In fewer than 24 hours, I will be standing in this synagogue reciting Vidui, the confessional prayer for the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. For reasons that I will not go into here, this cathartic tradition has become one of my favorite spiritual practices.
Per tradition on Yom Kippur, we recite throughout the day "Al chet shechatanu lefanecha..." and asked to be pardoned and forgiven "for sins, which we have committed against You" (traditionally, the "You" = G-d). Something that has always fascinated me is this notion of collective responsibility that is implied within this prayer -- "Shechatanu" being the first-person plural conjugation, "For the sin that we have committed against you..."
Why is it that we should individually reach out to reconcile with those who we may have transgressed over the year, but ask to be pardoned and written into the Book of Life as a community? I find this concept of collective responsibility particularly salient in the physical and historical context in which I will find myself this Kol Nidre.
The Neue Synagoge ("New Synagogue") was built in the 1860s and was once the largest in Germany. Although it was spared total destruction during Kristallnacht in 1938, the building was completely destroyed in various bombings of Berlin during the Second World War, and finally rebuilt in the 1980s. Today, the community of worshipers numbers maybe 100 in comparison to the 3,000+ members that this synagogue was originally intended to accommodate. We will pray in what used to be the women's gallery - in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows that looks over a plot where the main sanctuary used to be, and it now remains empty as a memorial to the destruction and devastation of the Shoah.
It would seem that Berlin, and more broadly, Germany, has been struggling with and engaging in the idea of Vidui ("confession") for over 65 years. Each year, we acknowledge, "we have transgressed, we have robbed, we have slandered. We have oppressed, we have committed evil. We have gone astray and have lead others astray." Yet can an entire country confess to such things? Should an entire country confess to such things? The answers to these questions, of course do not lie with me, nor could I ever write them on this blog; however, this quarter I aim to explore the idea of reconciling that which cannot be reconciled.
Germany, it seems to me, is caught in the crosshairs of repentance and progress -- how can a country so steeped in guilt from three generations ago ever step out of that shadow? How does a country (Germany) or a people (the Jews) continue to grow and live while constantly being pulled back into a painful, horrific and shameful past? Do more memorials mean more memories? Do more memorials lessen the pain of the original acts? Should I, as an American Jew and grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, demand that Germany confess and repent forever? How can I, a twenty year old in 2011, demand that Germans my age take responsibility for what their grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great grandparents may or may not have done between 1933-1945? How can I not?
For those of you fasting tomorrow, g'mar chatima tova v'tzom kal. May we all think about how to better live our lives in the upcoming year.
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