Jessica, 37 years of age, and unmarried, calls her mother.

Hello, Mom? It’s Jessica. Listen, I have great news. It finally happened. I’m getting married.

Wonderful, darling, wonderful. We’re so happy for you.

Mom, before I bring my fiancé to visit, I want to tell you a few things about him. I know this may be hard for you, but he’s twenty years older than me.

Older? It’s not so terrible. What’s important is to find somebody to build a life with.

Mom, I knew you would understand. It’s great that we can talk openly. There’s another thing I want to tell you. He’s been married before…three times before.

Three times? So he’s experienced. He’s mature. As long as you’re happy, we’re happy.

Mom? You’re such a wonderful person. I can really share with you. Richard also doesn’t have a job.

No job? You’ll survive. Fortunately, you’re doing well and I’m sure it will all work out fine.

Mom? There’s just one more thing. I lost my job and we don’t have enough money to get a place of our own.

No place to live? Don’t worry. You’ll live with us. You and Richard can sleep in the master bedroom. Dad will be fine on the couch.

But Mom, what about you? Where will you sleep?

Honey, don’t worry about me. As soon as I get off the phone, I’m going to stick my head in the oven!

*****

Guilt…Poor Jessica, is she going to feel guilty. She’s getting a solid dose of Jewish guilt.

She is involved in one of the many Jewish jokes about guilt. It’s commonly assumed that where there are Jews, there is guilt. Where there is guilt, there are Jews.

Strange then, quite significant, that when we arrive at Yom Kippur, the day for talking about sin and repentance, the so-called Jewish word “guilt,” is absent from our vocabulary.

Today we talk about having gone astray and transgressed. When we enter this morning’s great viddui/confession, which is the one we all wrote together two years ago, we will admit our failures – and there will be many. We will catalogue all our failures of love, justice and truth.

Despite that, there will not be a finger wagging at us from the liturgy. Our creative confession and even the classic texts of Yom Kippur are not set up to accuse us. They don’t say: YOU fell short. YOU let me down. They are rather written so that we pray together and acknowledge together where we have all missed the mark.

What’s more, as we go through the prayer book, we will be doing so with an underlying sense of optimism, and that is the fascinating aspect of this day. Because, although we talk in detail about our mistakes, we do so with the assurance that so long as we are honest in our intentions God will forgive us.

The classic story which gives us our confidence comes from the Talmud. It is the tale of a king’s son who went astray from his father a journey of 100 days. His friends said to him, “Return to your father”. He said, “I cannot.” Then his father said to him “Return as far as you can and I will come to you the rest of the way.”

This is the way of God, says the Talmud. God is ready and open. God says, “Return to me and I will return to you.” I will be there to accept you.

Last night’s Kol Nidre made this point about forgiveness even more strongly. Do you remember how it worked? The text looked into the year ahead and, as we were starting the year, it said we knew what was going to happen.

Kol Nidre…we know, said the prayer, our vows…our promises…will come to naught. At our best, we will stumble. So please, God, understand us and before we fail accept us as we are.

Best of all, think about the powerful setting for Kol Nidrei. The Cantor sang the prayer. We repeated it in English. And then at the top of the next page, came the prayer book’s response quoting the Book of Numbers.

Salachti ki-d’varecha. I (God) will pardon you as you have asked. I will pardon you.

So where is the guilt? The word isn’t there.

For when it comes to Judaism, the colors I see are not the black of an overcast sky or the dark blue tones of guilt. What I feel instead are the warmth and love of Judaism that come in the colors of red, yellow and orange.

I see Shabbat and holiday candles burning softly when I think of Jewish life. For me, even if Yom Kippur is judgment day, it is also homecoming day. If I may be permitted a reference to baseball during this dismal season for the Red Sox, Yom Kippur is not an away game. It is a home game when the fans, when God is on our side.

We wear white robes at this season because there are no threats or damnation in the sanctuary. There is only the propect of a better tomorrow.

That is why toward the end of yesterday’s solemn Kol Nidre, there was a very important shift in mood. As somber as Kol Nidre and the surrounding pageantry were, do you remember what we did before replacing the Torahs n the ark? We sang Shehecheyanu: the same Shehecheyanu/life prayer we sing at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah or at the start of any celebration from Sukkot to Chanukah and the Seder.

In fact, ask me what I admire about Yom Kippur and it won’t be Kol Nidre or Confessions galore in and of themselves. It is the context for our atonement that is important. It is the broad context which includes Salachti (God’s saying I forgive) and Shehecheyanu. This is our ongoing affirmation of life.

When you really think about it, it’s quite remarkable that Judaism can be so positive. In fact, I began to put this sermon together in response to very different perceptions of Judaism from Jews. A few weeks ago, for example, someone in my office said he didn’t really like Yom Kippur because the liturgy was so negative. “I’m not that bad,” he told me. “Give me a break”.

Elsewhere many, many, times I’ve heard Jews joke about Jewish guilt and by that mean that Judaism is at fault for cultivating too much shame and negativity.

There is also no doubt that large numbers of Jews derive their sense of Jewish identity from the memory of Jewish suffering. People frequently tell me how proud they are to be Jews, and when we talk further abut their meaning, they comment, “I’m proud to be Jewish because of our history. I’m proud of our martyrs and their refusal to capitulate in the face of all that hatred”.

So much adversity – it’s true. And yet look at Judaism. Consider the spirit that manages to surface even on this Day of Atonement, and you realize, that as downtrodden as Jews may have been, Judaism never lost its soul. Despite all the hate and despite the way in which we sometimes overemphasize the negativity, Judaism retains a positive vision of life.

