"Le shana tovah tikatevu." "May you be inscribed for a good year in the Book of Life." This is a traditional Jewish greeting from Rosh Hashona, which began a little over a week ago, through Yom Kippur, which starts this evening at sunset. During this time, Jewish people from around the world observe and celebrate the season of fasting, penitence and atonement at this, the beginning of the Jewish new year, 5760.

These are the High Holy Days. Many of us in this congregation come directly out of the Jewish tradition; some of us, not quite so directly; and others, not at all. In our Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, we claim as our sources for inspiration, Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-Centered teachings. It's our practice in the liberal tradition to celebrate these sources which have fed our own tradition, and to recognize some of the values inherent in their themes. Today we turn to the Jewish tradition to see if, perhaps, the message of this Yom Kippur holiday might serve us.

Like all Jewish holidays, the date of Yom Kippur is determined by the phase of the moon. In the Jewish month of Tishri, Rosh Hashanah begins with the new moon and is followed nine days later by Yom Kippur. Arthur Waskow in his book, Seasons of Our Joy, writes, "The Moon of Tishri swells into an oval. If the barely visible new moon at Rosh Hashanah is the moment of birth, then the oval moon of Yom Kippur is the moment of developed identity. It is when we are grown up enough to face God... At Yom Kippur, God and the...people stand face to face at an inward not an outward mountain. It is the [inward] mountain of our misdeeds and sorrows."

It is the moment of the year in which the Jewish people experience the strongest sense of partnership and covenant with God. If they have striven with their best effort to redress the wrongs they have done-God will forgive them and provide a sense of harmony and wholeness. There is a direct theological and calendric relationship between this inner, lunar moment and the outer, solar celebration of Shavout, when God actually made his covenant with the Jewish people.

Waskow draws an analogy between Yom Kippur and the tallis, the Jewish prayer shawl. The tallis is placed over a person when praying, covering their head in respect, and providing privacy in prayer. "Yom Kippur becomes a tallis in time," writes Waskow, "a prayer shawl [for the Children of Israel] over the confusions of the year.... It is under this tallis [of this holiday] we can stand face to face with God."

Atonement, reestablished harmony, and a renewed sense of balance are the goals of this intimate conversation. Atonement is at the very center of Yom Kippur. It is the opportunity for persons to make amends for the their wrongdoings, to set right their relationship with God.

Atonement is sought by the Rabbi on behalf of the entire congregation at Yom Kippur. Some of you may be familiar with the elaborate sacrifices and liturgies that are a part of rituals intended to achieve atonement. The beautiful songs we heard sung by Alyse Lillis earlier this morning, and the readings shared by Nancy Knoerzer are a part of that tradition.

As integral to the community as these public traditions are, it is still the effort of the individuals to seek rectification for their own transgressions that allows the moment of atonement to be fulfilled. Universal forgiveness can not be gained-unless the individual not only proclaims his or her past errors, but also puts those errors right. It's not enough to admit wrongdoing. Yom Kippur effects atonement only if one has made peace and justice with those they have wronged

These High Holidays provide an example of God engaging this very act of making personal redress for his past actions. It is found in the story of Abraham and Isaac. On Rosh Hashanah God commands Abraham to bind and sacrifice his son, Isaac. But it was on Yom Kippur that Abraham was ordered to release Isaac. Waskow writes, "If even God can turn from a stern decree to loving kindness, then so can you... and if you do, you can expect forgiveness."

A primary function of religion is to provide an unfolding story in which we are blessed with a wealth of rich metaphors and symbols. If we get stuck trying to make literal sense of it all, we might fail to recognize the deeper truths that are waiting for us beneath the stories. There are truths there are about what it means to be human, about what it means to be in relationship with other humans, about what it means to stand in humility before the great mystery of life and existence.

Yom Kippur points us toward these questions and the understandings that can come from them. Before we do some unpacking , though, I'd like to share another story I came across recently, which I think is closely related.

There was an artist who was marooned on a desert island. For the sake of thematic continuity, perhaps we should name her Golda Silverstein. Golda's most prized possession was a metal sculpture that she'd created over the period of several years through great effort and imagination. She fashioned and re-fashioned her creation until she had it just right. She loved the piece because it represented so much of what it meant to her to be alive.

She realized, after its completion, that she had grown and developed during her exile, and as an artist, through her struggles with the metal. Golda was very proud of the sculpture, but, little by little, she began to recognize that she had outgrown the very work she had completed, even though it had challenged her so deeply.

So she went in search of more metal with which she could design still another sculpture. The next one would reflect, all the more, her own increasing awareness of beauty and truth. To her great disappointment through, she discovered that there was no more metal to be found on the island. She could produce a new composition only by melting down her masterpiece and starting over.

There are a couple of possible endings to this story. One is that the artist could not face the pain of dismantling the work that had meant so much to her. She was unable to let go of this piece in which she had invested so much of herself, of her creativity, imagination and energy. In the other ending she takes one painful last look, and then shoves the sculpture into the fire.

