How the ancestors tamed their shadows

September 16, 2026 levtaylor

Some stories only make sense in the light of day. When the morning lights shine on your tent and the campfire no longer illuminates the storyteller in orange, the ghost stories from the night before lose their shimmer. When the puppets have been put away and no longer parade before backlights, the characters that once seemed so real disappear to wherever fictions go when they are finished.

Such is the story of how our ancestors tamed their shadows.

If you can trust your shadow to do as you do and move as you move, you can thank your ancestors for taming it. Today, you know that when you turn out the light, your shadow will disappear, but that was not always the case.

Once, a shadow was a feral thing that strutted and fretted after every human step until it walked no more, then stapled itself to some other form.

If you tried to write by candlelight, the shadows flew across the pages and distorted every word. If you wanted to read the time from a sundial, the shadows danced in circles to disrupt what you could see. So, when the shadows were unruly, there was no recorded time.

Since the first rays of light beamed down millions of miles and crashed into the first mountains, the shadows had lived on earth. They were older than life – and just as frightening.

When a tree stood perfectly still on a summer’s day, its shadow performed the forest’s rotting, decaying destruction. If a bush sat contentedly in a field, its shadow depicted it expanding outwards and throttling every other plant.

Shadows followed people. They lurked behind every being, showing human beings their dark side.

A woman could happily walk through an orchard without touching a thing, but her shadow snatched the apple shadows from every branch, gobbled them up, snapped the branches, chopped down the trunks, and threw salt on the soil.

When you looked back at the solid world, nothing had really changed. The shadows were just animations of people’s worst fears about themselves.

When human beings created the earliest civilisations, the shadows mocked up their own. The shadows of towns were burnt out ruins turned into snake pits with buzzards circling overhead. From atop a hill overlooking a community like this one, you would see the shadows of smoke and ash rising from a destroyed city.

If you were bold enough to listen, you could even hear the screams.

Yes, the shadows had voices.

When Cain committed the first murder, his shadow crouched, waiting for him in the doorway, like a bailiff to collect debts. The shadow walked behind his every step, reminding him of who he was and what he had done.

When two friends reached out to hug each other, the shadows made a puppet show of them attacking one another with fists and weapons. They hissed insults, dredging up every past slight, and insisted on each other’s worst traits.

The darkness was a terrifying thing and the shadows were a menace. So our ancestors worshipped the light. They praised the sun and hated the moon. They saw goodness in all that shone, and feared anything that cast a shadow.

They called the god of light Adonai: the Commander; the Sovereign. They prayed:

ברוך אתה יהוה עשה את האור

Blessed is the Sovereign, creator of light.

They called the god of darkness El: the Spirit; the Power. They prayed:

ארור את אל בורא את החושך

Cursed is the Spirit, maker of darkness.

A black silhouette sculpture depicting an angel with large, feathery wings embracing a man in a hat, showcasing intricate patterns and a dynamic pose. — *The Wrestle in Steel, Grisha Bruskin*

After Jacob betrayed his brother, Esau, and stole everything from him, Jacob’s shadow trailed behind him. Everywhere he went, Jacob’s shadow re-enacted his deception. It whispered to him that he was cruel, callous, untrustworthy; and, because of this, that he was unworthy, unlovable, unsalvageable.

One night, exhausted by his shadow’s relentless attacks on his character, Jacob leapt at his own dark form and tried to strangle it.

But the shadow fought back. The man and his shadow wrestled until morning came, when the shadow dislocated his hip from its socket. As the sun rose, the shadow gave Jacob a new name: Yisra-El; the spirit-wrestler; the one who fights with dark powers.

From then on, the ancestors knew that they could fight with the shadows. They also knew that they could not win. They called themselves the people of Yisrael: the nation that struggles with shadow-spirits.

The shadow is the closest thing to a human being at every moment. It dogs you, even when you think there is scarcely a source of light. So, what can you do when your shadow chases you, accuses you, and torments you? What can you do with something that attacks you when you cannot hope to gain victory over it?

You ignore it.

Our ancestors pretended their shadows were not there. However grotesquely violent they made their shapes or malevolently cruel they made their whispers, they took no notice.

In the time of the untamed shadows, people were polite and kind and spoke with quiet voices and rarely displayed anything that looked like anger, pain, or fear. Meanwhile, their shadows acted out the most tumultuous scenes and displayed every possible hostility. This was how our ancestors lived for generations.

Until they could no longer.

One morning, the children poured out into the central square of their town to play, in the way that children so often do, while their parents made breakfast.

Already there in the plaza was a quiet girl who rarely joined the others’ games and often wasn’t invited. She was doing something with her shadow that nobody had seen before.

She was playing.

She hopscotched along the cat’s cradle court, then her shadow did the dance on after her.

And the shadow was doing something they’d never seen before either.

The shadow was laughing.

No, giggling.

The girl and the shadow acted out the game like friends.

For a while, the children stopped and stared at the strange unfolding game.

Had a grown-up entertained such a risky activity, their peers would have quickly put a stop to the behaviour. But children are less aware of social rules, so don’t always enforce them. Nobody dragged her from the danger of her game. The kids just gawked.

And, after a while, they realised something. The shadows were gawking, too.

Eventually, a couple of kids ventured over and asked if they could join in playing. The little girl cheerfully assented. As did her shadow.

The children’s shadows whispered: “Let us play too.”

So the young and their shadows played together.

This is not to say it was all smiles. The shadows pushed each other, cheated, cut queues, and grabbed each other’s hair. But they kept playing. The children blurred the lines between body and shadow; between fun and fight; between propriety and play.

By the time that grown-ups came out to call the children in for breakfast, it was already too late. Everyone under a certain age was engaged in hopscotch or jump-rope or chase, and their shadows were playing too.

Upon the sight, the adults’ shadows flew into murderous rages. The dark forms of parents grew into monsters with gnashing teeth and scythe-like claws and hissed at the infants.

In their solid forms, the parents crouched gently beside their young ones, doing all they could to keep their eyes from the violent puppetry being played out on the ground. They whispered: “what are you doing? Why are you playing with these monsters?”

The children’s shadows recoiled into small balls like startled hedgehogs and cowered from their raging carers.

But in the visible world, the children stood firm. They placed their hands on their hips and spoke with indignation. They described to their parents exactly what had happened.

And the girl who had initiated this entire transgression asked: “why have you never played with your shadows before?”

A table with various objects illuminated by lights casting playful shadows on a wall, showcasing a whimsical scene. — *Hans-Peter Feldman, Shadowplay*

“You can’t ignore your shadow,” she insisted. “You have to ask it questions. When she’s angry, you need to ask her what she’s feeling. When she’s frightened, you need to ask her what she needs.”

When they came to tell of this day many years later, it was a final and outright undoing of years of suspicion, after which everything fell into order. In reality, everything took more time, and included many setbacks. After all, they were undoing conventions that went back to the dawn of civilisation.

But let us tell the story in its truncated folklore form. On that day, every ancestor turned to every shadow and started a conversation. From that moment on, they stopped ignoring the dark alter-egos that haunted them.

They saw that when these apparitions enacted violence, they were acting out their anger. They came to understand that when their shadows cowered, they were showing they were afraid. And that, when they snatched and grabbed from others, they were just exhibiting jealousy.

They learned that shadows could offer them shelter, protection, and shade. They learned that anger, fear, and envy could help them live better lives. They learned that they could not run from their shadows.

They were their partners. They were their playmates.

The shadows could not be separated from their bodies. The ancestors themselves were their shadows, and their shadows were them.

How wrong the ancestors had been about their God! There were not two powers in Heaven. The Sovereign and the Spirit were not separate deities: they were the same divinity in different guises.

Just as the shadow was an answer to the body and the moon was a mirror of the sun, the god of daytime and the god of night were one.

They ceased to talk about יהוה the Sovereign and אל the Spirit. Now they called their God by one name: יהוה אלהינו – our Spirit the Sovereign.

How wrong the ancestors had been to shun shade and revile darkness! Now they recited a new prayer:

ברוך אתה יהוה אלוהינו מלך העולם עשה האור ובורא את החושך

Blessed is the Sovereign, our Spirit, who rules the world, creator of light, and maker of darkness.

Yes, Blessed is God, who brings on all.

You would imagine that it was the shadows who changed and became the static fixtures we recognise today. But, no, it was our ancestors who changed first.

They became more curious about their own needs. They became more open about their desires.

And, as it turns out, they didn’t kill each other or rob each other or hurt each other when they engaged with their shadows. In fact, all those things happened far less often.

They were, however, more coarse and more abrupt. They were far more honest and far less polite. They had more conflict. They cried more, blushed more, and told each other they were angry more.

And they got on better with each other, and with themselves.

And then… well, the shadows did not need to come up with their aggressive dramatisations any more. And they started to look just like the bodies they were following. The shadows and the bodies merged to share the same borders, side-by-side.

Never again would they be deceived into dismissing any part of themselves. Never again would they imagine that anything did not come from the same single God.

So they taught themselves a new mantra, which they passed on to their children, and they to theirs, until many generations had passed. They told their descendants to say it three times every day and recite it whenever we prayed. They were to repeat it on waking and lying down; at home and on the way; at every moment of the day.

This was what we had to say:

שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד

Remember, O nation who struggles with shadow-spirits, the Sovereign is the Spirit. All aspects of God are One.

Such is the story of how the ancestors tamed their shadows.

Now, hear this, all you who have come to synagogue on Kol Nidrei. You are the spirit-wrestlers. You are the descendants of those ancient people who used to fight with shadows.

