Yom Kippur Day - October 2, 2025

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story. “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,” he said, “and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.”

This strange comment that after the buffalo died, nothing happened, led the philosopher and psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear on an inner journey into the psyche of Plenty Coups.  The result was the book Radical Hope, an attempt to understand what it means for a people and a culture to move forward when not just a catastrophic event, such as the Holocaust, effects it but when an entire culture disappears.  Before the 19th century the Crow Nation was a nomadic warrior tribe. They believed that they were God’s chosen people and their lifestyle grew out of God’s expectations. But by the mid 1800s it was clear that native American nations were losing out to the white men, who invaded their lands, killed the buffalo and replaced them with grazing cows and bulls.  Unlike other native peoples, Plenty Coups chose to work with the United States army in order to protect the sacred land of the Crow people.  He also chose the way of the chickadee, as opposed to the warrior eagle.  For in a dream, he was told that the chickadee listens and learns.  “Develop your body, the dream voice told him, but do not neglect your mind.  For it is the mind that leads a man to power.”

Although the Crow still suffered persecution and betrayal by US government, the Crow did survive, they were not displaced from their lands, they were not put on a forced march or made to walk a “trail of tears”. Proudly they could declare, unlike fellow tribes, that they were never defeated.  Their descendants embraced education.

For Lear, the radical hope of Plenty Coups and his Crow nation was to believe that a future good was possible even as the way of life they knew was obliterated. They had no ultimate control over what would happen after the buffalo died only a hope that a future would exist.  ‘After this nothing happened’ within the context of the old ways but by transforming traditional cultural markers into new ones, the people could retain an echo of what once was.

I don’t know if Lear, who was Jewish, recognized that the radical hope of the Crow people paralleled the history of our people in the 1st century of the common era.  Sadly, he passed away the day before Rosh HaShanah, so I was unable to ask him directly. But Rabbi Yochanan be Zakkai was our Plenty Coups.  What had once been the center of Jewish cultural civilization, the Temple cult, was destroyed in the War against Rome.  Some Jews, the Zealots and the Sadducees, believed like the Sioux Nation, that there was no virtue in capitulation.  They would fight for their independence or make any sacrifice required to continue the Temple cult. But Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai understood that the world of Israel and of the Middle East had changed.  There would be no more Temple, no more sacrifices, no more independence. His famous request to Rome was “give me Yavneh” a small city where he could continue to teach disciples and preserve a future for the Jewish people.   

On Yom Kippur the Jewish community of the Second Temple period expected that the sacrificial offerings and the ritual of the scapegoat observed on this day would bring atonement, not just for the individual penitent but the entire people.  What could the people hope for without access to the Divine through these sacred rituals?

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples chose radical hope, trusting in a sacred and good future despite the uncertainty that their transformations would survive. 

They chose to reconstruct biblical concepts to meet the challenge of the moment.  The Jewish people would not continue via a religious culture that centered on Temple ritual and sacrifice, but instead on Torah and Mitzvot.  Holidays would become their catechism and the Israelite’s table would replace the Kohen’s altar. Rabbi Yohanan when confronted with the loss of cultic rituals to provide atonement responded: My son, do not be distressed, for we have a form of atonement just as good. And what is it? Acts of loving kindness, as Psalm 89:3 states, “For I desire kindness, not a well-being offering.”  And like the Crow would come to do 1800 years later, the rabbinic movement would recreate Judaism as if the change was a predetermined and uninterrupted transition. 

We no longer send a scapegoat into the wilderness to remove the communal transgressions and yet Moses Maimonides, writing in the 12th Century opens his legal code in the section on Repentance:

“Since the goat sent [to Azazel] atones for all of Israel, the High Priest confesses upon it as a spokesman for all of Israel: "He shall confess upon it all the sins of the children of Israel." The goat sent to Azazel atones for all the transgressions in the Torah, the severe and the lighter [sins]; those violated intentionally and those transgressed inadvertently... All are atoned for by the goat sent [to Azazel].”  What is he talking about? The Jewish people had not sent a goat to Azazel for over a thousand years! 

And so, he then clarified “At present, however, when the Temple does not exist and there is no altar of atonement, there remains nothing else aside from Teshuvah.  Teshuvah atones for all sins.  And essential for teshuvah is confession.”

If a person transgresses any of the mitzvot of the Torah, whether a positive command or a negative command - whether willingly or inadvertently - when he repents, and returns from his sin, he must confess before God…He states: "I implore You, God, I sinned, I transgressed, I committed iniquity before You by doing the following. Behold, I regret and am embarrassed for my deeds. I promise never to repeat this act again."

