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Robyn Ashworth-Steen
GRS 2013 Kol Nidre
The Kol Nidre Demon
Today’s service began with one of the most haunting and powerful moments of our
liturgical year – Kol Nidre. The melody, familiar across the globe, is profoundly
affecting. Jews hear Kol Nidre and are immediately aware of the journey ahead of
them.
People across the centuries have been moved again and again by the
melody. One such person was the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau. He wrote:
“Years ago I heard it [on] the Day of Atonement…the cantor began to chant
that profoundly solemn and heart-rending song of absolution, so fraught with
terror, and yet so rich in mercy. I struggled with an inexplicable emotion. I
sobbed convulsively while hot tears poured from my eyes. Then I ran out into
the night, my spirit torn and purified."1
In contrast to the power of the melody the text of Kol Nidre is extremely challenging
and throughout the ages the rabbis attempted to suppress its use in our services.
The text says that we are absolved from any vows or obligations over the past year.
It is granting us a clean slate. And many have used this prayer against the Jews as
evidence of their inherently untrustworthy nature.
Because of these difficulties, our machzor gives us two versions of Kol Nidre: one
being the backward looking one and the other which reformulates Kol Nidre about
the future.
Despite the prayer’s innate difficulties people felt a deep connection to Kol Nidre
and it continues to be used in congregations today. The existence of the prayer in
our service today speaks to the strength of the desire of the people which
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P.116 Reuven Hammer – Entering the High Holy days.
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outweighed the rabbis’ theological concerns.
It seems that the “emotional
experience of hearing Kol Nidre overwhelms any intellectual attempt to understand
what is being said.2”
The history and origins of the prayer is shrouded in mystery and there is no agreed
consensus. Some have argued that it originates with the maranos – those Jews
who were forced, during the Spanish inquisition, to convert to Christianity. This text
allowed them to ask God for forgiveness for those vows they made under duress.
Another explanation is that Kol Nidre may have originated as a magical formula,
used in the 9th and 10th centuries, to eliminate demons and to ensure that no evil
spirits could interfere with the sacredness of Yom Kippur.
There is definitely something mystical and magical in the air on Kol Nidre – the
evening the fasting begins, before the self-affliction sets in, and the start of our
petitions and confessions.
It seems almost possible that there are demons lurking on this day when the book
of death is sealed.
And there is one particularly nasty, dangerous, filthy, repulsive, powerful demon
that is crouching at our door tonight – the yetzer hara – the evil inclination. This
inclination exists in us, we are taught, alongside the yetzer tov – the good
inclination. It is thought that a person is ultimately good but has to continually
battle with their evil inclination. The yetzer hara is presented as being powerful and
dangerous if it is not controlled in a particular way. It is not inherently evil but it
can, if not contained, lead you down dangerous paths.
In the Torah the yetzer hara is mostly understood to be negative, dangerous
thoughts created by the mind. It is within rabbinic Judaism that it undertakes a
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P.117 Reuven Hammer – Entering the High Holy days.
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transformation and is described in various places as being some kind of inner
demon that wages war with us. In one particularly dramatic Talmudic passage the
yetzer hara is described as crouching at the door and renewing itself every day in its
attempt to kill us3. In this passage the yetzer hara is described as “the repulsive
one”. We are told that when this repulsive one attacks us we should drag him to
the house of learning and he will dissolve and shatter. The point being that the
only successful way to battle your yetzer hara is through Torah study.
The idea of our evil inclination being a demon is not that far-fetched. So whilst I do
not believe in the existence of demons the language is helpful in projecting our
inner emotional states and unconscious impulses. It speaks to our painful inner
battle and deep psychological tension. We have the capacity for evil and we think
bad thoughts.
We struggle constantly and we want to understand why.
The
representation of the evil inclination as a powerful demon works as sometimes it
certainly feels as if we are battling with a demon, with an inner voice that belittles
us, that chastises us and leads us to sin. And this inner voice can be powerful.
It is the voice that tells us we are not good enough, that they are better than us
and we are less. It is the voice that convinces us that friends who have not called
do not care and the voice that tells us those off-hand comments really meant
something. Our critical inner voice can critique our looks, make us unclear about
decisions and doubtful of relationships and work. The voice tempts us to try to be
more like other people and less like ourselves. It berates us over small things and
runs like a loop in our heads. And maybe the scariest thing is that sometimes the
inner voice sounds like the truth. We are not always aware that it is a distortion of
reality.
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Kidushin 30b.
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I certainly have felt the power of the evil inclination as I am my harshest critic and
it can sometimes feel as if I am under attack, just as if I was being pursued by
some sort of ghoulish demon!
I always joke on Yom Kippur when we are encouraged to confess, that my greatest
sin is being too self-critical and finding sins where there aren’t any!
And it is of course, this demon like yetzer hara that leads us to those sins we list in
the confessions we read on Yom Kippur – “we have abused and betrayed, we are
cruel, we have gossiped about others and hated them.4” And so on and so on! We
can become ruled by our yetzer hara, that cunning critical voice, and doubt
ourselves. As the Talmud says, “the impulse to evil is at first like a passer-by, then
like a lodger, and finally like the master of the house.5” It makes us hate ourselves,
it drives us away from others and distorts reality. It also makes us forget that we
are created in the image of God – as a Chasidic saying goes, “Rabbi Shelomo asked:
‘What is the worst thing the impulse to evil can achieve?’ And he answered: ‘To
make man forget that he is the son of a king’”6.
But yet, despite the power of this demonic inclination we are given the tools to
overcome it – the weapons to be successful in our battle. In fact the rabbis even
stated that there was some benefit to the evil inclination when they said that
without it we would probably never build a house, marry, have children or engage
in business7.
The yetzer hara is ours to harness and mould into something positive – something
that can help give us confidence and oversight.
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p.303 ashamnu Reform Machzor
Succah
6 Reform Machzor
7 Genesis Rabbah 9:7
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In one of my favourite kabalistic teachings we are told that when God created the
universe he withdrew part of his own being so that his creatures could inhabit an
empty space. This empty space exists so that we have freedom to make choices
between good and evil. The teaching is that in that empty space, God left sparks of
himself, even in the darkest parts of it. It is our duty in life to release those divine
sparks and reunite with him8.
So maybe, just maybe, Kol Nidre is an incantation against a demonic yetzer hara
that waits within us and at the doors of the synagogue waiting to pounce, willing us
to make promises we cannot keep and take decisions that lead us astray. And
maybe Kol Nidre and indeed Yom Kippur are urging us to challenge the demon and
instead find the divine sparks. There is indeed something magical in the air on Kol
Nidre with the hope that we stop sinning and that our yetzer hara can be defeated.
It is within our power – the gates are still open – there is still time.
Ken yihi ratzon. Amen.
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See Godseeker’s Guide by Rabbi Lionel Blue