Know that you still have a shadow. We all still have dark parts of ourselves: those silhouettes shaped just like us that follow us around feeling angry and scared; greedy and sinful; violent and cruel. There are, perhaps, still high-pitched whispers dogging us, that tell us the worst versions of ourselves and everyone else are true.

You cannot ignore your shadow all the time. And Yom Kippur is a pretty good time to face it.

Your shadow is not a foreign enemy to be destroyed. It is a part of you. It generates the feelings you would rather ignore, like jealousy, rage, lust, and fear. But all those feelings are part of you. You can’t fight them away.

Nor can you let your shadow conquer you. You can’t let your anger or envy control you. You must engage with the parts of yourself you most despise in order that the version of you you like best can thrive.

Instead, when you meet your shadow, as you are likely to do during today’s solemn fast, be gentle with it, and kind. Ask it questions, and see what it can teach you. Play with it, and see if it can bring something to your life. Tame it, like a friendly pet.

In Judaism, there is only one Source. God has no opposite, no partner, and no comparative. All that exists comes from the same God, and all is balanced towards the good. Everything that exists in you – your greatest virtues and your darkest impulses – come from God. All of it needs to be seen for what it truly is.

If this story has offended, remember that you can shake off these shadows as soon as you leave here, and it will disappear to wherever fictions go when they are finished.

But if this parable is useful to you, tomorrow morning, when we return to our prayers, let us try to make friends with our shadows.

After all, some stories only make sense in the light of day.

The power of naming

September 14, 2026September 14, 2026 levtaylor

Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbours

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.

This poem was written by Zelda, an Israeli poet, born in Ukraine, and translated into English by her friend, the American Marcia Falk. Although written as recently as the 20th Century, these words have achieved iconic status. “Each of us has a name” has become part of the Jewish liturgy for funerals, stonesettings, and Holocaust Memorial Day.

It speaks to something we know: the power of names.

When Adam, the first human being, named the animals, he gave life to their souls.

Knowing somebody’s name tells you about them. We hear a name and, in it, hear language, history, culture, connection.

You know, when you hear your own name, the power it holds. Your full name. Your government name. Your nickname. A secret name only someone you love deeply ever calls you. In hearing your name, you know your relationship to the one who says it.

Speaking someone’s name can summon them, invite their presence; or can scold them, cast them away. When we speak a name, we exert our own power.

We give names at birth through baby blessings. We call up somebody by their Hebrew name when they come to Torah. We change names with marriages, after life-changing experiences, and as a way of affirming gender. We etch names on tombstones and recite names during El Malei Rachamim.

When we understand the power of names, we can understand the significance of the rituals of Yom Kippur.

Long before there was a synagogue in Kingston, or Jews in Europe, or an academy in Babylon, or a Temple in Jerusalem, there was a Tabernacle in Shiloh.

It was a great tented structure on a great hill north of Bethel, whose songs could be heard deep in the Jordan valley and whose burning incense could be smelt as far away as Jericho.

This fabric sanctuary had many layers. Everyone could stand around the edges. Then, past the first gate, only the true believers could enter. Then, into the inner sanctum, only the priests from the ancient tribal hierarchy would go. And then, right at the centre of the mishkan, behind many curtains, hidden away from all view, was the Holy of Holies.

Only one man could enter there: the High Priest. And he could only enter once a year: on Yom Kippur. And he could only say one word, a secret word: the name of God.

We do not know what that name was or how it was pronounced.

Even Moses did not know it. While tending Jethro’s flocks in Midian, a great burning bush appeared before Moses and demanded he return to Egypt and free the people.

Then Moses asked for God’s name. God roared in reply “ehyeh asher ehyeh”: I will be what I will be. “Tell the people that ‘I will be’ is the one who sent you.”

God did not share the name with Moses in that moment. Maybe Moses never heard it at all. Indeed, maybe Moses could not have known it, because to know someone’s name is to know their inner essence, and God’s is beyond our comprehension.

But, we are told, God did let someone in on the secret of the Name: an initiate; one in every generation: the High Priest. He is a semi-mythic figure in our Torah, who, in legend, was beholden to the secrets of the Universe. But, insofar as God’s Name was ever knowable, the High Priest knew it.

We do not know how he said the name. Perhaps he shut his eyes and whispered it into the empty space behind all the drapery. Or maybe he cocked his head back and cried it aloud up to the Heavens. We know he said it ten times.

And, by saying God’s ineffable name, some great magic happened. In this pre-rational time of mystics and miracles, God’s holy presence descended on the Israelites, and granted them all forgiveness.

Yes, a name grants connection across the veils of reality. In ancient times, to say God’s unspeakable name breached God’s innermost essence. Saying the name summoned God from behind the veil of reality. The name ruptured through the boundaries of real and spiritual; finite and eternal.

You have seen this name written down. Above our ark here are the words in Hebrew ‘ivdu et Hashem besimchah- “serve God with joy” but the word is not written as it sounds.

Scholars call it the Tetragrammaton, meaning “four letter word” because it is inscribed with four Hebrew characters. Yod-heh-vav-heh.

But these letters are unpronounceable themselves. Even with vowels added, the letters struggle to make a discernible word. Protestant Christians in Germany tried to render it as Jehovah, which we know is impossible in Hebrew.

According to the Talmud, the name the High Priest may actually have said in the Holy of Holies was forty-two letters long. The High Priest intoned it quietly under the sweet melodies of the priests so that nobody could hear it.

Legend says that perhaps this name was passed on through generations but only to those who lived a life of absolute discretion, never once got angry, never tasted alcohol, and never insisted on anything. If such people exist, they are too modest to reveal their knowledge. If they ever existed, they probably no longer do.

So we read it as “Adonai,” literally meaning “my ruler,” even though we know that is not really God’s name.

In common speech, we just call God “HaShem”: literally, the name. Baruch HaShem: thank God; b’ezrat HaShem, please God. God is the Name; the Name of all Names; the Name beyond Names.

We come to the Yizkor ceremony. In the space-time of Yom Kippur, this service of remembrance is our holy of holies. Now, we say names.

In the build-up to this ritual, members send in the names of all those they remember, so that they can be read aloud. Some names, too, remain unspoken, but rest silently on lips, or stay gently placed on grieving hearts. Here, the names of our dead are called out.

Just as when the High Priest entered the Tabernacle at Shiloh so many centuries ago, something intangible happens with the naming.

Just as Adam once named the animals and animated their spirits, we name our loved ones and breathe new life into their memories.

We breach past death and touch an essence of the person that cannot be reduced or destroyed. We rupture the boundaries of real and spiritual, and see that something of our loved one has never left us.

Through saying the names of our loved ones, we bring their presence into our lives. They bring us comfort, and the pain of their loss. They bring us forgiveness, and the opportunity to forgive. They bring us the past, and point us to the future.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at the University of Stanford. He wrote a small book called Sum, which imagines forty different possible afterlives. In the eighth possible ending to our time on earth, Eagleman writes:

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

This popular imagining of the afterlife is, in some ways, anticipated by our rituals of remembering.

Today, we say the names of our loved ones, and, if only for a moment, we give them life with us here once more. In a way we cannot explain, that is beyond reason, their names stand in for their whole being.

We know that, in our naming, and in our remembering, we keep something important of the dead with us. Just as they were once called in from playing in the street, or called up to read from Torah, or called out to in a crowded room, we call them again to come and pray with us.

May their names be remembered for a blessing.

Yizkor 5787, Kingston Liberal Synagogue

high holy days · judaism · sermon

Knowing we will die helps us live to the fullest

October 1, 2025September 30, 2025 levtaylor

Here’s the deal. Let’s see who will take it.

Today, you get a million pounds. But the catch is, tomorrow you die.

Any takers?

I didn’t think so.

You value living more than you value money.

In fact, when you put death into the equation, you realise how much living matters to you. It matters more than any amount of wealth or status you could accrue.

Knowing we will die helps us understand what we value from life.

In many ways, Yom Kippur is a death rehearsal.

We act out today as if these were the last moments we would be alive.

Like the dying, we refrain from food and water.

We turn up in modest clothes, without jewellery. Some wear white, the colour of the funeral shroud. Some wear kittels, the gowns in which we will be buried. Some wear tallits all day, from evening to evening – a unique point in the year when we do so – just as the dead are traditionally buried wearing their tallits.

Over the course of this fast, we repeatedly recite vidui, the prayer of deathbed confession. We say psalms and chant petitions that are associated with death and funerals.

All of this serves as a ritual memento mori: a reminder that we will die.

Then, as we approach the end, we erupt into songs. We joyfully recite the neilah prayers. For many of us, there is a great rush of relief and joy as we realise we have made it through this marathon day.

Yes, today is a reminder of our death, and it is one that affirms life.

On this day, our Torah instructs us: “choose life.” Only by recognising that death is inevitable can we do so.

By really considering the finite amount of time we have on this earth, we are able to celebrate the days we have and live them to the fullest.

So much of modern Western society shies away from death.

For previous generations, death was a sacred process undertaken among family and community.

Today, it is sanitised: dealt with in hospitals and hospices by qualified experts.

There are great advantages to this. The professionalisation of death means that the sick can receive high quality care and pain relief right up to the last moments of their life. It takes a great deal of pressure off of family and friends, because the care for the dying does indeed require constant work.

But one downside to our compartmentalisation of death is that it means it is kept out of sight and taboo.

When we do have to face death, it is often a shock, and can cause great trauma to living loved ones. Intellectually, all of us know we are mortal, but facing death as a lived and embodied experience can feel like a real rupture.

Having the Yom Kippur experience – which draws our attention to our mortality and makes us reflect on the quality of our lives – can be a powerful way to help us face death. In these rituals and fasts, we can prepare for our mortality.