So we have the story of Yom Kippur in which God tells the children of Israel that they must atone-must submit themselves to this holy day of making things right. And to get it right they must not only bare their souls before all that is holy, but they must also make an earnest attempt at peacemaking with their neighbor whom they have wronged. And to that mix we've added this morning, the story of Golda Silverstein, a story that begs the question: However perfect our yesterday might have been-ought we use it to replace this day?

The theme of this Jewish holy day bears a universal message that we might well learn from. We are invited to come under this tallis of Yom Kippur so that we might understand that it is in this moment of atonement, this moment of repentance, harmony and balance, this moment of face to face intimacy with the awesome mystery of the universe, (however we might conceive that mystery) we are invited to come under this tallis of Yom Kippur so that we might understand that it is in the promise of this moment in which our day, our year, our life-can be made more whole.

When we recognize that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves, we take a step in the direction of wholeness. When we recognize that we have fallen short of our aspirations, and then we turn toward making things right with those we have wronged, we are taking steps in the direction of wholeness. And when we recommit ourselves in service and connection to one another and to that larger sphere of which we are a part, we take a step in the direction of atonement and harmony and wholeness.

The essential quality we are asked to bring to this moment is that of great courage, so that we might be strong enough for the submission which is required. It takes courage to stand face to face with the great mystery of life. It takes courage to stand in it, to recognize our place in it, to be humbled by this incredible gift-this gift of life that never had to be ... but is!

It takes courage to own up to our shortcomings. Many of us struggle with that one. We like to pretend that because we've learned form our past errs that somehow we err no more. We live in a culture where we are taught to cover our backsides and never to admit fault. And yet we all walk around knowing we're full of faults. Fear keeps us from admitting them; the courage to take responsibility is our road to freedom. It takes courage to meet our neighbor face to face, to make peace, to seek justice, to ask forgiveness.

Submission is a peculiar act. Often times it's thought of as cowardly or acquiescent. But it takes real courage to submit to that which is larger than ourselves. Many of us want desperately to believe that we are the sole pilots of our destinies. I'm curious how many of us here might want to take responsibility for creating Hurricane Floyd. To varying degrees, didn't that storm remind us all of the power in those larger circles in which we have our being.

When we fail to find our place within that which is larger than ourselves-we diminish the value in our own lives. We become like objects, thrown across the landscape, in isolation and unanchored. It might be by submission that we can take up our part in and for the largeness in which we find our purpose, our meaning and our spiritual base.

If our idea of that-which-is-larger contains the principles of truth, beauty, justice and compassion then our submission includes that we have fallen short of these ideals. This awareness encourages us to strive harder and better. It encourages us to seek more of the goodness in life than we have allowed ourselves.

And the most remarkable part of the Yom Kippur story (that I never understood before this year) is that it tells us that the way in which we can be closest to the center of this mystery in which we live, is by seeking and granting forgiveness with our fellow human beings, and then by doing what we can to make things right. It's not through piety nor self-incrimination, but through connections and reconnections with one another. If we want to experience what is most holy in this universe, if we want to experience what is most holy in ourselves, we must find it and honor it in one another. That sounds like a very Unitarian Universalist message to me.

By holding one another's hand, by walking together, by seeking one another's forgiveness we approach together-the only way we can-what is truly holy, and transcendent and divinely renewable. When we turn from our stern decrees to loving kindness with one another, we turn toward God, toward All-that-Is, toward all that is holy to us.

And what of Golda Silverstein?

It doesn't really matter how well we've done it all before. It did then, but it doesn't now. What matters now is that we use our creativity, our energy and imagination to make our way through our lives as we find them now. Le shana tovah tikatevu. May you be inscribed for a good year in the book of life...this year.

What do you have now to atone for in your life? What do we as a culture have to atone for? What are the connections that are waiting to be reconnected? Where is holiness waiting to be discovered? What work of art or way of being has lost its fullness and awaits the fire so that it might be fashioned again-this time even closer to our emerging understandings of truth and beauty and justice and compassion?

We are not practicing Jews. We are practicing Unitarian Universalists. Tomorrow, religious Jews will spend much of the day at the synagogue engaging in the rituals of atonement and preparing to make their own personal turnings. There is a discipline that this story inspires among the Jewish faithful.

What will we be doing tomorrow? I'm not suggesting that we all go to temple. But can this story elicit a religious response from us as well? How do we find reconciliation for our wrongdoings and put ourselves back on the path, seeking to improve the quality of life in our hearts, and homes, and community and world? It's not enough for us to think that this is an interesting idea. Living the religious life requires discipline; it requires turning; it requires doing.

We too are invited by this universal, human and divine urge into the communion of atonement. Are we willing to turn toward our deeper selves? Turn toward one another? Turn toward the holy? And how are we willing to make such a turn? Our tradition doesn't tell us we have to do anything. It tells us we can. Will we accept the invitation?