The Days of Attunement: A Brief Meditation on Yom Kippur
I’ll admit it. I wrestled with the concept of sin for many years. Decades, even. I’ll also admit that I’ve never enjoyed or derived meaning from afflicting the soul on Yom Kippur. Fasting does nothing to make me feel like improving myself. In fact, I’m fairly certain that visualizing my fellow prayerful as vegan chick’n drumsticks is likely way up there on a list of transgressions.
Now, some may respond that it’s not a holy day to be enjoyed as such; it’s a day of introspection and contemplation about interpersonal ethics. About resolving to be better in the coming year.
But is it? And does it accomplish what it sets out to do?
For those unfamiliar with the holiday, Yom Kippur is considered to be the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and is centred on atonement for sins — both against God and against fellow human beings. Traditionally, Jews gather in the synagogue, wearing white, and avoiding leather shoes, which were deemed comfortable by the early rabbis; this goes against the notion of afflicting the soul (sole?) on the day of atonement.
Based on the available evidence, it’s unlikely that Yom Kippur was known during the time of the First Temple, and much more likely that references to the holiday in the Hebrew Bible were added by Second Temple priests in the latter few hundred years of the first millennium B.C.E. There is also evidence of influence by the Babylonian Akitu festival, the fifth day of which involved a purification ritual called the kuppuru, cognate (i.e., same word or root, different language) with kippur.
It was during the rabbinic and medieval periods that the rituals, liturgy, and theology underpinning Yom Kippur were refined, and eventually set in place as normative practice for Jews.
The above isn’t intended as a critique or as an attempt to undermine the holiday. On the contrary, religious traditions are well-placed to promulgate ethical teachings, and Judaism is steeped in ethical and moral writings, from the Hebrew Bible to Mussar literature. At their very best, these are inspiring and aspirational, not based on terrifying believers into blind obedience due to fear of punishment.
And yet, for the average Jewish person (criminality is something else well beyond this posting) who does not read these teachings, Yom Kippur is the single day on which to contemplate it all in one: The goal is to plead with God for forgiveness and another year of life, to muse upon the meanings of life and death. It’s also a day to consider interpersonal ethics — to seek after our highest, noblest selves. While fasting.
There is a traditional script for this — the high holiday prayerbook called the machzor, and a location — the synagogue. There, Jews of varying commitment to these ideal objectives of Yom Kippur gather to pray and engage in a ritual of individual (and collective) expiation of sins.
When it’s all over, faint and hungry, longing for that first bite of bread or sip of juice, individuals and families head home or to gatherings to break the fast.
For those who have the best intentions of effecting real, positive change in the new year, however, the question must be asked: Does it work?
I’d wager that for many, though by no means all, contemplation is too quickly overshadowed by the world of action, work, and slogging through interpersonal relationships of all kinds as best they can. And how can it be otherwise? The realm of prayer and lofty intentions is, in many ways, divorced from that of real-world, moment-to-moment responses to others. Crack open a machzor, and it simply can’t tell you what to do when faced with an irate client, a breakup, or a sexy neighbour who is not your wife.
I’d argue that what is missing is a mechanism by which the broad idea of atoning for sins and resolving not to transgress in the new year can be implemented in the moment. Here, to borrow from business parlance, while Yom Kippur is filled to the brim with good intentions and goals, what is needed are ethical strategies and tactics.
Before I turn to these, I should mention that I don’t personally find the traditional model of atonement to be helpful or meaningful. Though we each make our share of mistakes, I don’t think that makes us sinful. I will not prostrate myself, beg, bow, or scrape. That type of atonement never did make me want to be a better person; it made me feel small and fearful of Divine punishment, lacking human agency at a time where agency and interpersonal ethics are precisely what were most needed. Nevertheless, I know many Jews who find Yom Kippur helpful in their own quests for self-improvement and spiritual growth.
And so, this is how I conceive of Yom Kippur now. Whether you observe Yom Kippur or, like so many unaffiliated Jews identified by the recent Pew Study, participate in little or no Jewish traditional practice, perhaps you too will find this useful.
