ON THE VANGUARD

DAYS OF AWE
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?”
Job 38:4-5

Including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the days in between the two holidays is a time known in the Jewish culture as the High Holy Days. In Hebrew, these days are called Yamin Noraim, or the Days of Awe. If Rosh Hashanah begins the year, and Yom Kippur brings about our Day of Atonement, it is in these days that lay between them that we find ourselves entertaining ritual. In synagogues, the cantor’s voice is heard and the Torah scrolls are brought out, paraded around the congregation. The shofar continues it call, bringing us back to a time of reflection and introspection. It is said that this is the period when the unrighteous can still repent and be written into the Book of Life. It is also in this time that one is encouraged to go to those he has offended and work to make peace and seek forgiveness. Although it is to our benefit to seek peace with others, it is also in this time that we work with passion to make peace with ourselves. It is with this idea of an introspective look that I want to focus today.
There have been many times when I have found myself angry or disappointed in choices I have made. While forgiveness toward others can be a challenge, forgiveness toward myself is even more so. It is because I strive to be perfect in the view of others that I find myself falling short. I recall in my marriage that my ex-wife would point out an area that I could use a little help in. Once I got past the feelings of being attacked to see the point she was making, I would be determined to make the change, if only to not have that conversation again. I would strive intensely in correcting the behavior and feel progress was being made. When the progress report of her opinion was returned, though, she would not see the changes made the way I did. This alone would cause me to move into a state of feeling that I was destined to live this way, with no relief and no hope. Instead of continuing to press on I would grow stale or decline again. The guilt and shame of not being perfect the first time, now mixed with the feelings of failure the second time, only fueled my hatred of myself, causing bitterness to grow not only toward her but also toward myself.
As I was reading a shortened summary of the book of Job to my children a few days back, I began to grow with excitement. After all Job’s questions, God asked Job a few of His own. The where’s, can you’s, have you’s, and such began to fly. It was in this passage I found God speaking to me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?” (Job 38:4-5). It seems like a strange place to find an answer related to the Days of Awe, but is it really? Was it not these questions, and those asked in chapters 38-41, that Job was forced to look at himself? All this time Job was sitting around asking God why bad things were happening to him. Maybe in some way Job felt that he was too good for pain or struggle. But in God’s response, Job was suddenly humbled (Job 42:1-6).
The fact that I find it hard to forgive myself in essence puffs me above God. If I believe that God is good enough to forgive the world, yet do not believe that He is good enough to forgive me, then I make myself a god, elevated above the one true God. God did not send His Son to die for everyone but me. And He did not send His Son to die for every sin but mine. He sent His Son to die for all people and all sin. Therefore, the same questions are asked of me. Where was I when the foundations of the world were laid? Was I the one doing it? No. So then if I am not God-enough to form the world, then I am not God-enough to forgive my own sin. Instead of trying, I should surrender to the One who already has.
In these Days of Awe, when we reflect and seek forgiveness before Yom Kippur, let us consider the areas in which we have tried to be our own God and seek forgiveness for these moments. I will never be God, despite how hard I try. But let us also consider God’s words to Job that should also keep us humble. Forgiveness is offered to all, even to ourselves.