And now for something completely different . . .
For Some Sins There Is No Atonement
May the people of Israel become more considerate of one another
My granddaughter has been blessed with a best friend whom she has loved since kindergarten. This friend will, God willing, be married this coming Sunday, b’sha’ah tova.
My granddaughter arranged her schedule and her finances and found a flight to Israel through Munich she could afford that would permit her to spend the Shabbat Kallah with her beloved friend, attend the wedding, spend the next day with family, including my wife, who misses her terribly, and visit the grave of her other grandmother, a”h.
She was in midflight on the last leg of her journey when the airport union of the Israel Airport Authority, in an unauthorized and unlawful strike, shut down the airport. The plane returned to Germany. There was no way for her to complete the trip and this morning she will fly back to the United States.
For some sins, there is no atonement.
Some of those airport workers will attend selichot services, seeking forgiveness for their transgressions. Even more will beat their chests and confess on Yom Kippur. And many will attend no service. Presumably, they will all go on with their lives, complacent in the knowledge that they have forcefully made their point to their employers and demonstrated how critical is their work, how profound is their dissatisfaction, and how potent is their ability to inflict pain.
For some sins, there is no atonement.
The Finance Ministry estimates that the strike at Ben Gurion cost the economy more than 30 million shekels, including lost fees and charges, lost economic output, delays in the arrival of goods, and a long list of additional factors.
How do you put a price on a broken heart?
Yom Kippur atones for sins against God. For transgressions against another person, the offender remains culpable until the victim is compensated and appeased. But what happens when the loss is incompensable? When no appeasement is possible?
For some sins, there is no atonement.
The Prime Minister, furious, expelled the unrepentant head of the union from Likud. But even repentance would not expunge the pain his workers selfishly inflicted on tens of thousands of innocents who relied upon them, who trusted them to fulfill their obligations, to do their jobs, to be human beings with human feelings and compassion.
What have we become when we are willing to stage sit-ins on highways with no regard for emergency medical vehicles, mothers on the way to retrieve their children, patients headed for dialysis or chemotherapy? Who are we when we put our petty grievances (or even our major grievances) before our concern for our fellows?
My granddaughter, thank God, was not in a dire medical situation. But she, and the thousands of travellers who stood in lines for hours, whose plans and vacations were wrecked, who wasted precious hours and days because airport workers believed they were understaffed, deserved better.
One imagines the “triumphant” workers, basking in the glory of their victory over the establishment. Look at what we have accomplished! Look how we shut down the airport, reversed the course of planes in midflight, and threw the entire system into chaos! See how powerful we are!
And they won’t pause for a moment to consider the pain, the inconvenience, the distress, and the aggravation they inflicted.
My baser self wants to wish all these terrible things upon the workers, but I can’t bring myself even to desire their suffering. I hope they enjoy the weddings and anniversaries of their loved ones. I hope their vacations are not ruined by selfish, myopic, inconsiderate mercenaries. I hope that their lives stop being miserable, so they will no longer be blind to the feelings and welfare of others.
In the time of the Temple, even sacrifices could not atone for deliberate, rebellious sins against God. Those required repentance, confession, behavioral change, and, sometimes, suffering There is no sin that God cannot forgive.
Once again, I come face to face with the grim reality that I am not God.
Judaism does not have a category of sins that are intrinsically beyond atonement. I do.
Judaism does have a class of sins that exclude transgressors from the world to come. Without enumerating them, one can generalize that they are sins that damage the covenantal relationship, either with God, the Jewish people, or with basic human morality. Those sins constitute a rejection of communal identity and destiny. The world to come is not a reward; it is the soul’s natural state, when unsullied by sins that disfigure the soul and separate it from the values of the community.
Leaving fellow Jews stranded in the air or at the airport, without regard for their suffering and pain, comprises more than a moral failure; it is a fundamental rupture of the human and religious compact.
For some sins, there is no atonement.
May the wedding proceed in joy. May the chatan and kallah be blessed with a bayit ne’eman b’yisrael. May they and my granddaughter enjoy many smachot together.
And may the people of Israel become more considerate of one another.