Kol Nidre 2013/5774

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

Congregation Agudas Israel

Kol Nidre 5774

September 13, 2013

Gmar hatimah tovah.  May you be sealed in the book of life.

For some Jews, today begins a day of agony.  They fast because it is what they always do.  They do not enjoy it.  They do not find meaning in it.  They just find themselves hungry.  It does not make them feel more spiritual, more angelic or closer to Gd.  It is just something they get through. I could stand here and suggest that these people are doing it all wrong, but I will not.  They have it right, just not exactly right, not entirely right.

Jews ARE supposed to fast on Yom Kippur.  We are supposed to afflict ourselves.  We are to avoid a complete bath/shower, putting on colognes/perfumes/anointing ourselves.  We do not have intimate relations with our spouses.  We do not wear leather (comfortable) shoes.  Yet, we are supposed to enjoy it!  I have even heard of people giving their children special treats or candy on Yom Kippur, since they do not have the privilege of fasting.  Many people see fasting as a spiritual discipline.  The rabbis of the Talmud limited fasting, since some Jews of the ancient world were fasting so often they were neglecting their other responsibilities.  

In our tradition, there are two parallel fast days, Tisha B’Av  and Yom Kippur.  Many books have been written about their connections, their parallels and their difference.  In short, Tisha B’Av is a fast of lament, of depression, of sadness.  It is the day when we remember the destruction of the Temple and the fasting and related practices are to remind us of this sadness, to memorialize the loss.  Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is about atonement, forgiveness and redemption.  Fasting on Yom Kippur is not done to punish ourselves, but instead to bring us closer to Gd.  It is done to help us find the Gd-shaped hole I have been discussing this holiday season.  Fasting is an opportunity for us to shake off our human needs.  If we do not eat or drink, our bathroom needs are limited.  If we do not go to the bathroom, we do not have to wash as much.  If we do not wash as much, our spouses are more likely to give us some space. (pity laugh anyone?)  With that space, we can find the holiness in our selves, our connection to the Divine.  At the end of the day, our fasting for Yom Kippur, is about Divine awareness, about connecting to our Creator.

When we desire to connect to Gd, just as when we desire to connect to friends and family, we discover that we are imperfect.  We make mistakes.  We have good habits and bad habits.  In thinking about tshuvah, repentance or returning, we create a time to reinvent ourselves.  With this reinvention is the assumption that WE CAN REINVENT ourselves.

When we read the paper today, the world seems static.   Assad rules Syria and will murder hundreds of thousands of civilians and the world will do little--since there are bad options and terrible options.  Afghanistan sounds much like it did when the British invaded in 1839.  Congress seems mired in disfunction.  Our Jewish communities are shrinking here and across the country.  The world seems lousy and stuck.  At home, we live our lives, making good choices and bad ones, playing the same games on facebook or on our iphones (ok maybe that is just me), using up time we could spend helping others or helping ourselves.

I was sent a youtube video the other day.  Entitled Mad Mensch, it was a parody of Mad Men, but re-imagined with all Jewish admen making a spot for an anti-bullying Jewish non-profit.  The conclusion of the two minute webisode was that while “It gets better” might be a good slogan for the goyim, for the Jews a better one would be (in fake Yiddish accent) “it could be worse.” (laugh)

Yet, as Jews, we seem to ignore reality.  Much like people around the world on the secular New Year.  We come together on Yom Kippur and say we will change.  We acknowledge our sins, public and private.  We recognize that we are ALL sinners.  We say we will do better next year--and yet we find ourselves in the same room saying the same words.  Some of us have made big changes.  Many have made little changes.  And many have not.

A few months ago I read an article in the New York Times Magazine called “How Companies Learn Your Secrets.”  It discussed how companies mined customer data and could figure out that someone was pregnant and send appropriate sales and coupons--sometimes even before the person knew she was pregnant.  By noting that pregnant women often bought certain items together, they could make very accurate guesses about specific stages of pregnancy and time emails and mailings to match.  Using the same type of science, the makers of Febreeze found a way to turn a semi-useful product into a billion dollar industry.

What were both companies looking at?  The simple answer: habits!  Much of our waking life is habit.  We do not think about what we do first thing in the morning, but most likely our getting out of bed routine looks the same every day.  We do not think about how we brush our teeth, but we do it the same.  By understanding our habits, we can truly change our lives.  The power of AA is through changing people’s basic habits.  The power of regular exercise, dieting, weight loss is through consistent and permanent change.  The power of our own military is making actions habits, so that soldiers do not have to think about how to react, they just do!  By replacing bad habits with good ones, we can make the changes we desire.

The article in the New York Times was based on a book by Charles Duhigg called The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. In the book he describes the habit loop: cue, routine, reward.  To effectively make changes you have to figure out what your routine is, what the reward is and isolate the cue.  For example, if you walk to a local shop or cafeteria and eat a cookie every day at 3PM, your waistline may be growing.  For Mr. Duhigg, who ate such a cookie, by experimenting with different actions at 3PM, he figured out that he was not eating the cookie because he was hungry, but because he need to take a few minute break and socialize.  By replacing the routine of the cookie with a routine of talking to a colleague, he lost the added weight, but kept the reward of a brief distraction and a return to productivity.