This real confrontation with death isn’t morbid. It’s a direction to truly embrace life.

Knowing we will die helps us consider what we want to do with life.

In Progressive Judaism, we have a tendency to downplay some of the more explicit symbolism of death and mortality in our services. It is there in the machzor – in our silent confessions, themed readings, and traditional prayers. But our services often tiptoe over death’s undercurrents in the prayers.

This year, I have tried to reintroduce some of those themes to the service.

Last night, at Kol Nidrei, we joined the rest of the Jewish world in holding the scrolls out of the ark, leaving it bare. The great American Reform liturgist, Rabbi Larry Hoffman, points out that the open ark is supposed to evoke a coffin. We stare into the empty space, which usually includes our Book of Life, and lay witness to our own tomb.

This morning, during shacharit prayers, we reintroduced the prayer “who by fire,” a traditional part of Unetaneh Tokef, which recounts the many ways in which a person might die. It is painful to consider life’s fragility, and all the vulnerabilities we face in life.

But, by facing up to the possibility we will die, we get better at deciding how we will live.

We realise that we value life, and we take stock of what it is we love about it.

Marie de Hennezel is a French therapist focused on end-of-life care. In the early 90s, she was among the first staffers at a palliative care unit for people dying of HIV/AIDS. At this time, there was no cure – the deaths of HIV patients often involved rapid deterioration and great suffering.

In 1995, de Hennezel wrote up her experiences of accompanying the dying into a memoir, entitled Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us to Live. The book even carried a foreword by French president Francois Mitterand.

She recounts stories of individual patients, as well as their carers, doctors, and nurses. In each vignette, she tenderly lays out how important it is to be with the dying.

From her support, the patients often learn to live through challenging ordeals. Those who feel like giving up or who contemplate suicide decide that they will indeed live until their last moments on earth. By helping them face their death, the patients gain the strength to embrace their life.

This work, it seems, also transforms the carer. De Hennezel writes that she has learnt so much about living from the dying.

She writes poignantly:

Life has taught me three things: The first is that I cannot escape my own death or the deaths of the people I love.

The second is that no human being can be reduced to what we see, or what we think we see. Any person is infinitely larger and deeper than our narrow judgments can discern.

And third: one can never be considered to have uttered the final word on anything, is always developing, always has the power of self-fulfilment, and a capacity through all the crises and trials of life.

Let us take this as our message from Yom Kippur today.

Our lives are not over. We can affirm them. We can do so much with them.

And, though we do not always realise it, we love our lives more than any amount of wealth or status.

By facing up to the fact that we will die, we can live the days we have to the fullest.

Gmar chatimah tovah – may you be inscribed in the Book of Life for good.

Yom Kippur Yizkor 5786

high holy days · judaism · sermon

It is time to tell a different story about ourselves

September 30, 2025September 30, 2025 levtaylor

It is time to tell a different story about ourselves.

We are writing a story about our lives right now.

On Rosh Hashanah, our story is written. On Yom Kippur, the story is sealed.

What, then, are we doing today?

This morning, we are editing. We are looking over our story and choosing what to keep and what to discard. What to highlight and what to relegate to the footnotes.

Of course, we cannot change the events of our past, but we can decide what they mean. In writing our story today, we choose what role we played in the narrative of our own lives.

When you tell this story, are you a victim, or a villain? A saviour or a sinner?

Look at your mistakes. The way you tell your story will help you decide whether they were a defining part of your personality, or whether they were opportunities you took to learn and grow.

Look at your suffering. Others have hurt you. You need to tell your own story of what that pain means. You need to decide if your suffering is the sum of your life, or if it is something you overcome.

You are writing the story of your life right now. Be careful how you tell it.

In our Mishnah, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi teaches: “Apply your mind to three things and you will not come into the clutches of sin: Know that there is above you: an eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.”

But here is what the Mishnah does not tell us:

The eye that sees can see more perspectives than we can.

The ear that listens knows all hearts in ways we do not.

And, most importantly, the book is constantly being edited and re-written.

We are always re-writing the Book of Life with our God, and that means we have the power to shape our story.

We cannot imagine that God’s eyes and ears are anything like ours, or that God writes a book the way we would. The story that an Infinite Being has to tell about you must be incomprehensible from your perspective.

When we tell ourselves our story, we are biased, seeing only our perspective. Our narrative is partial, not knowing what others really feel. Our account is unreliable, because we tell it to fit the character we have already made of ourselves.

God, on the other hand, sees not just what we did, but what we hoped to do. God says to the prophet Samuel: “I do not see as human beings see; human beings see only what is visible, but I see into the heart.”

God instructs the Prophet Isaiah: “Whenever anyone turns back to Me for pardon, I freely forgive, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways, and My plans above your plans.”

God is able to see errors in ways we cannot. And God can understand our pain in a context that is beyond us.

This is because God is telling a different story about you to your own.

In God’s plan, you are the main character. Of course, so is everyone else.

But that is because God has written a great novel where every creature has a vital role to play. No character could be introduced if they did not have a role in the great unfolding tale that progresses towards goodness’s triumph over evil.

So, today, look at the manuscript of your life. Decide what you want to focus on. Tell yourself stories of gratitude and joy. Consider the events that have given you pride and a sense of accomplishment.

Look, too, at the stories in your life that are hard. Re-tell the stories of where you have been hurt, and decide for yourself what meaning you take from them.

Re-examine the stories of when you have hurt others, and decide what changes these will bring for you when you enter your next chapter.

In this way, you can take control over the story of your life.

You cannot change what happened, but you can decide what it means.

Only you can decide how your story ends.

Treat God as your co-editor, rather than as the author of your destiny.

For some of you, the story I have told so far is too wrapped up in religious language. You cannot get on board with all this God-talk, and the quotations from Scripture prove nothing.

Let us turn, then, to the science of psychology.

Over many decades, psychologists have experimented with what makes for a good life. We now have more data than ever about how people forgive. We understand a great deal more about how to overcome trauma. And we know what motivates people to live better lives.

I am going to assume that, if you are here on Yom Kippur, you came because you want to let go of some past hurt, to repent of things you have done wrong, and to live a more fulfilling life.

The Scriptures tell us how to do this, but the language they use may feel too alien to the modern mind. The sciences, however, can corroborate the same claims.

Dr Fred Luskin runs the Stamford University forgiveness project. His team has researched the best methods to help people overcome their grudges and live more fulfilling lives.

He has tried out his techniques for helping hundreds of people forgive, including in the most extreme cases, like mothers whose children were killed in sectarian violence.

His book, Forgive for Good, is an accessible version of his research.

Dr Luskin teaches that our inability to forgive comes when we tell ourselves a “grievance narrative.”

You may have such a story yourself. If you keep coming back to an event in your life where you were wronged and replaying it, you may be stuck on recalling a past hurt. If, in this story, there is a clear villain, and you are a helpless victim, the chances are you have a grievance narrative.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people do.

I began reading Dr Luskin’s book out of academic curiosity, but soon found I was noticing my own grievance narratives. Some of them went right back to old hurts in school. I looked over some of the stories I had about my own life, and found they did not serve me.

Dr Luskin says that the key to getting out of the trap of these painful stories is to consider how you tell them.

First of all, decide how much space in your mind you want this story to occupy. Yes, you have been hurt, but do you want to keep letting those same people hurt you by giving them unlimited air play in your head?

One way forward is just to change how much you think about them. Rather than letting them be the main character in your story, focus your internal account on your own successes and joys.

Secondly, consider how you are telling your story. If you have a grievance narrative, the hurt you experienced may determine everything that comes after.

You were wronged, and that may have a lasting impact. But is it not also true that you survived, overcame, and learnt from the experience? You have the power to tell the story so that you are not a victim, but a hero.

None of this means pretending that pain doesn’t hurt, or that the wrongs others did were not wrong. Quite on the contrary: in order to move on with anything, you have to be able to say how wrong it was, and what it made you feel.

The difference is that you get to decide what it means. You can decide whether someone else has written your story for you, or whether you are your own author. You can choose to focus your attention on your own pride and resilience.

Just as our faith tells you to pay attention to how you tell your story, so, too, do the psychologists. The story you tell can help shape how able you are to move on from past pain and be a better person.

This is true, not just on the individual level, but also at the collective level. The stories we tell about Jews are the stories we tell about ourselves. What is the story we tell about ourselves as Jews?

There are plenty of stories out there about us. There are stories where we are perfect victims, forever blameless for the suffering we endured. There are stories where we are bloodthirsty brutes, responsible for the worst evils in the world.

Both of these stories deny us agency. These stories turn us into history’s stock character, whether as martyr or as monster. They deny Jews the ability to do what everyone else does: to hurt others, to learn from our mistakes, and to become better people. They strip us of the opportunity to grow and change.

We need, therefore, to think hard about what the narrative is that we are writing about Jews.

Rabbi Dr Tirzah Firestone sits at the intersection of spirituality and psychiatry. Firestone began her career as a psychoanalyst, then came back to the religion of her birth, embraced Renewal Judaism, and became one of its leading rabbis.

Firestone grew up with Holocaust-surviving parents. She felt that she and her siblings inherited great trauma from her family, and from the stories they told. Or rather, did not tell. Much of their former life escaping genocide was clouded by secrecy. The stories her father did tell were of persecution: that the non-Jews inherently hated Jews and would destroy them at every opportunity.

As a therapist and rabbi, Firestone urgently felt the need to tell different stories about Jews. She insists: “Identifying ourselves as victims freezes our focus on the past, and therefore forecloses our future.”

