![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillThis is a post of Jewish culture, but I put it all under a cut, so if you don't want to learn this shit, skip to the bottom, where I get to the point.
It's Elul now. Elul is a month, and because the Jewish and Gregorian calendars are not aligned, it moves around. The Jewish calendar is odd in that instead of having a leap year every four years and working by a solar calendar, we work by a lunar calendar have a leap month seven out of nineteen years that keeps it in sync with the solar year. This means Elul can fall as early as mid-August or as late as mid-September. Elul is the last month of the Jewish year.
Jews don't have New Years' parties, or at least not the bubbly-wine-drinking, confetti'd, ball-dropping kind. New Years, Rosh Hashana (which literally means "head of the year") is a solemn, two-day event in which most of the time is spent either in Shul praying or with one's family, enjoying their presence. It is also, ritually, the culmination of a month-long cleansing, and the beginning of what is called Aseret Y'mei Teshuva (pronounced ah-sehr-it ym-ay-te-shoe-vah, meaning "the ten days of forgiveness") during which, theoretically, God decides whether or not you have been a good person in the last year and if your name is written in the Book of Life or the Book of Death.
Basically, Elul is like that cram period kids go through before Christmas where they act extra good in hopes of getting that one toy. Only, because of the nature of how Judaism counts off sins, there's very little we can do to get God to forgive us anything until we get other people to do the same.
Sins, in Judaism, are not one act. Each one counts threefold. First and foremost, you sinned against somebody; since something like two-thirds of Jewish laws have nothing to do with God and everything to do with how you treat other people, two-thirds of the time the person you sinned against isn't most importantly God. Secondly, you did sin against God by disobeying the commandments. Thirdly, you sinned against yourself, by allowing your more selfish nature to get the best of you. To obtain forgiveness for a sin, you have to get forgiveness from all three offended parties.
It's not as easy as you might think. Jews don't do confessionals, or have to say prayers and think that makes the moral stain go away. To forgive oneself, we have to realize exactly what we did wrong and be really and truly sorry for it. So that time when you were five and you broke Liz's toy and the teachers made you say sorry but really you weren't? Doesn't count as an apology at all. And just saying sorry doesn't get rid of the moral stain. It simply means that you can move on to asking forgiveness from other people.
This can be done in the more usual way, ie, saying sorry. Once again, saying sorry if you really aren't doesn't count, even if they accept the apology. You have to actually mean it. And, if you do mean it, it also means that you're supposed to have learned from you mistake; you are not allowed to say sorry and then go and do whatever it was you did again. However, if the offended party doesn't accept the apology and you really and truly do mean it, then after asking and being rejected three times counts as having been accepted anyway. It means you had to work yourself to ask the person three times, and it gets worse each time because you know you aren't assured of success. Rejecting an honest apology is something you aren't supposed to do in Judaism, though it's not a sin. It's just Not Done.
Once all the facing people is done, you can go face God, and this is done by prayer. Basically, you do a prayer that asks God to forgive you for the sin and for the secondary sin of breaking a commandment. (I use commandment here because it is the literal translation of the word "mitzvah" but the word has a lot more connotations.) Once again, it does no good at all if you don't mean it, and since God is God, it'll know. Assuming you do mean it, the apology is accepted, period. Which still doesn't get rid of the fact that you did sin; the karmic weight is still there, written in the book of your life. The only thing you've changed is that your attempts to repair the damage are also recorded.
But really, the only way to get rid of the damage done by the sin is to go do a mitzvah. Like I said, the word means commandment, but in Jewish culture it means the karmic opposite of a sin. If a sin applies a layer a layer of tarnish on your soul, a mitzvah is the equivalent of putting on a bit of polish and rubbing vigorously. A lot of mitzvahs are things like "visit the sick and the elderly" and "donate to charities." A lot more are things like "don't cook a calf in its mother's milk" and "give the first fruits to God in a burnt offering." It's considered appropriate to make the mitzvah suit the sin; if you stole something, give a gift to charity. That sort of thing.
The practical upshot of all this: in Elul, we are supposed to do a lot of contemplation and quiet prayer. One-third of sins are against God, and those are between myself and it. I try to obtain forgiveness for things as I go, but there are some things that only allow you to see the wrong months later, and Elul is for realizing what those were and going through the process there too.
The first ten days of the new year are the Ten Days of Forgiveness. You are supposed to ask forgiveness of people who didn't accept apologies earlier during those days, because Traditionally you accept apologies then, even if you don't want to. They've put forth the effort three times, and although you can't tell if they're serious or not, God does and will not forgive them unless they are. You lose nothing except maybe a little pride you didn't need, and you've done a mitzvah. Because it is a mitzvah to forgive.
So, this is me telling all of my LJ friends that I'd like to know if you think I've sinned against you in the past year without trying to make amends, and if so what it was. I'd like to ask forgiveness, but I can't until I know what I did wrong and have come to terms with the fact that it was wrong and that I do have to apologize. So for now . . . if I've been an Ass, and haven't already tried to change that part of myself, what did I do and may I say sorry?
