Love and Fear

Yom Kippur Day Sermon 5782 Rabbi Sam Cohon Congregation Beit Simcha

My favorite Yom Kippur authority this year is apparently comedian Steven Wright. He says, “Right now I'm having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time.  I think I've forgotten this before.”   

I always feel that way on Yom Kippur.  I think I’ve forgotten this before.  I’m pretty sure I made some vows 12 months ago, and I did it each year before that, and yet when the time came to do some things differently, by God, I’m pretty sure I even forgot what it was I was supposed to change.  I’ll bet it’s the same for you.

How did I get here, again, having made the same mistakes, again, and having forgotten the same important personal insights—again.  And why am I trying to fix myself in a sort of blind rush over 25 hours of fasting, prayer, music, and atonement—again?

Over this holy day we will confess to many diverse sins, and admit to a complex variety of transgressions both collective and individual.  While Judaism emphasizes that all teshuvah, all repentance, is based on action, the heart of the problem may be a little more global than that.  For if our problems were really just a matter of changing a few behaviors, you would think that all the years of Kol Nidrei and confessions we have experienced, and all the resolutions over all the High Holy Days, would actually have affected some significant change.

And yet, stubbornly, our problems remain.  Each year, we seem to have forgotten the same things all over again…  

The old US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles once said, “the measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether you had the same problem last year.”  By that standard, we are failing—all of us.

So perhaps the problem is a little deeper seated than mere behavior.  Maybe there is an attitude adjustment we need to contemplate.  After all, this déjà vu amnesia isn’t likely to stop if we just keep doing the same things.  If we don’t look at how we feel inside, at how we really are looking at the world and ourselves, we aren’t likely to make the kind of changes that might get us out of this fix.

 And I think most of us really do want to make some changes for the better.  But how?  Is it even possible to do so over Yom Kippur?

 You know, I see Yom Kippur as a kind of destination resort in reverse.  Destination resorts are those all-inclusive places that labor long and hard to create a comprehensive environment for your whole experience there: décor, landscaping, food, recreation, service, everything.  Well, Yom Kippur incorporates a reverse destination resort: all of the suffering and introspection we never really wanted to do, combined with fasting, thirst, and long sermons—all wrapped up in one, all-inclusive package.  And just like most destination resorts, within a couple of weeks—or even days—of leaving the resort and going home, the effects wear off. 

 The ironic part is, we are here for Yom Kippur in what is supposed to be the perfect environment for repentance, remorse, even transformation.  And yet each year we have to work hard just to change the same things.

 So why can’t we change, really change?  What holds us back? 

 Perhaps it’s because, at heart, for most of us the effects of repentance are based on a combination of guilt—and, most importantly, fear.

It has to do with our outlook on life, and on the world.  It has to do with the difference between love and fear.

We know one of these emotions very well, but I’m not so sure we really know the other one at all.  The emotion we know well is fear.  The emotion we don’t know well at all—well, that’s love.

In the Babylonian Talmud, the tractate on Yom Kippur, Masechet Yoma, there is an interchange on exactly this subject.  Rabbi Hama bar Haninah says, “Great is repentance, for it brings healing the whole world”; and to prove it, he quotes the prophet Hosea saying “I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely—Erpah m’shuvatam ohaveim n’davah…”  That is, if we repent our sins, God will bring us back in full healing, and give us truly unconditional love.  But then the Talmud quotes the same Rabbi Hama bar Haninah also saying, quoting Jeremiah, “Return, you backsliding children, Shuvu vanim shovavim—and I will heal your backsliding.”  In other words, if you return, I will heal you.  But there he makes no mention of loving us at all.

The Talmud resolves this subtle contradiction: in the first case, the good rabbi is referring to teshuva mei’ahavah— repentance through love. In the second case, he is addressing teshuvah mei’yirah, repentance through fear. 

Repentance thorough fear, fear-repentance, we know best. Its cold fingers are all over the Machzor. We find it in dozens of prayers throughout Yom Kippur—most famously in the Unetaneh tokef prayer, “Who shall live and who shall die?  Who shall die by strangling and who by stoning, who by thirst and who by hunger, who by warfare and who by pandemic?”  This is the message, “Repent, the day before your death—and tomorrow you may die!”  We will still be chanting words of teshuvah meiyirah, of fear-repentance, come Nei’ilah late this afternoon: “What are we? What is our life? What is our goodness? What is our righteousness? What is our power? What is our strength?  What shall we say before You? Are not the mightiest like nothing before You and the men of renown as though they were not?"  This kind of Teshuvah is motivated by the profound fear of our own mortality, our own limitation and weakness.  We are but flesh and blood…

The truth is that most of us are motivated primarily by our fears.  We get work done out of the fear of failure.  We do it well out of a fear of embarrassment.  We hide our sins and errors because we are afraid of exposure.  We spend most of our lives looking over our shoulders at something large gaining on us—and that thing is a manifestation of fear.  It is fear that drives most of us to succeed. 

