More Yom Kippur Thoughts: Kol Nidre

They say that you don’t really know something until you’ve taught it to someone else. It’s true: despite growing up Jewish and going to Hebrew day school, there’s a lot about Judaism I didn’t know until I explained it to Boyfriend, who is not Jewish.

Specifically, it never occurred to me how odd the Kol Nidre service must seem from the outside.

The synagogue (shul) is packed: there are probably more people here than there are for any other service in the entire year. Parents bring in their fidgetty kids from the daycare service, 9-to-5-ers leave work a little early, the rabbi asks if congregants can indicate if there’s an empty seat beside them because the room is just so full.

Everyone rises. The choir (if there is one) collects on the bima. The chazzan or chazzanit (if there is one) gathers their breath. Three congregants each carry a Torah scroll to form a beit din, a traditional Jewish court.

And then those with the most beautiful voices, choir or cantor, chant the Kol Nidre, three times, as is tradition, to make sure everyone hears the whole thing.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKBkn4JHZfU

(In Orthodox and Conservative traditions, musical instruments are not used in services, but many less formal recordings may include them for listeners’ pleasure.)

So far, seems par for the course for organized religion. But then take a look at the translation.

Kol Nidre is a legal ceremony that absolves those present from any promise they may make to God during the coming year.

Oy vey! you probably aren’t thinking if this concept is new to you. What is this, some kind of spiritual pre-nup? How cynical do you have to be to have a big to-do formally saying it’s legally OK not to keep the promises you haven’t made yet? And what does it say about Jews that this is the most-attended and iconic service of the whole year?

Well, it says that the Kol Nidre is really beautiful, for one. And there are stories that it was developed during dark times like the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews might be forced to promise that they were not Jews. A few consider it a reminder of that, even though the real history seems far older and more complicated. But even if it were, despite the importance of bearing witness to the past, it doesn’t seem like a strong basis to make Kol Nidre the most important prayer for many Jews. So what gives?

Honestly? I can’t tell you. I know only how I think of the Kol Nidre, and I don’t claim to be able to speak for the rest of the diverse Jewish community.  But for a long time, it didn’t resonate with me the way I thought it ought to.

Wasn’t this exactly the right time of year to make vows to God? I mean, come on, the rest of the special liturgy is all about us returning from our sinful ways, promising to do better in the future. Why put so much importance on over-preparing for what might go wrong? How is God supposed to believe in our sincere will to succeed if, on day one, we’re already setting up emergency exit routes?

After all, in everyday life, I considered myself the sort of person who makes commitments and sticks by them. I finished what I said I would. I completed my graduate work on brisk schedule. I churned out first drafts in the timeframe I’d committed to, finished my grading so fast the professor I worked for had to find extra work to fill out my hours, and planned epic treasure hunts that took weeks to organize.

So no matter what else I set my mind to, I could do it when I said I would, right?

Right?

A few years back, I finally hit the point I’ve probably been headed for awhile now: taking on too much.

I was used to adding things to my to-do list and being able to cross them off without issue, so long as I planned ahead. After all, I reasoned, I could do each of these things in the time I’d allotted. And I had the discipline to power through work when I needed to.

But, of course, that’s not how life works. When I power through a first draft in the morning, it means I can’t push myself through twenty papers in the afternoon and still go to the gym and also make a nutritious dinner and get enough sleep.

Some days, I am going to need to rest. Some days, I’m going to be sick or depressed and unable to complete even a fraction of the work I have planned. And though I can urge myself through ridiculous amounts of marking or lesson planning when I’m convinced I “need” to, that’s unsustainable and ultimately destructive.

For instance, just this month, after getting hit with a bad flu-like bug, I needed to grade 20+ papers a day, on top of a full teaching load, in order to get my students their marks before their next assignment was due. I wound up working several 12-16 hour days in a row for about a week, dropping almost everything else. The end result?

I needed time to recover. Physically, for sure — my long-term arm problems that are exacerbated by computer work are still sending shots of pain through my shoulder as I type this. But also mentally. I couldn’t assess students’ work and write feedback to my usual standards, which I didn’t entirely grasp until I had a terrible mental-health day that culminated in full-on sobbing tears.

So, those plans I’d made to continue at this clip for the next, oh, month or so? Not happening. I have no option but to accept that, despite what I want, I can’t meet the standard I set for myself. In order to get what I can do done, I need to forgive myself for not doing it in the ideal way. And to avoid the same situation again, I need to accept that sometimes, despite my best intentions and general competence, I cannot fulfill commitments that I want to treat like the most important thing.

Sound familiar?

For me, right now, Kol Nidre is about humility and fallibility. We spend so much time on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur singing liturgy that frets over whether G-d forgives us, and the rabbis encourage us to think about whether we forgive each other. But we seldom consider explicitly whether we forgive ourselves.

Blame is backward-looking. It cultivates self-loathing and inward focus. Responsibility takes the lessons of the past to look to the future. It fosters action and growth.

To take responsibility, we need to accept our flaws without allowing them to limit our perception of what we ought to strive to become. By acknowledging our limitations before we’ve even set out to test them, Kol Nidre isn’t admitting we give up.

Instead, it’s about setting ourselves free to keep working our way forward, even when we wind up not able to travel as far or as fast as we think we ought to.