I’d like to talk today about words. After all, the High Holy Day services are filled with words, and we know that sometimes words can either add to or detract from the true service of our heart.
When I was a college student, I read an essay about words that affected me more profoundly than practically anything else before or since. It’s called "Gilui v’Kisui B’lashon," "Revealment and Concealment in Language", written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in 1915, considered the leading poet in Israel before it became a state.
In the essay, Bialik declares that words are brought into existence through necessity.
They have a primal power and energy. In the early days of a word’s existence, the signifier and the signified are virtually the same. Let me read you the first paragraph of the essay,
Every day, consciously and unconsciously, human beings scatter heaps of words to the wind, with all their various associations; few men indeed know or reflect on what these words were like in the days when they were at the height of their power. Many of these words came into the world only after difficult and prolonged birth pangs endured by many generations. Others flashed like sudden lightning to illuminate, with one leap, a complete world. Some words were like the high mountains of the Lord, others were a great abyss. So, for example, it was with the first man, when, taken aback by the sound of thunder ("Kol Adonai bakoach, kol Adonai behadar"—"The voice of the Lord is in the power, the voice of the lord is in the glory"), overcome by amazement and terror stricken, he fell on his face before the blockquoteinity. Then a kind of savage sound burst spontaneously from his lips—let us assume, in imitation of nature—resembling a beast’s roar, a sound close to the r…r to be found in the words for thunder in many languages.
Over time, however, the meaning and vitality attached to the word diminishes. Think of words or phrases that in our own day were born fully charged, only to have dissipated as their necessity diminished. Even words that used to shock us no longer do, so accustomed as we are to hearing them. Bialik describes what remains as a hollow shell or husk. This he calls Concealment (kisui).
But rather than view this decline tragically, the natural concealment of a word’s meaning is actually a good thing. First, we could not express ourselves as inblockquoteiduals in a world where every word carried its original weight; there would be no room for personality. Second, words act as a barrier between us and the "void," that nothingness that lies behind the veil. Speech is a spiritual need, a way of our fending off the darkness of the "abyss," as Bialik calls it. We often resort to words when confronting our mortality:
Before the covering stone is sealed over the dead, the space that was emptied is again occupied with a word, whether it be one of eulogy, or solace, or philosophy, or belief in the soul’s immortality.
According to Bialik we can only glimpse the abyss for a moment, just as no one shall look upon the Lord and live (as Moses is told). It is the task of the poet—those masters of allegory, of interpretation and mystery—who create new combinations and associations. They bring about Revealment (gilui).
The words writhe in their hands; they are extinguished and lit again, flash on and off like the engravings of the signet in the stones of the High Priest’s breastplate, grow empty and become full, put off a soul and put on a soul.
Bialik concludes with the following observation—
There are languages without words: song, tears, and laughter. And the speaking creature has been found worthy of them all. These languages begin where words leave off, and their purpose is not to close but to open. They rise from the void. They are the rising up of the void. Every creation of the spirit which lacks an echo of one of these three languages is not really alive, and it were best that it had never come into the world.
So, says Bialik, words conceal, yet reveal; they contain mystery, yet keep mystery at bay. We misuse and overuse them, and when words fail us, we grasp at them anyway.
What does all this mean for us, particularly at this season? In the Yom Kippur service there are three liturgical pieces in particular deal most profoundly with the power of words — Al Het, Kol Nidre, and Avodah.
The Al Het, which is recited 10 times during the 25 hours of Yom Kippur, is the grand communal confessional of sins, most of which deal with improper speech — gossip, slander, deception, false swearing., etc.
Why do we use language to harm others? Under what circumstances? Often, it’s when we are afraid of something, or are jealous, when we give in to our darker selves. Who among us has not said something harmful about or to someone else out of our own smallness or inadequacy? We used those words to protect ourselves from the void—those negative, negating forces that lurk within us.
The Al Het names our darker elements with great specificity, removing the walls holding back the darkness that lies within us. By illuminating these dark elements, we confront them, and are better able to conquer them.
Kol Nidre is really not a prayer at all, but a legal formula to absolve us of vows that we may make in the coming year. (The Sephardic version refers to oaths we made during the past year.) It’s important to note that the rabbis had trouble with this concept, and restricted the absolution to vows that were made under coercion, or as rhetorical exaggeration, such as "May such and such be forbidden me if I did not see a serpent as big as the beam of an olive press." Still, the fact that the holiest day of the year opens with an acknowledgement of the binding power of words clearly demonstrates that they’re not just sounds that emerge from our throats. An oath—a word—is a promise, which can set us on an immutable path.