I want to suggest a new habit loop for you.  If you have a watch or a phone with an alarm, after breakfast (not in shul), I want you to set it for 3PM.  At 3PM, I want you to pause for just a moment.  I want you to daydream.  I want you to notice something that you are thankful for.  It does not have to be anything complicated.  It could be “I’m thankful for having a job” or “I’m thankful for the coffee in my cup” or “I’m thankful that Gd put me on this earth.”  What I want you to do is create a habit loop for a Mincha Moment.  The cue is you will hear/feel your alarm, the habit is pausing and thanking Gd, the reward is the feeling of blessing from that very simple action.

I was going to create a website and twitter account, but it seems someone already thought of that!  There is even a facebook group online.  The funny thing about habits is that once we create them, once we make them routine and habitual, they tend to stick.  You may find that after a few weeks of taking a moment, you see the world with a little more gratitude.  You might even feel compelled to open a siddur and pray mincha, the afternoon service!  

To me mincha, is the most powerful reminder of Jewish tradition.  It is “easy” (air quote) to pray when we wake up or when we go to sleep, but to pause during our work or school or retired day is to say “I am not the only one in my universe.  I am a part of a greater whole.  Gd is a part of my life.”  It is a big statement for such a small action.

Our rabbis acknowledged the power of habit and the challenges of change long before any writer at the New York Times read some studies and brain scans from MIT.  In rabbinic literature, there is much discussion about Teshuvah, about repentance and rethinking our lives.  At this time of year we do chesbon hanefesh, an accounting of ourselves.  (Per the Power of Habit, we look at our habit loops.)  In the Talmud, we have dozens of pages about the conditions of teshuvah, what it requires, and how do we know when we are done? How do we know when we have truly done teshuvah.

Sanhedrin 25a discusses individuals that cannot be witnesses because they are not trustworthy.  They give an example of a butcher who is disqualified because he is known to have sold kosher meat.  Rav Nachman, the rabbi who initially disqualified him, allows him to testify after the butcher grows a long beard and long fingernails, showing publicly that he acknowledges his sins and is in the process of repenting.  Rabbi Idi the son of Avin offers a much more difficult route to repentance.  He said that the butcher cannot be trusted until he moves to a new town, where no one knows him, returns a lost object (does the right thing when no one is looking) or gets into a similar situation where he has the opportunity to sell treyf meat, but instead takes the loss (again, doing the right thing when no one can tell).  From Rav Idi, true teshuvah is not until you have broken the habit loop.  Until you have put yourself into the same situation and made a better choice, even at financial sacrifice, Rav Idi says you have not truly repented.  

The language is not the same, but the principles are.  To truly change oneself, we have to replace bad habits with good ones.  We have to do the right thing, even when no one is looking.  If we stop smoking publicly but still smoke when no one is around, we have not quit.  If we exercise once in awhile, but never make it regular, it is better than nothing, but the impact is not the same.  (Yes I am talking to myself here!  Another way to change our habit loop is to motivate ourselves--which for me is creating public accountability!)

I spoke earlier about the challenges of our world and how we can be discouraged into thinking that nothing can be changed with the world or ourselves.  This is simply not true.  Ask any Jew one hundred years ago what the Jewish center of the world was and they might say Poland, Lithuania, Germany or Russia.  Israel did not exist.  It was just the dream, the hope, Hatikvah!  Today the centers of the Jewish world are New York and Jerusalem.  The world has changed.  We are distraught over the destruction of the Shoah, the Holocaust.  We are grateful for the land of Israel, which came about through the work on many, many people working in concert.  Just as the world can change, so can we.

We can change ourselves, but it does not happen entirely overnight and it works best in community.  Why do we pray together?  We pray together not just to lift our prayers higher, but also for accountability.  When we see each other here in shul, we push ourselves to do more, to life our souls, to cry out to heaven.  Seeing each other, peer pressure, is also a powerful motivating factor.  For my mincha moment suggestion, if you have facebook, tag me and CAI when you take a mincha moment. Say I stopped and here is what I thought about.  Maybe you will change not only your habits, but the habits of everyone in this room!

Returning to my opening, those of you who fast on Yom Kippur, but are not happy about it have the cue and routine right, you just need to work on the reward.  Having ⅔ of a habit is a great start!  With a little more work, I pray that this year’s fast will not be something to be endured, but a tool to help you on your spiritual journey.  I pray that these tools of cue, routine and reward will help you consider your life and help you become the best you, the best Jew, you can be.  Personally, I think it is pretty impressive that our rabbis have been suggesting the same idea for thousands of years.  I guess there really is some wisdom in our Jewish texts!  

May your fast be not only easy, but meaningful, empowering and spiritually rewarding!