We Grow By Saying No©

Kol Nidre 2026/5787

True story: It was the week before Rosh Hashanah in 2012, and I received an email from a congregant. The subject line read: “Rabbi: This is outrageous!” The message continued: “BaconFest 2012. Look at the date…it’s on Yom Kippur! I think you should call the Mayor and say something!”

At first, I wasn’t sure what the issue was. Was he upset about a treif food festival on the holiest day of the year? Was he worried about the message it sent in a city with so many Jews? I emailed back with a simple message: “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Why is this such a concern for you?”

He replied: “Because I wanted to go.”

I picked up the phone, called the mayor’s office: “Dear Mayor, I know I can’t endorse political candidates, but if you keep holding BaconFest on Yom Kippur…you’ll have my vote, no matter what; and not only that, but I will campaign for you. Thank you for your continued service to our great city and the Jewish people.”

For many American Jews, this is a real dilemma: standing in judgment at synagogue or standing in line for a bacon sampler. America has been our people’s land of opportunity and freedom. We’ve been able to live wherever we want, become whoever we want, and eat whatever we want. For many, that’s part of what it means to be an American Jew. 

We live in a culture of indulgence, and the Jewish community often leaned into it. But the concept of holiness offers a countercultural path: the spiritual discipline of restraint in a world that glorifies excess.

Ever heard of the marshmallow test? A child is seated at a table with one marshmallow and told: you can eat this one now, or if you wait, you can have two later.

The question is simple: Can you say no to something you want now because something better may be waiting later?

Our lives are like a big marshmallow test because we live in a world of abundance. 

You can sit on your couch at 11:30 at night and think, you know what I really need right now? A milkshake. With a simple click, somebody is prepared to bring it to you for a price. 

Almost every inconvenience that once stood between desire and gratification has been removed. We do not even have to wait two days for Amazon anymore. I imagine that by next year, drones will drop what we ordered onto our doorsteps minutes after we order it. We don't have to wait until we see a friend to tell them what happened, because we can text them immediately. We don't have to sit with boredom for thirty seconds because we have our phones. 

We have built an extraordinary world around one basic premise: If you want it, why not have it, and why wait? 

But Yom Kippur comes along once a year and offers us a radically different message. 

Sometimes, the only way to grow is to say no.

On Yom Kippur, the Torah tells us to practice inui nefesh, traditionally translated as afflicting ourselves. The rabbis understood this commandment through five forms of self-denial. We do not eat or drink. We refrain from washing for pleasure and anointing ourselves. We do not wear leather shoes. We refrain from sexual intimacy.

For twenty-five hours we refrain from food and drink, physical comfort, and intimacy, not because Judaism believes those things are sinful. Judaism celebrates food, wine, intimacy and the pleasures of this world. But once a year it tells us: Not today.

Yom Kippur is our yearly reminder that the only way to grow is to say no. 

This idea of boundaries is personal for me, because I learned it the hard way when I went to college in 1998. I was a student at the University of Florida. In high school, I had been very active in Jewish life. Some might have even called me a Super Jew. But when I arrived at college, I decided I wanted to take a break from it all.

And take a break I did. My beit knesset, my place of gathering, became house parties, nightclubs, and, of course, the football stadium. One Friday night, a friend from my dorm asked me if I wanted to go to Hillel with her. I looked at her and said, “But I’m spiritual, not religious.” 

So where did I go instead to grow spiritually? An ashram? Lake Alice to meditate? The Hare Krishna house? No.

I went to a nightclub; I mean, it was Friday night after all. I remember that night, not because I had a particularly good time, but because something happened to me there. I was standing in the middle of a crowded club, surrounded by hundreds of people who seemed to be having the time of their lives. I looked down at the plastic cup in my hand, took the last sip of my carbonated beverage, and stared into the empty cup

Suddenly, I realized the cup wasn't the only thing that felt empty. I did too. I was surrounded by people, and somehow I felt completely alone. For months, I had thought I was becoming freer. Nobody was telling me where I had to be on Friday night. Nobody was telling me what I could eat, when I should pray, when I should stop working, or what I was supposed to do with my time.

Every option was open to me, and I thought that was freedom. Years later, I learned that psychologists have a name for part of what I was experiencing: the paradox of choice.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz famously argued that we tend to assume that the more choices we have, the freer and happier we will be. And up to a point, choice is a wonderful thing. But beyond that point, more choices can leave us anxious, dissatisfied, and wondering whether we should have chosen something better.

