Atoning for What?
I grew up hearing that on Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday, Jewish people fast to atone for our sins. I think that’s the basic concept, though I’d have to Google it and I’m not near my cell phone or a computer as I’m writing this (though I’ll need to transcribe it into the machine later).
So maybe, in a way, Yom Kippur is kind of a Jewish analog for the crucifixion. (I know I’m on shaky ground here, not being a Christian myself.) That is, as I understand it, Jesus gave up his life and suffered on the cross to atone for the collective sins of all humanity, whereas we Jews have to do it individually, once a year, from sundown to sundown – and then I guess we’re all right until we inevitably screw up again, but fortunately Yom Kippur comes around each year before we can accumulate too much gunk in our souls.
A Course in Miracles puts forward an entirely different theological/cosmological view of things – and again, I’m wobbly, having read ACIM 35 years ago but not since. Anyway, I do recall that ACIM asserts there has been a terrible misunderstanding and that the message of redemption was not in the crucifixion, but rather in Jesus’ resurrection, which symbolizes that death is an illusion, nothing real can be destroyed, and furthermore (most importantly!) this whole notion that humans are impure or sinful is wrong. In fact, we are all guiltless from start to finish, regardless of how things look.
Ultimate Judgment
Did I say I haven’t looked at ACIM in 35 years? Well, that’s mostly true, but there is one passage I continually return to, and refer other people to as well, because it’s the most merciful thing I ever heard or read in my life.
It’s in the subsection entitled “The Judgment of the Holy Spirit” and I shall quote from it now. (Please forgive, if you can, the overly gendered language. I’m sure the Holy Spirit meant to be inclusive, but set these words down in a less enlightened era.)
The analysis of ego-motivation is very complicated, very obscuring, and never without your own ego-involvement. [In other words, when we try to assess or judge what makes other people act as they do, we are coming from an extremely limited and distorted place, and we truly have no clue.) (And yes, the Holy Spirit can wax a bit longwinded and convoluted at times.] … There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is a plea for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to him, for this and only this is what he is asking for…. Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly.”
There now. See what I mean?
Another tidbit I recall from ACIM is that “a belief in vengeance” – i.e., the belief that vengeance or punishment can ever accomplish anything worthwhile – is completely insane.
Day of Peace and Forgiveness
I don’t go to synagogue. In general, I don’t gravitate to ceremonies and rituals. (I prefer walking in the park when I take plant medicines.) But I do fast each year on Yom Kippur. I feel it keeps me connected to my Jewish heritage, and it also feels cleansing, a yearly reset.
Most days, I eat pretty compulsively. I’m a lifelong emotional eater, and it feels nice to put that habit on pause.
In fact, today (as I’m writing this) is Yom Kippur, and as I drifted off to sleep last night, the thought crossed my mind: “Wow, I don’t have to eat tomorrow! How peaceful!” (Actually I should probably fast for a day more often. It feels really good. And nope, I’m not stoned. That would be, to my mind, contrary to the spirit of this simple, beautiful holiday, which is about not consuming stuff.)
Having been raised as a “reform” Jew (read: “a member of the tribe but not overly serious about the religion part”), I have warm associations with Yom Kippur from my childhood. For one thing I was never asked, much less pressured, to fast. As for my parents, I liked the way my dad put it: “Today we’re not fasting, but we’re slowing a little.” Meaning that they were eating a little less than usual.
This tolerant and forgiving spirit I associate with Yom Kippur has remained with me over the decades (since my early 20s) that I’ve chosen to fast. For example, one year I missed the day but fasted on the next one, with no misgivings.
And in fact, I kinda messed up last night.
It was well after sundown – nearly 9 p.m. – and I was grocery shopping at the People’s Co-op here in Portland, which closes at 9. So I was in a big hurry to grab my items – but as you know, haste makes waste – and I wound up spilling a small paper container of fresh blueberries in my little handheld shopping basket, which made a mess. As I was trying to shovel the blueberries back into their container, some of them rolled out onto the floor (through holes in the shopping basket) and I grew frustrated, and started grabbing the little devils with my fingers instead and dropping them back into their container, and in the midst of this frenzied activity (the store was closing! I had to hurry!) I thoughtlessly popped a few of them into my mouth.
Oops.
As I rode my bike home, I thought, how could I adjust for this mistake? I suppose I could extend my fast the next day (today) a couple of hours, to ensure that it technically covered an entire 24-hour period.
But then I thought, “Nahhhh … I’m forgiven.”
Wow
Right this moment I’m viewing a majestic cloud formation, backlit by the sun, across the upper reservoir in Mt. Tabor Park.
Just appreciating the miracle of creation, which is so much bigger than my mind, or even “the world situation” as I understand it.
Speaking of Which …
I hear Trump is sending federal troops into Portland, allegedly because we have chaos and unrest here, but everyone knows it’s really just because he hates us. (If ACIM is correct and vengeance is insane, that man is gone gone gone.)
And the U.S. government is shut down and Trump is withholding all kinds of important designated funds from blue states, including billions of dollars that were earmarked for various clean energy projects under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Well. It’s all enormously unsettling and disturbing. I would offer this:
If you feel, as I do, that our collective situation is urgent right now, just do something. Anything. Whatever you can, within reason. It all counts, no matter how small it seems. We need a lot of different people to do hundreds of different things.
Me, I’m going to spend a congenial hour or two this Saturday (“tomorrow” for you!), with other Indivisible volunteers, writing letters to Pennsylvania voters, encouraging them to vote in their state Supreme Court election. And then of course I’ll attend the No Kings march and mobilization on the 18th of this month as well as, probably, other demonstrations in the weeks and months to come.
Who knows why this is all happening?
There must be a bigger picture I don’t see.
And in the meantime, I’ll bear in mind the lyrics to a song by Laurence Cole which, I think, goes:
You don’t have to be the whole weave
You just have to be your very own thread”
Something like that.
Peace and blessings.
Forgive yourself today and every day.
Forgive the world and its madness.
(And a belated gut yontif! to all my tribemates.)
One More Gift from Today
So I got home from my park walk and started typing this newsletter into my computer and I checked email and, as synchronicity would have it, a dear friend had sent me the following poem. Enjoy!
What the Serpent Really Told Eve
by Rev. Dennis McCarty
The calculations of astrophysicists tell us
That there are what they call “islands” of
Unimaginably dense matter
Deep within supermassive black holes,
Which lie, at the same time, on the very surfaces
Of those very same black holes.
We learn that, for all its vastness,
Our cosmos is better thought of In two dimensions–as a flat plane–
Rather than the three dimensions we believe we perceive.
The mathematics of quantum entanglement tell us
That what we perceive to be
Vast distances between two particles
Is an illusion: they abide closer, each to the other,
Than two fingers on the same hand.
We calculate the universe, weigh its vastness,
Measure the spectrum of its brilliance–
Or at least we think we do.
But all we learn is that each new insight
Expands it farther beyond our power to imagine.
Our very answers become questions in themselves,
The better we understand them.
Are these not miracles? Is this not richness?
That, in the very moment of calculation’s triumph,
Extending our reach to worlds beyond all old knowledge,
We learn, most of all, all over again,
How tiny we have always been,
And how many more questions we have
Than we ever guessed
When first we began asking them.
In the very instant of thinking we truly understand something,
Our understanding sheds its skin
Like a marvelous, metaphysical serpent,
To reveal once more:
How wonderful our wonder is.
How powerful our wonder is.
How healing our wonder is.
Come, let us worship together.”
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