“It’s You I Like” Kol Nidre 5786 / 2025
Rabbi Shoshana Leis
People who haven’t set foot in synagogue for decades return to be here for this moment. Why? Why does Kol Nidrei move us so deeply? For centuries rabbis themselves struggled with Kol Nidre because they worried it would be misunderstood.
“All our vows from last year to this one are null and void.” -Kol Nidre prayer
Wasn’t this a dangerous thing to say — that Jews could annul their promises with one sweeping declaration? Wouldn’t it make us appear dishonest in the eyes of our neighbors, untrustworthy in business? In fact, more than once, authorities outside the Jewish community seized upon Kol Nidrei to accuse Jews of treachery. Again and again, rabbinic leaders tried to cut it from the liturgy. Too confusing, too legalistic, too vulnerable to attack. And yet, no matter how many times they tried, the people refused to let it go. Year after year, it returned. Something seemed to touch our souls.
In late medieval Spain, Jews faced one of the most harrowing chapters in our history. They were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or face exile, torture, or death. Some chose martyrdom, sanctifying God’s name through public defiance. Others converted under duress, at least outwardly, in order to survive. These converts were called conversos — but more often they were derided with a crueler Spanish name: Marranos — pigs. On the surface, these men and women became Christians. They attended church, crossed themselves, swore oaths of loyalty. But many carried another truth deep within: in secret, they clung to Judaism. By candlelight behind shuttered windows, they whispered Hebrew blessings, taught their children the Shema, lit Sabbath candles hidden in the cellar. They became known as “b’nai anusim” — Hebrew, for the forced ones — or more evocatively, “secret Jews”. Imagine the shame and fear they must have lived with daily. Outwardly breaking vows to their ancestors, inwardly carrying the burden of divided identity. They could not live fully as Christians, but neither could they live openly as Jews. Their very lives were an unending performance, shadowed by humiliation, secrecy, and terror. For these Jews, the words of Kol Nidrei were not abstract legalese but survival itself. Whispered in hidden rooms, Kol Nidrei declared: the vows we were forced to take are not who we are. The names hurled at us are not our essence. The shame imposed upon us does not define us. In those hushed gatherings, the melody released what words could barely hold. It was a ritual of resistance, a reminder that under the surface they remained what they had always been.
Kol Nidrei became not only a release from broken promises, but from imposed inner shame. It gave voice to the truth they could not speak aloud:
We belong. We endure. We are still here.
Some of us have become fearful again to express our religion outwardly. For we who are also and again afraid, Kol Nidre is an evening to be together and to say together:
(Again) we belong. (Again) we endure. (Again) we are still here.
Kol Nidre is an antidote to shame. It has lasted because it transforms what so often rules us in silence: inner shame.
The story of shame — and its transformation — is not new. It is woven into our Torah, into our very name: yehudim Jews.
Take Leah. Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel, only to be tricked into marrying Leah instead.
“He loved Rachel more than Leah,” the Torah says. Imagine Leah’s shame — the “wrong sister.”
The symbol of his affection for her was that he kept fathering children with her.
Yet in the names of her first three sons in genesis 29:32, we see a lack of self-acceptance, self-love. She is looking to her husband Jacob to fill something in her that is not for him to fill…
Leah names her first son Reuven — from the root SEE . ‘יהוה has seen my affliction’; ‘Now my husband will love me.’”
She names her second son Shimon — hear me. “This is because יהוה heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also”; so she named him Simeon.
Levi — connect with me. Again she conceived and bore a son and declared, “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.
Leah’s words effectively become vows, sentences that imprison her, cement her reality. IN HER SELF - IMPOSED REALITY, Leah can not be seen, can not be heard, can not experience connection, is not lovable. Leah is not enough. But she made up this life sentence…
And then somehow, something shifts. With her fourth child she says, “This time I will give thanks.” She names him Yehuda — gratitude, acceptance, awareness of blessing, and the present moment.
LEAH’S INNER SHAME LIFTS… and she chooses LOVE.
we JEWS YEHUDIM from YEHUDA are named for Leah’s transformation. Leah found love — not from Jacob, but from something inside herself.
We are descendants of this Torah and know this Torah. I will never forget the life changing moment that my soul remembered this torah. I took on my hebrew name Shoshana the moment I realized that I had sentenced myself to a fate like Leah’s and also like Leah, I had the capacity to say something different, and create a loving future of connection for me that continues to this moment.
We are Yehudim — the people of Yehuda - the people of gratitude, self-acceptance, self-love.
We have all compared ourselves. When we do so, we are vowing that we are not good enough, lovable enough, like Leah… society encourages this when we are pitted against one another… But we are people who have the capacity to remember that the only one who ultimately measures our worth is God/ourselves holding inside Love- whose love is unconditional.
We are meant to say a hundred blessings each day to remind ourselves that like leah shift from SEE ME, HEAR ME CONNECT WITH ME can happen AT ANY MOMENT. I am worthy of love, i am good enough “I am grateful for what is.” AND I can be outside of my head and with YOU. A blessing said with intention, a moment of dropping in to the breath, a simple quiet admission to someone else that I have been in my head, and not with you… and now i am with you… that’s all it takes, a choice to be with our commitment that we commit to again tonight. TO SET OURSELVES FREE TO BE WHO WE ARE AND TO BE PRESENT HERE AND NOW WITH THE PEOPLE WE ARE WITH.