We see this in small, petty things as well as larger, more meaningful ones.  We drive our cars only just a little over the posted limit out of fear of speeding tickets.  We file our taxes out of fear of the IRS.  We wear masks and get vaccinated out of the fear of COVID-19.  We change our diets out of fear of heart attacks or strokes or cancer—or obesity.  We install security systems out of fear of intruders.  We make many of the choices that affect our lives out of a fundamental emotion of fear.

Some fears are, of course irrational.  I’m reminded of Jerry Seinfeld’s comment that, according to studies, the number one fear in America is public speaking.  The number two fear is death. Which means that at a funeral, most people would rather be in the coffin than doing the eulogy…

Some of those irrational fears impact our lives, of course.  Some of us choose not to travel to Israel because we are afraid that bad things will happen to us, although no tourist has ever been injured by an attack.  Some of us fail to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves because we are simply afraid.

Of course, fear can seem beneficial at times.  Fear helps us limit the things we shouldn’t be doing in he first place—out of fear of exposure, or embarrassment, or humiliation.  Sometimes we limit ourselves out of the fear of the loss of relationships or status.  Fear as a motivation can be powerful.

But fear is also temporary. What we fear in the moment can be swallowed up by other, quite different fears.  Our fear of shame may be overturned by our fear of poverty.  Our fear of embarrassment can be overcome by our fear of loss of status.  Our fear of doing the wrong thing can be outweighed by our fear of being rejected and our need to be accepted by a group.

And fear also fades away in the absence of direct consequences.  When we get away with sins or transgressions we lose our fear of punishment or loss.  When we do things we shouldn’t do repeatedly, or don’t do what we should for a period of time, we gradually lose our fear of misconduct.

Space and time, too, lessen fear.  A frightening moment becomes less so over time.  It’s like those flashing red lights in the rear view mirror: in the moment they frighten us, perhaps even change our driving habits for a while.  Why, we might even slow down for a week or two.  But over time, we lose that fear.  Otherwise, we would need far fewer traffic police, and they would need only ticket each driver once in a lifetime.

It’s like that in here, too.  When we leave the sanctuary, the pressure to atone and seek forgiveness diminishes in direct proportion to our distance.  When you are enjoying a break-the-fast tonight, the moments of introspection and self probing will seem much less immediate than they will when you are hungry and thirsty and tired this afternoon. 

Fear motivates everyone, to some degree—fear of embarrassment, fear of being wrong, fear of failure, fear of being refused. Sometimes even fear of success.   Fear motivates—but erratically, and with rapidly diminishing returns.  And fear can also paralyze us.  Where real transformation is required, fear of change often prevents any movement at all.

Fear is based partly on experience, and partly on, well, just fear.  It is an emotion that has a life of its own.  As Franklin Roosevelt said during the Depression, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

I’ve always wondered at that famous line.  After all, at that time, America faced many things that were exceedingly frightening— unemployment of 30-40%, the Dust Bowl, starvation on the streets, the rise of Fascism and Naziism in Europe, fanatics at home on both sides seeking revolution—a whole host of very real things to fear.  There was a lot to fear beside fear itself.

And yet it turned out that we could overcome all those problems, and many more—provided we weren’t paralyzed by our fears.  Provided we didn’t lock ourselves into a system of conduct that couldn’t change because of the habits perpetuated by fear.  Provided we could learn from our mistakes, and change, and transform in ways that fear didn’t restrict.

On a personal level, Teshuvah meiyirah, repentance through fear, surely has a place in Jewish tradition, and in our lives.  It is recognized as an important form of return, and the one that most of us can actually do.  If we repent through fear—and I would associate guilt with fear, as well, a profound form of Jewish motivation that is also based on fear—then God will heal us, the Talmud says, at least in the moment.  Fear-repentance is good enough, just as fear is a good enough motivator to keep us from severe transgressions—most of the time.  For a while.

But what if there was a different way?

What if there was a path, an approach to life that did not require fear.  That came instead out of love?

Teshuvah mei’ahavah, repentance through love, is the process our tradition recommends—indeed, celebrates.  Love-repentance is the teshuvah that remakes everything: if repentance through fear can heal the individual, repentance through love can heal the world, Rabbi Judah says.  It is repentance through love that our sages extol when they explain that repentance brings about redemption, that repentance turns premeditated sins into small errors; ultimately, in Rabbi Meir’s words, so great is repentance through love that on account of a single individual who repents that way all the world’s many sins are forgiven! 

