The Longest Night - Erev Rosh HaShanah 5775

(Video of this sermon as it was delivered at Temple Shaaray Tefila of New York City can be seen by clicking here, scrolling to the second-to-last video available, entitled "High Holy Days 2014 8:30." The sermon begins just after the 1:00:00 mark of the service. Or to hear it as an audio file, please click here.)

It was the longest night of his life. Even for a man who’d been on the run for 20 years—years of sleepless nights teeming with fear and dread—this was, by far, the most difficult. Having fled for his life from enemies both known and unknown, with the entirety of his family and every possession he’d ever amassed, longing for just a glimpse of clarity, some semblance of resolution in his life, he escorted them all to momentary safety on the other side of the river. Back on his side, he was left alone, where he lay down, and tried to sleep.

Tried, I say, because the pursuit of sleep was futile, and even he knew it. The frenzied tempest of terror swirling in his head was one he was all too familiar with; it whipped up anew each evening as the sun descended in its course. But this night would make every night before it seem as a restful luxury.

Jacob, a man tormented by the deceitful deeds of his past, by wrongs committed against both his brother and his father, was all alone. And yet, our text tells us in the very same breath, a man came upon him and wrestled with him until the rise of dawn. In their epic steel cage match, the back-and-forth of a fight straight from the action movies, the man wrenches Jacob’s hip socket, leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life. But Jacob is the victor, refusing to let the man go until he blesses Jacob, which he does. His blessing comes in the form of a new name—Yisrael—because, as the ish says, “You have struggled with God and with human beings, and you have prevailed.”

Who was this ish, this man? For many, this man is an angel of God, deduced from the explanation of his new name, as one who has struggled with God. For others, this man is none other than his twin brother Esau, whom Jacob had swindled out of his birthright for a bowl of stew, whose identity he later assumed so he could steal their father’s innermost blessing meant for the oldest son; whose dignity and self-worth Jacob had trampled upon with utter disregard; the very same man whose threats had sent him running all this time; the man he would confront the following day, for the first time in 20 tumultuous years. Still another interpretation is that of a bat mitzvah student of ours a few years ago, who opined that the man might have been Isaac, their father; that in Jacob’s enduring guilt at from having stolen the benediction, he sought to right this wrong, demanding a legitimate blessing before letting him go.

Fascinating. Perhaps true. But the text is clear. Jacob was l’vado, left alone, to himself. And it seems to me, as it does to many of our sages, that Jacob was wrestling with none other than himself. It seems to me that Jacob was grappling violently, with every fiber of his being, at the crossroads of his life, in a dark night of the soul, struggling to deal with all that he had been, all that he had done, all that he had experienced. Jacob, I believe, was engaging in cheshbon hanefesh, the accounting of the soul we are charged with doing at this time of year—taking stock of who he was, who he wanted to be, and how he would begin to narrow the gap between them.

My friends, especially this year, we are all Jacob. As individuals, as Jews, as Americans, as citizens of the world. And let us be frank: 5774 was a very, very long night. It was restless and fitful, traumatic and fraught, disturbing, disquieting and very deeply upsetting. And all of us—each and every one of us—carried that with us, bearing that weight upon our shoulders, as we entered through shaaray tefila, the gates of prayer, this Erev Rosh HaShanah. And so I feel we owe it to ourselves to emulate Jacob, to wrestle with and explore the year together, to begin our own collective cheshbon hanefesh, so that, like our flawed, imperfect forefather, we too can prevail in this new year of 5775.

So where have we been? 5774 found us glued to our TV sets, perhaps as never before, the bad news seeming to come in endless waves, filling us with outrage and anger, sadness and disbelief, frustration, desperation, and, perhaps worst of all, numbness. We watched as the least productive government in our nation’s history, worse by leaps and bounds than the infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” of the 1940’s, grew somehow even more polarized, more obstructionist, more dysfunctional, when we wondered how that could ever be possible. We endured the bickering: over security and spying, immigration, gun control, and increasing the minimum wage, while the abyss between the haves and have-nots continued to widen.  

We zoomed out from domestic concerns to see that things were even worse overseas than here at home. We heard the hemming and hawing of world leaders as tens of thousands were killed under Bashir al-Assad’s oppressive regime. In Africa. we saw one militant group attack an upscale Nairobi mall, while another kidnapped 280 girls from a Nigerian school, intending to make them sex slaves, their education seen as blasphemous, while in their warped view of faith sex trafficking is condoned.

