Leonard Cohen and Yom Kippur | 2026 09 17

Good evening and welcome to Mining the Riches of the Parsha. Tonight is Thursday night, September 17, 2026. We are not going to discuss the Parsha, but we will be discussing Yom Kippur, which is coming. Let me just mention that after tonight we will be on Hayedas for two weeks. So the next two weeks we will not be together. And then the Thursday night after Sukkosa is over, we'll resume at 7 p.m. So that's October 7th. We'll resume at 7 p.m. And then continue forward into the fall. That is that's the plan. I want to tell you about a remarkable man. His name was Adolfo Kaminsky. And he was a teenager in Paris in 1944. You know who that is? Oh, oh, you know, OK, wow. Until I read about him, I did not know that. OK, so as a teenager, Adolfo was working as a forger of documents for families and children about to be deported to concentration camps. By the time he was 19 years old, he had helped save thousands of lives. And not a lot of people knew about his story until it was published a few years ago in English. And there's one scene in his book where he writes that he stayed awake for two nights straight. To fill an enormous rush order of these forged documents. And he said, it's a simple calculation. In one hour, I can make 30 blank, fake documents. If I sleep for an hour, 30 people will die. Will die. That sense of dramatic urgency. That momentous understanding that life is on the line. That is young kipper. All of our behaviors, the visuals and the synagogue, the melodies, the prayers, the way we spend the day. Everything is designed to reinforce this message. That on Sunday night and Monday, our lives are on the line. Many years ago, a journalist was interviewing Leonard Cohen. And he asked him if he ever considered changing his name. If you're in show business, celebrity, Leonard Cohen is a Jewish name. Maybe you want something a little. So he said, yes. Yeah, he did consider it. He considered changing his name to September. So the journalist was kind of surprised. You mean you want it? You were going to make your name Leonard September? And he said, no, no. September Cohen. He didn't do it, but he was thinking about changing it to September Cohen. So later he told a friend who heard about this. So he told a friend that he was referring to the Jewish month of Tishrei. We're now in the Jewish month of Tishrei. Rosh Hashan is the first. Yom Kippur is the 10th of the month. And so he was referring to Tishrei, which usually falls in September like it does this year. And it contains Rosh Hashan and Yom Kippur. And although Leonard Cohen was not a conventionally religious Jew, but he connected with the intensity of the Yom Noreyim of the High Holidays, the days of awe. And he expressed that intensity in his music and his life. A close friend described Cohen as having an erotic relationship with big ideas. A man in search of wisdom. He was never certain, never done, never daunted. The seeking was his calling. We would do well to remember that and to try to experience that ourselves. That calling. He once said to an interviewer, I think it was touched as a child by the music and the kind of charged speech that I heard in the synagogue on Yom Kippur, where everything was important. The absence of the casual has always attracted. Now Cohen expressed that on his very last album. When he's saying, Hineni, which means here I am. I'm ready. And Cohen explained the significance of that word, why he why he used that word. He wrote. The significance of the word Hineni is to offer oneself at the critical moment when the emergency becomes articulate. Certainly. On Rosh Hashanah, when we read of Abraham, who says to God, Hineni, here I am. There is it's a it's a moment of emergency. It's a moment of high drama. And I would suggest to you that Cohen's Hineni needs to become our Hineni. Because Yom Kippur is precisely the moment when the emergency of where we're going in our lives becomes articulate. Those little boy, he was the son of a very close friend of Leonard Cohen. And so he wrote him a letter and he said, Dear Uncle Leonard, he called him Uncle, Dear Uncle Leonard, what inspired you to create Hallelujah? Maybe his most famous song. Certainly his most frequently played performed song. What inspired you to create Hallelujah? And so Cohen answered him. And he said, I wanted to stand with those who clearly see God's holy broken world for what it is and still find the courage to praise it. The opening lines of that song are very familiar. I've heard there was a secret chord that David played. And it pleased the Lord. In a sense, Cohen's entire career was an attempt to find that chord. To praise our broken world. Our broken lives. And just as that was Cohen's career, it needs to be our career, our priority on Yom Kippur. Cohen wrote this and who by fire, who by water, who in the sunshine, who in the nighttime, who by high ordeal, who by common trial, who in your merry month of May, who by very slow decay and who shall I say is calling. Now that's Cohen's version of the famous prayer on Asanatokef, which we will say on Monday. The words on Asanatokef mean, let us tell the significance of this day. This prayer in Asanatokef is Yom Kippur. And Cohen's version of it that I just shared with you reflects his questioning, his struggling with God. Who shall I say is calling? That's not a rhetorical question for Cohen. He wants to know. He wants to understand. He does not understand and he wants to understand. And the truth is that many, many of us struggle with this prayer. On Asanatokef. Andrew Sherman writes, now I'm going to offer an alternative in a few minutes. I just want to be clear. I'm now quoting from a writer named Andrew Sherman. So he writes that the prayer on Asanatokef asserts. God is the master of life and death. But we have the ability through the exercise of our free will to control how God uses that power. That's Sherman's understanding of the prayer. But he goes on to say the problem is life isn't so simple. Some evil people live long lives and die peacefully. Other people with impeccable