Rabbi Mark Glickman: Thank You, God, for Not Yet Accepting Me as I Am

By Rabbi Mark Glickman

(Calgary) – “Mom and Dad, why do you keep pushing me? Why can’t you just accept me for who I am?”

My guess is that, if you have ever parented an adolescent, you’re heard that plaintive line repeatedly, or perhaps others expressing the same sentiment. That’s because most teenagers yearn for affirmation – for acceptance of who they are, even if they haven’t quite figured it out for themselves yet.

To be sure, there’s a part of all of us – teenagers or not – that wants others to accept us. It’s nice to receive kudos; it enjoyable to get pats on the back; it feels great when friends and family compliment us for who we are.

That’s why I find it a little weird that two of the most “popular” Jewish holidays of all – the sacred occasions that draw more Jews to synagogues than any others, and indeed the days that many refer to by the Christian-influenced moniker “High Holidays,” are days that focus on the very opposite of such affirmations.

The major focus of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – more appropriately called “The Days of Awe” (after the Hebrew Yamim Nora’im) isn’t that of telling us how wonderful we are. Instead, these days call us to look at our sins, our transgressions, and our shortcomings. Collectively, we say “Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu…we have been guilty, we have betrayed, we have robbed.” In Hebrew the list of sins is alphabetical, with the traditional liturgy having us recite an A-to-Z of the many ways we’ve failed to reach our potential during the previous year.

And even though those transgressions are recited as a community, Jewish law calls upon each of us to use this time on the Jewish calendar to take an accounting of our souls, looking at ourselves closely in the moral mirror, and taking stock of what we see, warts and all.

We may be striving for affirmation, but if we hope to find it in the Jewish practices of this time of year, it won’t be easy.

Indeed, while there are areas of Jewish life that affirm the beauty and majesty of each of us as creations of God, the central message of these days is that we’re not good enough. Instead, these days call upon us to look at our faults and fix them – to engage in the sacred work of teshuvah, repentance, and to become better than we are right now.

It’s as if God were looking at each of us and saying “Accept you who you are? What, do you think I’m nuts? Just look at you. You gossip; you’re greedy, you’re not as attentive to your friends and family as you should be. And I’m just getting started! Let me remind you of some of the many other ways you fall short…I don’t accept you for who you are – I made you so you can be better than this, and that’s what I want you to be!”

These days, in other words, call us to engage in nothing less than what Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik referred to as “a re-creation of the self.” They insist that we not rest on our laurels and be satisfied with our selves as they are now, but that we constantly do the hard work we need to do in order to improve.

That might come across as demeaning – as a “dis” on each and every one of us as human beings – but I believe it’s just the opposite. Remember, God wouldn’t command us to do something impossible, and insisting that we improve ourselves therefore conveys an implicit message that we can improve. Yes, we are the way we are, flaws and all, but the message of these Awesome Days is that we don’t need to remain that way. In fact, one of the greatest things about being a human being is that we’re not stuck with the selves we have now, but that we can constantly be creating new selves – new and improved selves – and achieve great things in the process. We can become kinder, more compassionate, stronger fighters for justice in a world that so desperately needs it. And we can improve in countless other ways, as well.

We might not be perfect yet, our tradition teaches us, but we can grow toward perfection each and every day. What greater compliment is there than that?

“Why don’t I accept you as you are?” God says. “Because I know you can do better.”

Perhaps the greatest Jewish response of all would be to thank God for the vote of confidence, and then to proceed with the sacred act of repentance, and thus traverse the path toward human greatness.

Shanah Tovah.

Rabbi Mark Glickman is Rabbi at Temple B’nai Tikvah in Calgary.