Kol Nidre 2024
I was just talking about blue cars, and now I see them everywhere! Have we ever had something like this happen to us? The frequency illusion can often lead to the equally deceptive recency illusion. This cognitive bias can make us believe that something we have only recently become aware of is actually a new occurrence, when in reality it may have existed for quite some time. So if I just learned that blue cars exist, and I am now primed to think about blue cars, I am going to notice a whole lot of blue cars. Fairly recently, I was convinced that I had fallen victim to this cognitive bias, to the frequency illusion, also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
When did this happen, you ask? I was thinking about sermon-writing for the High Holy Days. I was poring over material in my head. Here is a truncated sample of an internal dialogue that I was having as I was going through topic after topic. “There is so much antisemitism to speak of. Of course we talk about October 7th…we surely did on Rosh Hashanah, and we will on Yom Kippur Morning. We need to discuss the state of affairs in Israel. We also need to talk about American Jewry. Wait, is this all too much to talk about the whole time? There needs to be balance. We need to infuse some hope and light into these talks. I want people to leave these services with a feeling of being lifted up. You need personal stories. Stop making this about you. Make it about everyone. That is too vanilla. Well you are only you, so only you can use your voice.” ENOUGH- DAI, as we might say in Hebrew!
It was time to put down the mental load for the night and to relax, refresh, and try to watch a movie. Cue Netflix. I opened our family Netflix account and started scrolling through the movies. This might not be relevant, but there are some very odd movies and shows on Netflix. I eventually stumbled across a film from 2011 that I remember hearing about when it was being promoted 13 years ago, but never watching. I really never thought much of it honestly. It had Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as the stars, and some great supporting actors like Anthony Mackie, whom I tend to enjoy watching. “The Adjustment Bureau.” That’s the name of the movie. I had no expectation besides the fact that I had seen previews for it 13 years ago. I had no idea what the reviews stated, what people thought of it. If it was fresh or rotten;I just clicked play and sat back ready to cleanse my mind for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Not to think about what we will call “Jewish topics.” Movie begins, and it hits me. IMPOSSIBLE. This movie is Jewish. It’s so Jewish. Some might accuse me of falling victim to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, frequency bias. “Oh a rabbi sees Jewish messages in the movie he is watching. How unique!” I get it. But trust me, this did not seem like one of those moments.
Spoiler alert For those of you who don’t know the movie, but to be fair, you have had 13 years, so I am going to go ahead. Matt Damon plays a rising political star who hits a rough patch in his career, and is preparing to give a concession speech when he comes across the absolute love of his life in a Waldorf-Astoria bathroom. The woman leaves in a hurry and he never gets her name or information. He runs into her “by chance” on a city bus some days later. It is then he is taken into custody by a strange group of government-looking agents…you know the ones who are always wearing suits and fedoras. They take him to a strange and undisclosed location, and tell him that he has gone off of his “plan.” These adjustment bureau workers track these plans on iPad looking devices. Matt Damon’s character is told that the chairman does not want this plan divergence to happen. Damon is never to see this woman of his dreams ever again, and he really isn’t supposed to see behind this curtain; in fact, he is not supposed to know all of this orchestration even exists. Well, in true Hollywood Fashion, the “Adjustment Bureau” workers do all they can to keep Matt Damon on his life’s plan. Damon and Emily Blunt continue to find their way to one another. Eventually, the chairman, the one whose office is upstairs, decides to change the plan due to the strong will of the main characters. Love wins, and the one in charge, whom we never actually see, alters the plan of these two individuals.
I am convinced that the adjustment bureau is Jewish, with a focus on Jewish angels; Malachim. The “workers” on the ground were guiding presences, but admitted that they did not have much power themselves to divert course. I thought I was probably just attributing this viewing experience to Judaism because of what I do and the world I live in, but I searched online, and I was not alone in this feeling. Free will, determinism, do we have it? Can we change trajectory? Angels are sometimes sent to execute a Divine plan, but are said not to truly possess free will themselves. Damon, via the malachim, is Bargaining with God to change an outcome. Hello Abraham. Hello Moses. Judaism is everywhere. Tomorrow afternoon, we read of Jonah’s attempt to flee God’s command to go to Nineveh; when he just wanted to run away from his Godly responsibility. We will be reading a variation of what I did on a micro scale that night while sermon-storming and Netflix-watching. I wanted some respite, to escape for a moment, but God was there in a Netflix movie. This connection actually gave me a lot of comfort.
