Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, brings with it a promise of the impossible: If we repent, the past can be undone.
By genuinely regretting bad behavior and resolving not to repeat it in the future, an act of wrongdoing is wiped out as if it never happened — this is the miracle of God’s forgiveness. If a fellow human being was injured or deprived by the wrongful behavior, then repentance must include restoration or reparation to that person.
Yet Yom Kippur’s very basis seems to be contradicted by an explicit halachic ruling on repentance.
The Mishnah (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma 85b) says the miracle of divine forgiveness will not be extended to those who abuse the system of repentance.
For example, if someone says, “I will sin and then repent so that I will be forgiven and thus obtain the fruits of evil without being punished,” then that person will have no opportunity to repent, for this would make a mockery of the system. The person would be exploiting God’s mercy to get away with a crime. This is intolerable and forgiveness is denied.
Similarly, the Mishnah says, “If someone says, `I will sin and then Yom Kippur will bring me atonement,’ then Yom Kippur does not atone”; again we are warned not to abuse God’s grace. Yom Kippur’s power will work for us only if we do not exploit it.
Consider, however, that Yom Kippur is built into the Hebrew calendar. This means we can count on the Day of Atonement as a time of forgiveness every year.
As we anticipate Yom Kippur’s power to clean the slate, do we lower our moral guard at least a bit, knowing our wrongful acts are not permanent? Does this constitute an annual case of “I will sin and then Yom Kippur will bring me atonement,” which the Mishnah rules invalid?
When I first raised this question at a rabbinical convention, I proposed that Yom Kippur should not be on the annual calendar; placing it there tempts people into depending on it.
If enough people sinned, then rabbis would meet and proclaim that God’s forgiveness is still extended for all who repent and Yom Kippur would be held that year.
The typical reaction to my proposal was, “What? No Yom Kippur? We depend on the sale of seats to sustain our budget!”
Does this validate the point that in some sense, we are all guilty of sinning and depending on Yom Kippur to get us out of the pit we have dug for ourselves?
One possible answer is that Yom Kippur is built into the calendar because of human beings’ fallibility and their tendency to commit sin, selfishness and error.
“There is no human being in the world so righteous who does [only] good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). But this answer misses the depth of moral realism and profundity in the concept of atonement. Yom Kippur is not there just because of sinners. True, they need compassion and divine forgiveness — but the moral and righteous need Yom Kippur just as much.
Self-defense is a mitzvah. But if we must kill another person, we have done the right thing while incurring guilt. In the Bible, the Israelite army underwent ritual purification after fighting before being allowed to re-enter the Temple.
Human life is infinitely valuable. Yet if we cannot save all in danger, then we must prioritize. In so doing, we have performed a mitzvah — and failed morally.
An ideal society would assure economic equality. Failing this, we must extend tzedakah to the needy. But then our charity helps perpetuate inequality. Thus we collaborate in furthering a system that, purposely or not, robs people of dignity by making them depend on others.
Keeping kosher is a mitzvah. It is less guilt-provoking than unrestrained carnivorous behavior, but it falls short of vegetarianism in declaring reverence for life. Moral speech may require white lies; in a halachically legitimate abortion, protecting a mother’s life may involve sacrificing a fetus.
Governing, in particular, brings with it a host of ethical dilemmas that inevitably involve moral compromise and guilt.
In our lifetime, the haredim or ultrareligious on the one hand, and extreme liberal idealists on the other, have continually delegitimated Israel’s use of power and force to protect the Jewish people. These critics failed to understand the deeper lesson of Yom Kippur.
The sincerely righteous must continually be implicated in ambiguous, morally imperfect behavior. There is no other way to perfect this world.
Therefore, all of us — saint and sinner alike — need God’s continuing judgment on our actions. We also need divine compassion and forgiveness — lest we become hard, and embrace the presence of evil in our behavior; lest we become complacent and excuse our compromises; lest we become cynical or self-protective and walk away from responsibility.
No wonder that on Kol Nidre night, we recite the formula that “by divine wisdom and community judgment, we permit [the righteous] to pray [as one congregation] with the sinners.”