Confession is essential to the repentance project and Maimonides indicates that the confession component only occurs after the work of repentance.    

However, the goat sent [to Azazel] was different.  It atoned for all of Israel, which is why the High Priest confessed on behalf of the people.  Thus, while in our post Temple period, personal confession atones for personal imperfections, how are the people, what we call Knesset Yisrael, communally purged of our transgressions? 

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik explained that despite the end of the scapegoat ritual, Yom Kippur still effected a comprehensive corporate atonement.  For the wording of the confession said on Yom Kippur consists of two kinds of confessions: one intended for the individual and one for the community.  The individual confession is recited five times in the silent Amidah of the Maariv, shacharit, musaf, minha and Neilah services. The communal confession is recited only by the prayer leader in the public repetition of the Amidah.  This is the confession of Knesset Israel.  The individual’s confession goes straight to the point:  Our God and God of our ancestors, we have sinned and betrayed…Whereas the Prayer leader reciting on behalf of Knesset Israel, the community, begins with the 13 qualities of divine mercy that an individual does not recite on his own.  And that is because, according to Rabbi Soloveitchik:

“The individual cannot demand acquittal...as he stands before God as an individual, he is dominated by the conviction that he has sinned…And he knows that sin entails punishment…Individual confession can lead to only one conclusion – justification of the sentence.

Communal confession, made by the prayer leader, is based on completely different assumptions:…For we are your people and You are our God, we are Your children and You are our parent…..we are Your beloved and You are our lover…and only afterward comes the prayer: “Ashamnu, Bagadnu, etc….”

The different emotion that evokes each confession is tremendous.  When the individual confesses, as his ancestor did generations ago bringing his ritual sacrifice, he does so from a state of insecurity and despair in the wake of sin.  What assurance have I that God will accept and acquit?  When I stand before God in true repentance disclosing my imperfection, I acknowledge just how far from God and even our fellow Jews we stand.  Transgression isolates us.

In contrast, Knesset Israel – and each and every Jewish community is considered to be a microcosm of the whole of Knesset Israel – confesses out of a sense of confidence and even rejoicing for we confess as a united people before our Most Loved one, our greatest supporter  “As I live—declares the Sovereign God—it is not My desire that the wicked shall die, but that the wicked turn from their [evil] ways and live.”

Perhaps it is this confidence that prompted The Tiferet Yisrael, Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, to mention the custom to sing “Ashamnu” on Yom Kippur in major mode. “One would expect that prayer to call forth a dirge and not an upbeat song!”

But this is so only in regard to the communal confession.  Cantor Jonathan Friedmann compares the melody of ‘ashamnu’ to another musical tradition, the Shirah melody, used in traveling passages in Torah, such as the Song at the Sea or in the recitation of journeys in the book of Numbers: “In Ashkenazi synagogues during Yom Kippur, Ashamnu begins with a quotation from the first part of the Shirah melody. The grave words of Ashamnu - We have become guilty, we have betrayed, we have robbed, we have spoken slander… seem antithetical to the triumphant strains of the Shirah melody which are celebratory and life– affirming words sung following the Red Sea crossing (ashira ladoshem ki ga’o ga’ah sus v’rochvo ramah va’yam)…Ashamnu’s connection with the Shirah melody, then, appears an example of …“symbolic inversion”: “any act of expressive behavior which inverts…commonly–held social codes, values, and norms.” When attached to the Shirah tune, this relentless list of transgressions…is overlaid with a sense of exaltation. The music symbolically inverts the prayer from darkness to light. But in both the Exodus account and the other texts to which the melody is applied, the Shirah marks a victorious moment after the completion of a journey or task, not a longing for future forgiveness. It can thus be argued that the connection between Ashamnu and the Shirah melody is based on the notion that confession itself is a triumphant act.”

The two different emotional responses from the two types of confession lead to different behavioral reactions.  Individual confession drawing on the individual’s insecurity, is intended to spur corrective behavior; the communal confession inspiring confidence, should lead to magnanimity and generosity. 

 When the individual publicly expresses his or her failure by stating out loud “I implore You, God, I sinned, I transgressed, I committed iniquity before You by doing the following:” (and despite our plural language when we say the confession, we are speaking of our individual selves) it calls forth the awareness that the individual has not lived up to their expectations nor God’s.

In Psalm 27 the psalmist begins with complete certainty that God supports him. The Lord is my light and my help;  whom should I fear?... When evil men assail me to devour my flesh—it is they, my foes and my enemies, who stumble and fall.