All comments to this entry are screened.
It's Elul now. Elul is a month, and because the Jewish and Gregorian calendars are not aligned, it moves around. The Jewish calendar is odd in that instead of having a leap year every four years and working by a solar calendar, we work by a lunar calendar have a leap month seven out of nineteen years that keeps it in sync with the solar year. This means Elul can fall as early as mid-August or as late as mid-September. Elul is the last month of the Jewish year.
Jews don't have New Years' parties, or at least not the bubbly-wine-drinking, confetti'd, ball-dropping kind. New Years, Rosh Hashana (which literally means "head of the year") is a solemn, two-day event in which most of the time is spent either in Shul praying or with one's family, enjoying their presence. It is also, ritually, the culmination of a month-long cleansing, and the beginning of what is called Aseret Y'mei Teshuva (pronounced ah-sehr-it ym-ay-te-shoe-vah, meaning "the ten days of forgiveness") during which, theoretically, God decides whether or not you have been a good person in the last year and if your name is written in the Book of Life or the Book of Death.
Basically, Elul is like that cram period kids go through before Christmas where they act extra good in hopes of getting that one toy. Only, because of the nature of how Judaism counts off sins, there's very little we can do to get God to forgive us anything until we get other people to do the same.
Sins, in Judaism, are not one act. Each one counts threefold. First and foremost, you sinned against somebody; since something like two-thirds of Jewish laws have nothing to do with God and everything to do with how you treat other people, two-thirds of the time the person you sinned against isn't most importantly God. Secondly, you did sin against God by disobeying the commandments. Thirdly, you sinned against yourself, by allowing your more selfish nature to get the best of you. To obtain forgiveness for a sin, you have to get forgiveness from all three offended parties.
It's not as easy as you might think. Jews don't do confessionals, or have to say prayers and think that makes the moral stain go away. To forgive oneself, we have to realize exactly what we did wrong and be really and truly sorry for it. So that time when you were five and you broke Liz's toy and the teachers made you say sorry but really you weren't? Doesn't count as an apology at all. And just saying sorry doesn't get rid of the moral stain. It simply means that you can move on to asking forgiveness from other people.
This can be done in the more usual way, ie, saying sorry. Once again, saying sorry if you really aren't doesn't count, even if they accept the apology. You have to actually mean it. And, if you do mean it, it also means that you're supposed to have learned from you mistake; you are not allowed to say sorry and then go and do whatever it was you did again. However, if the offended party doesn't accept the apology and you really and truly do mean it, then after asking and being rejected three times counts as having been accepted anyway. It means you had to work yourself to ask the person three times, and it gets worse each time because you know you aren't assured of success. Rejecting an honest apology is something you aren't supposed to do in Judaism, though it's not a sin. It's just Not Done.
Once all the facing people is done, you can go face God, and this is done by prayer. Basically, you do a prayer that asks God to forgive you for the sin and for the secondary sin of breaking a commandment. (I use commandment here because it is the literal translation of the word "mitzvah" but the word has a lot more connotations.) Once again, it does no good at all if you don't mean it, and since God is God, it'll know. Assuming you do mean it, the apology is accepted, period. Which still doesn't get rid of the fact that you did sin; the karmic weight is still there, written in the book of your life. The only thing you've changed is that your attempts to repair the damage are also recorded.
But really, the only way to get rid of the damage done by the sin is to go do a mitzvah. Like I said, the word means commandment, but in Jewish culture it means the karmic opposite of a sin. If a sin applies a layer a layer of tarnish on your soul, a mitzvah is the equivalent of putting on a bit of polish and rubbing vigorously. A lot of mitzvahs are things like "visit the sick and the elderly" and "donate to charities." A lot more are things like "don't cook a calf in its mother's milk" and "give the first fruits to God in a burnt offering." It's considered appropriate to make the mitzvah suit the sin; if you stole something, give a gift to charity. That sort of thing.
The practical upshot of all this: in Elul, we are supposed to do a lot of contemplation and quiet prayer. One-third of sins are against God, and those are between myself and it. I try to obtain forgiveness for things as I go, but there are some things that only allow you to see the wrong months later, and Elul is for realizing what those were and going through the process there too.
The first ten days of the new year are the Ten Days of Forgiveness. You are supposed to ask forgiveness of people who didn't accept apologies earlier during those days, because Traditionally you accept apologies then, even if you don't want to. They've put forth the effort three times, and although you can't tell if they're serious or not, God does and will not forgive them unless they are. You lose nothing except maybe a little pride you didn't need, and you've done a mitzvah. Because it is a mitzvah to forgive.
So, this is me telling all of my LJ friends that I'd like to know if you think I've sinned against you in the past year without trying to make amends, and if so what it was. I'd like to ask forgiveness, but I can't until I know what I did wrong and have come to terms with the fact that it was wrong and that I do have to apologize. So for now . . . if I've been an Ass, and haven't already tried to change that part of myself, what did I do and may I say sorry?
All comments to this entry are screened.