This does not mean pretending that Jews have never been victims. We need to face up to the traumas of Jewish history, including Shoah, pogroms, and persecution. Ignoring them, and refusing to tell the stories, can actually exacerbate the transmission of trauma.

What we need to do, says Rabbi Firestone, is honour Jewish history without internalising the harmful aspects of Jewish trauma.

We need to remember that, as Jews, we have collective power. We are able to influence the world, and not just subject to the vicissitudes of history. We must claim our agency, and take ownership over what happens to our future.

Most importantly, says Firestone, we should draw connections with others suffering from persecuting systems. By making these links, we strengthen ourselves, support our neighbours, and find positive meaning out of difficult circumstances.

We must, therefore, tell a new story about Jews. A story where we are survivors, who have been hurt and used creativity and resilience to overcome our pain. A story where we are complete human beings, who can hurt others, and who can repent and change. A story where our story connects to all of humanity for the sake of a shared future.

The story we are writing does not have to be one where we are always victims, nor incomparable monsters. We can create a narrative that acknowledges our past, honours it, and uses it to direct us towards a more positive future.

On Rosh Hashanah, our story is written. On Yom Kippur, the story is sealed.

We are writing a story about our lives right now.

Today, with the help of God and this sacred time, write your story.

Write a story you can be proud of. Write a story where you have the power to do better. Write a story where you overcome your challenges.

The events of your life so far have already been written. What they mean is up to you.

Gmar chatimah tovah – may you be written in the Book of Life for good.

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5786

high holy days · sermon

The world is governed by compassion

September 29, 2025September 30, 2025 levtaylor

“Hineni he’ani mi-ma’as – behold, I am poor in deeds and lacking in merit. Nevertheless, I come trembling in the presence of You, O God, to plead on behalf of Your people Israel who sent me, although I am neither fit nor worthy of the task. You who examine hearts, be my guide, and accept my prayer. Treat these words as if they were spoken by one more righteous than me. For you listen to prayers and delight in repentance. Blessed are You, O God, who hears our prayers.”

In the synagogues of medieval Europe, the service leader used to begin with this public prayer of atonement, openly acknowledging their own inadequacy.

In the Liberal world, we have been shaped by the Victorian attitude that eschewed public vulnerability. So, instead, this prayer is given out to rabbis to read privately to themselves.

The days when we had to pretend to be perfectly put-together are over. In our age, we recognise that openly sharing our insecurities builds a more emotionally authentic culture, where people are better at handling their feelings.

So, this year, I not only quietly recite this prayer in my office, but share it with you openly.

This year, these words feel more profound than usual.

This is a sensitive time, and I know how fragile so many hearts are.

In the build-up to these Days of Repentance, an American Masorti rabbi, Joshua Gruenberg, wrote:

“Rabbis stand before their congregations with trembling hearts. We know that every word matters. We know that words can wound and words can heal. And we know that in a climate like this one, the margin for error feels impossibly thin. […] The only way we will find wholeness is if we grant each other the space to be imperfect, the courage to be vulnerable, and the grace to be human.”

As this year came to an end, I thought back on the conversations I’d had with you over my time here. I thought back over some of the pain and worry you had felt, and realised just how much stress some members of the community were feeling.

Words can, indeed, hurt and heal. They matter. I want to honour that, by reflecting on the pain some of you have expressed.

We come here because we want to be together, in our fullness, with all our wounds and trauma, so that we can move towards healing.

To that end, let’s consider how we can approach anxious and hurting people with compassion. That is, after all, what we all need from each other.

The world has changed greatly in the last few years. So much feels more precarious.

Ten thousand people rallied at Tommy Robinson’s far right march in London to a speech by Elon Musk telling the crowds to get ready for violence against immigrants. The news from Israel and Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine, and Sudan and Ethiopia, keeps rolling in, feeling ever worse.

For me – and I know for some of you – the horrors of October 7th and the ensuing assault on Gaza marked a major turning point. In many of us, these events have brought up trauma responses we didn’t even know we had.

Since then, so much has unfolded that is out of our hands. This can feel painful when your instinct is to find solutions and assume control.

We have to accept our own limitations. I sometimes recite to myself the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Those of us within this room do not have the power to bring about peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We cannot get the hostages back or stop the starvation of Gaza.

That feels hard. If it were up to the members of this synagogue I have no doubt that the whole world could live in peace.

I am certain that we could indeed solve the country’s problems and fix our hurting planet. But nobody seems to be letting us do that, outside of setting the world to rights over kiddush.

But that does not mean we have no power at all.

The one area where we have real power is in our own homes and our own community.

And, there, we have the power to decide how much compassion we feel.

Even in the face of our own trauma and fear, we can choose to feel compassion for others.

Perhaps you can relate: in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, I felt intensely isolated. I felt a void where compassion ought to be.

I felt, among Jews, my own people, that I struggled to find many people who felt compassion for the people in Gaza.

On the left, as much my natural home as the synagogue, I struggled to find many people who felt compassion for Israelis.

Initially, I narrowed my circle to a small niche of Progressive Jews with left-wing opinions. It was comfortable and reassuring, when what I needed was to feel safe.

But if I was looking for compassion in the world, I needed to bring it into the world. I needed to model it.

Not just with the people who I knew felt like I did, but also with those whom I assumed were miles away from me.

It is easy to love humanity in general, and fine to pity people on TV. It is much harder to love the people nearest you when you feel so distant, or to understand them when it feels like they are living in a different world.

How could I look for compassion elsewhere if it wasn’t in my own heart?

How can we look for compassion if we do not feel it?

You can’t expect others to extend compassion to strangers when you can’t even have conversations with the people you already know.

I felt then – I still feel – that, perhaps, if we can feel compassion in our synagogues, and extend it out towards the world, and that others could extend their compassion too, then it might cause something to shift.

And, ultimately, that shift might make this world, which is harsh and unkind, a little better than it has been.

The message of compassion is already explicit in the liturgy of our Yom Kippur service.

God’s name is Compassion.

We read the refrain that repeats throughout the High Holy Days: “Adonai, adonai, el rachum vechanun… a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in compassion and faithfulness…”

It is a beautiful invocation of God’s qualities to help us through Yom Kippur.

The verses come from Moses’s second acsent of Mount Sinai, when he takes the new set of the Ten Commandments in his hand. As Moses walks down the mountain, God comes with him.

As Moses chants out these declarations of God’s mercy, it is as if Moses has truly understood what kind of God he is dealing with.

He learns how the world really works. He sees that it is governed by compassion.

Just before coming to get the new tablets of the law, Moses had seen the Israelites worshipping a golden calf, and smashed up the first set of the Ten Commandments.

These are great sins: idol worship and wanton destruction are strictly prohibited. The Israelites have been wayward. Moses has been angry.

Still, God, abounding in compassion and faithfulness, says: “Try it again. Have another go.”

In the Talmud, Rabbi Yohanan teaches that whenever the Jewish people sin, they should think back to this verse.

In the repetition of “Adonai, Adonai,” the Jews should understand that God is their Loving Creator before a person sins, and God is their Loving Creator after a person sins and performs repentance.

God is always willing to give people another chance.

In the same section of Talmud, we learn that, in the moment when Moses recited those words, God made a covenant based on thirteen attributes of mercy. It was a promise that God would always hear our prayers.

Later, in the Middle Ages, the French commentator Rashi elucidated what these thirteen attributes were.

In each word, says Rashi, is a reflection of the type of compassion God feels.

God is slow to anger to give you a chance to repent.

God is abundant in mercy, even with those who don’t deserve it.

God remembers good deeds even for a thousand years.

Even when we hear that God holds grudges for three and four generations, Rashi says that this only refers to people who maintain the evil ways of their ancestors. If they repent, all can be forgiven of them too.

This is how one truly maximises compassion.

So, let us be compassionate.

Let us maximise how much compassion we feel.

Our own community and our own homes are small places where we can truly practise compassion in a world where it seems so sorely lacking.

Last week, in her Rosh Hashanah address, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, of the American Reform movement’s flagship synagogue in New York, reflected on how the division in the world was creating strife even within her synagogue.

She urged her congregation to practise compassion, saying:

“It now seems that any expression of compassion for “the other side” is regarded with suspicion – as disloyal, or even threatening. Is our capacity for empathy so finite? Are our hearts so small, that if we increase our empathy for certain people, that we need to reduce it for others — until one day, we conclude: that ‘other side’ is not deserving of any compassion?”

Here, the “other side” could be so many different groups in this increasingly polarised and hostile world.

We all want to feel like people understand our own side, but struggle to extend our understanding the other way.

You don’t have to agree with people to love them. You just have to be curious, and try to understand them.

Some days, we may be capable of less compassion than others. On those days, let’s give ourselves grace, take time out, and remember how flawed we all are.

Even on our worst days, we can always try to understand each other. We can hold our own hearts while making them permeable enough to feel others’ pain too.

When people challenge us, let’s look for the best in them. Imagine their best intentions, and try to consider what problems they might be facing.

We are, all of us, flawed and temperamental. We all ask good grace of others, and we can all give it in return.

This year, let’s try to feel compassion for the people in our own families and homes.

Let’s try to find compassion for the people in our neighbourhoods. Perhaps we will shift something in them.

Let’s find compassion for the people in our community, so that we can hold each other, in our diversity, through these trying times.

And, as much as we can, let’s try to find compassion for everyone.

It won’t change the news cycle, but it might change you. And you might change others.

It is a small contribution to this world, but it is a mighty one.

It is the best that we can do.

Behold, I am poor in deeds and lacking in merit. Nevertheless, I come trembling in the presence of the One who hears the prayers of Israel. O God, You listen to prayers and delight in repentance. Blessed are You, O God, who hears our prayers.

