If there is an enduring lesson that this summer has taught us all, it is that when you are at a stadium event and the jumbotron camera turns to you, no matter what, keep doing whatever it is that you are doing.
The instructive incident, for those of you who were, as my kids say, off the grid, occurred on July 16 at a Coldplay rock concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. As is apparently the custom, during one signature song the stadium cameras sweetly panned through the crowd as couples embraced, waved and kissed. The camera fell on one couple in romantic embrace, who upon registering that it was they who were on display to the entire stadium, ducked out of sight faster than you can say “sky full of stars.” Things went downhill from there. The roaring crowd intuited that something was afoot, and the lead singer added fuel to the fire with his own commentary. We would all learn that the couple were in fact married, just not to each other – an infidelity caught “in flagrante delicto,” with the added twist of it being a workplace tryst, now exposed to the world. Referred to by all as “Kiss-cam-gate,” the video of the incident went viral and has received over ninety million views, an endless slew of memes, reenactments, and social commentary. Like many of you, I was deeply happy when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got engaged, if only because it enabled us all to turn the page and redirect our attention to a new pop-culture feeding frenzy.
The Coldplay episode was the most infamous, though by no means the only, recent example of collective shaming, a digital mob reveling in the spectacle of another person’s downfall. Given the ubiquity of our handheld devices, the ease with which we can upload and share every stumble, and our insatiable appetite for consuming and rendering judgement on the foibles of our fellow human beings, ours is a world in which shame springs eternal. Every day provides us with a new incident: someone jumping an airport line, an adult snatching a home run ball from a child in the bleachers, or a signed baseball hat at the US Open. These viral moments – infidelities, bad parenting, public meltdowns, and otherwise – are not all the same. Some are mistakes, some misunderstandings, and some more malign. What is the same is that they are shared by all of us as viewers, online consumers enthralled by another person’s humiliation, chasing that dopamine-filled click as we witness the failings of our fellow, enjoying a bit of schadenfreude, a bit of self-righteous “can you believe it” indignation, and maybe, a bit of “there but for the grace of God, go I.” While each incident has its own particulars, the gladiatorial blood sport nature of the public shaming is always the same. Rarely do we stop to think about the collateral dama: in the kiss-cam case, the heartbreak of the families, the children dragged into the maelstrom. We are so consumed by our Godlike ability to publicly expose a person at their most human, that we forget our own humanity, our own fragility, and that we, too, stand in the judgement of God.
When we enter this sanctuary, we experience a spectrum of emotions: awe at the grandeur of the sanctuary and the beauty of the music; connection to tradition and community, to the multi-millennial story of which we are part; and tonight, on Rosh Hashanah, deep gratitude for God’s creation. As in the Garden of Eden, we behold the world and see it filled with possibility, wonder, and the promise of renewal. For you, your loved ones, and the people and the State of Israel, I pray that the new year will be a year of health, happiness, and peace.
We enter this sanctuary and these days profoundly aware of the vulnerability of our human condition. Liturgically, the High Holidays repeatedly remind us of human mortality: we are but a passing shadow, a faded cloud. Morally, too, these days call us to attention. In Hebrew these days are called aseret y’mei teshuvah, the ten days of repentance, our time for introspection and reflection, to reconcile with each other, with God and with our better selves. Like our biblical ancestor in the Garden, we hear that first question posed by God: “ayeka, where are you?” Given the divine source, we know the question is an inquiry about conscience, not geography. We know we have strayed, we know we have fallen short. God has endowed us with the ability to know right from wrong, yet we have missed the mark, and like Adam and Eve, we experience shame. None of us would dare claim that we are without sin. Days from now at Kol Nidre, when we ask permission to pray with those who have transgressed, we mean ourselves included, an acknowledgment that is the very precondition for participation. Technologically sophisticated as this sanctuary has become, there will be no kiss-cam moments here. But the feeling that one’s deeds, both hidden and revealed, are laid out before God, is not just an element of today’s theological calculus; it is the very operating system upon which today rests.
I am reminded of an old story of a young minister who rode his bike around town to get from place to place. One day, he burst into the senior minister’s office announcing not only that his bike was missing, not only that it was stolen, but that he was absolutely positive that it was a congregant who stole it.
