Kol Nidre - For the Sin of the Masks We Wear©
Rabbi David Baum
Kol Nidre 5781/2020
Sending your daughter to pre-school during this pandemic was one of the most difficult decisions we had to make as parents, but we felt it was the right thing to do for us. So we prepared - to ensure utmost safety, children have to bring a clean mask each day. So we bought her many pink princess masks and we said that would wash them together when she came home.
We told her to be careful along, to keep her mask on along with the other lessons of preschool, like waiting your turn, and sharing is caring.
She came home that first day so happy. She told us about all the new friends she made, and how much she loved her teachers. When she came home, she handed us her mask to wash.
My wife’s eyes opened up in horror. “Layla, where did you get this mask?”
“Imma, I traded masks with my friend, remember: sharing is caring!”
Speaking about masks, I’m reminded of the last time we were together in person inside our sanctuary: Purim, when social distancing was not part of our vocabulary.
After Purim, we put our costumes away and put on a different costume: our face masks.
When we think of masks, we think about super heroes, and there’s something very Jewish about this.
Most of the superheroes, we know and love, Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spiderman, were created by Jews.
When we put the masks on, we believe we can perform superhuman acts.
This year though, there was an underreported story about Superman - he took off his mask and revealed to the world that he was Clark Kent all along.
But what was the mask - was it Superman, or was it Clark Kent? And what about the masks we wear?
Our virtual masks - our online identities.
A couple of years ago, I was about to go to a rabbinic learning retreat. I looked at the class lists, and one rabbi’s name came up over and over again. It sounded very familiar. I realized why: it was a rabbi who oftentimes posted inflammatory things online. He caused many fights on our listserves and on Facebook.
“Oh great,” I thought, “he’s bad enough online, now I’m going to have to listen to him in real life.”
And then, the kicker - guess who I was going to room with for four days? You guessed it: Rabbi ‘Gaslighter’.
A funny thing happened though, after days of being together and getting to know him, I learned that his online persona was nothing like he was in real life. He was kind, thoughtful, open to listening to new ideas but at the same time strong in his principles.
On the last day of our retreat, I told him how I felt when I saw his name. I asked him why he acts like this online. He said, “When I’m online, I can say whatever I want to say, and I get to let off some steam. It’s much cheaper than therapy!”
I was left even more confused, who was he really? The kind and thoughtful rabbi who I got to know, or the cruel Rabbi Gaslighter?
It’s a question we have to ask ourselves - who are we? Are we our online avatars, is that who we are, or is it the person who lives in our face to face lives?
Today is Yom Kippur, but there’s a wonderful way of looking at this day in a different. Today is Yom HaKippurim - a day that is like Purim. Believe it or not, there are many similarities - on the day before Purim, we fast and then rejoice, and although we fast today, it is a joyous day. The Mishnah says there were no more joyous days than Yom HaKippurim - the day of atonement.
On Purim, we wear masks. On Yom Kippur, we wear a simple kittle, a completely white garment. But this too is a costume, this too is a mask - they are the clothes of the High Priest.
But, in a sense, every day online is like Purim. We wear a mask, the question is, who are we really?
The mask we wear, the costumes we don, can teach us about our authentic selves, or better yet, who we strive to be. Are we the court jester on Purim, or are we the High Priest on Yom Kippur?
We live in a society that constantly drives home the message - be authentic, in other words, be your true, unfiltered self. But is that really the right way to act?
Adam Grant, a well known Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, and author, gave different advice:
Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice.
He said, “We are in the Age of Authenticity, where “be yourself” is the defining advice in life, love, and career. Authenticity means erasing the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world. As Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, defines it, authenticity is “the choice to let our true selves be seen.” We want to live authentic lives, marry authentic partners, work for an authentic boss, vote for an authentic president. In university commencement speeches, “Be true to yourself” is one of the most common themes (behind “Expand your horizons,” and just ahead of “Never give up”). “I certainly had no idea that being your authentic self could get you as rich as I have become,” Oprah Winfrey said jokingly a few years ago. ”If I’d known that, I’d have tried it a lot earlier.”
But for most people, “be yourself” is actually terrible advice.
He gives an example from author A.J. Jacobs, an author, who spent a few weeks trying to be totally authentic. Here’s what he did - he announced to an editor that he would try to sleep with her if he were single and informed his nanny that he would like to go on a date with her if his wife left him. He informed a friend’s 5-year-old daughter that the beetle in her hands was not napping but dead. He told his in-laws that their conversation was boring. You can imagine how his experiment worked out.