Amen.

Kol Nidrei 5786, Kingston Liberal Synagogue

high holy days · sermon

What did Jonah do inside the whale?

October 11, 2024October 11, 2024 levtaylor

A simple Jew prays to God on Yom Kippur, and says “Ribon shel olamim, ruler of the Universe, I do not have much to repent of. Not compared to you. Unlike you, O God, I have not taken away children from their parents; I have not taken away parents from their children; I have not allowed disease and starvation and war. Compared to you, Holy One, I have been a saint. So, this year, I won’t be repenting. It’s your turn to repent.”

The rabbi asks him, “what were you praying there?”

He tells her all that he’s said.

She says: “You fool! You let God off too easy. You should have told God to bring about the Redemption as well.”

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt much like repenting this year. After all, what have I done, compared to the enormity of wrongs perpetrated?

I haven’t killed anyone or waged any wars. I haven’t robbed anyone or embezzled any funds. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t brazenly lied or misled. I certainly haven’t intentionally hurt anyone. I’m just not in the same league as the great sinners of our time.

And I don’t much feel like growing this year, either. Other years, I have enjoyed the stillness of Yom Kippur for reflection on being better. But I don’t feel like doing it this year.

Sure, I’m grateful for turning off my phone so I don’t have to look at all the bad news, but that’s more about self-care than self-improvement. I’m more interested in switching off from the world than in switching onto myself.

I mean, really, do I have to move? The world is changing so much, and not for the better. Shouldn’t I be allowed, as a one-off, to stop constantly evolving and just be as I am for a bit?

You know who else just wanted to stay still?

Jonah.

I think Jonah knew exactly how I am feeling now.

He was perfectly alright where he was, before God got involved and told him he needed to go and sort out all the problems of the world.

Who was Jonah in the scheme of things? He certainly was not a big player in the wrongs of the world. All of Nineveh’s sins were enormous and happening miles away. Why should he have to change himself?

So, when God called on Jonah to get up, that was already asking too much.

Jonah ran away to Tarshish. He shouted at God: “haven’t you got bigger fish to fry?”

God said: “you want to see a big fish? I’ll give you a big fish!”

One came along and swallowed him whole.

Now, all of the story before is about Jonah not wanting to move and all of the story after is about what happened after God moved him.

What happened in the whale, however, should really interest us.

This year, I feel like I’m in the whale. I am sitting in a puddle from which I feel like I cannot budge. I am stuck here and have no idea how to get out. All around me, the waves are crashing down and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

(A pedant will point out it’s not actually a whale. Technically, it’s a big fish, and the idea of it being a whale came later. But, technically, I’m not actually inside a whale at all, I’m in a synagogue, so I’m going to stick with the idea of the whale because it feels evocative.)

Now, I’m not even on the level of Jonah. My task is not nearly as big and I am not even inside a literal whale. So Jonah should be a good starting-place for my feelings of stubbornness and obstinacy.

What did Jonah do inside that whale? He despaired. He observed. He prayed. He sang. He learnt. And, eventually, he repented and grew.

So, this Yom Kippur, let’s engage with the whale. Let’s focus just on the three days Jonah spent inside the belly. Maybe we can learn from Jonah what to do when everything feels too overwhelming but we know we have to change anyway.

The second chapter of the book of Jonah is not narrative-form, like the rest of the book. Only the first verse, where Jonah gets swallowed by the whale, and the last verse, where the whale spits Jonah back out again, follow a linear storyline.

The rest of the chapter, only eleven verses long, reads more like a poem. It is a song, where each verses contains a parallel structure. It would fit just as well in the Book of Psalms, where there are similar supplications to God.

If the second chapter of Jonah is a journey, it is only a spiritual one. Jonah himself remains completely static, stuck in the belly of the beast.

His soul, on the other hand, begins in the depths of despair, goes through questioning and defeat, recognises the glory of God, and finally comes out committed to getting out there, thanking God, making offerings, and taking part in the deliverance.

This feels like the most important chapter to us, then. We are just sitting and standing in the same space. But we are expecting our souls to move.

I am feeling stuck in a world I cannot change, but I know I have to get somewhere else spiritually. We can’t just sit around here and hope to become better people. We know it needs work. But without a narrative, how do we know what to do?

Well, in the spaces left by the absence of narrative, the rabbis come up with their own stories. Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer is a collection of creative writing, compiled over many generations, that retells the biblical stories. These are our midrash, and in this rabbinic fan-fiction, we get a story to go with everything that Jonah says.

From these stories, we might come up with our own meanings of what we should be doing here.

The first thing Jonah does is acknowledge where he is. He accepts that he is in the belly of the fish.

The midrash gives us a grandiose interpretation of what that looked like. It was like entering into the great synagogue: an enormous, echoey chamber. The fish’s eyes were two great windows, so that Jonah could see what was going on underwater. Inside the fish was a giant pearl, which illuminated the belly and shone out towards the sea. With a lamp and windows, Jonah had a clear vision of where he was.

What can we learn from this? We learn that we need to be honest with ourselves about where we are. The world is a bit of a mess right now, and there’s no point putting on a happy face and pretending everything is OK. Equally, we are pretty safe here. We in this room are not under attack, and the risk we would be is very low.

So, start by taking stock of reality. Where am I? I’m in a synagogue, sitting on a comfy chair, with my feet planted on firm ground. I can see the lights of the room and smell that familiar sweet must of this religious space.

But it’s not enough to just say where we are. We need to say how we feel. That’s what Jonah does next.

He says: “I am crying out to God from my narrow-straits, please answer me.” Jonah says, “I am crying out from the belly of Hell, may God hear my voice.”

The midrash says, that’s exactly where the whale took him. It plunged him right down into the depths and showed him the gates to Hell.

So, we need to do the same. We need to ask ourselves how we are really feeling. Be honest about the frustrations and worries and anger we feel.

Next, Jonah finds a way to relate what is going on to what has gone before. In the depths of the ocean, Jonah says, he sees the billows and waves and reeds.

According to the midrash, this is because the whale took him on a tour, not just of the sea, but of Jewish history. The whale showed Jonah the foundations of the earth, deep on the ocean-floor, and reminded him that God had made the world. The fish took him to the Sea of Reeds, and showed him the flora of the spot where the Israelites had crossed out of Egypt.

Faced with adversity, we have to remember that it has happened before. Once, there was nothing, then the world came into being. Once, we were slaves, but then we were freed. Wars and persecutions and empires have all come before and, somehow, our people have survived.

We, as individuals, have also survived challenges before. How recent was the Covid pandemic? We can take pride in our own resilience at getting through such troubles before.

Knowing what had gone before, Jonah was able to feel confident that he could face what was to come. Jonah cries out: “You saved my life from the very pits, O Eternal One my God!”

The midrash says that this came when the whale took Jonah down to meet the great sea-monster of the deep, Leviathan. Jonah told that nautical dragon: “You may think you are going to swallow me up, but I carry the promise of Abraham, and I know that one day, when God chooses, it will be you who gets eaten by the righteous.”

Like Jonah, let’s look at the problems ahead of us, and say: “I have faith. I can face you.”

Next, Jonah reflects back on what he has learned. He notices: “Those who cling onto empty folly forsake their own welfare.” He had been willing to stay where he was, clinging onto old vanities, but he did so at the expense of his own soul.

So, he proclaims, instead: “I, with loud thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You, God.”

We, too, can be grateful for what we have, and take on this next year in service of our Creator.

That is the journey on which Jonah took his soul, and it is where I hope to take mine over this Day of Repentance.

I said I wanted to stay still, but stillness is not inactivity. The Rambam understood that serious thinking was the most active you could be. It connects you directly to that Most Active Intellect: the thinking, living God.

In stillness, you can nurture who you are. Jonah was stuck in an underwater pit, but that was when he got most energised. It was when he really engaged in the audit of his soul.

This year, I have spoken to friends and community members and witnessed them say things they normally would never. People who would ordinarily be very liberal, turn racist. People who are normally very peaceful, justifying violence. People who are normally pretty discerning, regurgitating conspiracy theories. People who are usually nuanced, turn to absolutist thinking.

I am not saying this with any judgement. I say it because I’ve done it too.

And when I meet this now, I try to say to myself: I know you are scared and angry, and while you are feeling scared and angry, you can hold all those feelings. You are inside the whale.

But one day, please God, you will be released from this whale, and you will have to reckon with who you became there.

Take care of your soul. It is a precious gift. Don’t let it become too cynical or warped by the horrors that surround it.

That’s my goal for this Yom Kippur: to hold my soul with gentleness, and ask it to be porous and empathic and kind.

I am here, inside the whale. I cannot change what whale I am inside. I cannot stop the waves from crashing or remake the world so it is less scary.

I can only change what I can change. And what I can change, in this moment, on this Yom Kippur, is myself. I just have to deal with who I am here and now.

So, let’s be like Jonah. Let’s accept the whale we’re in, and, yes, despair, but also observe, pray, sing, learn, repent.

And it may be that, when we finally get blown out from that great fish’s blowhole, we might still be better people than when we got swallowed up.

Amen.

high holy days · liturgy · sermon

Do not build a prison in your heart

October 10, 2024October 9, 2024 levtaylor

Imagine a courtroom. Picture those big wooden panels that line the grand hall of a traditional Crown court. The deep reds of the carpets. The judge sitting loftily on a bench, at the front, draped in black gowns, donning that full-bottomed wig. And all the lawyers surrounding you, speaking Latin and legalese, bewildering you with their words.

