Our Voices

Yom Kippur 5875 | 2024

When I worked at Jewish summer camp, a place that so many of us know as fun, beautiful Jewish immersion but also freestyle chaos and a place of last minute decision making, I was taught as a best practice to use the following phrase whenever I did not have an answer to a question and as you might imagine, at camp this happened often): I’m not sure, but let me help you find someone who does know.

I’m not sure but let me help you find someone who does know.

This phrase is really a two-part practice in humility and curiosity. You certainly should not start giving out false information. Someone might think Israeli dance starts at 1:30 when really it starts at 2. But it doesn’t stop there. The important second piece of the sentence is that you will go seek out a source of information that will give you the information you seek.

 And while this might be easier to say about questions with definitive answers like “what time are we transitioning to the next activity” or “where does Israeli dance meet,” it is much harder to say when we are asked for an opinion we hold. I worry that in our world, we are given too few opportunities to say this comfortably. Instead, we are expected to know our beliefs on every last issue, whether or not we have an informed opinion, and argue in their favor whether or not we have the credibility to do so. To admit that we don’t know or that we might be wrong feels so much worse than to dig our heels in and assert certainty. We assume that strength comes from knowledge rather than curiosity. In his book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, organizational psychologist Dr. Adam Grant explains, “most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise, and in staying true to our beliefs and opinions. That makes sense in a stable world, where we get rewarded for having conviction in our ideas.” But he goes on to describe what we know to be true: this world is not stable, rather it is ever-changing.

I cannot lie to you and tell you I have never fallen victim to this myself, just as you all likely have. Questioning our own beliefs is not fun or easy. Grant puts into words the daunting truth behind questioning our own beliefs and opinions: “questioning ourselves makes the world unpredictable. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves.”

What if I haven’t completely thought out my beliefs about Zionism? That might make me a bad Jew. What if I believe something that does not align with the newest wave of feminism? That might make me an inconsistent feminist. And what is something misaligned in my approach to Jewish education? That would threaten who I am as a rabbi and an educator. If I were to question all of these beliefs, and in turn, all these identities at once, I might send myself into a mental spiral. And yet, we often expect ourselves and others to hold our beliefs tightly and with certainty. 

In our modern world, to waver is to have moral weakness, or at least it might feel that way. 

But to never question what we might not know or the places where we are wrong would mean to do ourselves a great disservice. We will find ourselves static in a world that continues to change, thinking we are smart, when really, we are just rigid. As Grant puts it, “if knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”

On Yom Kippur, we are instructed to turn inward to understand where we may have been wrong in the past year. And to help us do that, we look to a story of a man who could not: Jonah. Jonah is all of us. Or at least, he could be. And I don’t just mean that sometimes we run away from our responsibilities or problems, though perhaps we might. But what I mean is what happens to Jonah in chapter 4, the chapter we often do not tell or even know about.

Jonah has been running away from his call from God to tell the wicked people of Nineveh to repent or God will overturn their city. 

Jonah goes so far as to get on a boat, jump off that boat and get swallowed by a large fish to avoid his responsibilities. But upon reflection in the belly of the fish, he finally decides to heed the word of God and act as God’s prophet. He goes to the people of Nineveh and much to his surprise, each and every one of them listens to God and repents, turning from their evil ways. In return, God noticed them and renounced their punishment. In the Hebrew: Va’yinachem HaElohim. This Hebrew root found in the word yinachem has several meanings. It is translated in the machzor as renounced or went back, suggesting that God changed God’s mind. But this root also means to be comforted, suggesting that perhaps God took comfort in the idea that the Ninevites were able to change for the better. It was God’s greatest hope that the people had the capacity to change, and in admitting their wrongdoings, God found great comfort in God’s creations. I would like to believe that if God can take comfort in this, we should as well. 

But Jonah represents the stark opposite standpoint in this story. Chapter 4, the last chapter of the book begins with Jonah demonstrating how displeased he is that God renounced this punishment. In fact, he is angry.

He prayed to GOD, saying, “O ETERNAL One! Isn’t this just what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled beforehand to Tarshish. For I know that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment. 

I want to laugh at Jonah in this moment, but I also want to yell in his face. You’re mad because God had mercy on a people capable of change? And you, yourself, cannot demonstrate the same kind of mercy or change your belief about people too?!

The text furthers the absurdity of Jonah’s rigid perspective when, in this last chapter, God provides Jonah with a shady tree to protect him as he sets up camp. Jonah takes great pleasure in this plant, something that was not even his creation to begin with. 

The next day God sends a worm to eat the plant and a hot windy day to counteract the tree that was once there. Jonah, unable to see how rigid he is, stews in anger. God responds with a question: You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight.  And should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their leftl!” 

God’s words wax poetic, but in short serve to tell us that Jonah could not see his own hypocrisy. While the Ninevites changed for the better, Jonah could not admit to being wrong. They were able to admit wrongdoing, and Jonah could not see past his own nose to notice that he mourned for a plant in which he had no prior investment. In the end, he suffered for it.

He was, in a word, stiff-necked, k’sheh oref, a word often used to describe stubborn Israelites throughout Torah. When we are stiff-necked, we are the worst versions of ourselves. 

We are so self-assured, so convinced that we are right, that everyone else who thinks differently must be wrong. That must be a lonely existence. When our necks are stiff, we can hardly turn to see everything going on around us. We miss the point. It was never about being right, it was about learning to be better, perhaps the very essence of this day.

Jonah teaches us how we might look to the outside eye when we refuse to admit our own wrongdoings or shortcomings. I am further reminded of just how important our own ability to question ourselves is when I hear the words of Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai. He once wrote: 

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

That doubt that digs like a plow can be a tool for us, a tool to help us learn to be better, a tool for growth. In 5785, may we use doubt as a way to be curious about the place where we may be wrong. May we question our beliefs not so that we will abandon them, but so that we can understand our own blind spots. May we have the strength to take comfort in phrases like “I don’t know,” “I need more information first,” and “I was wrong then, and I believe this now.” My beliefs do not need to be perfect to be valid and neither do yours. It is okay if I don’t know the answer, as long as I am willing to seek it out. 

Kein Y’hi Ratzon, May this be God’s will.

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