At the spring thaw, as the ice began to melt, Algonquin tribe would gather from near and far to assemble at the bank of the river. In Algonquin territory, winters were so cold that breath would freeze as it left the mouth, forming icicles on the face and beard. If the air was cold enough to freeze one’s breath, the Algonquin reasoned, it could freeze their very words. They imagined that every angry word spoken, every harsh judgment uttered, lay frozen, concealed beneath the ice; and that come springtime, when the ice melted, all the words would at once be set free.  At winter’s end, then, the community gathered to confess their sins; and as the melting ice yielded its secrets, the Algonquins would reveal theirs.

On Yom Kippur our people gathers to confess our sins. It is not a flowing river that uncovers our secrets; but a knowing God who pores over the written record of our deeds, reading us like an open book.

On Yom Kippur, we envision that God knows all our secrets, even the ones we’ve concealed from ourselves. Today we confront these private truths and remind ourselves that even if our sins remain concealed from others, they ought not to be from us.

It’s ironic then that on this day of introspection our High Holiday prayer book includes the 81^st Psalm: Tiku va chodesh Shofar, b’Keseh l’yom chagenu - Sound the Shofar for our festival day at the time of concealment.” How odd that the day devoted to contemplation and self discovery should be called a time of concealment. What is it about this day that makes it a day of concealment?

Perhaps, our tradition suggests, it’s because unlike most Jewish holidays which fall midmonth, the high holy days fall at the month’s beginning, concealed in the darkness of the new moon.

Or perhaps because the word Kippur of Yom Kippur can mean to cover up: Yom Kippur being the time for God to cover our transgressions and conceal our misdeeds.

Or maybe it’s because even as we reach Yom Kippur, we’re reluctant to face the very things we’ve covered up—hoping, like an ostrich with its head in the sand, that we won’t have to face up to our failings, even now.

Whatever the meaning of the Bible’s elusive phrase, Yom Kippur is a time to think not only about secrets, but about secrecy itself. Today we look back and ask: What confidences did we fail to keep this past year?  What secrets did we protect that should have been disclosed?  And how did we decide what to conceal or reveal about ourselves and others?

These are important questions because the decision to conceal or reveal a secret can have considerable effect. A secret concealed can protect us or endanger us; a secret revealed can embarrass us or relieve us of a burden. Either way, secrets give us power over others, and thus require of us a significant degree of ethical integrity.

No event this past year underscored this more thoroughly than the release of classified documents last November by the website, Wikileaks, many of which contained sensitive data about America’s diplomatic and foreign policy. At first, Wikileaks controlled the release of the information, being careful to redact the names of confidential operatives and informers. Last month, however, it dumped over 251,000 unedited classified communications. Just this morning, Obama signed an executive order to strengthen data security and to create an insider threat task force to detect vulnerabilities and breaches from within the military and intelligence community.

Some suggest that transparency in all levels of government is paramount; others maintain, particularly in the area of foreign policy, that some degree of secrecy is wise. Tonight, I won’t be speaking about whether Julian Assange and Wikilinks were justified in what they did. Come back in a few Shabbats to hear about that.

Tonight, the issue at hand is not the government’s secrets, but our own. Our own Heshbon HaNefesh, our soul – accounting that we do in this season, bids us evaluate the role secrecy plays in our lives; to examine the decisions we made regarding secrecy this past year; and last, to ask: what criteria might we use to help us reach ethical decisions in the future?

Secrecy affects every aspect of our lives. Every day we make a hundred decisions about what we choose to reveal or conceal; we monitor every conversation, weighing who has a desire to know, who has a right to know, who has a need to know. Whether at work or at home, owing to professional confidentiality or simply to good judgment, we make choices that locate us somewhere on the spectrum between total openness and total privacy.

While pervasive in our lives, secrecy has acquired a pejorative connotation, especially in American culture. Governmental abuses of secrecy during Vietnam, Watergate, and Irangate, coupled with the Christian emphasis on confession, leads many to equate secrecy with impropriety.  In addition, the tenets of psychotherapy and encounter groups teach that an unwillingness to be open indicates underlying pathology. In the name of mental health, we’ve learned to be “up front”, to let it all hang out, and to say whatever is on our minds.