And yet, somehow it all feels like a distant memory, from far longer ago than just a handful of months. It all seemed to dissolve quickly in the rearview mirror, as school let out, the kids went off to camp, and spring gave way to the Summer of Our Discontent.

It began on June 12^th, when Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach—3 Israeli teenagers—were kidnapped by terrorists as they attempted to hitchhike home. Hopes for their safety, for their possible return to their families, were dashed when their bodies were discovered in a field northwest of Hebron on June 30^th. Retaliation followed swiftly, and the cycle of violence continued to escalate, as Israeli air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza commenced and the rockets fired from Gaza multiplied. And just as Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal were laid to rest, a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, also just 16 years old, was kidnapped in East Jerusalem, and then beaten and burnt to death. Perhaps most shocking, most upsetting of all was that the murders of these four children were greeted with a sickening display of glee: Palestinians and, yes, Israelis alike celebrated the pain inflicted upon the other, with politicians and leaders and clergy on both sides not only having incited these heinous acts, but even going so far as to claim responsibility for doing so, and with pride. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” seemed to be the cry from everyone, forgetting the prophetic warning of Doc from West Side Story that such a rationale would only leave the whole world blind and toothless. And before we knew it, it was Groundhog Day all over again. Hamas’s rockets kept coming, fired strategically from amidst the homes, schools, hospitals, and shelters of the innocent and unarmed, turning all the citizens of Gaza—especially their children—into literal human shields for those who seek to kill as many of Israel’s citizens as possible, ultimately to wipe her completely off the map. The air strikes gave way to a ground operation, increasing the death toll on both sides. In response, anti-Semitism once again reared its ugly head all over the world, most especially, though unsurprisingly, in Europe, in acts ranging from the thinly-veiled to the shockingly overt. Perhaps the most terrifying discovery of this latest chapter was that of an intricate network of underground tunnels connecting Gaza to various sites inside Israel’s border; tunnels constructed from cement and electricity supplied by Israel herself, in the name of improving living conditions in Gaza, when it was under no obligation whatsoever to do so. These tunnels, Israeli intelligence would soon learn, were to be used in a massive Hamas operation of mass murder and kidnapping planned for today - Rosh HaShanah 5775. Thank God above, and the Israel Defense Forces here, that these tunnels have been destroyed. And yet, as the summer’s clashes finally came to a halt, for however long that halt will last, we are left to wonder if an actual end will ever be in sight.

Then the focus of the world shifted abruptly, as Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot right out of the Ukraine sky, killing all 298 passengers and crew members on board. As international inspectors fought through red tape and obstruction to try to make sense of it all, we heard the stories of families ripped apart, of brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers who kissed loved ones goodbye, never to see them again, reminding some of us of what happened here in our beloved city just over 13 years ago.

We looked up through those empathetic tears to see the rise of ISIS, the so-called “Islamic State,” targeting the Yazidi people in their ruthless efforts to “purify” Iraq and her neighbors of non-Islamic influences. And then we saw the devastating grief of our own American families, those of James Wright Foley, a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, and Steven Sotloff, a Jewish journalist from Miami, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, both beheaded on video, for all the world to see. And once again, the specter of another armed conflict, of more American servicemen and –women risking their lives on the ground in Iraq, is very real and very scary, yet another thing that keeps us up at night.   

And when our focus circled back around to our own backyard, we watched the powder-keg of racial tension ignited by the police shooting of yet another unarmed black teenager, this time in Ferguson, Missouri, when Officer Darrell Wilson shot and killed18-year-old Michael Brown. In the days and weeks that followed, we saw the non-stop coverage of the protests and rioting, the police brutality and teargas, the deployment of the National Guard by the governor. And we were confronted with the sobering truth that when it comes to race relations in our fair republic, we still have miles to go before we sleep.                

And just when we had had enough of all the bad news coming from every corner of the globe, just when we couldn’t possibly take any more of it, then came word of Robin Williams, one of the most beloved actors and personalities in our history, taking his own life, giving in to the engulfing darkness of depression. As a nation shattered by his death recalled their favorite and most meaningful Robin Williams moments, we prayed that perhaps some good could come from his passing, slowly beginning to peel away the stigma and shame associated with the disease of depression. In these ways, and many others, may his memory be for a blessing.

The 18^th century rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshishka is credited with a simple, yet wonderful teaching. He taught that everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and saddened, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: "For my sake was the world created." But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: "I am but dust and ashes."

