The evening
service on Yom Kippur is frequently called, ‘the Kol Nidrei Service.’ This is, of
course because of the centrality of the Kol Nidrei declaration, often
mis-identified as a prayer. It is unique
to that one occasion of the year. Kol
Nidrei, or ‘All vows,’ is a statement that is difficult to understand, and not
just because it is in Aramaic. It
expresses a desire to be absolved of responsibility for upholding any vows we
may make in the coming year, should we find them just too difficult to fulfill.
Kol Nidrei is often thought to have
its origins in the medieval Spain of the Disputations and Inquisition. In truth, it is much earlier than that,
having been composed during the Gaonic period:
the second half of the first millennium of the Common Era. And the original version was in retrospect;
it spoke of the vows and promises that we made in the past year that
we were unable to fulfill – may we be absolved of them. The version we say today, in prospect, represents
a change instituted by Rabbi Meir ben Shmuel, the son-in-law of Rashi in the
twelfth century.
Apart from being changed in tense some
eight centuries ago, Kol Nidrei has an interesting and mixed history. For a time it was taken out of the
liturgy. After all, do we want Jews to think
that they can be absolved of all vows they might make in the coming year, just
because they find them too hard to keep?
If so, then we’ll likely come to make vows lightly, never really thinking
we have to keep them. Or alternatively,
others might be reluctant to take a Jew’s vow seriously. This, knowing that the Jew would think he can
be absolved of all his vows just because he uttered this statement on
Yom Kippur.
These thoughts come to mind this week,
not because the Days of Awe are that close, but because this week’s
Torah reading offers us a glimpse into the Divine wisdom regarding the
responsibility for one’s vows. Today we’ve
read that a man is expected to fulfill his vows. But a girl in her father’s house, or a
married woman, is automatically absolved if the man in her life – father or
husband – objects. On the surface, this of
course smacks of what today we call ‘sexism.’
After all, the implication is that the female sex is unable to handle
the responsibility for their vows, right?
Maybe, and perhaps if so it gibes with the traditional Halachah that
women cannot serve as witnesses in a court proceeding. But I’m going to leave that aside this
morning. And not because it is too hard
to explain in any coherent way. Rather,
because we tend to react emotionally to that notion. And it thus gets in the way, and prevents us
from finding wisdom in this and other passages in the Torah.
Instead, I want to focus on the aspect
of fulfillment of vows in general. We
are expected to carry out what we’ve promised to do. This, especially if we have vowed in G-d’s
Name. Remember the Third Commandment, of
the ‘Top Ten’? Thou shalt not take
the name of the Lord thy G-d in vain. The
Rabbis explained that it means, don’t swear in G-d’s name whilst not really
intending to fulfill that oath. And
here, in the 30th chapter of Numbers, we find the principle repeated
more explicitly.
But…here, with regard to competence to
enter seriously into a vow, or perhaps when one does so without consulting
other interested parties, we find that there’s ‘wiggle room.’ A priori, in prospect, one
should not make a vow except with the utmost of seriousness, especially if one
makes it in G-d’s Name. But a
posteriori, in retrospect, if one finds some serious impediment to
fulfilling it, one is not considered culpable.
At least, not Divinely culpable.
So we should avoid making vows in G-d’s Name unless we do so in complete
seriousness and expectation that we will be able to fulfill them. But on the other hand, we should not avoid
making vows altogether just because we fear that some circumstance might make
fulfillment of that vow so difficult as to be impossible. Perhaps the message here is that there is a
natural precedence of interests, a hierarchy where one voice trumps another. Maybe the point of this verse is that we’re
supposed to fulfill our vows…but.
An example from contemporary life. Many young people today, seeing that
marriages often break down and end in divorce, are reluctant to get married at
all. And this may seem like a reasonable
response to a reality where one has a reasonable expectation that one’s
marriage vow may be impossible to fulfill.
But the divorce rate is not an indictment of marriage. At least, not from the Jewish standpoint. Even in antiquity, we had divorce as a safety
valve for marriages that would bring unavoidable unhappiness. Hillel said a man could divorce his wife even
if she spoiled the soup. Nobody thinks
that a bad pot of soup is reasonable grounds for divorce. Rather, we read Hillel’s words as informing
us that, despite the desirability of enduring marriages, sometimes it just
doesn’t ‘work out.’ And when it doesn’t,
we shouldn’t think we’re stuck for life.
We enter into a vow in all seriousness.
But if it is just too burdensome, we let it drop and hope to achieve
wholeness. I think that the Kol Nidrei
statement is not akin to making a promise whilst crossing one’s fingers behind
one’s back. Rather, it expresses the
desire to ultimately be able to achieve wholeness…even when unable to fulfill
one’s vows.
Vows are important. We should enter into them only with the
utmost seriousness of purpose. Especially
when invoking G-d’s name in the process of making them. But we should not feel that, just because
there might be a possibility that we won’t be able to fulfill them, we
should avoid promising. We can never
foresee all the possibilities of outcome from the start. Without making promises, we would find it
difficult to live, to transact with other people. We should therefore feel free to vow, promise,
and make contracts. This, knowing that even
the Torah teaches some flexibility in this area. We are to fulfill our vows…but. And the but is: unless it becomes unreasonably difficult to
do so. In that case, we understand that
even Divine Law provides for an ‘out.’ Shabbat
shalom.
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