AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins tonight. In synagogues or in solitude, many will take time to reflect on the past year, asking themselves where they missed the mark. How could they have done better? And maybe, how can they put down their lizard? Yep, that's right - lizard. Deena Prichep explains.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: There's a part of the Yom Kippur liturgy called Ashamnu. It's a confession of sins, recited as a community.
UNIDENTIFIED CANTOR: (Singing in Hebrew).
UNIDENTIFIED CONGREGATION: (Singing in Hebrew).
UNIDENTIFIED CANTOR: (Singing in Hebrew).
PRICHEP: Some people pound a fist upon their chests as they chant the list. Some give a gentle tap to sort of knock on the door of their heart. It's powerful. But when it comes to atonement, it's only part of the story. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is the author of "On Repentance And Repair: Making Amends In An Unapologetic World." In it, she draws upon the work of Maimonides, a medieval Jewish scholar.
DANYA RUTTENBERG: Own the harm you've caused. Begin to change, then amends, then apology, then make different choices.
PRICHEP: These steps feel almost modern, like what you'd expect from any therapist or schoolteacher. But Maimonides also shared an insight that feels a bit more primeval.
RUTTENBERG: So Maimonides says anyone who confesses verbally and does not commit in their heart to abandon the thing that they're confessing, it's like somebody who immerses in the mikvah, in the ritual bath, while holding this unclean lizard in their hand. So you have to drop the lizard.
PRICHEP: The mikvah is a ritual pool that's sort of a symbolic bath for your soul. Some people actually use it to prepare for Yom Kippur. And there's something about the idea of dragging a scaly reptile into holy waters. It's a ridiculous image paired with a moral imperative. And it makes you wonder, what's my lizard? And how do I let it go? Rabbi Avigayil Halpern teaches classes on Jewish morality. She says this passage can be really helpful in thinking about why it can be so hard to fully atone.
AVIGAYIL HALPERN: It's often about fear. This is my emotional support lizard. You want me to go into the mikvah without my emotional support lizard? I hold this all the time.
PRICHEP: Halpern says the Hebrew word that's often translated as lizard - sheretz - means sort of a creepy-crawly, gross creature. But in real life, things are not always so black and white.
HALPERN: Part of it is realizing that it's actually not making you safer. It's not making you more whole to hold on to the lizard. It's actually an obstacle.
PRICHEP: But...
HALPERN: Before you can release it, you have to notice that you're holding it.
PRICHEP: Sometimes your lizard is a pesky little gecko, and sometimes it's a Komodo dragon. Sometimes it's personal, and sometimes it's baked into larger systems. Sometimes it's about doing wrong, and sometimes it's about not stepping up to make things right.
HALPERN: Like, to speak personally, one of the things that I've really been grappling with this season is thinking about how could I have done more, and how can I still be doing more to stop the genocide in Gaza? Where was I not brave enough? Where was I too worried about career implications over affirming the absolute, sacred, infinite potential and dignity of every human life, which is my actual job as a rabbi?
PRICHEP: Halpern says real atonement and repair can be uncomfortable work, but it's important. And the sacred time of the holiday and ritual and amazing metaphors like this one give us the tools to find those lizards and let them go and figure out who we can be without them. For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep.
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