This allegiance to openness finds expression in reality television, particularly the talk shows that present topics like: “Men who marry their ex-wives sisters.” One show’s host told the New York Times: “People will tell you anything especially if they are Americans.” While perhaps entertaining, such openness can be damaging. Explains sociologist Richard Sennett, on such shows “we’re watching people being humiliated, debasing themselves.” They are unable or unwilling to limit what they share with others, a classic symptom of low self - esteem.  As one guest confirmed: “I don’t have too much pride.”

Such degrading displays suggest what we know instinctively, that secrecy is both desirable and necessary.  Imagine a world without secrecy!  Each of us would be an open book. We could read others’ minds, know everything about their innermost fears, their plans, their dreams. In turn, we ourselves would be transparent: our thoughts, our motives available to anyone who cared to intrude upon them.

In its favor, such a world would lack deceit, pretense and hypocrisy. All relationships would instead be characterized by sincerity and utter truthfulness. But who could stand it? After all, we are only human; we all have thoughts and feelings we’d prefer not to share.  In the interest of good relations and simple decency, we’ve learned to screen our thoughts and feelings with care, to be sure that what goes out conforms to our values and common sense.

Such social skills are learned early. Indeed, secrecy plays a developmental role in our lives; it enables us to define our individual identity, allows us to establish appropriate relationships, and plays a key role in the way we make ethical decisions.

Our first experience of secrecy comes in childhood. As infants, we are at one with our surroundings; through games of peek - a - boo, and later, hide and seek, we learn we have a “self” distinct from the world around us, a “self” we can choose to conceal or reveal at will. Soon, we find that, in addition to hiding our bodies, we can also conceal our thoughts, and our actions.

What must it mean to a child to discover the power of secrecy, the ability to conceal one’s experiences! “The possession of a secret”, wrote Carl Jung, “had a very powerful formative influence on my character; I consider it an essential fact of my boyhood.” Indeed, to be able to keep a secret is to discover that we can set boundaries that define our “selves,” our identity.

Once we realize we can conceal our thoughts and feelings from others, we learn we can reveal them too, thereby enhancing our relationships. To mere acquaintances we reveal less; to those closer to us, we reveal more of our thoughts and our feelings in order to establish trust and intimacy.

Secrecy not only facilitates identity formation and intimacy, it also enters into ethical decision making. Ethical decisions begin with the ability to distinguish right from wrong but reach a new level when we acknowledge that our actions might remain concealed. That possibility has tempted more than a few to transgress.

This scenario unfolds in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment; Reasoning that God is dead, the protagonist, Raskolnikov, commits murder and expects to escape punishment. While he manages to elude the authorities, he is unable to escape from himself and his conscience and eventually authors his own demise.

The Bible relates similar evasions, but there the end is never in doubt. Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, Cain was marked for life, even Jonah, the reluctant prophet, was made to go to Nineveh. While they attempted to hide from God, they were unable to conceal themselves and, in the end, were held accountable.

This testifies to the Jewish understanding that even when a transgression is concealed from others, it is not concealed from God. We can run, the Torah tells us, but we cannot hide from ourselves or from the implications of our actions.

While secrecy plays a formative role in our youth, we continue to encounter it every day as adults. A new question confronts us: how do we go about the delicate business of deciding day to day what to conceal and reveal to others? What factors might we consider in making such decisions?

We might first consider our motivations. What is on our agenda? Do we seek to create closeness by sharing a secret, or to cause someone’s embarrassment? Are we wielding a secret to exercise power by controlling what others do or do not know? Are we trying to impress someone with our knowledge of confidential matters? Is our aim ultimately altruistic or self-serving? When we consider whether to conceal or reveal a secret, the first task is to discern our true motivations.

We might also ask: What will be the probable effects of my decision? Will people be helped or hurt? Will keeping a secret leave someone without the information they need to make a crucial decision? Or will a secret uncovered come as an unbearable catastrophe? While its impossible to predict such outcomes with certainty, we owe it to ourselves and others to think it through before we open our mouths.