My friends, in so many ways, 5774 was a long and excruciating night of the soul. And so, it seems to me, what we all need is a nechemta. A nechemta is a consolation, a source of comfort to conclude a difficult or upsetting passage, a warm blanket for just such a cold and sleepless night as this past year. We need it, don’t we. We’ve been forced to reach repeatedly into the pocket that tells us we are but dust and ashes. We’ve been beaten down emotionally by an onslaught of negativity, an endless reel of hopelessness playing again and over again in our minds, asking if there is any hope for tomorrow, yet fearful of receiving an answer; leaving us both desperate for the release of sleep, and yet terrified of what dreams, or nightmares, may come. For our hearts, for our souls, for our general well-being, we need to know that the sun will rise tomorrow, that its rays will gradually banish the darkness, if only for a while, that it will be a new day for each and every one of us. We need to know, if only for a moment or two, that the world was indeed created for us. And when we turn off the news and look around us, we can see that there is plenty of hope to comfort us and light our way after all.

There’s the story of Peter Frates, former captain of the Boston College baseball team in 2007, diagnosed at the age of 27 with ALS. But rather than let his condition define him, he girded his inner strength and set out to conquer his disease, saying in a recent interview, “For me, it was, ‘Okay. Here’s what we’re dealing with. Let’s go to work.’” He earned an audience with the Food and Drug Administration in Washington in March of 2013, where he said to them, “I ask of you: let’s speed up the process, let’s work together, and let’s make this disease a thing of the past.” Two months later, he married Julie, whom he’d met 8 months before his diagnosis, walking her down the aisle despite normally being almost entirely confined to a wheelchair. Over the summer, a friend of Pete’s introduced something called the Ice Bucket Challenge, to raise awareness of ALS and funds to find a cure. Suddenly, athletes all over Boston, then all over the country, then celebrities and everyone everywhere, even former Presidents, began to take part. The result? As of September 17^th, the Ice Bucket Challenge had raised over $114 million towards eradicating this terrible affliction. And, by the way, Pete and Julie welcomed a baby girl, Lucy Fitzgerald Frates, into the world on September 1^st. Pete’s father John said that her birth was “the perfect ending to the miracle month of August.”

There’s the story of Austin Hatch, the 19-year-old college freshman from Indiana. At the age of 8, Austin survived the crash of a plane piloted by his father, in which his mother and two siblings were killed. Eight years later, he was once again the lone survivor of another plane crash which took the life of his father and stepmother, leaving Austin in a medically-induced coma. This brave young man, a 6’6” high school basketball star, suffered such a traumatic brain injury that he literally had to re-learn how to walk and talk. Keeping his parents close to his heart all throughout the long and difficult recovery process, he said, “I can hear their voices in my head when I face a difficult situation. My dad and mom raised me to be an uncommon man. The uncommon man gets up at five in the morning to go work out, to get stronger, when no one else is. It takes an uncommon man to do that when no one is looking.” Asked by Maria Shriver what answer he had come up with to the question, “Why me?,” he told her, “The time that you could spend wondering and thinking why me?,’ that’s time that you could've spent working your tail off to get better.” Securing a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, his late mother’s alma mater, he was able to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing basketball for the Wolverines just a few weeks ago. On July 25^th, he tweeted, “"Y do bad things happen 2 good ppl?" has no answer. What we should ask is "what do good ppl do when something bad happens 2 them?”     

And then there’s the story of you. Of each of us, of all of us together. Chances are, you have come through something difficult, something challenging, something deeply trying at some point in your life. In the past month or year or decade, every single one of us here tonight and everyone we know, has endured, has made it through something, whether it’s an exhausting bout with cancer, the mending of a broken friendship, or the conquering a personal fear. I can’t tell you how often I’ve sat with many of you in my study and found myself saying, “You are so much stronger than you think you are.” And that’s the truth. Certainly stories like those of Peter Frates and Austin Hatch can inspire and motivate us to reach our highest potential. But let us not forget that we too–each and every one of us–have tremendous strength within ourselves to nourish our souls and others’ as well.      

In the morning, Jacob is blessed. The mysterious ish gives him the new name of Yisrael, because he has struggled with God and with humanity, and he has prevailed. Having found the strength within to make peace with himself, he comes face-to-face with his brother Esau, falling into a tearful embrace that is probably my favorite part of the entire Torah. Following this beautiful reunion, we read, Vayavo Ya’akov shalem ir Sh’chem, “Jacob arrived at the city of Sh’chem shalem, whole, complete, at peace.” For all he has been through, all that has haunted his dreams and his waking life, every troubling thought that kept him up at night, and even the wrenched hip socket he now hobbles upon, Jacob has arrived on the other side of the river shalem, whole, at peace, with a renewed hold on life, and a hopeful outlook on whatever the future may bring.

