Closed Gates and Open Seats (Yom Kippur 5786)

Closed Gates and Open Seats
Rabbi Sivan Rotholz, Yom Kippur 5786

This summer, I officiated a wedding in Nashville. It was a wonderful celebration, and Nashville proved to be a fantastic city – great music, incredible food, and some excellent vintage shopping. My partner accompanied me, and we turned it into a mini vacation, even driving three-and-a-half hours to visit Dollywood. It was the closest thing to a real break I had all year.

On the flight home, we flew Southwest Airlines, where seats aren't assigned. By the time our boarding group was called, only single seats remained, scattered throughout the cabin. I approached a woman sitting in an aisle seat and politely asked, "Would you mind moving back just one seat so my partner and I can sit together?" She mumbled something inaudible. Assuming she'd agreed, I said cheerfully, "Thank you so much!" and stepped aside. "I said no," she replied with startling firmness. "I'm staying right here."

Caught off guard, I apologized and turned to the man across the aisle. "Would you mind switching to this seat so we can sit together? It's still an aisle seat." His response was equally blunt: "Nope. I'm fine right where I am."

I stood there, genuinely perplexed. Naturally I know that air travel has become more stressful lately, but I wasn't asking for anyone to do the unthinkable — move to a middle seat. I was just asking them to move to a different aisle seat, one row back. But they simply refused to move – even one foot – to accommodate strangers seeking a small kindness.

My mind raced to make sense of this interaction. What accounts for the impulse not to be helpful or even polite? Not even for a moment to consider whether the inconvenience was, in fact, so inconvenient. I could not help but think, “Have we adjusted to a kind of stubborn individualism where people won't budge even slightly for another human being?”

Why was this small experience so much bigger in my head? Because this wasn't an isolated incident. It seems that we see this almost-indignant individualism everywhere today – in our politics, where compromise has become a dirty word and tribalism a rallying cry; in our neighborhoods, where people no longer know their neighbors' names; in our online spaces, where we retreat into echo chambers that confirm our existing beliefs. We see it in the rising rates of loneliness and social isolation, in the decline of civic participation, in the way we've turned basic acts of public health into battles over personal freedom. The airplane was just a tiny snapshot of a larger cultural shift toward indifference, a mirror held up to a society that increasingly sees other people not as fellow travelers, but as obstacles to our personal comfort.

And, Judaism teaches us something radically different from this intransigent individualism.

Now, it’s not that Judaism instructs that individual needs don’t matter. Hillel taught: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" But he immediately added, "If I am only for myself, what am I?" Being only for themselves, I wondered: What were these passengers? Certainly not monsters. Perhaps they just felt tired and didn't want to get up. Or maybe they felt so powerless in the rest of their daily lives that refusing my request represented one precious moment of control.

Perhaps if they felt like they had more power in our society or agency in their lives, they wouldn't experience a stranger's polite request as a threat to their autonomy. Perhaps they felt a close attachment to row 15. But it’s also possible that this reflects not a personal failing, but a deeper societal affliction.

In contrast, Jewish tradition insists that human beings survive and thrive not through intense self-interest, but by supporting one another – today, and every day.

Consider the architecture of Yom Kippur. The fast we're undertaking right now is fundamentally communal – we're doing this together. Our most sacred prayers require a minyan, a gathering of ten Jewish adults. We literally cannot perform the essential rituals of our faith alone. Before we could stand here today seeking God's forgiveness, we first had to seek forgiveness from those we wronged during the past year. The very mechanism of atonement depends entirely on reconciliation with other people, and the ways we come together inevitably require that we inconvenience ourselves for the sake of our fellow humans. We need each other, Yom Kippur teaches us. We can’t atone, reset, mourn, pray, even express gratitude without each other. Our survival depends on it.

This is underscored by the Haftarah we read today from Isaiah. The prophetic voice categorically rejects individualistic practice and demands our shared responsibility for societal repair. We hear the prophet's powerful message that our fast means nothing if we are ignoring people in need around us. God demands that we first care for one another, then we show up for worship. Isaiah demands that we free the oppressed, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. Individual devotion divorced from collective responsibility is empty performance.

Tonight, when Yom Kippur ends, we'll stand together for Ne'ilah – the closing of the Gates of Prayer – beating our chests in unison as this holy day concludes. Every element of Yom Kippur declares the same truth: authentic Jewish life recognizes our fundamental interconnectedness. Recognizing our bonds requires us to accommodate one another, to give as much as we take, to bend, and to take care of each other. This profound truth applies not only to Jews, but to all of humanity struggling to maintain dignity and connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

The poet Muriel Rukeyser captures this essential truth in her poem "The Book of the Dead" when she writes, "What three things can never be done? Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone."