You have not been here before, but, suddenly, you find your life depends on your correct participation. You will have spent extra time ironing your clothes and polishing your shoes. You may have spent weeks picking out an outfit. Perhaps you already know what you would wear.

How does it feel to stand trial here? Is this somewhere you want to be? From here, how much do you think you will learn and grow? And do you think there might be a better place where you could improve yourself?

This is the metaphor we are often given for Yom Kippur. The Heavenly court and the earthly one. The trial of our souls. The God of Justice, who sits in judgement over us.

We beg for clemency:

סלח לנו – forgive us

We announce our expectation of a just verdict:

סלחתי כדברך – I have forgiven according to your plea.¹

We rejoice in the judgement:

אשרי נשוי פשע כסוי חטאה – happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sins are pardoned.²

This is the courtroom of our hearts.

C. S. Lewis, the great 20th Century English author, famed for his Chronicles of Narnia, picked up on this aspect of our thinking. When he wasn’t writing beloved children’s novels, Lewis dabbled in biblical studies as a lay Anglican theologian.

C. S. Lewis writes: “The ancient Jews, like [Christians], think of God’s judgement in terms of an earthly court of justice. The difference is that the Christian pictures the case to be tried as a criminal case with himself in the dock; the Jew pictures it as a civil case with himself as plaintiff (sic). The one hopes for acquittal; the other for a resounding triumph with heavy damages.”³

Now, Lewis is no antisemite. In fact, he repudiated the hatred of Jews, long before it became fashionable to do so.⁴ He is eager to point out that, at his time of writing, immediately after the Second World War, the Christian had much to atone for, and the Jew had much to charge against God.

In many ways, he has us down. We do indeed take this as an opportunity to bring all our charges against God, and to vent our grievances against the injustice of the universe. Lewis is talking about ancient Israelite religion; the religion of Scripture.

Lewis would, I’m sure, willingly acknowledge that we modern Jews also share much in common with modern Christians, in terms of our admissions of guilt and prayers for pardon.

C. S. Lewis has astutely picked up that we see all this as a trial.

But where he errs, I think, is in his understanding of what an ancient Jewish court was. The tribunal of our ancestors looked nothing like the judge’s dock of today.

A metaphor that worked so well for poets and liturgists many centuries ago can become quite damaging when it is used with the projection of our criminal justice system.

Where today, a court can dole out sentences of imprisonment, the goal of the ancient court was about restitution and social harmony.

Where today, the court expects to find a person innocent or guilty, the ancient court sought to make sure everyone felt like they had a place in their community.

The focus of our sacred writings is to create a society based on compassion, community accountability, and healing.

When we rethink what justice looked like for the authors of our Torah, concepts of trials, pardons, and sentences start to look very different. By seeing the court through ancient eyes, we can re-imagine the trial as a process of growth and healing.

We get mere glimpses of what the earliest courts might have been. In the book of Judges, the archetypal ideal of the judge is Deborah, the prophetess. Her court is a base underneath palm trees in the hill country. We receive an image of her sitting there, while Israelites come up to have their disputes decided.⁵ Her court was one where people came to negotiate and be heard, but there is no indication they came to be punished. This was in the time of the Judges, the earliest of Israelite civilisations.

Later, however, ancient Israel developed a class system and a monarchy. With a state system came power and punishments. In the book of Samuel, King David pursues after the city of Avel Beit-Maacah, threatening capital punishment against everyone who rebels against him. Here, an unnamed elder-woman comes out. She admonishes the general, saying: “we are among the peaceful and faithful of Israel, will you destroy God’s inheritance?” She rebukes them with a reminder of the old system – that, before there were kings, people used to come and talk out their issues in the city. The generals agree to spare the city, providing they can enact punishment against one ringleader.⁶

From these two stories, we can garner an insight into what justice may have looked like in the earliest part of the biblical period. The first thing we notice is that women were leaders. This, then, may be a justice system from before patriarchal power was cemented. We also do not detect any hint of crime and punishment. Instead, the courts seem more like public cafes, where experienced negotiators help community members talk through their problems. If this is correct, we are looking at a very different type of court.

Still, courts did develop in ancient Israel, but not like those of today, nor even of the surrounding empires. In our narratives, most of the times that characters are imprisoned, it is outside of the Land of Israel, by a Pagan power, and unjustly.

Joseph is sent to prison in Egypt on trumped-up charges without any due process.⁷ Samson the warrior is sent to toil at grinding grain in the jailhouse by the Philistines, not because he has done anything wrong, but as a prisoner of war.⁸ When the Babylonian rulers send Daniel to the Lion’s Den, it is because of xenophobic laws that stop him practising Judaism.⁹

Our Scripture treats prisons as something foreign, where good people are sent for bad reasons.

Even when we do see examples of prisons in Israel, they are always treated by the Torah’s authors with contempt. Three of our prophets are sent to prison: Jeremiah;¹⁰ Micaiah;¹¹ and Hanani.¹² In every single case, this is a monarch warehousing a prophet because they are speaking truth to power. In the Torah’s view of justice, it is hard to see how prisons could have any meaningful role at all.

That does not mean this was a world without punishment. Scripture presents exile, flogging, and even death as options for what might constitute justice in the ancient world.¹³

Yet, based on our commentaries and traditions, we have the impression that such penalties were implemented only in the most egregious cases. What somebody had to do was so heinous that the death penalty would almost never actually occur.¹⁴

In the Mishnah, we read, the court that puts to death one person in seven years is bloodthirsty. Rabbi Eleazar Ben Azariah takes it even further, saying, ‘One person in seventy years.’ Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, ‘If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been put to death.’¹⁵

What kind of justice system was this then? No prisons, no death penalty? No patriarchy, no punishments?

The ancient court sounds more like people just sitting around having a chat.

What if it were? What if, instead of biblical justice being all about burning and smiting, it was mostly about negotiating and feeling? How would that change how we look at our tradition? How would it change how we approach our relationship with God?

Perhaps I am over-egging how different the biblical court was. If so, bear with me.

I am well aware of how terrible some of the Torah’s punishments were. I am also conscious that what I am describing is so outside of our reality as to make it feel fictitious. If the world of restorative justice I am describing never really existed, please at least indulge me in entertaining the possibility that it could.

We are not, in this room, coming up with a proposal for how to govern Britain. We are just asking what metaphors work when we think about how to hold our own hearts on Yom Kippur. For me, the metaphor of court cases has proven really problematic, and I am looking to explore new ones with you.

The problem of the courtroom metaphor initially struck me quite suddenly. I was talking with my therapist about an issue that I felt kept coming up in my own behaviours. I said: “I’ve got another case to talk about…”

He looked around the room and said “you know you’re not on trial here, right?”

I think I had expected, on some level, that, through counselling, I could be acquitted or found guilty for all my past deeds and thought patterns.

I had built a prison in my own heart, to which I could sentence the parts of myself I liked least. I had conjured up a jury in my head, who would judge all my actions, according to the standards I had set myself. According to the standards I imagined God has set for me.

What was I doing? The point of therapy is not punishment or exoneration. It’s to learn and grow, and find ways of being better in the life I actually have. The point is not to condemn or discard my negative traits or past mistakes. The point is to work towards loving all of myself and learning from all I have done.

Perhaps you can relate to this. Have you imagined how you might punish others, or cast them into our prison in your heart? Maybe you even seek to punish people or get them out of your life. Maybe you, too, have hoped there were parts of yourself you could lock away.

We cannot apply the carceral system to our spirit. When we are doing wrong or feeling guilty, we must be free to look ourselves in the eye, and change willingly.

Is this not what God wants from us, after all? That we make amends, grow, become better. That we embrace ourselves and each other. That we turn from our ways and live.

If, then, we are in a court with God, we should make it one where we are in conversation with a loving elder, not facing a law lord who seeks to punish and acquit.

So, let us imagine a new court. It is not the court we thought into existence at the start of this sermon. It is a very ancient one, where our ancestors went thousands of years ago. Deborah’s court.

You are in the dusty scrubland of Canaan, and a few yards away you can see an oasis. People are gathering around it to fetch water. They are laughing and catching up and telling stories. They are feeding their livestock: sheep, goats, donkeys, camels.

At the edge of this well is a row of palm trees, and the tribal leaders sit, drinking sweet tea. You cannot go to prison. There is no prison. You cannot be acquitted, because nobody thinks you are guilty. You are just a person, a member of the community, looking for a way through a problem. The goal will be to find a solution that benefits everyone, and that sees maximum spiritual growth.

When you come away from this court, you can say “happy is the one whose sin is forgiven.” You don’t mean that you are relieved because you thought you were in trouble. You mean you are jubilant, because you are at peace with yourself, your community, and your God.

Let this be your court. Let this be the place you take your heart over Yom Kippur.

Come before God, not as a claimant nor a defendant, but as a congregant, seeking growth.

And thank God that there is no prison in your heart; only an opportunity for ongoing healing and change.

May this be where we judge ourselves. May this be where we judge others.

And let us say: amen.

Birkat Selichot ↩︎
Psalms 32:1 ↩︎
CS Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms ↩︎
PH Brazier, A Hebraic Inkling: C. S. Lewis on Judaism and the Jews ↩︎
Judges 4:5 ↩︎
II Samuel 20 ↩︎
Genesis 28 ↩︎
Judges 16 ↩︎
Daniel 6 ↩︎
Jeremiah 37 ↩︎
I Kings 19 ↩︎
II Chronicles 16 ↩︎
Ezra 7:25-26 ↩︎
eg. BT Sanhedrin 71a ↩︎
M Makkot 1:10 ↩︎

high holy days · sermon

Can you pass the human test?

