Kol Nidre 5783

Eternal Our God, it’s Yom Kippur, once again. Your people meet in synagogues, this one among others. Over the next 25 hours, we will fast, we will sing, and we will pray. We will strive to achieve teshuva, repentance and change. We begin this journey with the help of the words of the tefillah, prayer, and the wisdom of ancient Rabbis.

There’s relief in this room. We see friends, finally in person, after the long months spent in lockdown. We feel gratitude. But in this room, there is also so much sadness. Last year had been particularly cruel, and we had said too many goodbyes, too soon, to families and friends that now are no longer with us. May their memories be for a blessing.

Almighty God, we Jews have suffered hard during the pandemic, as used as we are to meet in person — one of the many habits we had to give up and that we are trying to reintroduce in our lives.

Hope has sustained us through the months of the pandemic; because we are people of hope. Hope is often the only thing we have. We are the only people whose anthem is named after hope, “Ha Tikwa”. And often, we push ourselves to look at the future with hope.

But in these hours, o Almighty God, it is so difficult. Fear, in these hours, is stronger than hope. We fear for the environment. On these days of October, temperatures are higher than we are used to, and we know why. We hear horrendous news atrocities from places where Your people have dwelled for generations, like Ukraine or Iran. There, the yearning for freedom and self-determination, which, as Jews, we instinctively recognise, is crushed in blood by dictators and tyrants, Panslavism, and Muslim fundamentalism, dark forces that throughout history have claimed so many death, first and foremost from us Jews.

Hope is so difficult in these hours. Hope is elusive.

We used to muse that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms — but around us, more and more people are losing hope in democracy. We live in a time of polarization. We have never used so many words. Thanks to social media, we really talk a lot. But we communicate so little. We have never been so lonely. Eternal Our God, You know, and You see everything, nothing is new to you, and You are familiar with all the feelings of Your people. And so You know, You know already -and it is very hard to say- that we are also, increasingly and seriously, angry at You.

Yes, anger, o Eternal. One of the most difficult feelings to admit, one of the hardest to deal with, and one of the most persistent. Because to us humans, on Eternal our God, anger does not go away so easily.

We are not like You! When You used to get angry at Moses at the time of our wandering in the wilderness, you also used to forgive and always gave him and our ancestors a second chance.

We are angry at You because we see the powerful crushing the weak, because You have placed incompetent people in leadership positions, and the economy is suffering and, with it, our lives too. We are angry at You because You allow your creatures to destroy Your creation. We are angry at You because we feel lonely and abandoned and because many of us ARE lonely and abandoned.

We are angry at You, o Eternal Our God, because we are looking for You, and You are nowhere to be found. And the prayers to You on this day, the most solemn of all our solemnities, are so difficult to say. Their words sound hollow.

How can we call you Avinu Malkhenu, “our Father, our King”, if we don’t see traces of Your sovereignty over this world that is on the verge of destruction? How can we address You as our Sovereign when You allow tyrants to remain in power and incompetent leaders as the head of many States?

How can we say Baruch Attah Adonay, “Blessed are You o God” when the beauties of the world are about to be destroyed by us human beings? How can we thank You for our heritage, the Jewish faith, and the Jewish religion when we waste it by turning it into a weapon or an ideology for pettiness and personal rivalries?

We are angry at You, o our Eternal God, and we cannot find You. We cannot find You BECAUSE we are angry at You.

And so, tonight, we ask You to calm us and our anger. To be like a Parent, who allows the child to scream, shout and stump the feet, and then at a proper time, calms down the baby with proper words, a reassuring presence, and patience.

In the next hours, we indeed will scream — we will pray. We will sing — we will shout- with the intensity, fear, and anger you are familiar with. Because You know everything. You also know where all this childlike anger comes from. It comes from regret.

We know we have not been good. We know we have made many mistakes, committed many transgressions, and wasted many opportunities in the past year.

Yes, global warming is a reality — but did we really do everything in our power to stop it? Yes — there are tyrants in Iran and Russia — did we really put the lives of the Iranian students and Ukrainian civilians at the top of our priorities? Yes, we all have ungrateful relatives, mean colleagues, selfish family, and friends who are not friends. But have we never been, perhaps unwillingly, mean, selfish, rude or worse? Like, really: never? Nor one single time?

During these hours, the images, the feelings and the sensations of those moments pass in front of us. We see how petty and selfish we have been and how things could be better with just a little effort. We begin to feel regret. But it’s so difficult to find the words to say it. Perhaps, oh Eternal Our God, there ARE words in the liturgy of this solemn day that we can say.

The words of the Viddui, the confession. Ashamnu, Bagadnu, Gazalnu… The Al Chet, the many “For the Sins…”, words of our liturgy with which we express regret, words that help us to look honestly at ourselves.

Regret is a difficult feeling. We experience regret when we are children, but alongside it, we also learnt how to protect ourselves from regret. We learn avoidance. These two feelings develop together, regret and avoidance. And we have become experts in putting avoidance in place to escape from the feeling of regret, minimise our responsibilities, to blame others.

Almighty God, Avinu Malkheinu, help us to feel regret. Lead us to a place of sincerity this evening and tomorrow so that when we go through the list of our transgressions, these words won’t sound hollow but will rather be meaningful.

Eternal Our God, Avinu Malkheinu, help us to be truthful to ourselves, to acknowledge our mistakes. Make us loyal to our tradition, which provides us with the ways and the wisdom to reparation. Avinu Malkheinu, Our Father, our King,. Your people are praying; your children need you.

Don’t leave us alone. Make our prayers the beginning of a real teshuvah.