The day, for me, is devoted to reading ethical literature from the Jewish tradition and outside of it — from Taoism, Buddhism, various Earth-based traditions, and western philosophical writings. Sometimes I write about these topics. If it’s nice out, I take a walk. I don’t always fast, but neither do I feast.
A number of years ago, I began to refine an idea I heard in a lecture, that sin isn’t binary, but is about ‘missing the ethical mark’ and resolving to aim better next time so as to hit the bullseye. But again, what does that mean? Aim how, precisely? How do I hold my arms, my individual fingers, on the bow and arrow? How far back do I pull, and with how much force, and . . .
Clearly, it is one thing to intend not to behave a certain way; it’s quite another to do it in the moment, experientially, when strong emotions are in play. But at least this was an image that moved the conversation beyond the well-worn dichotomy of sinner-saint. Because really, so few of us are either.
I shifted to a similar idea, but which jettisons the idea of sin, and focuses on moment-to-moment processes. What if you could maintain the emphasis on ethical interpersonal behaviour bein adam l’havero (i.e., between humans and their fellows) without falling back to all or nothing thinking? Without relying solely on a single day a year to wipe the cosmic slate clean?
And so, I gradually began to observe the Days of Attunement. Every day. Here, the grand concepts of sin and atonement are replaced by a process of emotional fine-tuning: Watching, reading interpersonal behaviour, body language, tone of voice, asking what people need and either trying to meet those needs or letting them know, up-front, that I can’t.
When I inadvertently harm someone — something I try hard to avoid, but still, oh yes, all too human — I apologize as soon as possible. I remember the lesson for next time, which might be tomorrow, and I course-correct in the moment, or fairly soon afterward, with no thought of Yom Kippur.
Take for example, the overarching resolution of being kinder to people. This is extremely vague, and unlikely to lead to permanent change. Becoming more specific, a strategy might be to cultivate patience. But again, still too vague. What does this look like in the real world, in the moment?
This is where we approach the level of ethical tactics. When Client A calls with the usual litany of complaints, how can I carefully tune in and listen to what she is really saying, and what need lies behind the complaints? (A key is not to rehearse a response or become agitated while the other person is talking.) How might Client A be seeing the world and what might they need from you in that moment?
This is by no means a perfect approach. Mistakes are still made, of course. And some people can seem so difficult to deal with that no amount of attunement (i.e., empathy) is helpful. But if nothing else, it helps to reframe interpersonal conflict in a way that brings assessing and meeting human needs to the forefront. And in the end, we can only hope that others will tune into our needs as well — or better yet, we might well choose to interact with those who do.
This fine-tuning is already an integral part of the ethical writings of Judaism, as well as most other world religious and humanist traditions. Scholars and interested readers can access many of these works online in their own languages. Yet, for all the printed words and theories in all the mahogany-panelled libraries (and oh, I love myself a good library), it is ultimately in the realm of speech and action that relationships are forged. And maintained.
I’d like to see the process of emotional attunement, and empathy training more generally, taught in schools so that the youngest of children can benefit while their brains are still developing. I’d be thrilled to see a cultural trend toward rejecting the adulation of TV cruelty (e.g., certain ‘reality’ shows) — a modern Coliseum.
Because: If you attune to someone’s emotions, it’s impossible to hurt another person without also hurting yourself. There are exceptions among those who lack true empathy, such as manipulative Dark Triad types (e.g., sociopaths or narcissists), where truth-twisting, and relational harm without accountability/amends, are the pattern. But for most of us, doing our best to be compassionate, or at least, to make the effort to be kind, is an integral part of the process of relating to others.
Simply expressed, other-attuned people make the choice to course-correct, or, when it is too late for that, to mend. And in so doing, they reap the many benefits that attunement brings throughout the lifespan.
G’mar hatimah tovah! May you be sealed in the Book of Life, and experience a year of joy, discernment, growth, and vibrantly healthy relationships!