The senior minister hatched a plan. This Sunday, he told his young colleague, we will stand together on the pulpit. I will read the ten commandments aloud. As I read, I want you to watch everyone very closely. When we get to number eight, “Thou shalt not steal,” the thief, ridden with guilt, will no doubt squirm in their seat and be revealed.
That Sunday they stand on the pulpit, shoulder to shoulder, as the senior minister reads one commandment after another. Number five: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Number six: “Thou shalt not murder.” Every parishioner sitting motionless in the pews. Number seven: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” At which point the young minister taps the shoulder of the older minister and whispers, “Never mind, I remember where I left my bike.”
A little edgy, but a reminder that we are all human. In this room, during these days, guilt and even shame are built into the system. Humiliation, however, is not. We enter knowing we have sinned. We declare it publicly, collectively, anonymously, our prayers in the first-person plural. Nobody is singled out. No names are read aloud. We beat our chests; we do not point our fingers. We enter this room knowing we are all in this together. If you squirm, you do so alongside your neighbor. The stadium may thrive on humiliation; this synagogue thrives on the dignity of all.
Because unlike the internet viral mobs of our era, the point of these Days of Awe is accountability that restores, not destroys, that builds up, but does not tear down. We are meant to focus on the possibilities of the human condition, not its failures. Of course, there are times when a public accounting is necessary, when a communal ethic must be upheld, with restaurant grades, with body cameras, with whistleblower laws protecting those vulnerable to power. And yes, there are undoubtedly sins that disqualify a person from reentry into polite society.
But whether it is the biblical system of justice or the prayers of these holidays, our tradition is clear: God does not seek the death of the sinner, but the change of our ways. We may be exiled from the Garden, we may even bear the mark of Cain, but we remain God’s children. It is why we this season includes reading the Book of Jonah, where the reluctant prophet is sent to call the wicked city of Nineveh to repent. Even they, the story insists, are objects of God’s care and concern. However far we may have strayed, however much we have missed the mark, these Days of Awe declare that return is always possible, forgiveness always within reach, and dignity ours to claim.
And if this is how God receives us, then how much more must we, as human beings created in the divine image, receive those seeking our forgiveness. Our tradition goes to great lengths to describe the ethics of dignified reconciliation. Our North Star: never humiliate. To publicly shame another is an offense against God akin to shedding blood – always, and especially in our digital age when private emails and texts get shared with the world. It is why, according to one tradition, we lift our hands up to the Havdalah candle at the conclusion of Shabbat – to check, as it were, that we are not guilty of bloodshed. What grievances we have with others we address privately, directly, and humbly, granting allowance for the other person’s truth to be told. According to Maimonides, if one is asked for forgiveness, one should never be cruel in granting it; one should, as God does, offer it quickly, compassionately, and completely. By what measure should we forgive others? We should forgive others as freely as we would hope others would forgive us, when we, inevitably, come asking for forgiveness ourselves.
Late in life, my grandfather, of blessed memory, also a rabbi, preached a sermon asking, if Jewish morality could be distilled down to a single verse, what verse would it be? Perhaps V’ahavta l’rei·akha kamokha, Love your neighbor as yourself. Or maybe Sh’ma yisrael, Hear O Israel.” His answer: Shiviti Hashem l’negdi tamid, I have placed God before me always (Psalms 16:8). It is a beautiful thought, one that has only deepened in truth and urgency for me with every passing day.
To live a life of shiviti, of God-consciousness, means that even when we are all alone, we are never morally anonymous. We stand ever present before a God who sees us more clearly and more truthfully than we often see ourselves. It is an awareness that is meant to inspire humility, not humiliation; responsibility, not despair; a consciousness that reminds us that we are all created in the image of God, and as such, we can and must aspire to live lives worthy of the highest possibilities of our existence.
Tonight, we begin our journey through the High Holidays. A journey filled with prayer, tradition, and community. A ride marked by hard conversations, honest truths, and the possibility of return. As we depart the station, we remember that this train carries saints and sinners, those seeking forgiveness and those called to grant it, those broken and those ready to be healed. We pray that when we arrive at the end of Yom Kippur, our hands raised unstained to the flames of the havdalah candle – lights to guide you home – we will have returned to our best selves, ready to enter, please God, a year of health, blessing, and peace.