records of good deeds die before their appointed time. One of the authorities questions in Jewish theology is why do bad things happen to good people? I spoke about that this morning without having an answer just to note. Now to that question, why bad things happen to good people? So Sherman writes to that question. Rabbi Amnon, the author in Asanatokef gives the simple answer because they had it coming. That's how Sherman understands Asanatokef. He had it coming to you. And Andrew Sherman writes, sorry, but I can't believe that. As a father, I know well that my daughter, Shira, his daughter was killed in a car accident in 2002. My daughter, Shira was far from perfect. But among her friends, she was legendary as one of the kindest and most giving people any of them had known. Thousands of people died on 9-11 for the sin of having made it to work on time. Hundreds more died as their reward for rushing into danger to rescue others. I steadfastly refuse to accept the notion that this is the handiwork of a true judge. And so he writes, since Shira's death, his family adopted a new high holiday ritual. And this is what they do. At the beginning of the prayer in Asanatokef, his wife leaves. And he and his daughter, Miriam, his other daughter, they stand with their backs to the congregation in protest, refusing to say the words that to them are just false. And he writes sometimes at the end of the prayer, he makes a loud, rude comment. And other times he just stumps out of the sanctuary in a rage. Jennifer Rickler tells a similar story. She writes, Like most Jews, I used to recite the prayer in Asanatokef every year on the high holidays. 14 years ago, while my mother was on a hike with my father off the coast of New Brunswick, my mother slipped and fell about a hundred feet from the edge of a precipice, and she died. Although, she writes, although the Asanatoke prayer had long made me uneasy with its stark imagery and invocation of a supernatural God I did not believe in, she writes after my mother died, the prayer took on a very personal meaning that God had taken my mother's life because she hadn't sufficiently repented, prayed, and or performed righteous act. I could not accept that, and I haven't said that prayer since. I understand Leonard, and I understand Andrew, and I understand Jennifer. People are entitled to that anger, and I will say very openly, I have felt those feelings myself at times. But I want to suggest a different approach to understanding this prayer that may permit us to experience this very differently in a way that Leonard Cohen actually himself expressed near the end of his life. So first, I want to make a structural correction. Many people read Asanatoke, this prayer, in two parts. The first part describes what God is doing. God is remembering and looking at the record and evaluating and deciding who will live, who will die, who will be born, etc. That's the first part. And then the second part is what we can do to get God to change his mind. Usashuva, Usophila, Utsudaka, Ma'virin, Ezra, Haxera, through repentance, through prayer, through Goddides, or Utsudaka, or charity. We can avert the evil of the decree. Two parts. The first part is what God is doing, deciding what's going to happen to us this year. And then the second part is what we can do to get God to change his mind. I want to suggest to you that that's not correct. There is no promise in this prayer or in Jewish thought. There is no promise that if a person is good that he or she will not die or suffer. There is no such promise, no such expectation. No one ever asserts this. And furthermore, God gives us no answer why the righteous suffer or the wicked prosper. In spite of how often and how intensely we ask God, God does not answer that. And God doesn't even give us a reason why God is not answering it. Repentance and prayer and charity are not guarantees for a happy life. They're not. And anyone who expects that they are going to change God's mind through these actions, I'm sorry to say, very well may be disappointed. But what these three activities are, they are the keys to a more meaningful life. To a life that is focused outward, a life that's focused on serving God, on helping others, on making ourselves into a better person. Helen Plotkin puts it like this. Even if these activities, repentance, prayer and charity, don't change the plot of your story. They do change your character. You're not going to change the plot of your story. And I won't be able to explain to you why your plot is the way it is or why my plot is the way it is. I don't have any clue. But what I can do, what you can do, what I can do is I can change my character. I can change myself. Repentance and prayer and charity can ma virin es roa haxera. They can deflect the badness of the decree by changing our focus. Not by making it that we're not going to suffer. No. But by changing our focus from our powerless suffering. Because we have no control over that to our power of response. I can't control what happens to me. But I can control what kind of person I choose to be. And that's what the prayer is saying. I've quoted to you before Sarah Tuttle Singer. She's a young woman, lives in Israel originally from Los Angeles. I think she's a great writer, a great storyteller. So she tells the story. There's crazy traffic in Tel Aviv. She's in a taxi. And she and the taxi driver settle on a price to drive her to Yafo. Yafo is, you know, the southern adjacent or suburban adjacent entity. It's its own city, but it's adjacent to the southern edge of Tel Aviv along the beach. So they agreed to a price. You know, by the way, that's common in Israel. You get into a taxi and often they'll say, do you want the meter? Do you want to decide on a price? Okay. I'm not getting into the economics of that or the. All right. So they settle on a price. They settle on a price and they both agree it's a fair price. There's a lot of traffic. You know, Tel Aviv is crazy, crazy traffic. And so they settle on a price, but it turns out as they're driving towards Yafo, it turns out that the streets are empty