What kind of repentance is that, the Talmud asks?  Only true teshvuah me’ahavah, repentance through love.

There is, however, a problem. Repentance through fear, fear-repentance, fear in general, we are well acquainted with.  But just what is repentance through love, love-repentance?

Repentance through love is something quite different.  The process is different, and the results can be quite different.

Repentance through love is based on making a profound commitment, a true change of attitude.  But if we can do it—if you can do it, if I can do it—perhaps next year we will have accomplished the transformative change we seek, and when we meet again on Kol Nidrei night we won’t have to face the exact same problem. 

So how does this process work?  How do we start?

First, decide that there are things in your life that need to change.  We all know we aren’t perfect.  Not me—not even you!  What is there that you really need to fix?  What relationship in your life is damaged and in need of repair?  What part of your personality is destructive and should be modified?

Don’t judge or condemn yourself.  Simply admit—no, confirm—that you need to change something important.  Don’t choose twenty things about yourself you don’t like, or that need fixing.  Teshuvah is powerful, but it’s not a panacea for all that ails you.  Choose one, or perhaps two relationships or issues in your life that need to be changed substantially. 

Now—and this is the heart of the matter—think about what it is you truly love.  Who do you really love?  What matters most to you?  What do you really value above all else?

So, what do you love?  Deciding this can take some time—or no time at all.  For most of us, we really do love our family members.  We love some of our friends.  We love some places, and some ideas. Find those people and those things, get them in mind, and keep them there.

Next, decide to commit to what you love.  Really commit to it.  To make it the most important thing in your life.  Because the truth is, it is the most important thing in your life.  Make that love, that ahavah, the source of the strength you need to change.  Because when you make that choice to commit to what you love, to truly commit, then change is easy.  When we make that commitment, to love, we also make a commitment to change what needs to be changed for the sake of that love.

Choose to make what you love the most important thing in your life, and act as though that were true.  Do not be distracted from that course.  Simply make that your most important priority.  Make that the heart of your actions.  Make the truth of that love the guide for your actions.

Next—and this is interesting, and paradoxical—next, in the prophet’s words, al tira, have no fear. For change through love, teshuvah mei’ahavah, requires that you free yourself of the fear of failure, of the paralyzing aspects of fear.  If you act with complete commitment to what you love you will not fail.  The changes you make may have unexpected outcomes—often, very good ones—but the very changes themselves will be for the good.  Change through love means starting fresh—simply choosing to act through love, to open yourself to God and to those people and things you love—and so to find the best in yourself and others.  It means choosing love over habit, commitment over transgression, choosing to change for the sake of the love that you are dedicated to.

When the Talmud tells us that love-repentance changes intentional sins into benign mistakes, it means that we have the capacity, by acting through committed love, to transform the error separating us from others into a good that brings us together—into holiness, and blessing. 

And now the really great part about this: if you choose to change, decide what you love, truly commit to that love, and start to make changes based on that love—then God will instantly help.

Erpah m’shuvatam—ohaveim n’davah, the prophet Hosea has God promise—I will heal them from their backsliding; I will love them freely.  When they choose to come back to me in love, I will heal them and love them unconditionally, for who they are now.  Or, as the Talmud says, if you come to repentance through love, if you choose to change because of love, you will be healed, and God’s own love will bring you to true transformation. More or less, it’s as easy as that.

When you make the decision to change your attitude, and begin to change your behavior, you will find that you are no longer shackled by routine or imprisoned by habit.  You will find that the changes you seek come quickly, powerfully, almost easily.

You will find that you are changing almost without effort.  That you are becoming someone who is just a little different.  A little more loving.  A little more open.  A little better.  A little holier. 

Want to fix your life?  Fear can work.  But love—love can transform. 

Poet Michael Leunig explains that:

There are only two feelings. Love and fear.

There only two languages.  Love and fear.

There are only two activities. Love and fear.

There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks,

two results.

Love and fear.  Love and fear.

The purpose of Yom Kippur is personal transformation, changing who we are and how we do things in one intense and purposeful day.  We can do it by fear.  But if we are to truly change, if we are to become the people we wish to be, if we are to fulfill God’s wishes and dreams for us, than we must seek to change through love.

 On this holiest day of the year, I pray that you are able to admit you need to change through love, discover what you truly love, and commit to that love—and that over this Day of Atonement you thus come to find your own teshuvah mei’ahavah, your repentance through love, your love-repentance.  For if you can do that, you will also find that you bring yourself to a year of goodness, and blessing, and life.

May God bless your work on this Yom Kippur, freely, and in love. 

G’mar Chatimah Tovah: may you be sealed in the book of life for a good year!