ve been carrying around anger or disappointment in the other person, those are likely to grow with the knowledge that the issue will not get resolved as we wished.  What are we to do?

I must note that there are sometimes people in our lives who hurt us irreparably and who will never repent–abusers, for example–and we should feel no obligation to forgive them.  I’m not addressing this dynamic today.  If you find yourself in such a situation and have not yet found a therapist, please do.  If you’d like help getting started, please talk to me.

Our tradition offers us several approaches to finding peace when a loved one dies without reconciling with us.  The first is a notion found in the prayers that accompany the Shma before going to sleep:

רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם הֲרֵינִי מוֹחֵל וְסוֹלֵחַ לְכָל מִי שֶׁהִכְעִיס וְהִקְנִיט אוֹתִי אוֹ שֶׁחָטָא כְּנֶגְדִּי. בֵּין בְּגוּפִי בֵּין בְּמָמוֹנִי בֵּין בִּכְבוֹדִי בֵּין בְּכָל אֲשֶׁר לִי.

“I hereby forgive anyone who has angered me, or sinned against me, either physically or financially, against my honor or anything that is mine, whether accidentally or intentionally, inadvertently or deliberately, by speech or by deed, by thought or by speculation, in this incarnation or in any other.”[3]

Our tradition encourages us not only to seek forgiveness each day, but to grant it each evening.  Perhaps this practice might offer us a way to forgive, even without being asked.

Second is the notion that death itself constitutes kaparah, or atonement for sin.  Kaparah comes from the same Hebrew root as Yom Kippur.  We express this notion in the vidui[4], or the deathbed confession, which can be recited by a person near the end of their life, or by a rabbi or really anyone else.  It hearkens back to Rabbi Eliezer’s guidance in the Mishnah to repent before we die, to conclude our life with a sense of completion, of peace.

And so if we have been in relationship with someone who did not seek our forgiveness, we might find spiritual comfort believing that their very death brings closure to open wounds.

And finally–and perhaps most importantly–it’s up to us to decide if we are ready to forgive, or just let it go.  When the possibility for two-way reconciliation ends, we are left with the rest of our lives ahead of us.  Do we want to hold on to the anger, the upset, and let it continue to eat away at us?  Or do we perhaps want to choose a path that is kinder to ourselves?  Neither choice is easy.  Forgiving someone posthumously, or even letting go of our anger toward them, starts with seeking healing for ourselves for the pain we’ve suffered, and also–perhaps–finding some empathy for the person who has died.  This, too, is an issue of shalom, of finding peace.  Rabbi Spitzer offers language for this situation, too: “El Malei Rachamim – Source of compassion, I seek compassion for myself if I am unable to forgive the deceased, if there is lingering hurt that can never be resolved.”[5]

Perhaps spending a few moments throughout this day, when the Gates of Mercy are wide open, to seek compassion for ourselves might bring us a little closer to peace.

None of this is easy, and it’s much more complex than we have had time to explore today.  I have a feeling that many of us have experienced a version of unresolved conflict at the time of a loved one’s death, and that we’re feeling a lot of feelings right now.  If you need a hug, a friendly arm-around-the-shoulder, or to exchange a meaningful glance today, I hope you’ll ask for it.  We so rarely talk about the hardest parts of our lives, even though so many others can identify.

This sacred day culminates the Ten Days of Repentance, the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, and we speak of the Gates of Heaven closing during the last hour of the day.  Our teshuvah conversations should have happened, and our inner work will be complete by the end of Neilah.  We might think that this is our last chance to straighten ourselves up, to cross every T and dot every I for this new year… and it’s just not true.  Our tradition has found a way to extend the season of repentance another week-plus, through the 7th day of Sukkot, also known as Hoshanah Rabbah.  And I believe the same is true for the relationships we’ve discussed today, the ones whose potential reconciliations were interrupted by death.  We do have tools and strategies to seek resolution even without the other person.  These tools live inside each of us, and they are available today, tomorrow, and every day we choose the path of compassion and peace.  May the memories of all those we will remember today be a blessing, and may each of us be gentle with ourselves as we remember them.

[1] Shabbat 153a
[2] https://www.dorsheitzedek.org/divrei-torah/rabbi-toba-spitzer?post_id=934460
[3] https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz%2C_Weekday%2C_Maariv%2C_Keri’at_Shema_al_Hamita?lang=en
[4] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/viddui-the-deathbed-confession/#:~:text=May%20it%20be%20Your%20will,been%20reserved%20for%20the%20righteous.&text=May%20it%20be%20Your%20will%20that%20my%20death,atonement%20for%20all%20my%20sins.
[5] https://www.dorsheitzedek.org/divrei-torah/rabbi-toba-spitzer?post_id=934460