On this Rosh HaShanah, may we be as Jacob our patriarch. May we be honest with ourselves about where we have been, as individuals and as a community, even as we struggle to make meaning of it all. When we feel much more like dust and ashes, may we remember that, for each of us, for all of us, was the world created. May we know in our heart of hearts, in our most difficult hours, that hope is always there, that hope never dies, that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. And may each of us, all of us, enter through the gates of this new year like Jacob, like Yisrael, shalem—whole, complete, and at peace, with ourselves and each other.

For, like Jacob, we will prevail.

Now let’s go to work.

AMEN.  

Who Are You Wearing? - Yom Kippur 5774

(AUDIO: To hear this sermon as it was delivered at Temple Shaaray Tefila, please click here.)

5773. Maybe we’ll call it the Year of the Pope. After all, as Benedict XVI stepped down citing failing health, and Francis was elected, for the first time in history, the Catholic world has a Pope Emeritus. Such unfamiliar territory was this, that even the choice of that title wasn’t easy. And yet, perhaps lost in the shuffle of this strange situation and the 24-hour news-cycle world in which we live, was the fact that this was a pretty radical move by the Catholic Church. Though not usually known for pursuing courses of action not considered safe or conservative, the cardinals’ choice of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new Pontiff, the face of 1.2 billion believers, was nothing short of revolutionary. Why? Because Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope ever, the first pope from the Americas, and the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere. Only somewhat less of a big deal is the fact of his being the first pope ever on Twitter, with handles in at least nine languages. (In English it’s @pontifex, if you’re curious.) So yes, the ascension of this man to pope, the donning of the illustrious white robes and skullcap, is a pretty big deal, no matter which faith you may practice or abstain from.

Now I’ll bet you didn’t expect the rabbi to begin his Yom Kippur sermon by talking about the Pope. But there’s another reason I’m calling this past year the Year of the Pope. And that is because of Olivia Pope. Olivia Pope is, of course, the central character in ABC's smash political drama Scandal, a strong-willed and decisive power player in the convoluted and interwoven world of our nation's capital. Played by the illustrious Kerry Washington, Pope makes a living out of leveraging her contacts and relationships to solve problems for Washington's elite, but meticulous in choosing which cases she and her firm of "gladiators in suits" will take on. You see, the image in her mind, and one that continually shows up in the characters' dialogue, is of "wearing the white hat," hearkening back to the old Westerns where the good and bad guys were distinguished to the viewing audience by the white or black hat they wore. So it is no coincidence that Shonda Rhimes' lead character, with the last name Pope, would aspire to be the constant savior and heroine, to always don the symbolic white hat.

And while she may not have as many accounts or followers as Francis, this Pope--or, rather, the actress who portrays her--is also on Twitter. And ABC is smart. In this day and age of Tivo and DVR, where we need a solid reason to endure the hardship of commercials and watch a show live, they tried something out, and it's working. They've got all of the show's cast live-tweeting the episodes--commenting, retweeting, responding to the quotes, observations, and predictions of regular Joe Shmo's like you and me, during both the East and West Coast broadcasts. It's fun and interactive, and from the network's standpoint, it makes it that much more likely that I'll pay a sliver of attention to one of their paid advertisements. And somehow, some way, there's always, without a doubt, a thread asking @KerryWashington:

"Who are you wearing?"

Not "what" are you wearing. Who. We NEED to know. Is it Vera Wang? Is it Oscar De La Renta? Could it be Versace or Louis Vuitton? No no. It must be Christian Dior. Or perhaps Alexander McQueen. But please, for the love of God, just tell us who you're wearing!  

Clothing. In Hebrew b'gadim. Ever since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden and ran to hide their newly-discovered nakedness with fig leaves, we have been obsessed with the clothes we wear. And while it is true that clothing, along with food and shelter, make up the three most basic needs of human beings, we know all too well that our fascination goes far beyond any concept of necessity. Now we watch the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Grammys not to see who will win Best Actress or Best Director or Artist of the Year, but to see who will win the night in fashion and make the tabloids' Best Dressed lists. Indeed there are a number of us who actually turn the channel once the can't-miss red carpet specials are over because, after all, watching to see how the rich and famous arrive and who they're wearing is the best part of the evening. Isn't it? 

