Ash Wednesday

Rabbi Burton Visotzky in his book, The Genesis of Ethics, sketches a contemporary parable appropriate for Ash Wednesday:
In a large modern synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur, [the Day of Atonement,] the holiest day of the year, the rabbi wraps his cashmere prayer shawl around his Armani suit. With the practiced timing of years in the pulpit, as the last congregant slips into her seat, the rabbi throws open the ark and falls prostrate before it. Flat on his face, he proclaims before the Lord, ‘Master of the Universe! Today is Yom Kippur and we must beg your forgiveness. I am overwhelmed by the Task! I am an unworthy vessel. I am but dust and ashes!’

The cantor, shrouded in a white silk robe covering his Calvin Klein summer-weight suit, takes his cue and falls before the ark. Flat on his face, he proclaims before the Lord, ‘Master of the Universe! Today is Yom Kippur and we must beg your forgiveness. I am overwhelmed by the task! I am an unworthy vessel. I am but dust and ashes!’

Finally, the beadle of the synagogue, [their verger,] an old European Jew in a baggy mismatched jacket and trousers, takes his turn before the ark. He, too, falls prostrate and sobs, ‘Master of the Universe! Today is Yom Kippur and we must beg your forgiveness. I am overwhelmed by the Task! I am an unworthy vessel. I am but dust and ashes!’

At this, the cantor hisses to the rabbi, ‘Will you just look at that! What gall! Just who does he think he is to call himself but dust and ashes?’[1]

Visotzky parable echoes Matthew’s warning against a hypocritical, flamboyant public demonstration of repentance that lacks any factual basis.[2] Ash Wednesday is not the day in the liturgical year on which we publicly flaunt our unworthiness, as in Jesus’ teaching and Visotzky’s modern parable. Nor is Ash Wednesday intended as a day that pushes us in the opposite direction, of utter self-abasement and a subsequent feeling of total worthlessness.

Instead, Ash Wednesday signifies the start of Lent, forty days in which the Church encourages people to examine their spiritual lives. How have you transgressed, fallen short, or missed the mark? The process is a diagnostic examination, analogous to annual physicals and periodic automobile tune-ups that promote proper functioning. Periodic examinations of one’s spiritual life promote improved spiritual health.


[1] Burton Visotzky, The Genesis of Ethics (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996), p. 66.
[2] Matthew 6:1, 16-18.