Taking the New Year Back for the Jews

Everything is going to change this year. I’m going to quit coffee, do 50 pull-ups each night, and then get eight hours of sleep. I was going to do those things last year, but I think that I pulled my elbow string, and the pain made me lose sleep, so I had to drink coffee to focus during the day.

I was also going to solve world violence, I think, and I had some aspiration toward getting hitched. I wrote those resolutions down somewhere, which, I’m told, helps people realize their goals.

I think I need a new approach to the old year, and an old approach to the new year. My Christianity has been heavily influenced by Judaism (thanks in part to Marv Wilson and his book, Our Father Abraham), and I think that we can learn some valuable lessons from the Jewish concept of the New Year.

So, the Jewish New Year happened a while ago this year, or last year now, or whatever. It consists of 10 High Holy days that begin on Rosh Hashanah and end on Yom Kippur—the Sabbath of Sabbaths. Everything rests on Yom Kippur. The people. The animals. The land. All things are given a deep breath of rejuvenation. All things are made new that moment. When Christians try to explain how holy the Holy of Holies was (usually in the context of the tearing of the curtain at Jesus’ crucifixion), they reference the one-day of the year on which the High Priest was allowed, or forced, rather, to enter the chamber and atone for everyone’s sin. That day is Yom Kippur.

In America, we bang pots and pans and drop the ball in New York City.

On Yom Kippur, the priest wasn’t the only one making atonement for Israel’s sin. The New Year is the only required fast day in the entire Bible. All of Israel gathered together and recognized its brokenness and need for God. They collectively asked (as practicing Jews still do today) for God’s forgiveness for all sins committed against heaven.

But here’s a difference between Judaism and pop Christianity: in Judaism, if you sin against an individual person, you are obligated to right the wrong in addition to asking for forgiveness. Jews will deal with their offenses directly, and the New Year provides that opportunity.

Yom Kippur is a reminder to right wrongs committed against individuals, but it is also a time to deal with societal sin. We’re all part of it—broken systems, structural violence. When we go to the supermarket to buy groceries, we indirectly support magazines at the check-out stand that are destructive to shopper’s body images and sexual identities. But we’re just buying food. On a larger scale, we live in a capitalistic society, an unhealthy economic system that pushes the mentally ill or handicapped on the street because they do not have competitive skill sets. Thanks a lot, social Darwinism. Communism is flawed, too—maybe in a future article, I’ll discuss some ideas about micro-socialism in the church—but for now, back to capitalism. We’re involved in a capitalistic system, and we’re involved in the murder of innocent people. We pay taxes to keep the roads drivable (but somehow the roadwork only seems to be done on the West Coast) and to provide schools for children. Those taxes also fund wars and executions. There is no escaping it. Social sin does not rest along with the people and the animals and the land on the Sabbath of Sabbaths.

In the current day “Avodah Service,” Jews remember the High Priests who would enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for social sin. (Avodah is the Hebrew word for both “work” and “worship”.) Social injustice wasn’t only recognized and repented of, though; work toward change was also mandatory. We right the wrongs in society as well.

The reward for righting those wrongs is the desire to right more wrongs; it’s self-perpetuating.

As we enter the New Year, let’s do some retroactive self-examination. How have we sinned against God? How have we sinned against others? How have we been part of bigger broken systems, sometimes without even being aware? Once we have recognized those wrongs, we should do what we can to right them. I don’t think that capitalism and the manipulation of sex appeal (as examples of immeasurable facets of structural violence) can be completely re-directed on January 1st, 2007, but I think that we can work toward the betterment of society as the collective body of Christ.

I think that the tree of the Western Church is growing on a big builder. It is inappropriately rigid, dying, and digging for water. The roots need not only wrap around the stone; they need to start tearing it to pieces. They need to turn their foundation back into earth. Sometimes roots will quietly, subversively wind through boulders, chipping away without detection.

Sometimes, that persistent grinding leads to a violent crack.

That is the still, small, quiet New Year’s revolution.

Happy New Year.