Yom Kippur: May God forgive Jews for forgetting about him - opinion

The teshuva (repentance/return) process can be vague and elusive. Unwilling to confront our own flaws and face the unpleasant truths of our past, we often spin false narratives, in a futile attempt to justify our botched behavior. For teshuva to be successful we must cut through numerous layers of denial. We must also summon the courage to stare at ourselves in the mirror and confront any ugliness looking back at us, without photoshopping it. Authentic teshuva is a difficult journey through the dark recesses of self to the deepest crevices of our psyche. 

Vidui, or verbal confession is instrumental in helping us pierce the emotional barriers blocking authentic teshuva. Judaism rejects any form of vicarious atonement, and therefore, confession alone can never provide absolution. Verbal confession is merely one step in a larger process of heartfelt and sincere teshuva.

Verbalizing erroneous ways helps concretize the painful realities that we would rather not consider. Articulating a sin makes it harder to deny or to explain away. Additionally, enunciating our mistakes makes them more vivid and more disturbing.

Without distress and remorse, repentance becomes artificial and formulaic. By lending verbal imagery to sin, confessions assure that our past behavior is painful to us and that our repentance is genuine. Through confession, we clarify, quantify, and vivify our failures.

Registries of sin

Though, ideally, confession should be personal, throughout history, a rich “liturgy” of confessions has developed. Lists of sins were compiled into ritual confessions incorporated into the tefillah, or prayer service. Generally, the lists were structured upon the Hebrew aleph-bet, with each letter addressing a particular sin or a specific character trait that triggers multiple sins. The two most famous lists are the confessionals recited on Yom Kippur, known as “Ashamnu” (we have been guilty) and “Al chet” (for the sin of).

While these lists provide a common registry of sin, they ignore other important areas of self-improvement. By definition, each of the entries of a vidui list addresses a very specific sin or a very specific area of human behavior.

The alphabetized entries are targeted and narrow, and they do not address deeper or broader character flaws.

These foundational character flaws or “super flaws” are responsible for our systemic and large-scale spiritual failure and underperformance. 

Every sin is rooted in a deep-seated character flaw. Ignoring these flaws and focusing our teshuva solely upon actions or behavior increases the likelihood of recidivism. Addressing symptoms of sin and ignoring the root almost assures that we will slip back into old habits and familiar behavior. Telescopic vidui lists fail to address seminal character flaws or basic behavioral issues. Though the lists facilitate micro-teshuva they aren’t as helpful for macro-transformation. 

Forgetting

One example of a broader behavioral tendency that causes extensive religious breakdown is our forgetting basic ideas and values of Judaism. Typically, we trace our sins to the overpowering desires that conquer our will and shatter our discipline. We possess a clear sense of right and wrong but are overcome by powerful needs and wants. 

Often, however, sin doesn’t stem from desire but from apathy or neglect. We allow important values to slowly slip out of consciousness and we push important religious principles out of mindview. Often, sins are caused by religious inattentiveness rather than by religious weakness. For teshuva to be holistic and foundational we must repent for the sin of inattentiveness and forgetfulness. To accomplish that we must first ask: What do we forget and why do we forget it?

Forgetting God

Sadly, we live in a secular era, in which much of humanity has completely forgotten that God exists. Even believers though, in their own way, sometimes forget God. We don’t deny His existence or His authority, but we become so engrossed in our own lives and our own pursuits that God becomes a sideshow. Instead of fixing God as the epicenter of our lives, we think about Him from time to time, and pray to Him when we need Him, but relegate Him to the margins of our consciousness. We don’t deny Him, nor do we even devalue Him, but we do decentralize Him. We don’t forget Him, but we also don’t remember Him often enough. 

Additionally, we sometimes “forget God” by not sufficiently attributing our success to Him. Repeatedly, the Torah warns us that success will morally “fatten” us, making us arrogant, ungrateful, and religiously insensitive.

The scenes don’t portray atheism or the crime of marginalizing God, but a scenario in which we are hypnotized by success, and slip into ingratitude. As a gateway to numerous other moral failures arrogance is inherently harmful. It obscures human frailty and human dependence upon God. Success blurs our vision of God. We know He exists, but we don’t trace our success back to Him, so, in effect, we forget Him. 

We ask forgiveness for the various ways by which we forgot God. 

Forgetting immortality

Sin also emerges when we confuse eternity with transience. Wrapped up in the present, we lose perspective, and are blinded to our immortality. Often this world captivates us with its glamorous pizzazz, and we ignore duty, mission, responsibility, and of course, eternity. We get stuck in the immediate and lose track of the long term. 

A very famous dictum of the Talmud, recited at funerals, urges us to consider “from where we came, where we are headed to, and in front of Whom we will be held accountable.” By reminding us of the mortality of human life on Earth, this reductive advice prevents us from being trapped in the present. Every sin is a tragic exchange of eternity for immediate needs, which quickly fade. Endlessly executing these sad transactions of sin, we become stuck in the needs of the present. 

We ask forgiveness for forgetting the eternity of mankind.

A third vision we often forget is the trajectory of Jewish history. We forget that we live as part of a large intergenerational community of people who stand for God in this world. We are all miracles, the product of great sacrifice on behalf of Jewish destiny. Viewing our lives as part of something larger than ourselves amplifies our experience. Forgetting our common Jewish narrative shrinks us into lonely individuals. 

Sin is always a triumph of small-mindedness over large-mindedness. 

Over the past year, too many Israelis forgetting our common heritage have sinned. 

Independent of whatever political opinion we believe in, we have spewed too much hate and have generated too much polarization. Eighty years ago, a murderer named Joseph Mengele divided us into “left” and “right” groups as the horrific designations that decided life and death. Today we glibly use the terms “Left” and “Right” to cluster people into clumsy political groupings. Once we group them, they are easier to assail or insult. We ask for forgiveness for forgetting our common past and our common future. How could we? 

Hopefully, this Yom Kippur, in addition to repenting for specific sins, we will ask God to forgive us for forgetting. Too often, we forgot Him, or forgot to think of Him correctly. Too often, we forgot eternity by tragically exchanging it for the passing needs of transience. Too often, we forgot Jewish history and sank into the dark doctrines of radicalized politics and culture wars.

Forgive us God, for we have forgotten. 

The writer is a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, a hesder yeshiva. He has smicha and a BA in computer science from Yeshiva University as well as a Masters in English literature from the City University of New York.