The Holidays are over but I am Still thinking about Sins

This month, I have been thinking a lot about sins. Tishrei tends to do that to us.  Sins serve a variety of purposes.  At their worst, they show us how low we can fall.  At their best, they give us feelings of regret, opportunities to reflect and inspire us to grow. 

Each year in the month of Tishrei we look to two national sins that serve as the paradigms and springboards for teshuva.  The sin of the golden calf and sin of the spies both speak to the broken relationship between God and the Jewish people. Thankfully, these are also stories that end in forgiveness and repair.  Words from those narratives are found throughout the Slichot and Yom Kippur liturgy in the hopes of showing God’s forgiveness and inspiring communal and individual change.  

As we enter into our new year this week and we begin the “after the holidays” we do so with promise and hope, reading the portion of recreation and renewal —Parshat Breishit in shul.

And while these optimistic feelings are found throughout the beginning of that creation narrative, there are two famous sins that we sometimes gloss over on Shabbat Breishit—the sin of the eating forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve and the sin of Hevel’s murder by his brother Cain.  

These two sins, found in Genesis 3 and 4, like those in Tishrei can also lead each of us to change and renewal.  Rabbi Yehuda Gilad in his book on Breishit, helps in framing these sins for our path into Cheshvan.  

First, these two sins have much in common.  Both are committed by an individual, not a collective.  Both contain a rhetorical question from God, in both cases the sinner tries to hide from the Divine after the sin, both contain a punishment of banishment and both end with new generations emerging and God providing some comfort and protection to the sinner.  

The contrast of the two also give core messages about how to live our lives.  

The Ethical v The Religious  חוֹק and משפט

The sin of the Garden of Eden emerges from a particularly odd restriction.  Adam and Eve are told not to eat from the particular tree -- a directive without which they never would have known.  This is similar to the concept of a חוֹק, a chok, a law that has no apparent or obvious reason.  

In contrast, murder is a sin that is seemingly obvious to anyone  -- the value of life is such a core principle that it should need no articulation. It comes from no directive, but rather our innate moral compass. This is known as משפט,mishpat, laws that make logical intuitive sense. 

As we move into our day to day lives, we keep both of these models with us.  We have to rely on our innate, core knowledge of right and wrong.  Our guts are excellent moral compasses.  Yet, at the same time, we must also keep in mind that, although sometimes tremendously difficult to understand, there is a bigger picture to the world and there are rules that we follow based on commitments to something bigger and wiser than ourselves. 

Dedication to both chok and mishpat are critical. 

The Human v The Divine   מקום and חברו

While both are serious violations, the eating from the tree is a sin is that is committed against God -- בין אדם למקום.  On the other hand, the murder of Hevel is a sin commited in the  human realm  בין אדם לחברו. 

We are  leaving a month of chagim and intense ritual.  In this exit, we have to hold on to the connection to God that we hopefully created in Tishrei.  We need to bottle up that holy spirit in the entrance to the more mundane rhythm of Cheshvan. 

At the same time, we must now take the spirit and lessons that we received from our heavenly connection and use them to channel and serve humanity.  

The energy from God in Tishrei must be used to make the world a better place in Chesvhan and beyond.  

Wishing you a מועדים לשגרה moadim  l’shigra -- a joyous and productive return to “routine” where we work to make our goals and hopes, both the religious and the “mundane”- a reality.