and there are no traffic backups and they made it in record time. It took a fraction of the amount of time that they both expected it would take. So they get to the destination and Sarah gives him the amount that they agreed to. And he goes to, which means no. No, that's taxi driver language for no. And he told her take 30 shekel off the price. So she said, but we agreed to this higher price. We agree. I agree to it. So he said to her, we thought that price was fair, but it turns out it isn't. This price is fair less 30 shekel and sweetie, you know what? Life isn't always fair and God isn't always even handed. So it's up to us to make up the balance. Repentance and prayer and charity can deflect the badness of the decree because it's up to us. God leaves it up to us to make up the balance. How we respond is our choice. And I think that this is a way of reading this prayer, praying this prayer that is authentic to Jewish thought and Jewish sources. And I think it would lead to a very different experience of a person who has this in mind. But there's another theme in this prayer that I want to focus on. And especially if we are stuck at being angry with God over what's happened to us. And again, I will be honest and say there are times that I have been in that position. But if we are stuck at being angry, we may miss this. And we really do not want to miss this. So prayer starts. When the Son of Tocquef as Kedusha Sayom let us retell, recall the significance of this day. The siftach has saved for the Zichronos. God opens the book of remembering. Vechal boi olam yavron lefanechakiv neymarun. And all mankind passes before you God like a shepherd caring for his flock. Now a lot of people read that or say that and they feel very uncomfortable. You're watching me. You're keeping a record. Everything I do, everything I say, it's very intrusive. But Rabbi David Wulpe has a completely different way to see this. To be watched is to feel the expectation of the watcher. When we are watched, we act differently. He writes, the driver is more careful with the police car behind. The high school athlete is more adept with the cheerleader on the sideline. Every performance is heightened when there is an audience. And Yom Kippur is a time to be reminded that our actions are observed. We have an audience at all times and all places and that audience is God. It's a season of intensified watching. But this prayer insists that God's watching is not the malevolent watching of a harsh dictator looking to punish. Or someone with a secret camera that's trying to find embarrassing things out about you. No. V'chol boi olam yavrun lefanechok ivne maron. All mankind passes before you. Like a shepherd caring for his flock. God's watching is like a shepherd caring for his flock. Who wants the best for his flock? It's a watching of gentleness. It's a watching of love. It's a watching like a parent watches a child. And you know I said this recently, but I'm sorry to say I forgot which audience I said this to. The opposite of I love you is not I hate you. The opposite of I love you is I don't care about you. Do whatever you want. To be watched by God, to be watched by one who understands and knows you is a gift and a blessing. Because it means that we're no longer alone. And we will act better for the recognition that we do not act in secret. Like we will drive when there is a police car behind us. We will also live more happily for the recognition that we do not live in isolation. We always have an audience. And that audience loves us and wants us to do well. Leonard Cohen wrote, please make me empty. If I am empty, I can receive. If I can receive, it means it comes from somewhere outside of me. If it comes from somewhere outside of me, it means I am not alone. That's what this prayer can give us. That's what young Kipper can give us. An intimacy with our loving God. And we can respond by loving and caring, regardless of what happens to us. In other words, regardless of the plot, I can still decide to respond to you, to the world, to others, to God with love and caring. Usa Shuvah, Sefilah, Tzedekah. That's my choice. And if we make that choice, it can transform our life if we allow it. In Leonard Cohen's last interview, just a few weeks before he died, he said, I've finished up a few things. I don't know how many other things I'll be able to get to. There are times I just have to lie down. I can't play music anymore. Spiritual things, Baruch Hashem. And he said in the interview, Baruch Hashem. He didn't say thank God. He said Baruch Hashem. Spiritual things, Baruch Hashem, have fallen into place for which I am deeply grateful. What was it that fell into place for him at the end of his life? He doesn't tell us. Could it be that this realization that we are not alone, that there is a God who loves us even more than we can imagine? Who watches us because our actions are so precious to God, who is convinced of our greatness even when we're not? In other words, could it be that he came to the realization of the essential message of Yom Kippur? Is that what fell into place for him just before he died? And can we have that fall into place for ourselves? This Yom Kippur, our lives are on the line. We have no promises of what will happen to us. But we emphasize our ability to choose how we will act, how we will respond. And we're given the experience, especially in this prayer in Asanatokef, which is so central, but in other prayers as well. That God loves us, that we are never alone. That God wants what is best for us. That God wants to do good with us. May it be God's will that that's what happens. My friends, I wish all of you a meaningful, uplifting, joyous Yom Kippur. Our sages tell us Yom Kippur is the happiest day of the year. I said this to some before, Yom Kippur, we don't eat or drink on Yom Kippur because we're too busy being happy. We're too busy with the joy of the chance to be able to be forgiven and to forgive others. We don't have time to eat or drink. I hope for you, I hope for me that that's our experience. And I wish you Shinatoga. Thank you very much.