As Jews prepare to celebrate a Jewish New Year, repairing frayed relationships is part of the process.
It starts with asking others for forgiveness and forgiving others, as atonement is the focal point of the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
It is a time of turning and transformation, and Yom Kippur, which will be celebrated this year beginning at sunset on Oct. 8, will be a day Jews will ask God to forgive them for their sins.
While atonement has a central basis of reparation, its meaning stretches for many people, and perspectives of it thrive in religious denominations other than Judaism.
Some local religious leaders shared their perspectives on atonement with The Montclair Times:
Baha’i Faith
Pamela Zivari, vice chair of the local spiritual assembly of the Baha’is of Montclair:
The concept of forgiveness is very important in the b faith as with other major world religions. Bah don’t believe that any human being has the power to absolve them of wrongdoing, but that absolution comes from God. We believe that we should try our best not to harm another’s heart."
Baptist
The Rev. Walter Parrish, of Union Baptist Church:
"Baptists subscribe to the standard understanding of the need for and the importance of atonement. For us, it happens most clearly in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. However, being frail and having faults, a wise Christian always understands that we need atonement. Therefore, atonement is an ongoing process that is necessary in the life of a believer. The Bible teaches us that if we have an issue with someone else, we are to go to them and try to work it out. And that’s not calendar specific. Whenever it happens is when we should do it."
Catholic
Monsignor Timothy Shugrue, of Immaculate Conception R.C. Church:
"Atonement … is what Jesus’ birth, life and resurrection were all about. The purpose of his coming in the flesh was to be our atonement – doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. And satisfying God’s justice … through our trying to live according to Jesus’ teachings, expressing sorrow for our own sins and trying to make reparation for our sins against God and our neighbor."
Methodist
The Rev. Frank Aguilh, of First United Methodist Church:
"I have a saying that to atone means we see ourselves as one. You become one with Christ, who makes us one with God, by paying on the cross for our sins, and that puts us back into a relationship with God. Atonement is a price that Christ paid by his death. This is not a Methodist perspective. It is a Christian perspective."
Unitarian Universalist
The Rev. Charlie Ortman, of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair:
"Many of us in this congregation come directly out of the Jewish tradition. Some are related by blood, or by marriage, some of us by a gastronomic affinity. Some of us are not quite so directly related to Judaism at all. In our principles and purposes of Unitarian Universalism, we especially claim our heritage from Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-Centered sources.
"It’s our practice in the liberal religious tradition to celebrate these foundations that have fed our own tradition … we turn to the message of the High Holy Days to find the value of its theme as it relates to us in our time and place. A danger in drawing from other traditions is the risk of misappropriating elements of those traditions. It’s not our attempt here to pretend that we’re all Jewish for the day, or for the week. Instead we recognize that these High Holy Days are of major significance in the Jewish year, that they carry valuable lessons for us all about atonement, right-relationship, renewal and integrity for the long haul.
"Over the years, we’ve approached the High Holy Days from a number of different views. We’ve talked about extending radical forgiveness, and asking for forgiveness. We’ve talked about the word atone as it relates to being at one within ourselves and in the world around us. We’ve talked about making confession – the discipline of being truly contrite, of claiming and owning our responsibility in our wrongdoings. And we’ve talked about new beginnings, starting over, fresh and new … something we haven’t really talked about is that maybe we get a little too good at forgiving ourselves – for the same things, over and over."
"Perhaps a 14-year-old girl in Amsterdam, during World War II, put it best when Anne Frank wrote: ‘Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this; it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong.’
"Still, it’s not enough in this once again war-torn, broken world that we live in, to think only of our own self-improvement, not enough to grow strong merely for our own gratification. We are not isolated beings. And again, it is only our arrogance that allows us to think we are somehow unique, somehow isolated. The truth is, just as we are a part of all the beauty that exists, we are a part of that larger brokenness, too. The life of spiritual integrity also calls us to atonement in a corporate way in response to our common compliance with that brokenness."
This compilation was created with the assistance of religious leaders who were available as of The Times’ press time.
