Kol Nidre 2013: Din and Rachamim Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

My colleague, Rabbi Nancy Flam[1], has worked for many years in the field of Jewish pastoral care, illness, healing, and spirituality. In her work, as in mine, she spends time with Jewish people who are facing illness and death, and she tries to help them find meaning – to even find God – in their experience. She writes of her conversations with a woman she calls Rebekah:

When Rebekah was diagnosed with breast cancer, she felt ambivalent. On the one hand, she had all of the “expected” responses: fear, anger, sadness. On the other hand, she began to feel relief, as if an enormous burden was being lifted from her. Now in “crisis” mode, she could no longer “do” her regular life – working as a high-powered psychiatrist, managing her household, and so on. The shock of serious illness propelled Rebekah to examine her life, determine what was of real value, and restructure the way she was spending her time and energy.

Many people in this room have experienced the shock of a serious diagnosis, facing the inescapable truth that life is finite.

Tonight, on Kol Nidre night, and for the next 24 hours, we all are supposed to experience that same shock. As we take the Torah scrolls out of the Ark and leave the doors open, I face my own empty casket. We dress in white shrouds, and refrain from actions that sustain or perpetuate life – eating, drinking, sex. On Yom Kippur, life is suspended. We are the living dead as we wait for God to extend divine grace and mercy once again and bestow upon us another year of life. This realization – that our lives are not in our hands – that we are mortal – is meant to propel us, as it propelled Rebekah – to examine our lives, our priorities, and to make meaningful changes.

Rebekah also felt compelled to seek a theological framework with which to understand her illness. What was God’s role in this experience?

She refused to believe that God had sent this disease with the intent of punishing her for some sin she had committed. Likewise, she could not accept her illness as a divinely intended “blessing” sent by God to help her see more clearly and reorder her life. She did not believe that God intervened this way in individual human lives, meting out rewards and punishments. Her illness seemed to her a random event in the universe: unearned, without moral cause.

Rebekah sought a way to find God in her experience that wasn’t about divine intent to cause her suffering – a way to find meaning that wasn’t about her moral failures or successes.

For most of us, Yom Kippur too is not all about repenting for terrible moral failures out of fear of some divine punishment. And if we have failed in these ways, then there is a mechanism for confessing and gaining forgiveness from others and from God.

More present at this time of year, is the realization that we are fragile human beings, prone to illness, disaster, and death. We stand before the open ark, our bellies empty, and we feel so small – so vulnerable. We want to find meaning in this human experience –to find God in these short lives of ours. That God on the throne meting out punishment and reward doesn’t work for a lot of us, just as it didn’t work for Rebekah.

So then, what is God’s role in suffering? Goodness? Death? Disaster? Blessing? Cancer? Infection? Healing?

Rabbi Flam addresses this question by re-examining the traditional Rabbinic concepts of God’s Judgment (or Din, in Hebrew) and God’s Mercy (or Rachamim, in Hebrew.) Din is the strict and severe aspect of God judging us and doling out punishment for what we did wrong and reward for what we did right. And Rachamim (which from the word “womb” or “rechem”) is the soft aspect of God’s love and caring for us, no matter what, just because we are God’s children.

In the Talmud[2] we have a teaching about what God does all day long:

Rav Judah teaches that every day consists of 12 hours. During the first three hours of every day, God is occupied with the study of Torah.

During the second three-hour period, God sits in judgment over the whole world.

But when God sees that the world is so guilty as to deserve destruction, God gets up out of the throne of Judgment and sits down instead on the throne of Mercy.

In this teaching, we find a very traditional notion of God, judging our actions and deciding what the consequences will be. But what really moves me is that at the moment we have strayed the farthest –this is when God moves to the throne of Mercy. Somehow, God is moved to compassion –when we need it most.

In another place in the Talmud[3], God is actually imagined exclaiming, “Oh! that I might forever let my mercy prevail over my justice.” God deeply desires to allow rachamim to prevail over din. It seems, from these texts, that God empathizes with our flawed, limited human condition and is moved to draw upon the Divine qualities of compassion and mercy to soften our experience of limitation.