I think back to that year in college and realize that I had confused freedom with having no boundaries.

Every Friday night I could ask: What do I feel like doing tonight? And eventually, the weeks began to bleed into one another. Friday was just another Friday. Saturday was just another Saturday. I had more choices, but I had less meaning. Eventually, I found my way back to Hillel and back to Shabbat. And I discovered something I hadn’t understood before, and I still hold dear. 

Shabbat takes away certain choices. For twenty-five hours, I don't have to decide whether I should answer that email. I don't have to decide whether I should go shopping, whether I should finish one more sermon or article, or whether I should keep scrolling. The answer has already been given. No. It is time to rest and be with yourself and your family. 

And strangely enough, that ‘no’ created room for a whole series of yeses in my life: yes to dinner with other people at Shabbat tables, yes to prayer, and yes to deep and meaningful conversations. I can rest and be present, and notice the person sitting across from me instead of that person texting me from somewhere else.

What I once experienced as restriction eventually became one of the greatest sources of freedom in my life. Because perhaps freedom is not having an unlimited number of choices.

Perhaps freedom is knowing what matters enough that some choices no longer have to be made.

Another famous story about an American Jew and Yom Kippur is one I have always loved, and I think it teaches us something important about the spiritual power of saying no.

In 1965, Sandy Koufax was at the height of his career and arguably the best pitcher in baseball. That year he won 26 games, struck out a then-record 382 batters, and pitched a perfect game. And then came the World Series.

Game 1 fell on Yom Kippur. Koufax was supposed to pitch, but he refused. Now understand, this was 1965, at a time when many American Jews were still trying to figure out how openly Jewish they could be while fully entering American life. And here was one of the most famous athletes in America, on the biggest stage of his career, saying: Not today.

Years later, when Koufax was asked why he made that decision, he didn’t give a long theological explanation. He simply said, “Respect.” And in his autobiography, he essentially explained that there was not much of a decision to make in the first place. Yom Kippur was simply a day on which he did not work. I think there is something very powerful in that.

The entire baseball world looked at October 6, 1965, and saw a choice. Do you pitch or do you not pitch? Do you put your team first or your tradition first? Do you take advantage of this opportunity or let it pass?

But Koufax had already made the deeper choice long before he ever arrived at the ballpark. He had decided that Yom Kippur was a boundary in his life, and because of that boundary, he didn’t have to renegotiate his values in the moment.

And saying no did not diminish him. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series, and Koufax was named its Most Valuable Player.

Sandy Koufax pitched four no-hitters during his career, but perhaps the most famous ‘no’ of his career was not one of those games. It was the game in which he did not pitch at all.

So more than sixty years later, we remember Sandy Koufax as one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived, but generations of American Jews also remember him for something he chose not to do.

And perhaps that is because there are moments in life when who we are is revealed not only by what we accomplish, but by what we are willing to give up because we have decided something else matters more.

And so maybe that is what Yom Kippur is really trying to teach us. The marshmallow test asks whether we can say no to something we want now because something better is waiting for us later. But Yom Kippur asks us something deeper. What are we willing to say no to because of the person we want to become?

Maybe it is work. Maybe it is our phones.

Maybe it is spending money we may not even have.

Maybe it is anger, resentment, or the need to always be right.

For twenty-five hours, we practice living with desire without immediately giving in. We are hungry, but we do not eat. We are uncomfortable, but we do not immediately make ourselves comfortable. We learn that wanting something does not mean that we have to have it.

At the beginning tonight, I told you about the congregant who was upset that BaconFest was being held on Yom Kippur. When I asked him why he cared so much, he said, “Because I wanted to go.”

Maybe that is the phrase Yom Kippur comes to challenge every year. “I want to” does not always have to be the last word.

Sometimes something else matters more. Sometimes saying no to one more hour of work means saying yes to our family. Saying no to our phones means saying yes to the person sitting right in front of us. Saying no to anger can create room for forgiveness.

So tonight, as we begin these twenty-five hours together, I want you to think about one thing in your life that you need to say no to this year.

Not because it is necessarily bad, and not because Judaism asks us to live smaller lives, but because something else in your life may matter more.

Pirkei Avot asks, “Who is rich?” and answers: “One who is happy with his or her share.”

Maybe part of spiritual growth is learning that we do not always need more. Sometimes what we need most is the ability to recognize that what we already have is enough.

Sometimes, the no is what makes the yes possible.

May the no we practice on this sacred day help us discover what truly deserves our yes in the year ahead.