Across the generations, our people have wrestled with shame, fear, anxiety, guilt, anger, resentment, doubt - all things that stop us - and each era found its own way to carry and release them.
In Temple days, our ancestors could externalize their shame through the asham — the guilt offering. You laid your hands on an animal and watched it burn, as if to say: this shame no longer lives in me. The altar held what we could not.
When the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis reimagined: prayer became the new altar. Instead of smoke rising, our confessions rose.
Ashamnu, Bagadnu… We have been guilty, we have betrayed.
the rabbis also knew: shame doesn’t disappear with ritual alone. researcher Brené Brown teaches that guilt says, “I did something bad.”
Shame says, “I am bad.”
Guilt is about actions.
Shame is about identity.
That is why, here at PCS, when we rise for vidui, confessions, we add a counter-voice:
We are light and truth, infinite wisdom, eternal goodness…
Reminding ourselves who we truly are allows us to confess our guilt without collapsing into shame.
For all its dry legal words, hearing Kol Nidrei gives us the courage to loosen the grip of shame and open our hands again to self-forgiveness, self acceptance, self love.
But shame has not stayed in the Temple courts or the liturgy. It followed us into the modern world.
Think of Franz Kafka, the brilliant writer from 19th cen Prague. He lived most of his life as an outsider — a Jew in a Christian society, a German speaker in a Czech world, a frail son under a domineering father. In his diaries, he wrote:
“The history of mankind is the history of shame.”
For him, shame was not occasional; it was the very atmosphere of existence. His characters are accused without knowing their crime, judged without explanation, punished without escape. Kafka named what so many of us feel: shame is not only about what we’ve done, but about being human — exposed, misjudged, never enough.
The Torah teaches us the weight of our words, especially the promises we make to God:
You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed to your God יהוה, having made the promise with your own mouth. Deut. 23:24
מוֹצָ֥א שְׂפָתֶ֖יךָ תִּשְׁמֹ֣ר וְעָשִׂ֑יתָ כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר נָדַ֜רְתָּ לַיהֹוָ֤ה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ נְדָבָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּ֖רְתָּ בְּפִֽיךָ׃
This verse reminds us that the commitments we make—especially the ones we speak aloud—carry deep spiritual significance. But on Yom Kippur, we are given a sacred opportunity: the chance to release ourselves from vows that no longer serve us. This includes not only external promises but also the internal vows we've made—often unconsciously—out of pain, fear, or shame.
How many of us carry inner vows like:
"I must always be perfect."
"I'm not worthy unless I succeed."
"I can't be loved as I really am."
These silent promises shape how we live. They are self-imposed obligations—and like the vows mentioned in Torah, they must be acknowledged and consciously addressed. But here’s the grace of this holy day: we are allowed to let them go.
Letting go of these inner vows is not breaking our word; it’s choosing truth over self-punishment. It’s saying: I no longer need to carry this burden. I no longer need to live out of shame.
By releasing ourselves from these false obligations, we open space for something holier: acceptance, compassion, and the courage to begin again.
But what about tomorrow, or next week, when the melody fades and shame’s voice returns? How do we live differently with it?
Why is it that so many of us loved watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood?
Fred Rogers was a counter-voice to shame. While the world told us to prove ourselves, he reassured: you already belong.
It's You I Like
It’s you I like,
It’s not the things you wear,
It’s not the way you do your hair,
But it’s you I like.
The way you are right now,
The way down deep inside you.
Not the things that hide you,
Not your toys,
They’re just beside you.
But it’s you I like.
Every part of you.
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings
Whether old or new.
I hope that you’ll remember,
Even when you’re feeling blue.
That it’s you I like,
It’s you yourself
It’s you.
It’s you I like.
Mr rogers knew - like the author of KN and the inventors of YK- that shame shrinks in safety.“We have to be able to talk about things,” he said. “Shame and the wall it creates come down when we share what we’re going through.”
There is another song that carries the same message. The Greatest Love of All was written in the 1970s by Michael Masser and Linda Creed. Creed, battling cancer, poured into the lyrics a message she wanted children to carry: that their worth was unshakable, their strength found in learning to love themselves.
Whitney Houston’s voice lifted it into the hearts of a generation:
“Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all.”
What are your anthems that tell the same truth?
That we don’t have to earn love. That We are worthy already.
Once a year, we face our unworthiness together. We let the melody lift it from our bodies into the air. And as we sing, we discover what our ancestors knew: shame shrinks when it is shared.
We are not alone in our failures nor defined by our worst mistakes. We can step out of secrecy, silence, and judgment — and sing - or witness singing if singing isn’t our thing- ourselves back into belonging.
maybe, tonight, we can hear again the melodies that once taught us the beauty of our being and the truth of our belonging:
Fred Rogers whispering: “It’s you I like. The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you.”
Whitney Houston soaring: “Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all.”
Different songs, same truth: you are loved. We are loved. Just as we are.
That is the invitation for tonight. To know it. To feel it. To sing it together.