Yom Kippur: The Time of Year for Soul Inventory

This time of year Jews are asked to look back and do a "soul inventory" -- to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged and to grant forgiveness to those who seek it BEN
ROMER
from us. Then on Yom Kippur we can approach the moral Source to seek a discussion on the same topic. We are asked to look back and then look forward to truly attempt to make the coming year a better, more ethical, more moral year than the previous -- not just as individuals, but to lift up the total community within which we live. I am covenanted to help heal this world and everyone in it.

Performing that soul inventory can be a challenge. Most of us are always prepared to let someone else know what he or she has done wrong. Even the Bible lets you do that: "Reprove your neighbor, but incur no guilt because of him" (Leviticus 19: 17). I know I catch myself watching someone on some news show saying something with which I don't agree and then calling that person some unkindly name or term, even yelling at the TV! As if he or she can hear me. (I bet some of you have done that before, right?) We can all too regularly be sure we are holding the higher moral ground. Too often we build our walls of assured righteousness, refusing to see the complicated lives of others. Too often we believe only our way is correct and if my way is right, yours is wrong. Perhaps there are several right ways?

And yet . . . I believe the challenge is to look inward. There is a Buddhist saying that we should all put on our walls -- or at least the walls of our hearts.

"Are you sure?" Say it out loud. Today I am less sure about many things. Not that I don't hold to certain moral and ethical positions that remain constant. I continually must remind myself that life is not at the extremes of the spectrum, but is lived in the variety of colors and shades between.

And my sureness must be challenged as I truly meet and encounter someone else. I must first take a deep breath -- sometimes literally -- and then reach out in open honesty to the other person as another "candle of the Eternal," as Psalms says of each soul. And if he or she is as much one of those Holy Lights as I am, I must be ready to embrace him or her as another miraculous creation. And each soul has a spiritual gift to add to the flow of my life and all who make up our world.

Jews will flow into synagogues across Richmond, the United States, and the world tonight. Before each one walks in, the calculations of that soul inventory will be adding. Each person will have been challenged to discover the possibility of unsureness of actions thought to be right, of comments made to others, of positions taken. And once we are unsure we must then seek permission from others to admit we might be wrong -- what some call seeking forgiveness. Only after this soul-checking is it possible to move forward spiritually and humanly.

The only path I can walk is one that brings the talk to life. Only when the words I speak on Yom Kippur -- about soul-searching, about being willing to truly ask myself if I am sure -- are sincere will there be any chance for me to encounter others in a better way. Only when I realize that I must change how I may see others will I be able to see my covenantal responsibility to uplift the fallen, free the captive, and heal the sick as applying to a much broader human community of souls.

One of the definitions of sin in Judaism is to miss the mark. That implies that with practice I can get closer to touching the mark. Perhaps my 22 years in the Army have caused me to look at this too militarily. I think, after some soul-searching, another understanding must be what I must become if I am indeed the co-partner of the Holy One. Only through my unsureness will I be able to break out of my place and move forward into connecting and healing this world.
Rabbi Ben A. Romer is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Richmond. Contact him at (804) 272-0017 or .