These two liturgical pieces teach us to be careful with the words we use. They remind us that our ability to maintain a civil society demands our ethical use of language, and that the purity of our souls depends on the proper intention of language. The third liturgical piece, the Avodah, deals directly with the raw power of words, and could very well be what Bialik had in mind when he wrote his essay.
The Avodah is part of the Musaf, or additional, service. The word "Avodah" means "work" or "service," referring to the service in the ancient temple in Jerusalem. The Avodah in our mahzor meticulously describes the Yom Kippur service as held in Temple times and as recorded in Tractate Yoma. It was the only occasion during the year when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and he had to make special preparations for the ritual. Seven days prior to Yom Kippur, the High Priest was moved to a special apartment in the Temple court where he studied with the elders every detail of the ceremony. The day before, he was escorted to his chamber in the Temple compound where he joined the other priests. On the day itself, the High Priest himself performed the offering of the sacrifice, the incense offering, and the other sacred duties. After a series of immersions he offered a bull as his personal sin-offering. He confessed his own and his family’s sins, the sins of the tribe of Aaron (the priests), and those of all Israel. In each, he pronounced the ineffable 4-letter name of the blockquoteine, and in each instance, the priests and the people standing in the temple court, as they heard the name, prostrated themselves responding "Baruch shem kevod malchuto le’olam va’ed." "Blessed be the Name whose glorious reign is eternal."
We also read of the sending away of the scapegoat, bearing the sins of the people, to the desert.
The Avodah concludes with a description of the radiance of the High Priest, and the joy that possessed the whole of Israel at the conclusion of the atonement rites. The clouds in the heavens were jubilant, and the rain-soaked fields of the earth rejoiced. Man and nature joined in praise of God.
Interestingly, the Avodah is not a prayer, but a description of a prayer, or set of prayers. Not only are we removed in time, but also place, person, and practice. We’re not in Jerusalem, we’re not in ancient times, we’re not the high priest, and we don’t even know how the name was pronounced! Because of this, it’s hard to know what to do with this piece of our liturgy. Is it a lecture? A demonstration? How can we participate?
At a minimum, Bialik would say, it’s a real-live example of the power of words, specifically, THE word. When the High Priest says the name, like the poet, the abyss opens up for a split second. For a brief moment, all who are in hearing have a glimpse of the void, and experience the apotheosis of awe and fear. It’s a moment fraught with danger and possibility.
During Yom Kippur Musaf, we will strive to enter that world of the High Priest. At our sacred time and in our holy space, some of us will perform the Avodah ritual. Aaaah-voooo-daaaaah. Expansion-contraction-expansion. Dressed in white like the High Priest, we will re-enact the ritual of prostration three times—standing in an expansive posture, contracting to the floor as nothing, and expanding again. While we don’t know the right word any more, we will strive to find the right feelings, thoughts, and emotions, to prepare us to face another year.
What else can we learn from the Avodah, and from the Al Het and Kol Nidre?
We know about the power of words, how they can wound and can heal. How they can set us on a path, sometimes desirable, sometimes not. How they can reveal deep truths, some quite frightening, and how they can hide the truth from us as well. That’s one of the reasons we cultivate silence through meditation—to get to that place beyond words, which can disrupt, distract, and deceive.
I would also add three more things that we can learn from these liturgical pieces:
That rituals matter. The regular performance of specific actions with the proper mindfulness can move us to a different spiritual place, and create a sense of sanctity.
That environment matters. Although one can experience holiness anywhere, the creation of a special place for prayer can help us focus our kavanna—our intention—and deepen our experience.
That traditions are important. Praying the same words, prostrating oneself at the same points in the service, leyning from a scroll that was written with the same techniques as were used in ancient times, binds us to the millions of Jews living today and throughout history, even though we ourselves comprise a small community.
And there is one more thing we’ve learned—that song, tears, laughter, and even movement can also bring us to a place where words are not necessary. As we daven together this Yom Kippur, we will use all of these languages and vocabularies. And may each of us be blessed with the awareness and insight to carry us through the coming year.