We are told that on Rosh Hashana it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of years and who while still young, who by fire and who by water — and so on. But we can avert a terrible fate with three acts: teshuva, or repentence, tefillah, or prayer, and tzedaka, or deeds of lovingkindness.
That’s quite a powerful concept, that we can change our fate by our deeds. That is why we fast on Yom Kippur and spend the day in prayer. And yet that is insufficient. On Yom Kippur morning we read these words of Isaiah, chapter 58:
5 Is such the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day when Adonai is favorable?
6 No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke.
7 It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin.
Repentance and prayer are not enough — we have to change our behavior.
Tzedaka is usually considered the Hebrew word for charity, and that is reflected in the translation I used above, lovingkindness. The word charity comes from the Latin caritas, or love. It reflects the Christian idea of love for each other. Tzedaka, on the other hand, is from the same root as the word Tzaddik, which means a righteous man, and therefore means righteous deeds, deeds of justice. We must let the oppressed go free, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked because it is right and just, whether we feel loving or not.
This idea is the very heart of Jewish belief. We should love God and our fellow humans, we should have faith — but we are judged by what we do. We show our love of God by the way we treat each other, not by vehement prayer and fasting.
If there ever was a year when how we vote became a moral choice, this is it. This is about who we are as a nation. After this campaign we have a need for a national cleansing, for national teshuva, tefilla, and tzedaka. We have much to repent — we have one candidate for president who has continually shown scorn for those in need, who belittles individuals and groups of people such as women, immigrants, Muslims, blacks, Jews. There have been repeated acts of violence at his rallies towards reporters and people representing minority groups — violence which that candidate has approved, if not incited. This candidate seeks to divide us from each other, and promotes acts of violence against those not in the “in” group. There has been a serious increase in antisemitic comments to Jewish reporters, and the raw hatred shown his opponent is horrifying.
I think we collectively need to do national teshuva, to repent for the atmosphere of hate that has spawned this candidate and brought his followers out of the woodwork. We have seen almost eight years of vitriol directed towards our first black president, eight years of those Republicans who are now renouncing Donald Trump showing unprecedented obstruction of that president, with more filibusters, for example, than in all our previous history combined, with legislators actively working to undermine active negotiations of a nuclear treaty with Iran by writing directly to the Iranian minister of state and by inviting a foreign leader to speak in Congress against that treaty, with an unprecedented refusal to even consider his nominee to the Supreme Court.
If you sow hatred, you reap hatred, and even staunch Republicans are horrified by what their hatred has wrought.
But repentance (and perhaps prayer) are not enough.
As a country, we need to commit to justice — to clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, taking the homeless into our homes — whether our own homeless or those made homeless by wars and violence.
The Reverend William Barber says what we need in our country now is a moral revolution — that it is not just politics at stake here, but a moral imperative. He doesn’t see a political or economic crisis, but a moral one. I see that same crisis, that same moral imperative.
This election is not a choice between two candidates. It’s a fight for the soul of this country.
I wish those of you who fast a healthy fast, and may you be sealed in the book of life.