Rabbi Andrea’s Sermon 2nd October 2025 / 11th Tishrei 5786

WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE WRONG

In just a few moments, some of you may be tempted to slip out for a coffee break, even if it is Yom Kippur. Because the Musaph service that comes next is not, at first glance, the most uplifting or spiritual part of Yom Kippur. It is long. It is detailed. And it is filled with descriptions of sacrifices.

And let’s be honest: for us, as Reform Jews, this can feel uncomfortable… even embarrassing. 

Sacrifices, a Temple, priests, blood. These are not the images of worship that move us today. In fact, the very birth of Reform Judaism in 19th-century Germany was, in part, a protest against the yearning for a rebuilt Temple and the restoration of animal sacrifice.

Our spiritual ancestors insisted that prayer, ethics, and justice—not burnt offerings—are the true service of the heart. And if we needed an extra reason? Well, try to imagine explaining the Avodah service to a committed vegetarian, or to your cousin who works for the animal rights movement. “Yes, on the holiest day of the year, we read about leading goats to their death.” 

Not exactly the kind of PR we’d put on a synagogue brochure.

So yes: sacrifices feel foreign. Temple ritual feels archaic. Even a little embarrassing. And yet… if we take the time to read this section closely, we may discover that beneath all the ancient detail, there lies a message that is radical, beautiful, and urgently relevant. The section I am talking about is called the Avodah — literally, “worship.” It recounts how the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, would bring a series of sacrifices to atone first for himself, then for the other priests, and finally for the entire people of Israel. This is ancient stuff. But buried inside it is one of the most revolutionary spiritual ideas Judaism has ever offered.

A little context: the Talmud, which records these procedures, was written many decades after the Temple was destroyed.  By that time, the rituals were no longer practiced. Memories of the details had faded. So, the rabbis often record arguments over how things were done. And one of the most fascinating disputes centres on a seemingly minor point: When and how was the incense burned on Yom Kippur? The Sadducees—who rejected the Oral Law and accepted only the literal, written Torah—believed that the incense had to be burned before the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies. The Pharisees—the spiritual ancestors of Judaism—taught that the incense was to be burned after the High Priest had entered.

On the surface, this sounds like hair-splitting. Does it really matter when a handful of powder was burned two thousand years ago? But behind this argument are two profoundly different views of God, Torah, and humanity. According to the Midrash, the incense creates a cloud—symbolizing the hidden, unknowable dimension of God. The Sadducees’ position, that the cloud must precede the priest, implies that the Divine is utterly beyond human reach. 

We are finite, they believed. We cannot see, know, or even begin to approach God. 

All we can do is accept the written word as it is. Human interpretation, human contribution—these are impossible.  There can be no Oral Law. But the Pharisees, the Perushim, taught something else.

They believed that our journey toward holiness must include our own effort… to understand, to interpret, to wrestle with the Divine. Only after the High Priest has entered the Holy of Holies - only after we have done everything - do we acknowledge that ultimate understanding remains hidden.

In other words: we must try, even knowing we will fall short.

Now, we might imagine that the Sadducees - those who clung only to the Written Torah - are the opposite of where a certain sector on the Far Left stands today. After all, they were the rigid traditionalists, weren’t they? But here’s the irony: their problem was not simply that they were traditional. Their problem was that they were rigid. Unforgiving. Unwilling to let Torah breathe.

And if we are honest, a mirror of that same rigidity can sometimes appear today. 

There are Jews outside of Israel who speak about Israel constantly, who critique Israel sharply. 

But they do so without ever putting themselves in the shoes of Israelis who live with fear, complexity, and responsibility day after day. Too often, those critiques do not sound like Torah, or even like Jewish moral wrestling.  They sound like they have been lifted from the editorials of the Guardian, or from the talking points of the white liberal middle class.  Torah is replaced with slogans. And slogans, like Sadducean literalism, can be just as harsh, just as unforgiving.

What happens then? The conversation stops. 

The people of Israel become abstractions.

Complexity is flattened. 

Empathy with the Israelis is treated as betrayal. And instead of a Torah that challenges us - sometimes uncomfortably - we end up with a mirror that only reflects what we already think.

In both cases - ancient Sadducees and modern Torah-by-editorial - the result is the same: an unwillingness to walk fully into the Holy of Holies.

The Sadducees demanded that the cloud of incense come first, blocking human encounter with the Divine. And today, when we replace Torah with fashionable opinions or easy categories, we too let the cloud come first - we never risk the encounter, never allow Torah to surprise us.

The Pharisees, our ancestors in spirit, took the harder, braver path. They insisted that the High Priest must enter first, engage, struggle, wrestle, and only then let the cloud teach humility.

And that is our task as well: to engage Torah deeply, to argue with it honestly, to test our values against its wisdom: not just to confirm what we already believe, but to let ourselves be stretched, unsettled, even transformed.

This is what keeps Judaism alive. Not rigid literalism, and not easy slogans. But the hard, humble, holy work of interpretation. And here is something astonishing.

According to our tradition, the very first Yom Kippur - the original one - was the day on which God gave the Torah to the people of Israel a second time, after the sin of the Golden Calf. The first tablets contained only the written law. The second set, given on Yom Kippur, came with something new: God’s willingness to let us be partners in the Torah’s meaning. God gave us not only the text, but also the power and the responsibility to interpret it.

That is the true sign of forgiveness after the Golden Calf - not simply restoring what was lost but creating a new relationship of trust. This is the revolutionary message of Yom Kippur. God recognises our human limits and still gives us authority. God says: You may forget. You may disagree. You may even fail. And still… I trust you. I trust you with My Torah.

No other religion entrusts human beings so fully with sacred responsibility. 

This is not just about repairing a broken relationship; it is about rewriting it. It is about a God who allows us - even commands us - to be co-authors.  A God who gives us the right… to be wrong.

And that is what Yom Kippur asks of us as well. If God can entrust us with the Torah despite our flaws, then surely, we can entrust one another with our lives, our hopes, and our future.

If God can forgive, then surely, we can recognise the right of others to make mistakes -and to try again.

And let me say this plainly: our own community needs this lesson right now. In recent months, words have been spoken here that have wounded. 

Accusations have been made. Suspicions voiced. Divisions opened.

Yom Kippur is the moment to choose another way. 

To recognise, as God does with us, that relationships cannot simply go back to what they were—but they can be rewritten. 

We can grant one another the right to fail, the right to change, the right to begin again. Only then can we write the next chapter of our life together as a community.

So, as we turn now to the Avodah service - yes, the long and detailed and seemingly archaic part of our liturgy - try listening for its hidden message. 

Behind the ancient sacrifices and incense, you will hear a radical invitation: to become partners with God; to accept our limitations without surrendering our responsibility; and to grant to others the same trust, the same forgiveness, that God grants to us.

That, I believe, is a reason to stay.

Rabbi Dr. Andrea Zanardo, PhD