Rabbi Flam takes this notion even further, with her understanding of din and rachamim, especially when it comes to life-threatening illness. In her words, “perhaps disease has nothing to do with merit or demerit, and is simply a necessary though sometimes agonizingly painful feature of this physical creation.” [4]

It is not that God’s quality of din is punishing us with disease – or that death is a punishment for something we did wrong. But God, in creating us and the world, sets some hard and fast limits. “Physical bodies are limited; they are created with a finite capacity for life and health. They are vulnerable to disease, injury and decay. We are created, and, without exception, pass away. This is part of God’s holy design.”[5] God doesn’t do this out of a desire to watch us suffer– the limits inherent in life itself just ARE.

But, while “illness is an expression of that quality of din or limitation, healing is an expression of God’s rachamim, the divine attribute of mercy.[6]” As we heard in the teaching about God’s two thrones, rachamim is classically understood as the force which softens the severity of din. In fact, rachamim is what makes it possible for us to live with the reality of din – with the truth of mortality and vulnerability. “According to one Midrash, God initially thought to create the world with the attribute of din alone, but then God discovered that the world could not endure without rachamim. The two qualities had to work together in the formation and daily recreation of the world.[7]”

It is clear from our classical teachings as well as from Rabbi Flam’s new understanding, that human beings are the ones who have to bring God’s rachamim into the world. Isn’t this how the world indeed works? Human acts of mercy, compassion and empathy are what make it possible for us to endure, to suffer the sometimes excruciatingly painful limits and losses inherent in creation. Earlier, I posed the question of what motivates God to move from the throne of justice to the throne of mercy. I believe that our human acts of compassion have an impact on the divine realm and bring more mercy into the world.

Of course, our acts of love and compassion don’t completely cure illness or change the fact of death. But our rachamim can deeply affect how we experience din – our acts can affect how we cope with illness. Flam goes so far as to propose that acts of rachamim do not only make the limits more bearable, but they may actually affect the limits themselves.

You may be aware of a classic mind-body study of women with metastatic breast cancer that found that the women who provided emotional support and care for one another lived twice as long as those who did not receive such care. While all the women eventually died of cancer, the limits of their lives were moved.

Our traditional Jewish sources speak to the power of rachamim to move the limits of din. There are stories like the one of Rabbi Akiva, who upon visiting a sick disciple, cleaning his room and tidying up, the student was cured. Or stories of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai who would visit with the sick, listen and show his care, reach out his hand, and the person would be not only be comforted, but relieved of discomfort and pain[8].

I recently visited with a congregant – Lew Case – who is in his nineties and whom many of us know and love. He gave me permission to share the following with you. As he ages, Lew is experiencing more and more limitations. At this point he has a very difficult time seeing and hearing. His once very full, independent and active life has gotten smaller and smaller, and he now is residing in a nursing facility. He is often frustrated, and sad that he can no longer cook for himself or even read a book.

When I asked Lew whether God has been present in this experience, his answer came immediately. He was sure that God had not abandoned him – and he was certain that God was not punishing him. He felt God’s presence quite powerfully, in the love and care and presence of his family, his friends and his caregivers who have been accompanying him on this difficult journey. While he mourns the losses that come with age, he is also full of gratitude for all of the stages of his life, and especially for the love that continues to surround him. That love, I believe, is the human expression of the Divine quality of rachamim – of mercy and compassion in Lew’s life.

It is within our power as human beings to overcome the limits of din, not only with our research and medical interventions, but with our love, our compassion and our empathy. When we bring attention, love, presence, and dignity to others who are suffering, we bring true healing, both spiritually and sometimes even physically.

This Yom Kippur, we can face that inescapable truth of our own finitude and know that we are not limited in our response to that truth. We can be channels for that divine quality of rachamim in the world. As we pray for God to extend compassion to us and to grant us another year of life, let’s consider how we might become vessels of mercy this year.
What would it take for me to move from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy in my own life – in my relationship with myself and with others? What would it mean for me to be more generous with my love? To respond to others with more compassion?

In closing, I offer this prayer, written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro:

We are loved by an unending love.

We are embraced by arms that find us
even when we are hidden from ourselves.
We are touched by fingers that soothe us
even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us
even when we are too embittered to hear.
We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us
even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us
even when we are too weak for meeting.
We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled,
Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles;
We are loved by an unending love.
[1] Throughout this sermon, I quote and paraphrase extensively from Rabbi Nancy Flam’s article, “The Angels Proclaim It, But Can We?” published in the CCAR Journal Spring 2009 issue.
[2] Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zara 3b
[3] BT Berakhot 7a
[4] Rabbi Flam, “The Angels Proclaim It” (see Footnote #1)
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] BT Berakhot 39b