So if we shouldn’t be our authentic selves, what should we do? Who are we really, the voice telling you to say what you think is the truth no matter who it hurts, or the person who lies to people’s faces?
Neither sounds Jewish, but here is where the kittel that we wear today can teach us some valuable lessons.
How did Aaron change from Moses’s older brother to High Priest? The answer - God clothed him.
The garments that he wore embodied the essence of the Divine. The white color symbolized purity, innocence, light, and life.
The clothes of the priest transferred their sanctity to the person. Before Aaron dies, God instructs Moses to take his clothes off him and given to his son, the next High Priest. Only then does Aaron die.
The garments Aaron wore were imbued with meaning.
We read about the breastplate which contained stones, each one representing each of the tribes of Israel.
“…attach the two stones to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, as stones for remembrance of the Israelite people, whose names Aaron shall carry upon his two shoulder-pieces for remembrance before the Lord.” (Exodus 28:29-30)
Gersonides, a well known French Medieval commentator explains why the Torah brings up the idea of remembrance – so that Aaron should always keep them, the people, in mind. When he wore those stones, he knew he represented everyone.
You might wonder, was Aaron really like this on the inside though? Is wearing a uniform and not being your authentic self really what God wants from us?
There’s a powerful lesson that we can learn from the Ark of the Covenant. It is on this day, Yom Kippur, when the High Priest was allowed in its presence.
God instructs the people on what the ark should look like: “And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and shall make upon it a rim of gold around it.” (Exodus 25:11)
The rabbis asked an important question - if gold is so valuable, why would you put gold on the inside of the ark where no one will see it? Our Sages concluded that it was built like this for a reason - to teach us tocho k’baro damei, “the inside of a person should match their outside.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, I received some sage advice. Dress up for work. We know that you can be in your PJs all day, and even if you have a video call, you don’t need to wear pants, but your clothes will help you be the person you want to be.
And it will help you act like your truly authentic self - the person you strive to be.
Kol Nidre emphasizes the power of words, both verbalized and now typed. Words can create, and they can destroy. The overwhelming majority of the sins we will say out loud on this day are sins of the tongue or the word. Imagine if we looked at our typed words in the context of today’s confessional.
Al Het Shehatanu Lifanecha - For the Sins We have Committed Before You, and the Virtual World Online
For the sin of destroying our so called ‘Friends' on that Facebook post
For the sin of posting our most disturbing thoughts and hurtful words anonymously.
For the sin of posting our most disturbing thoughts and hurtful words with our own names.
For the sin of “shmirat ha-etzbaot,” for failing to control our fingers - for the sins of sharing
For the sin that we have committed before You by using the forward key much too often and the delete key much less often than we should.
For the sin of sharing those article that proved our point…even though we know it was written by a 40 year old man with no credentials who is still living on his mother’s couch
For the sin of airing our dirty laundry in public when it should have been kept private, for sending a message in anger and not waiting until we cool down
For the sin of calling someone out publicly when we should have just picked up the phone
For the sin of deceiving others about the perfection of our lives
And the sin of placing stumbling blocks before the blind who would believe it.
Ve-Al Kulam Elohai Selichot, S’lach Lanu, M’chal Lanu, Kaper Lanu For all of these ever forgiving God, Forgive Us, Pardon Us, Grant Us Atonement
We must all consider, when I post something on my social media page, when I tweet something, when I make a video clip, what message am I sending about my values? What message am I sending to the people that I represent? What am I wearing on my breastplate?
Kol Israel Areivim Zeh BaZeh - All Israel is responsible for one another - we are a nation of priests - all of us wear that breastplate.
Judaism is a faith that makes us think – we pause before we eat food and say a blessing, we have kavanah, intention in our actions, the same should be said for how we act online.
Being a Jew means that we answer to a higher authority, and what we say in public affects how we are on the inside. What we verbalize or write matters; we must use our words to create, not destroy, to live by them and up to them.
What do we want to adorn ourselves with? These are the pressing questions of our time are what will be on our digital breastplate this year; how our words help us become the people we want to be.
We must look at our avatars as opportunities to bring people together, to unify us, to be our breastplates, and our kittels.
Let us see ourselves not as the only individuals willing to speak the truth out loud no matter how hurtful it is, but part of something larger, representing not just ourselves, but those who came before us, those whom we share our lives with, and those who will come after us.
Comments