Do not stand alone

The Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the Ten Days of Penitence) conclude this year in a penitential flurry.  This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuvah—the Sabbath of Repentance, so called because we read from the book of Hosea a passage that opens with the words שׁוּבָה, יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַד, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ:  כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶךָ (“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God; for you have stumbled in your iniquity.”:14:2). Then, on Sunday night, we commence the marathon fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On this day we pray to God for His forgiveness, using many different verbal formulae in which we seek to express our sincere sorrow for our misdeeds and our commitment to a better life in future.

The theme of repentance is dealt with both by the prophets and the rabbis of the Mishnah. They however tackle it quite differently. The prophets address Israel as a whole, a nation straying from the path of God, while the rabbis in Avot speak to us as individuals. Yom Kippur is a day when the collective fate of Israel and all humankind is at stake; our prayers and our confessions are in the plural because we speak, as it were, for others as well as ourselves.

Does this mean that there is no place for Avot in the Yom Kippur atonement process? No.

In his Avot Yisrael, the Kozhnitz Maggid cites a mishnah from the second perek, where Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel teaches (at 2:18) אַל תְּהִי רָשָׁע בִּפְנֵי עַצְמֶֽךָ. This is often translated along the lines of “Do not judge yourself to be a wicked person”, but the meaning of the Hebrew phrase בִּפְנֵי עַצְמֶֽךָ (literally “before yourself”) is imprecise and calls for interpretation.

According to the Maggid, this teaching supports the proposition that, when assessing where we stand in terms of good and bad, we should not stand only “before ourselves” but should seek to tie ourselves to those who are righteous, so that our prayers may be united with theirs and be viewed more favourably.  

May our prayers and our repentance over the coming days be accepted, both as individuals and as part of Klal Yisrael.