September 24, 2023September 20, 2023 levtaylor

This is the human test, a test to see if you are a human.

These questions were posed by the American comedian, Ze Frank, to see whether his audience was human. I will ask you some of them, and you can see if they apply.

Have you ever made a small, weird sound when you remembered something embarrassing?
Have you ever seemed to lose your aeroplane ticket a thousand times as you walked from the check-in to the gate?
Have you ever laughed or smiled when someone said something mean to you and then spent the rest of the day wondering why you reacted that way?
Have you ever had a nagging feeling that one day you will be discovered as a fraud?
Have you ever stared at your phone smiling like an idiot while texting with someone?

Well, congratulations you are human.

With these questions, Ze Frank taps into the parts of being human we so rarely discuss. Our deep anxieties, our senseless irrationalities, our abilities to love people completely.

Perhaps we laugh because they are embarrassing. It feels awkward to acknowledge that we feel all these things.

But we do. They are, truly, what makes us human.

In 1950, the English mathematician Alan Turing developed a series of tests to distinguish between robots and people. The questions, called ‘The Turing Test,’ can be used with some accuracy to ascertain whether, when speaking to a character online, they are a real human being or a highly intelligent software programme.

This year, those questions gained an entirely new relevance. An AI Language Model, called ChatGTP, became a viral sensation. You can pose the most fascinating questions to this robot, and it will answer them as if you were speaking to a real human being. It can have conversations and play word games and share thoughts on current events. It can even write a half-decent sermon.

But there were some questions it couldn’t answer. It still cannot pass the Turing Test. Tech experts promise that, very soon, it might. But, for now, there are certain things it cannot find adequate responses for.

The questions the Turing Test poses of robots to distinguish them from humans ask them to think critically about their inner lives. You might ask them:

“What event from your life changed the way you think?”
“How do you feel when you remember your childhood?”
“Can you describe your emotions in only shapes and colours?”

What makes us human, provably so, is that we feel. We rejoice by laughing from our bellies. We hurt by letting tears fall from our eyes. We rage by clenching our fists. We cringe by curling our toes in our shoes. We fall in love by feeling butterflies in our stomachs.

No algorithm can do that. An algorithm cannot pass that test.

Although machines cannot pass human tests, humans are nevertheless often tested by machines, and measured according to standards set by software.

From the moment children first enter schooling, they are subjected to rigorous examination. Can they multiply figures? Can they recall important historical events and their dates? Can they identify adjectives, verbs, and nouns in sentences?

Of course, it is impressive when children can do these things. But it also measures them by the kinds of things machines can do much better. Often, these exams are even marked by machines.

By the time we finish schooling, we may have spent most of our formative years revising for, sitting, or fretting about the results of exams.

This process doesn’t stop once you enter adulthood. Throughout our working lives, many of us find ourselves undertaking tests to prove we are competent in our jobs.

It’s not entirely a bad thing.

We’d all be quite worried if doctors weren’t checked for their abilities to carry out surgeries or bus drivers didn’t prove they could drive without crashing. Food hygiene certificates and accountancy qualifications are an important part of life.

But they are not all of life. They are not what makes us human.

And, sometimes, they detract from our humanity.

I am going to talk briefly about suicide, and how dehumanising tests can drive people to take their own lives. If you are not in a place where you can hear that right now, I do welcome you to take a break, without judgement, because it is a difficult topic. And if this discussion brings up anything for you, please know that me and Rabbi Jordan are always on-hand for pastoral support and a listening ear.

Earlier this year, a headteacher at a primary school in my hometown, named Ruth Perry, killed herself after receiving a poor Ofsted report.

A study in 2017 found that teen suicides peaked around exam season, as the pressures to do well affronted young people’s mental health.

There are data spreadsheets that recommend redundancies, crashing people’s entire working lives. Disabled people in Britain have to prove to computers that they are sufficiently unwell, or they will have all their benefits cut.

We live in a world full of judgements. You must prove your competence. Or you must flagellate yourself to prove your incompetence. You must prove that you are who you say you are. You must prove you can be somebody else. You must prove your worth.

But, here, you are in God’s house. Your value is not determined by what you can do. You are valuable in this space because God has chosen to make you human.

On Yom Kippur, we are summoned to face a test. But, this time, it’s the human test. The only question you have to answer today is “are you human?”

During the course of this year, have you breathed? Has your heart beat? Has your blood pumped through your veins?

Have you felt sadness and grief and elation and worry and love?

Have you been moved by events in the lives of others, and have you formed new memories of your own?

Congratulations. You have passed the human test.

This is the task that God set for you. That you would be alive. And you are. You are here with us.

God has set you the task of being human, which means feeling, in all its complexity.

Even if you can only remember feeling one thing this year. Even if you only felt bored or exhausted or impatient or in pain, you still felt. You succeeded at doing everything God wanted of you just by being human.

We cannot take it for granted. You might have given up. But if you felt like giving up, well, that was also a success, because that was a feeling. You were being human, just the way God wanted for you.

On Yom Kippur, we read “Kedoshim,” a glorious compilation of the Torah’s greatest laws from the Holiness Code. The first dictum of this parsha from Leviticus is “you will be holy people because the Eternal your God is holy.” It is less a commandment than a statement of fact. You are sacred by the virtue of being human. Your life is blessed because your God is blessed.

There may have been moments this year when you felt like you were being treated as less than human. On Yom Kippur, you are reminded of your humanity. You were never supposed to be a cog in a machine. You were supposed to hunger, and thirst, and tire, and mourn, and reminisce, and sing, and connect, and pray.

Once you have passed the test of being human, all you need to do is extend that humanity to others. Kedoshim continues by reminding you of how to treat others with maximum humanity.

It is a summons to empathy. You will be human and you will treat others as human. You will not only laugh, but you will laugh with others. You will not only hurt, but you will share the hurt of others. When you feel, others will feel with you. And when others feel, you will feel with them.

Torah gives specific examples.

You will feed the poor and house the foreigner. You will be honest with people who do not know if you are lying. You will pay workers straight away.

You will never insult the deaf or lead the blind astray. You will not defer to the powerful, no matter how wealthy they are. You will not take advantage of people who work for you.

All of these laws refer to moments when human beings are at their most vulnerable. They refer to people experiencing poverty, disability, homelessness, and exile. These are people experiencing the greatest possible despair, terror, and misery.

And because they are experiencing these emotions, this is when they are most mortal. This is a picture of humanity at its most human.

Confronted with others in this susceptible state, your Torah commands you to remember that you are human and so are they. You will see the most vulnerable people as if God is shining out through them, and treat them as you would the greatest among yourself.

You will see yourself as fully human, and set aside that robotic urge to calculate kindness or run profit assessments on your mitzvot. You will feel with them instead. You will experience empathy.

If you can feel, you are human. And, if you are human, you have passed God’s test.

That is the human test. The test to see if you are human.

Congratulations. You have passed.

high holy days · sermon

It’s time to go home

September 22, 2023September 20, 2023 levtaylor

At the end of a holiday, you pack your bags the same way as you did when you were heading out. Only now, your clothes are covered in sand. Your swimwear is salty and smells of chlorine. You put them in black bin bags, and tie them up. Some of the books you brought with you are battered on the spine because you lay them flat on your subbed while you were reading. And some of the books you brought haven’t been opened – why did you think you needed so many?

Maybe you took a photo or two. Maybe there’s a group shot of everyone who was there. Maybe you’ll go back with a postcard from the gift shop, or a keyring, or a fridge magnet, or one of those novelty pencils that you’ll never use.

But ultimately, all you’ll have is your memories. The clothes you wore will get washed and go back in the drawers. The photos you took might get put in a scrapbook, or saved online somewhere, or posted to social media, and then they’ll fade. But it doesn’t matter, because the goal wasn’t to get souvenirs. It was to experience it, and be on the holiday, and enjoy it.

So it is with life. Our mortal bodies are only here for a short stay. Our souls come on a brief holiday. And when we have to go back where we came, everything is a little more worn and broken and used than when we first got it. But that’s only because we’ve used it the way we were meant to. Our faces are a little bit more wrinkled and our hearts are a bit more tired. And we’re ready to go home.

Today is Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath of Return. It sits at the cusp of Yom Kippur, today, only a day before. Tomorrow evening, we will gather for judgement day, a dress rehearsal for our deaths. Tradition asks us to wear the clothes in which we will be buried and deprive ourselves of food and drink and recite the deathbed confessions and last rites over our own bodies.

Today, Shabbat Shuva, is more muted. It is a day of preparation for that funereal enactment. It is a time when we reflect on the end that is coming, and on what was the point of our lives.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read the final words of Moses and his preparation to depart the mortal world.

God instructs Moses: “Go, climb Mount Nebo, and survey the land. Look over the plains of Moab and the country of Canaan. That is where the others are going.”

“But,” says God. “You can’t go with them. You are mortal just like everyone else. You were only here in this life for a short stay, and now you have to come home. Now, it’s time to come back to Me.”

Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to the summit of Pisgah and looked over absolutely everything, from the western sea to the city of palm trees, and breathed in the life he had lived. Moses was mortal, just like you and me.

He had lived, and he had been great, and he will be remembered longer than any of us will. But, in the end, he was just a man. He had tried and failed and worked just like anybody else. He came to an end and was buried in a plot on the mountain.

Moses returned his soul back to its Sender, now second-hand and a bit more battered than when it had first arrived. He died, as we all know we will.

If you believe the rabbinic tradition, the scroll which recounts the death of Moses was discovered by King Josiah, hidden under a layer of stones in the First Temple. When builders were carrying out renovations on the Temple, they discovered a new text there. That parchment, it is said, was the Book of Deuteronomy, containing all of Moses’ last words and relaying his final hours.