Personally, beyond the surface level of "that's a beautiful dress" or "what on earth is she wearing?," I really couldn't care less who the designer is. But I am, if you will, fascinated by our fascination with b'gadim, with clothing, as I think it speaks volumes about who we really are, both as individuals and as a society.

Just a few moments ago, we chanted the famous alphabetic acrostic of sins we have all committed as a community. Together we bear the collective responsibility in the first-person plural, where each confession ends with the Hebrew suffix "nu." The aleph is ashamnu, essentially the topic sentence: we are guilty, we have sinned. The bet? The bet is bagadnu, a phrase perhaps best translated as "we have been treacherous,” or, as rendered by our new machzor, “we have betrayed." And the root of bagadnu and b'gadim, clothing, are exactly the same: bet-gimmel-dalet. Right in alphabetical order, almost an acrostic within the acrostic. And this, my friends, is no accident, no mere coincidence. We are traitors and deceivers--all of us. The clothing we wear, both literally and figuratively, the coverings not just for our bodies but our souls as well, belies who we really are underneath our skin, amidst our flesh and bones, at our very core. 

Our tradition knows this all too well. It begins with Jacob, the man who would become Israel, the one for whom our people is named! We read of his mother Rebekah’s plot to disguise him as his brother Esau, fooling his near-blind father Isaac to receive the innermost blessing meant for his older twin. I’m always struck by what he says to her, his very first response after she divulges her devious plan. What does he say? He says, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned. If my father touches me, I shall appear to him a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.” In other words: “But Mom, I’ll get busted!” No moral reservations, no voice of reason, no angel on his shoulder saying maybe this isn’t a very nice thing to do. Nope. “I’m down, Mom,” Jacob is saying. “But if we’re going to do this, I can’t get caught.”

And so he goes into Isaac, draped in animal skins, aiming to convince his father that he is really Esau, in the end receiving the prophetic blessing of his father’s heart. Was Isaac really duped, an addled old man struggling to beat back senility? Or did he know that the one standing before him was a sheep in wolf’s clothing? The text is such that we’ll never really know with any certainty. But we do know that Jacob is very much the “trickster” he didn’t want his father to discover.  What is beyond any doubt is that with beged, the clothing, hu bagad, he was treacherous. 

And it continues with Joseph, the man who gets more airtime in the Torah than anyone other than Moses. We know the story: of the of the k’tonet ha-passim, the amazing technicolor dreamcoat—perhaps by Missoni—a gift from his father that both marked him as Jacob’s favorite and painted a target on his back for his brothers. We know how they threw him in a pit, sold him into slavery, dipped the coat in goat’s blood, and showed it to their father as proof of Joseph’s supposed demise. But the begged bagad, the clothing betrayed him.

And so it is with us. Every day, we wake up, and we put on our costumes. A shirt and tie, a pants suit for some; medical scrubs, cargo pants, utility belts for others; full uniforms for the men and women looking out for our safety and security. And yet, when the workday ends, when we’re home and off the clock, so to speak, the first thing we do is take off the costume, changing into something more comfortable or whatever it is we really want to wear. And I wonder: is that an authentic expression of our diverse personalities, where both represent parts of a greater whole?  Or is one of them the real us, the other a put-on, a glorified game of make-believe the world expects us to play?

And yet, we know the confession of bagadnu, that we have betrayed, goes deeper than just b’gadim, the clothing we wear. It’s the treachery, the deception we practice every day, trying to convince others we’re something we’re not. It’s the acting, the role-playing, the long con we’ve committed to so deeply that there’s no escape. Is it any wonder, then, that we use expressions like “fleecing” and “pulling the wool over their eyes”? Is it any wonder that so many of the most popular TV shows in recent memory—Mad Men, Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Americans, to name just a few—center around characters living, it seems, multiple lives? Ever since Tony Soprano visited colleges with his daughter, if not before, we have been captivated by the best of the duplicitous, either unaware or in denial of the mirror they hold up in front of our very faces. You remember it? How Tony is late to pick Meadow up from Bates because he’s just taken out a mob informant in the Witness Protection Program—a turncoat, if you will—with words in his ear about taking an oath, about how “the hustle never ends.” You remember how Tony, sitting on a bench during her interview at Bowdoin, looks up to see a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne, the school’s most famous alum, that, frankly, says it all—of the show, yes; but even more so, about us:   

“No man can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

Maybe we’re like Tony with our never-ending hustle. Maybe we’re like Jacob, carrying on a charade, portraying an alter-ego for some ill-gotten gain, thinking only of ourselves and how to avoid being caught. Maybe we play up our titles, exploit our spheres of influence, tucked away in an ivory tower. Maybe we drape ourselves in the false security blanket of the internet, mistaking it for a cloak of invisibility, hiding behind blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter handles, Instagramming pictures of everything, everyone, but the photographer himself.