Tonight we meet as souls all on a path, all with seemingly divergent plans, that somehow intersect at this very cross-section of time. We heard the beautiful and haunting melody of Kol Nidre-All Vows. We listened together, all probably feeling differently…being disparately impacted. Kol Nidre is mysterious, the exact origin is debated, and it was even removed from the Reform movement’s liturgy for some time beginning in the 19th century, before being reintroduced in a restructured manner in 1945. The origins of the Kol Nidre and its words are still shrouded in quite a bit of mystery. The earliest known written version is in the Siddur of Rav Amram Gaon, who lived in the ninth century, but its exact purpose is again, quite up in the air. Some would say that a vow, or a neder, or an oath (shevua) was often self-imposed to ensure that an agreement would actually be kept, and be given some legal fortitude. Sometimes, however, these vows or oaths were made hastily, out of anger or impulsive emotion; this would require a reprieve from these agreements. Cue Kol Nidre. There are many who have claimed that the reason for Kol Nidre can be traced back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, and the conversos (Jews who chose to convert to Christianity rather than face expulsion or death, but remained truly faithful to Judaism). These individuals would recite Kol Nidre secretly on Yom Kippur, releasing them from vows made that were not heartfelt or spiritually valid. While the latter is a nice story, the prayer, as we mentioned, pre-dates the inquisition by at least 500 years. What we do know is that we ask God to forgive our vows made that we do not want held up, “MiYom Kipporim zeh, ahd Yom Kippurim- from this Yom Kippur to next Yom Kippur.”
Why do we ask for forgiveness and release from our vows? Like the Adjustment bureau reinforces, our plans can change. The God of our tradition seems to be more flexible than we think. Sometimes we use strong language in a direction that we regret. The God of our tradition tells us that we are not stuck forever. There is no iPad looking device with a plan on it that we must adhere to stringently. We can download new software, we can desire new things, we can alter the plan. Perhaps the plan has something to do with the Book of Life. If the Book of Life, ha-sefer chayim was written in stone, then changes could not be made to it every High Holy Day season.
We are all here together for much of the next 25 hours to serve as our own sort of Adjustment Bureau. We are here to pray in the first-person plural…to take responsibility for not just ourselves, but to support one another…to allow one another the space to miss the mark, to acknowledge that, and to lift one another up in the direction of heaven. We can be angels to one another, helping to spruce up what our plans might be for this new year of opportunity and possibility. While we are told to avoid oaths and vows if possible, can we find any joy in the fact that our God allows us to live a life full of passion and emotion, while also allowing us space for correction and reflection?
Our story does not cut to the credits after 1 hour and 45 minutes, so we are not sure of the exact manner of the ending, and we ask those questions on these holy days. We are curious about the plan, but petition God to allow us to change it for the good. We are Jonah jumping out of a boat headed across the world, we are Abraham bargaining with God for a merciful minyan, we are Moses asking God to give the stubbornly stiff-necked and wandering Israelites another chance. We have power if we work in partnership with one another and with God. We can make change even when it feels futile. George Nolfi, who made the film “The Adjustment Bureau” had an interview published in the Jewish Journal. He said, “If God is benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing, why do we feel thwarted all the time, and why do all these bad things happen?” The movie gives a potential answer to that which is, we wouldn’t be able to understand, appreciate or use our free will if we didn’t also encounter obstacles to it.”
As the credits roll at the end of this Day of Yom Kippur, I hope we will all take a moment to stay in our seats and acknowledge the fact that we need one another to make the movie of our lives successful amidst all of the obstacles of the world, both micro and macro. The best boy, the key grip, the gaffer, the director of photography…these are not peripheral, but essential people on the set of a film. They might be off screen, but they are there. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, the Frequency illusion: I am convinced there is no cognitive bias involved here. Judaism is everywhere, and we just have to open ourselves up to the possibilities that exist, even outside of our own perception of our plan. Live fully within the power of this day and within the power of your life. You have a whole crew here to help you adjust if you need to, and a God who is ready to accept you and love you with open arms, no matter how far off the course you feel you have been. Perhaps we all should fall victim to the recency illusion, wherein we perceive the presence of something we have just learned about everywhere, or with much more frequency. We can learn more about God and our relationship with God every moment of every day. Let’s make this part of the plan from this Yom Kippur to the next Yom Kippur.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah.
-Rabbi Josh Gray