By Rabbi Sydni Rubinstein
Parashat Mattot-Masei

Around this time of year, as I immerse myself in High Holy Day planning meetings and sermon writing, I start thinking about my own personal intentions for teshuvah, my own personal goals for returning to a more ideal self in the new year. This year, as I look forward into 5785, I intend to focus on my follow-through with the offers I make, times that I set and tasks to which I commit. As Parashat Mattot reminds me each and every year, trustworthiness transcends the purely practical and approaches the sacred task of sanctifying God’s name.

Right at the beginning of Parshat Mattot, Moshe tells the heads of the tribes of Israel:

This is the word that God commanded: Each man who makes a vow to God or takes an oath prohibiting something for himself, he shall not profane his word. Everything that comes out of his mouth, he shall do (Numbers 30:2-3).

In later Jewish texts, vows — nedarim — are defined as statements in which one promises to refrain from doing or engaging in something. Oaths — shavuot — are those in which one uses the name of God to promise to do something.

We are responsible for our words and thus cannot have our vows or oaths annulled. Essentially, we are commanded to do everything we promise we will, a feat that requires a great deal of self-trust. When we trust ourselves enough to make vows and oaths, we make ourselves vulnerable to the possibilities of disappointment and judgment from others, vulnerable to the real-life consequences of making and breaking promises and vulnerable to the personal weight of letting ourselves down. Before we make any promise, we have to know that this promise is both realistic and worthwhile to keep. Making a promise, then, whether to ourselves or others, can be risky, even terrifying. At the same time, keeping that promise becomes a truly holy endeavor, an opportunity to perform a mitzvah.

As I prepare for the High Holy Days once more, I am comforted by the knowledge that Kol Nidre is part of our service. Kol Nidre, that haunting musical statement that introduces the 25 hours of Yom Kippur, acts as a legal force annulling all unfulfilled vows to God and self from the past year. As much as we may try to fulfill every promise to do or not to do, our liturgy comforts us with the reminder that we are human. We are made in the flawless image of God and yet, we sometimes say things we do not mean or things that we will regret later. We are made in the flawless image of God and therefore, we have inherited the attribute of forgiveness, not just to others, but to ourselves as well.

In these two months before Yom Kippur, I challenge each and every one of us to make at least one concrete promise, maybe even two or three. Before we make that promise, we take a breath and check in with ourselves that those words are as genuine and achievable as they are ambitious. After we make our promises, we are responsible — according to Torah law — to do everything in our power to keep them, changing our priorities accordingly and letting others know about our intentions, so that we can keep ourselves accountable. At the same time, let us take that risk of promise-making with the understanding that our God and hopefully our loved ones as well, will offer us opportunities for forgiveness, to make amends and try again. While we will certainly experience consequences if we cannot fulfill our promises, we can still move forward, learning about our limits from the promises we break. Beyond trust from others and trust from God, may we use these promises to seek trust in ourselves, both for the commitments we uphold and for the reasons we know in our hearts we cannot uphold them.

Rabbi Sydni Rubinstein serves Congregation Beth Torah.