Further, we might inquire whether revealing a secret will violate someone’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Is the information of a delicate or sensitive nature? Or, might there even be occasions in which the need to know outweighs someone’s right to privacy?

These criteria can guide our review of this past year: What were our true motivations? What were the foreseeable effects of our decisions?  Did we violate someone’s reasonable expectation of privacy? Was that right to privacy superseded by another’s right to know?

When we review the past year we turn first to our own secrets, the content of which, by and large, consists of our thoughts and feelings. We might recall the times we chose to reveal our thoughts when we should have kept them hidden. Even if we were motivated by a desire for closeness, we may not have had a chance to think through the effect our words would have.  Or perhaps we were upset, or in a rush, or had a bad day at school or a disaster at work, and said things that in retrospect, we wish we hadn’t.  Regrettably, it’s often those closest to us who get the least consideration, since it is with them we are most accustomed to sharing our feelings. In the absence of forethought, however, our words can do real damage.

Or we might recall the times we concealed what we were thinking or feeling. Our motive may have been to shield a loved one from a volatile first reaction; yet, if we continually conceal our feelings, we risk one of two outcomes: either our feelings will simmer until they come to a boil at inappropriate times; or worse, our sublimated anger and disappointment will grow cold and rigid within us and obstructs our ability to express our love. At such times, our silence can cut deeper than any words.

When we consider the times we’ve mishandled the secrets of others, we realize there is no area of secrecy more fraught with temptation. We know we should protect the secrets we hold in confidence, but sometimes we just can’t resist the urge to share:

• relating another’s embarrassment or shame;
• or the critical or derogatory comments made by others;
• or disclosing the proceedings of a closed meeting;
• or betraying a particularly juicy tidbit we heard originally in confidence.

Experience teaches us that secrecy’s stock phrases, ”promise not to tell”, or “just between you and me”, or “strictly off the record,” do precious little to further concealment.  The Talmud speaks knowingly when it say: “Secrets are easier to hear than to keep.”

Relating the secrets of others is a form of “Lashon HaRa”, hurtful or damaging speech. The book of Leviticus shares the pointed advice: “Do not go as a talebearer among your people.” And the Talmud, recognizing the danger in revealing another’s secret, warns: “One who shares a secret oftentimes causes bloodshed.”

The laws of Lashon HaRa forbid revealing the secrets of others except in order to prevent future injury. Indeed, we occasionally encounter secrets so disturbing that we are compelled to intervene before further harm is done. When we discover:

• Dishonesty, corruption, or harassment in the workplace.
• or someone’s abusive behavior towards children or spouses or parents.
• or someone’s abuse of alcohol or drugs.
• or a person likely to harm himself or others, like someone who’s been drinking and is about to get behind the wheel.

If we’re lucky, we won’t encounter such moments often, but when we do, we should respond with moral courage. We need to weigh our motivations, the probable effects our decision may have, the privacy of those involved, and, particularly, whether the right to privacy is superseded by another’s need to know. If it is, we know we should take action.

While these criteria provide guidance, I don’t mean to make it sound as if such decisions are easy or clear cut. Motivation and outcomes are not always clear or predictable. Issues involving the privacy of others are complex.

It’s not clear what we should do at a hospital bedside, wondering how much to reveal to loved one who is dying, or what to do when we discover a friend’s spouse is having an extramarital affair. Or when someone we care about is involved in an unethical or illegal enterprise.

Such situations may not necessarily demand intervention, but they certainly demand our sensitivity and compassion.

For when we become the bearer’s of someone else’s secret, we should treat it as our own. We should put ourselves in their shoes, and ask, “how would I want this to be handled, for my benefit and the benefit of others?”

But at the same time, we must consider the greater good and how justice will ultimately be best served.

On Yom Kippur, as we look back on our own secrets and the secrets of others, let us rededicate ourselves to navigating the issues of secrecy in the most ethical manner possible.

On this Yom Kippur, day of concealment and revelation:

May we seek and be granted forgiveness from those whose confidences we betrayed.

May we find strength to face the secrets that justice demands we confront.

And in the coming year may we have the strength to act with integrity.

Amen