The Yom

Well, and it’s Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Day of Judgement, the Day of Mercy. Your Humble Blogger hasn’t had a very successful High Holiday period, as far as introspection goes, but a couple of lines caught my eye in the Mahzor last night, which I thought I would bring to the attention of my Gentle Readers.

I suppose I should begin with a brief description of the Kol Nidre service, which begins Yom Kippur. As the service opens a full day of prayer, introspection, and rededication, it emphasizes the Lord’s ability to make us ready for those difficult things. There are several readings which talk about the relationship between the Lord and his people Israel; some of them making explicit the metaphors used in the service the year around. One of them is simply a set of those metaphors: we are your children, You are our father; we are your servants, You are our master; we are your treasure, You are our protector; we are your sheep, You are our shepherd. It ends with an odd one: we are your chosen ones, You are the one we chose. I can’t really explicate it; it just struck me as ... interesting.

The other was near the beginning of the confession portion of the service. For those who have not been to a Yom Kippur service, I should mention that individual confession of sins is not a part of the Jewish tradition, but each year we together chant the “al hayt”, a list of sins which we have committed in the previous year. The point is not, necessarily, that we have each committed each of them, or even that we have all committed all of them, but that they are sins which we may well have committed, whether we are aware of it or not, and that they are in some way part of the human condition. Also, it emphasizes that we have committed them as a community, that we pray as a community, and that we share communal responsibility for improving ourselves. Anyway, it’s quite moving.

Near the beginning, before the real listing starts, there is a narrative bit that concludes, “we are faithful, and we have done evil.” That seemed really shocking last night. I mean, it’s so hard just to be faithful; it’s so hard just to consistently intend to do the right thing. And there’s the reminder: even the faithful do evil. It’s a part of this complicated universe we dwell in.

It’s good to be reminded, now and then, that we are not the Lord, that we don’t know everything, and can’t figure everything out. Don’t get me wrong—I think people are wonderful, but they aren’t, well, enough.

Anyway, may you all (and all your friends, and all the people everywhere, Jews and the nations alike) be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year. And, belatedly, I offer my apologies for any personal offense I have given through this journal (or through my Vardibidian persona elsewhere on line). I will try to do better.

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.