But the psalmist hides behind an empty pride for suddenly he acknowledges his true vulnerability: To You,  my heart has said, Seek my face. Your face, O Lord, I am seeking.  Do not hide Your face from me; do not thrust aside Your servant in anger.”  This is a person aware that what he thought was God’s support, was merely his arrogance and hubris.  Now the psalmist changes his attitude – “Show me Your way, O Lord.”  I thought my way was Your way, but now I must admit that I did not know and must humbly submit to Your will.  Fear enters into his soul – there are consequences to his hubris: “Do not subject me to the will of my foes, for false witnesses and unjust accusers have appeared against me.”  But in the midst of this realization that he does not control God nor his fate, that uncertainty is all he has to look forward to, he admits, “Had I not the assurance that I would enjoy the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living…”  That is all he has left – a hope, a desire that God will be there and goodness will eventually arise. He concludes Kaveh el Hashem Hazak v’ametz libekha, Kaveh el Hashem.  Hope in the Lord – why add hazak v’aametz libekha? Because those words were spoken by Moshe to Joshua – be strong and resolute, they are words calling one to action. 

 This remorse is calculated to motivate the individual to action.   In the case of the individual, on Yom Kippur the repentance process that includes the confessional is intended to remedy the fear and paralysis of being distant from God with a redemption contingent on human action and efforts.  These expressions of guilt and regret are meaningless on Yom Kippur unless followed up by action to repair and correct our behavior.

This is different from Communal confession which emerges from confidence in Divine Love.  Such confidence leads to courage.  Unlike the individual who is uncertain of atonement and thus must act to ensure their worthiness before God, the community is assured of God’s favor, we claim our atonement because of our mutual covenant with God. 

That confidence can lead to radical hope. When immigrant Jews came to this country in waves, they came with hope that life in America would be better than the persecution they suffered in Europe and Africa and the Middle East.  Inevitability of a better life was uncertain, the communal bonds that had sustained Jewish community in the old country dissipated.  And yet in the first half of 20th century, Jews created numerous institutions to benefit Jewish welfare and aid new Jewish immigrants.  Jewish social clubs, ideological party meeting halls, synagogues, social welfare organizations.  It was a community that took care of each other.  And in taking care of each other it began to look out for the needs of fellow citizens who were not Jewish.  HIAS, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society today serves mostly gentile immigrants.  Denver Hebrew Hospital, now called National Jewish Health, created to serve Jews suffering from consumptive illnesses, today serves all people with respiratory and related illnesses.     

When the state of Israel was created, it was unknown whether the state would be able to withstand the onslaught of its numerous enemies, yet radical hope looked forward to a Jewish state reborn after 2000 years, speaking its ancient language, uniting the global diaspora.  David Ben Gurion expressed this hope on arriving in Palestine “I ask for nothing of life, I want neither pleasures nor education, not honor or love, I’ll give it all up, all I want is one thing – hope!! Od lo Avda tikvateynu, Our hope is not yet lost,  we sing in HaTikvah.  What is that communal hope that emerges from our confidence in God’s support?

“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

That is how the founders inscribed their hopes in Israel’s declaration of independence.  And that vision continues today in the Western Galilee Medical Center, part of our partnership Israel connection here in South Bend.  The Medical Center not only serves the northern part of Israel with advance medicine and medical techniques but it also serves as a model for inter-religious and inter-ethnic tolerance and respect  In the words of Eilon Schwartz, executive director of Shacharit: Creating Common Cause, an organization devote to social change, When you look away from the spotlight you discover almost underneath every rock in Israeli society and especially in the socioeconomic periphery, you can find the seeking of a future that is good for all.  Realizing this hope will take persistence.  It will take a belief in people created in the image of God.  It will take empathy and patience.”

       But a belief in self-reliance motivated by fear and insecurity that masks itself as self-confidence leads to arrogance, xenophobia, vengeance. This is the direction the current government of Israel has taken; it is the false hope of the Jewish Zealots of old and the Sioux nation who believed that God would do their bidding and not the other way around.  We take solace that many of our brothers and sisters in Israel today continue to protest against hate and hubris.  We too must protest when we see Jewish leaders use power and the arrogance that comes with the occasional military victory to engender hatred toward God and the Jewish people.

As we immerse ourselves in the two different types of confession on this holy day, let us remember the purpose of each.  May our individual confessions lead us to action and repair; and May the confession of Knesset Israel, our communal confession remind us of our eternal and abiding relationship with God, may it instill within us confidence to be courageous, and self-assurance to be benevolent.