This teaching becomes especially urgent when challenges feel greater. Whether we're doing the vulnerable work of repentance, or living through what feels like a more uncertain, perilous time to be a public Jew, or to be undocumented, a person of color, transgender, or a visible advocate – of any political stripe – whose ideas anger opponents enough for them to resort to violence. When the world turns hostile, recognizing our bonds becomes our lifeline. Interdependence becomes survival itself.

So when people won't move one foot to accommodate another human being's simple request, when basic kindness becomes too much to ask, I worry about the threads that bind us together.

But my story doesn't end with the people who refused to open their seats. After both passengers declined, a woman suddenly spoke up: "You can have my seat so you can sit together." Without being asked, she volunteered to give up her coveted window seat for two complete strangers. I didn't accept her offer – wanting to show her the same kindness she was showing us – but I thanked her profusely for the generosity she offered.

What I learned from this exchange was that for every two people infected by stubborn individualism, at least one person will go out of their way to lift others up. This gives me genuine hope. Because hope, I've come to understand, is not about believing everything will work out – it's about recognizing that the cure for what plagues us already exists in our capacity to choose connection, to acknowledge that we are all bound together, whether we realize it or not.

And this is where Judaism's most radical teaching becomes clear: the threads that connect us don't end at the familiar. The Torah commands us thirty-six times to care for the stranger precisely because the stranger isn't actually a stranger – they are part of our same web of existence. When we ignore this truth, when we act as if others' needs or fundamental human rights or suffering doesn't affect us, we tear at the very fabric that holds us all together.

I don't know how we heal society's fractures. I don't know how we calm our fears, connect on a genuine level with those who are unlike us, or exchange stubborn individualism for deep wells of empathy. But I do know that hope and interconnectedness are not separate things. Hope is the knowledge that we don't have to face tomorrow alone because we are already connected to every other person struggling to find their place in this world.

The Jews have survived millennia of persecution not through individual strength, but by recognizing that our fates are intertwined. When one of us suffers, we all suffer. When one of us is lifted up, we are all lifted. This is why antisemitism is so dangerous – not just because it targets Jews, but because it tears at the bonds that keep all of humanity whole.

As Jews, we see this throughout our rituals – not just on Yom Kippur, but in how we dance together at weddings, show up for funerals and shivas, welcome new life at brit milah and brit bat ceremonies. If Jews are chosen to be a light unto the nations, if we're meant to inspire others toward meaningful lives, then our understanding of interconnectedness is something we must share with the world. The Torah’s directive to welcome and care for the stranger is no quaint Hallmark card: our tradition reminds us 36 times that living together in this world means inconveniencing ourselves for the sake of others because their well-being and ours are inextricably linked.

I don't know how to reach the person who won't change seats, to help them recognize that their thriving is connected to the thriving of the strangers around them. I don't know how to touch the bigoted Instagram commenter's heart, to remind them that when they tear down another human being, they unravel the delicate network that sustains us all. I don't know how to awaken comfortable Americans to see that when anyone suffers – whether in detention centers or from lack of science-based healthcare or from attacks on their fundamental humanity – we all suffer, because every person's pain diminishes our shared humanity.

But I do know that we are a people chosen to exemplify what's good and possible – a people who understands that humans survive and thrive not through individualism or by diminishing others, but by recognizing and honoring the threads that connect us all. This is why the woman willing to give up her window seat gave me hope. This is why our gathering here today gives me hope. Because every act of choosing connection over isolation, every moment we show up for each other, is a glimpse of the world as it could be.

As we stand together on this holiest day, fasting together, praying together, seeking forgiveness together, we embody Judaism's most radical teaching: we are intertwined.

May we not only honor our bonds with one another in the year ahead, but become the light that helps others recognize the connections that already exist. May our commitment to seeing and honoring these threads inspire others to remember: we are not here for ourselves alone, but as part of the great web of existence that includes us all.

When the Gates of Prayer close tonight, may we carry this sacred understanding beyond these sanctuary walls and remember what Isaiah demanded of us: to make this fast mean something – not just for ourselves.

G'mar chatimah tovah – may we all be sealed together for a year of goodness, health, and hope.