The Blessing of Imperfection (Yom Kippur Day 5782)

In her poem, “The World I Live In”, Mary Oliver writes:

I have refused to live

locked in the orderly house of

reasons and proofs.

The world I live in and believe in

is wider than that. And anyway,

what’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once

or

twice I have seen. I’ll just

tell you this:

only if there are angels in your

head will you

ever, possibly, see one.

Today, there are angels in our heads. If we look around, we can see them sitting all around us. Our tradition says on Yom Kippur we are to imitate God’s ministering angels. We leave Oliver’s “orderly world of reasons and proofs”, transcend our ordinary existence, and enter the world of Maybe. To help us do this, some of us fast, withdraw from worldly pleasures, and wear white. We immerse in holy words, in imagery that transcends this world, and carries us to new spiritual heights.

During the rest of the year, while we may have moments of transcendence from time to time, we mostly muddle through each day’s measure of joy and pain. More often than I like to admit, I speak and behave in ways I later regret. I get impatient and defensive, and am misled by my desires. The last year and a half of the pandemic has broken our hearts and distorted our self-image - we feel more self-conscious about our bodies, and struggle with what we might consider normal social interactions. We are less certain about who we are, what we believe, and where we belong. 

Ironically, our attempt to imitate angels today can make us even more aware, by contrast, of how very human we are. According to Jewish tradition, angels live in complete accord with God’s will, have no desire of their own. They do not eat or drink; betray each other or fall in love. While the angels eternally stand and praise God, us mortals are directed by our own wants and needs. While angels are in a constant state of connection with God’s holiness, our souls are frequently absorbed in the limits and desires of this body.

The Hasidic master, the Sefat Emet teaches:

The human being is called a walker, always having to go from one rung to another… Whoever stands still is not renewed, for nature holds him fast. The angels above are beyond nature, they can be said to “stand.” But the person has to keep walking.

Innate to our humanity is a restlessness, a tendency to yearn for things to be different than they are. Unlike angels, we are constantly in process.

According to our tradition, being in process is how we become holy: the Talmud teaches, “The righteous are greater than the ministering angels.” But greater than even a completely righteous person is the master of teshuva. Even one small mitzvah or new positive habit can render a person a master of teshuvah: it is about returning to our deeper selves, making an effort to draw our actions and words from a deeper and more soulful place in us. Being in process, taking one step in this direction makes us holier than even the angels we imitate today!

Because we are, by our nature, constantly in motion - directed by our own bodily needs and desires - we can only find holiness through our humanity, not by imitating our idea of angelic perfection. That is why, at this holiest time of year, we collectively and individually engage in a process for repairing the mistakes we inevitably make along the way. Teshuva, often translated as “repentance” literally means to return, turn, or transform. Teshuva is how we reconnect with our deepest selves, God, and each other when we may have missed the mark. Today we come together to acknowledge wrongdoings we had not previously acknowledged, and pray for forgiveness.

Today we ascend to God’s celestial court, come close to the Source of Life and Forgiveness. We dress, act, and speak to experience - for a moment - what it would be like to be part of the Holy Blessed One’s retinue. As we do, we explore the Maybe of life - the possibility on some level that our souls are, like the angels, eternally basking in the Divine Presence. But we also reckon with the reality that we are beings of flesh and blood, full of impulses that too often overpower us - when we find ourselves overwhelmed by the news, impatient for our meal to be served, or feeling hurt by the insensitivity of a friend or family member.

When we realize this is happening, rather than judge ourselves or others may we instead remember we have simply re-entered that very human, and very holy process of becoming, of walking and stumbling and getting up again. That our connection to what is sacred can only be found in our capacity to change, to leave behind what we know, and enter the world of Maybe.

In the world of Maybe our sense of ourselves, our relationship with God, our fundamental beliefs, are all in process. Here, even our feeblest attempt to better ourselves can make us holy, even holier than angels. So may we carry the blessing of Maybe - of the possibility of our individual and collective becoming - into this moment of global, national, and personal uncertainty. Into any place we might feel stuck or unmoored. As we do, may we be blessed with courage to go wherever Maybe brings us in the year to come.

May it be so.