Novelist Joanne Greenberg underscores this point in her novel, A Season of Delight. She tells about a woman named Grace who lives with tremendous pride in Jewish history and a strong sense of identity with Jewish suffering over the ages. At one point, Grace conjures up what she calls her “ghosts” of the Holocaust. In a dream-like scene, she speaks to her ghosts about their anguish and her sympathy for them.

But her ghosts don’t want to talk about all that: a little boy wants to talk about his sled, a young woman about the children she never had.

When Grace speaks about their suffering, one of the ghosts pleads:

“Remember us not only as horror stories. In our unlived lives there are millennia of joy. Couldn’t you live a little of those times, each of you? You who remain?”

“How can I live your joy?” asks Grace.

“How else?” comes the response. “Live it as your own. Take delight!”

Even in the shadow of the Holocaust, that is the message pulsing through Judaism. The Talmud goes so far as to put it this way “In the world to come each of us will be called to account for all the good things God put on earth which we refused to enjoy.”

What a powerful salute to life.

Though we are not meant to be gluttons, we are meant to say: L’chaim…to life in its fullness.

That is Judaism – even today. And I am amazed that it is, because it doesn’t have to be this way. Not all religious enterprises view life so positively.

In Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism both speak about the need to disengage from conventional life.

In a slightly different vein, a few years ago I was studying in an interfaith group where I came to know a priest and nun who were both Franciscans. One day over lunch I asked them about their inner lives. They eagerly told me that their order was founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the early 1200’s.

Now it so happened that I recalled learning about Francis in high school. He was above all else a very kind person. But what struck me about my friends’ description of him was they they mentioned his character and good works secondly. Before that, they emphasized what they felt was the central aspect of Francis’ life. They told me that Francis grew up in a wealthy home and, when he found religion, he chose to leave home and live in poverty.

Not his kindness…the poverty and abstinence were what they wanted to communicate. For them, these were the ideals.

Mind you, in mainstream America it’s not always that different either. Listen to the Sunday morning evangelical preachers and you will also hear threats of damnation for those who do not stand back from the sin and shame of this world.

Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests there is a real penchant for holding back on pleasure running through much of American life. As much self-indulgence as America may engender, Kushner says that in America there is a strong element of discomfort with happiness.

Kushner writes, “We like to eat, dress, and live well, but at the same time, we are the spiritual children of the Puritans. To them, life was a serious business… They actually passed laws against laughing on Sunday, the Lord’s Day.”

Kushner continues, “…That heritage makes us feel guilt when we have enjoyed too much comfort. People are not meant to live so well, a voice whispers inside us, and we had better atone for that.”

Jew or non-Jew, living in America, it is as if we suspect that there may be something bad about feeling too good. “No pain; no gain” say the signs at health clubs – stating our philosophy – that pain (shame or guilt) are what we deserve as we grope along life’s path.

And that is where we turn back to Judaism and its approach toward life,, which I can best portray by contrasting the Blue Laws of ages past with the ongoing custom of Shabbat. Over against the stern eye of Puritanism, I picture a Friday night table with clean tablecloth, flowers, candles, good bread, and sweet wine. The picture glows. It shines.

Indeed, at some traditional tables it is even customary to place the Kiddush cup on a plate and fill the cup until it overflows. The Jewish tone is clear both for Shabbat and the others days of the week. As Psalm 23 states it: You have anointed my head with oil. My cup runneth over.

In the final analysis, then, don’t Jews have any guilt?

Obviously, many Jews do. It’s just that their guilt is not to be found in our classic sources. Even on the Day of Atonement, guilt doesn’t flow out of the prayer book. When it really comes to our behavior and how we ought to feel about it, here’s the summary I like best. Judaism doesn’t preach at us; Judaism only challenges us.

On Yom Kippur, we are not asked to punish ourselves; we are only asked to question ourselves; not to obsess over penance, but to plan for action.
This is not a feel good day. It is very much a fast day, a day for acknowledging our real and painful shortcomings.

We are challenged to look ourselves straight in the moral eye and admit where we have cheated, indulged, lied, or manipulated – not as an end in itself, but as a means to pick ourselves up and change.

Ultimately, that is the grandeur of this day: when we could so easily lapse into shame, remorse, or the luxury of feeling bad, Judaism will have none of it.
Instead, Judaism pushes us to do teshuvah. Judaism insists that we do more than merely saying, “I’m sorry.” Teshuvah literally means “returning,” which is to say, on Yom Kippur, we are supposed to admit how far off the right way we have strayed and, having admitted that, we are commanded to turn around and begin heading back to the right track.

No guilt for guilt’s sake.

Only teshuvah – Turn back. Head back to life and blessing. In the words of our Torah portion, Choose life and do it now. Be a mensch.

*****

Oh yes, remember Jessica? In the course of these remarks who knows what her mother has done with her oven. However, if Jessica is lucky, her mother, father, her fiancé and she herself heard what was said this morning.

Though Jews may sometimes feel it, obsessive guilt is not Jewish.

Engagement with life is Jewish. Responsible living is Jewish. Ownership of our deeds is Jewish.

So it’s not guilt that animates me now as we prepare for this morning’s viddui/confession. It’s a sense of anticipation.

Yes, I’ve made mistakes this year, but as a Jew, I can change that reality. I have to – just as I also have to change and move onwards and upwards.

I must choose life.

I can choose life even as I also believe that every force in the universe will sustain me in that positive choice.