this is conceptually yoinked from a very thoughtful acquaintance on facebook, who posted a series of thoughts in relation to the sort of Usual YK Posts you see in lefty-progressive jewish spaces, and some conversations i had with friends about this post. the original argument centered around three common (and not completely untrue) narratives or truisms we see in the lead up to yk, presented and then offered up for dissection:
teshuvah doesn't mean atonement - it means (re)turning [to the correct path]
chet doesn't mean sin - it means missing the mark (with corollary: judaism doesn't really have a concept of sin; that's a transposition of christian ideas onto a totally different religious framework)
the root verb yira (as in yamim noraim) doesn't actually mean fear - it means something more like awe.
obviously because i work on the impact biblical translation has across cultures and historical contexts, a post that encourages us to more seriously interrogate these truisms about biblical translation is going to do it for me. i found this post really useful to think with, and i encourage us to move past these 101-level ideas into a more 201-level conversation. the original poster in question had proposed counternarratives or counter-questions, which I am going to summarize below with a little of my own sauce (& also sauce from discussions i've had with friends i've had as a result) on top.
sometimes, you have done harm. does softening the idea of repentance stop you from actually confronting what you need to atone for? one of my friends mentioned the fact that the rabbi at a [suburban, prosperous, progressive] synagogue encouraged people to physically prostrate themselves, and no one liked that idea at all... are we making things that are big, scary, and overwhelming so palatable that we've entrenched ourselves against change? that we've entrenched ourselves against actually confronting our pride, and actually confronting our personal ability to cause harm to others? what does it mean to repent for the harms we have perpetrated against others, the harms we have stood aside and witnessed—at the beginning of every new year, and at the beginning of this new year?
yes, the modern, anglophone concept of "sin" owes FAR more to christianity than it does to judaism, and yes, it's good to de-christianize our understandings of religion. HOWEVER. that is still a framing that centers christianity as the default religion, and we can do better. let's take one step past that framing, together. so sin means something different in judaism, because it doesn't have the christian connotations of damnation and earning forgiveness. so: tell me. what does it mean? what does sin mean, in our context, in our tradition? what does it mean to consider our individual and communal transgressions against our community's laws, against our country's laws, against what we know to be right—at the beginning of every new year, and at the beginning of this new year?
the word yira means both fear AND awe, in various measures depending on context. it's not one or the other, it's both. yes, it feels more warmhearted to focus more on awe, on the altered state many of us enter into fasting on yom kippur. but fear has a place in that awe, too. the high holidays celebrate the beginning of a new cycle of the year AND the unavoidable death that awaits us all. ritualizing grief is important. ritualizing mortality is important. ritualizing fear is, actually, critical. the emotions we feel on yom kippur in the face of g-d and our community are a dress rehearsal that lets us experience them without flinching when they appear in our real lives. that can be holy, too. what purpose does softening our ability to confront fear, to confront death serve—at the beginning of every new year, and at the beginning of this year?
origamiaround
gracieabrams
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
titsay