But today, Yom Kippur, is the day it all catches up with us. Today is the day we stand figuratively naked before God and our community, stripped of all pretense and posture, hitting our hearts, confessing ashamnu, we have sinned, bagadnu, we have betrayed. Today we are judged for what we’ve really done, what we’ve really said, who we really are. We say to God, “As the shepherd examines the flock, causing each sheep to pass beneath the staff, so do You collect and consider, record and recount every soul, setting the bounds of every creature’s life, and decreeing its destiny.” We say to God, “You will remember everything that has been forgotten, and You will open the book of memories. What is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being.” Reflecting on this, Rabbi Maggie Wenig wrote, “Our lives are an open book. Nothing remains a secret. Secrets have a way of seeping through the cracks and bubbling to the surface. It is only a matter of time before we find ourselves exposed, as naked as the day we were born. Lies, half truths, obfuscations ultimately fail to convince. Better we should live our lives assuming that all our deeds, phone calls, e-mails, text messages, and financial transactions are known, recorded, remembered, and on permanent display in the Library of Conscience.”

Perhaps the Library of Conscience is where Joseph spent his time in the pit his brothers threw him into. Perhaps he had a few hours without food or drink, just like we do today, to contemplate who he really was, and who he wanted to be, now stripped of his outer garb. Perhaps he realized in that moment that sometimes the clothes don’t make the man, that the “dazzling coat of many colors” was not an accurate reflection of the person underneath it.

Sold  into slavery, the handsome young Joseph rises to the highest post in the household of Potiphar, officer to Pharaoh, where he quickly becomes the object of obsession for Potiphar’s wife. She propositions him, again and again, to lie with him, to which he never accedes. And yet, despite his steadfast refusals, it is once again a piece of clothing that gets Joseph in trouble. Wriggling away from one such attempt, Joseph leaves his robe in her hand, which she uses to accuse Joseph of exactly what she did to him. And why is it that Joseph won’t give in to her adulterous demands? He says to her, V’eich e’eseh ha-ra’ah hag’dolah hazot, “How then could I do this great evil,” v’chatati lElohim, “and thus sin against God?”

You see, for Joseph, the sin is not so much against Potiphar, his master, though it is most certainly that. Much more importantly, it is, as he sees it, a sin against God. Even if no earthly creature is watching, even if he could get away with it without another soul ever knowing, he would know it. And God would too. Here, though the beged bagad, the clothing betrays his intent, here we have the opposite of what he went through before. Stripped of his clothing, he stands literally and figuratively naked, knowing, no matter the consequence of her false allegations, that he had done right, in the eyes of God, and of himself.  

And then it all comes full circle. Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food during the famine, completely unaware that it’s him they’re pleading to. His clothing, his hair, his appearance have changed beyond anything they knew of him. Unable to bear it any longer, Joseph sends everyone else away from the room. As he reveals himself to his brothers, they quickly realize that the reason he was unrecognizable to them wasn’t as much about his physical appearance as it was about the man underneath the high Egyptian fashion—a man who had reconciled the gap between who he really was and how he portrayed himself; a man ultimately changed for the better. Underneath the clothing and all of the outward changes Joseph had made, here, standing before the very people who had wronged him so grievously, was a man who had learned to be his authentic and best self. Here stood a man who had looked in the mirror, had confronted himself with honesty and integrity, a man who had earned the status of wearing, if only figuratively, the famed white hat of the hero.

Adonai our God, so too may it be for us. On this Yom Kippur, as we look back on the year that was, and look ahead to the year yet to be, may we stand before You honestly, truthfully confessing bagadnu, our betrayal—of each other, of ourselves, of You. May we have the courage to confront our faces in the mirror, to gaze beyond our clothing, beyond our outward appearance, and into the depths of our souls, to see what’s really there, and to fix what is broken. And may we, in learning from our mistakes, in the ultimate work-in-progress of our lives, come ever nearer to what You intended us to be—the best, the truest, the most authentic versions of ourselves we can possibly be.          

AMEN.