Acharei Mot
Where can we find the true freedom?
Reflection by Carrie Watkins, US Community Manager:
"Parshat Acharei Mot launches us into a description of the complex forgiveness rituals the High Priest Aaron was to perform each Yom Kippur when our people were wandering in the desert and continuing, as the text says, for all time. It can feel strange to be diving into the minutiae of Yom Kippur half a year away still from the actual holiday, like hearing Hanukkah songs in the middle of Summer. Yet here we are, presented with an opportunity to reflect on the nature of forgiveness.
In fact, our tradition offers us opportunities to ask for forgiveness and to forgive every day. One poignant example is in the prayers before the Bedtime Shema. In the introductory prayers to the nightly bedtime Shema in many siddurim, it says, `I hereby forgive anyone who has angered me, or sinned against me, either physically or financially, against my honor or anything that is mine, whether accidentally or intentionally, inadvertently or deliberately, by speech or by deed, by thought or by speculation, in this incarnation or in any other . . . may no one be punished on my account.`
There might be a particular wisdom to offering this prayer for forgiveness before bed. As Deb Dana, a leading writer and practitioner of Polyvagal Theory writes in her book Anchored, `When we remain unforgiving, our autonomic nervous system holds on to the experience with an activated sympathetic survival state. Remembering brings the experience alive . . . offering and receiving forgiveness are both tied to a regulated nervous system.` Turning towards the unforgiving places in us as we’re getting to bed - when we are safe, cozy, and sleepy - might be a way to approach those places with more softness. On the other side, letting go of the pieces of our day that bring us tightness and activation might allow us more restful sleep.
Of course, forgiveness is not automatic, or something that can be accomplished by sheer will. It is a slow practice, something that perhaps we can allow in small pieces each night as we go to bed. Rav James teaches a helpful addendum to this prayer, `to the extent that I am able, I forgive you`.”