Josiah sent that book by messengers to the prophetess, Huldah, the keeper of the sacred wardrobe. Huldah was then an elderly woman, and one of the sagest prophets to be found throughout Israel. She gingerly inspected the scroll and confirmed that it was indeed the word of God.

Huldah said to the messengers “Go tell the man that you sent you that everything he read in this Book will come true, including the disasters it warns of for Israel.”

The rabbis, reading these words from the prophetess, are horrified. Why does she say “go tell that man” and not “Please inform the King…?” Isn’t this haughty arrogance on her part? Quite on the contrary, because through her gift of prophecy, Huldah could see that Josiah, although King, was still just a man. She knew that he must be, because she had just read in the Torah that even Moses was just a man.

A folktale says that, when Josiah died, there was an enormous procession. Thousands of mourners came out, grieving, and crying, and beating their chests, and lamenting songs in distress.

They carried the King’s casket all the way from Megiddo to Jerusalem, surrounded by crying subjects. They walked with the coffin up to Mount Zion, to the sepulchre of the House of David.

There, at the gates to the tomb where all the great kings had been buried, Huldah, the keeper of the sacred wardrobe, was waiting, keys in her hands. She was ready to begin the final prayers.

At the head of the procession, the High Priest called out: “The Great King Josiah demands admittance to his temple to be laid to rest alongside his ancestors.”

Huldah the prophetess shook her head. “I do not know him.”

The High Priest ruffled with consternation. “King Josiah, son of Amon and Yedidah, descendant of the House of David, Ruler of Judah, insists on being interred according to the Laws of the God of Israel.

Huldah shook her head. “I do not know him.”

Again, the High Priest issued a proclamation. “This is the King, Josiah, restorer of the true faith, protector of the Torah of Moses, rebuilder of God’s Temple, opponent of idolaters and destroyer of the altars of Baal. He must receive burial.”

Again, Huldah shook her head. “I do not know him.”

Now the priest approached Huldah directly and whispered: “A penitent sinner humbly requests to lie down in the ground.”

“Ah yes,” smiled Huldah. “I know him. He can come home.” And she opened the gates.

On Shabbat Shuva, we remember that, no matter who we were in life, we all become the same in death. We were just mortals, offered a split second of existence, permitted to take a short stay on this beautiful planet. We are just holidaymakers here, required only to enjoy this life, and leave this place a little better than when we came. But, eventually, our bodies will go back like battered suitcases from a week away.

On this Shabbat Shuvah, we are called on to return. We remember that we only ever had one true place we belong, and that is with God.

And, soon, it will be time to go home.

Shabbat shalom.

fast · high holy days · sermon

Creating cultures of repentance

October 2, 2022October 2, 2022 levtaylor

We are, apparently, in the grips of a culture war.

It must be an especially intense one, because the newspapers seem to report on it more than the wars in Syria, the Central African Republic, or Yemen, combined.

According to the Telegraph, this war is our generation’s great fight. It was even the foremost topic in the leadership battle for who would be our next Prime Minister, far above the economy, climate change, or Coronavirus recovery.

Just this last month, its belligerents have included Disney, Buckingham Palace, the British Medical Journal, cyclists in Surrey, alien library mascots, and rural museums.

But which side should I choose? One side is called “the woke mob.” That seems like it should be my team. After all, they are the successor organisation to the Political Correctness Brigade, of which I was a card-carrying member when that was all the rage.

The so-called “woke mob” are drawing attention to many historic and present injustices. From acknowledging that much of Britain was built on the back of the slave trade to criticising comedians who say that Hitler did a good thing by murdering Gypsies, they are shining a light on wrongs in society.

The trouble is, I hate to be on the losing side. For all the noise and bluster, this campaign hasn’t managed to get anyone who deserves it. The most virulent racists, misogynists, abusers, and profiteers remain largely unabated.

Even if they were successful, I find the underlying ideas troubling. It seems to assume that people’s wrong actions put them outside of rehabilitation into decent society. Some people are just too bad.

This strikes as puritanical. While the claims that so-called “cancel culture” is ruining civilisation are wildly overstated, it is right to be concerned by a philosophy that excludes and punishes.

So, will I throw my lot in with the conservatives? Perhaps it’s time I joined this fightback against the woke mob.

On this side, proponents say that they are combatting cancel culture. How are they doing this? By deliberately upsetting people. They actively endeavour to elicit a reaction by saying the most hurtful thing they can.

When, inevitably, these public figures receive the condemnation they deserve, they go on tour to lament how sensitive and censorious their opponents are. As a result, they get book deals, newspaper columns, and increased ticket sales.

Ultimately, this reaction to “cancel culture” is a mirror of what it opposes. It agrees that people cannot heal or do wrong. It celebrates the idea that people are bad, and provides a foil that allows people to prop up their worst selves.

If this is the culture war, I want no part in it. Neither side is interested in the hard work of repentance, apologies, and forgiveness. It offers only two possible cultures: one in which nobody can do right and one in which nobody can do wrong.

This is the antithesis of the Jewish approach to harm.

Our religion has never tried to divide up the world into good and bad people. We have no interest in flaunting our cruelty, nor in banishing people.

Instead, the Jewish approach is to accept that we are all broken people in a broken world. We are all doing wrong. We all hurt others, and have been hurt ourselves. The Jewish approach is to listen to the yetzer hatov within us: that force of conscience, willing us to do better.

The culture we want to create is one of teshuvah: one in which people acknowledge they have done wrong, seek to make amends, apologise, and earn forgiveness.

A few weeks ago, just in time for Yom Kippur, Rabbi Danya Rutenberg released a new book, called Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.

Rabbi Rutenberg argues that Jewish approaches to repentance and repair can help resolve the troubled society we live in.

She locates some of the issues in America’s lack of repentance culture in its history. After the Civil War, preachers and pundits encouraged the people of the now United States of America to forgive, forget and move on. It doesn’t matter now, they said, who owned slaves or campaigned for racism, now they were all Americans.

The Civil War veterans established a social basis in which there was no need for repentance or reparations, but that forgiveness had to be offered unconditionally. Without investing the work in true teshuvah, they created an unapologetic society that refused to acknowledge harm.

We, in Britain, also have an unapologetic and unforgiving culture, but our history is different.

True, we also failed to properly address our history of slavery. When the slave trade was abolished at the start of the 19th Century, former slave traders and slave owners were given substantial compensation. The former slaves themselves were not offered so much as an apology.

But we have not been through a conscious process of nation-building the way the United States has.

In fact, Britain has not really gone through any process of cultural rebuild since the collapse of its Empire. In 1960, the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave his famous speech, in which he acknowledged “the wind of change” driving decolonisation. Whether Brits liked it or not, he said, the national liberation of former colonies was a political fact.

At that time, he warned “what is now on trial is much more than our military strength or our diplomatic and administrative skill. It is our way of life.” Britain would need to work out who it was and what its values were before it could move forward and expect the family of nations to work with it.

More than 60 years later, it seems we still have not done that. As a nation, we are simply not clear on who we are. We do not know what makes us good, where we have gone wrong, or what we could do to be better.

So, we are caught in shame and denial. Shame that, if we admitted to having caused harm, we would have to accept being irredeemably evil. Denial that we could be bad, and so could ever have done wrong.

The two sides of the so-called “cancel culture” debate represent those two responses to our uncertainty. Those who are so ashamed of Britain’s history of racism and sexism that they have no idea how to move forward. And those who are so in denial of history that they refuse to accept it ever happened, or that it really represented the great moral injury that its victims perceived.

This creates a toxic national culture, stultified by its past and incapable of looking toward its future.

So, Rabbi Rutenberg suggests, we need to build an alternative culture, one built on teshuvah. We need a culture where people feel guilty about what they have done wrong and try to repair it. For those who have been hurt, that means centering their needs as victims. For those who have done wrong, that means offering them the love and support to become better people.

Rutenberg draws on the teachings of the Rambam to suggest how that might happen. The Rambam outlined five steps people could take towards atonement, in his major law code, Mishneh Torah.

First, you must admit to having done wrong. Ideally, you should stand up publicly, with witnesses, and declare your errors.

Next, you must try to become a better person.

Then, you must make amends, however possible.

Then, and only then, can you make an apology.

Finally, you will be faced with a similar opportunity to do wrong again. If you have taken the preceding steps seriously, you will not repeat your past mistakes.

For me, the crucial thing about Ruttenberg’s reframing of Rambam, is that it puts apologies nearly last. It centres the more difficult part: becoming the kind of person that does not repeat offences. It asks us to cultivate virtue, looking for what is best in us and trying to improve it.

You must investigate why you did what you did, and understand better the harm you caused. You must read and reflect and listen so that you can empathise with the wronged party. And, through this process, you must cultivate the personality of one who does not hurt again.

That is what Yom Kippur is really about. It is not about beating ourselves up for things we cannot change, nor about stubbornly holding onto our worst habits. It is not about shrugging off past injustices, nor is it about asking others to forget our faults.

It’s about the real effort needed to look at who we are, examine ourselves, and become a better version of that.

If there is a culture war going on, that is the culture I want to see.

I want us to live in a society where people think about their actions and seek to do good. I want us to see a world where nobody is excluded – not because they are wrong or because they have been wronged. One where we are all included, together, in improving ourselves and our cultural life.

To build such a system, we need to start small. We cannot change Britain overnight.

We have to begin with the smallest pieces first. Tonight, we begin doing that work on ourselves.

Gmar chatimah tovah – may you be sealed for good.