WEEKLY COMMENTARY: Two Ways To Look At One's Inventory of Sins

The other night I was walking near the Summit Train Station, when I bumped into a neighborhood friend.  After some "small talk," my neighbor Ben sighed and remarked that Rosh Hashanah would begin at sundown on the next day, which was Wednesday, September 20.  "It is the Jewish New Year's, and my family always celebrates it in the full Jewish tradition," Ben told me.

I was curious about this event.  Being a Christian, I really did not understand much about it, so I asked Ben to tell me more.

"The Jewish New Year differs in some fundamental ways from the secular New Year," my neighbor said.  The observance, for example, is far less of a celebration.  This is because the Jewish New Year is largely a period of introspection that begins with Rosh Hashanah and extends for ten days until Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  This ten-day period is meant to be a time of stock-taking, of self-reflection."

"It is customary during this time, for example, to seek out in person those whom we may have offended in the preceding year and ask forgiveness.  So, this period of ten days is a time principally to reflect on how we are conducting our lives, and specifically how we may have messed up.  Given the scope of that task, sometimes I think ten days is not nearly enough time!" he said.

I had to say that as a Christian I regularly search for the same things in my life, and then I ask God to forgive me.

"The ten days beginning on Rosh Hashanah concludes on Yom Kippur, September 29," my friend continued.  "If there is any day of the year when even the most non-observant, non-believing Jew goes to Temple, this is it.  Anyone my age remembers with pride when in 1965 Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers refused to pitch in Game One of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur."

I asked Ben, "Why do virtually all Jews in the world go to Temple on Yom Kippur?  What happens there on that day that is so compelling?"

"Well," Ben said, "in the broadest sense, what Jews do in Temple on Yom Kippur is to stand as a community and publicly confess their sins.  The Jewish concept of sin differs in some important ways from that of other religions.  Judaism teaches that humans are born with free will, and are born morally neutral, with both an inclination toward goodness, leading to a productive life and being concerned for others ---- but, also an inclination toward evil, the baser instincts and selfishness.  The moral laws in the Torah ---- starting with the Ten Commandments, but including hundreds of other commandments, are meant to help steer one's behavior toward the good.  To Jews, sin is like an arrow missing the target.  Sinning, in short, is when our actions miss the Biblical mark of "goodness."

My friend continued, "The ways in which individuals can miss the mark during the course of a year are many, and in the Yom Kippur service we stand all together and recite them out loud.  The list we recite ---- and we do it multiple times ---- runs through the Hebrew alphabet with each letter corresponding to a different sin.  This does not mean we have committed only 24 sins (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet) but as the confessing group, we have committed the whole range of sins (from A to Z), the full gamut of possible human failings.  For every mark that could have been missed someone among us surely has missed it, and sometime in our lives, we have missed it.

So, we stand together and say aloud, 'We have been arrogant, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we've corrupted our own character, we have corrupted the character of others, we've been deceitful, we've ridiculed good people, we've made misleading statements.'  And every seven or eight sins or so, we stop and ask God for forgiveness (presumably we've already asked forgiveness from the people we have actually hurt).  We say, 'Forgive all these sins, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.'  And then we continue with the list of sins.

Ben added that this full day at Temple is done while observing a complete 24-hour fast!

My friend was silent for a few moments.  Then he said, "I like the Yom Kippur ritual because it presupposes that human beings are fallible, that we all miss the mark sometimes, and that with effort, we can control some of our baser urges and maybe do better next year.  I find reciting the litany of possible failures is a good way to take stock ---- as I say the list out loud together with the congregation, I often think to myself, 'Yup, did that one.  Yeah, did that one, too.  Oh. there's one I'm not guilty of ---- at least not this year.'  For me, there are always more 'guiltys' than 'not-guiltys', but it is interesting year to year to see how my failings either remain consistent or shift with circumstances," he said.

We had just reached my street and I wished there was more time to talk to Ben about the management of sin.  As a Christian, I did not believe that I was born morally neutral ---- it seemed that I was born biased toward sinning, so I was grateful that someone named Jesus had made a very great sacrifice to redeem me.  But, both Ben and I are in possession of free will.  The problem is that often we don't use our free will effectively to live as God directs us.

As I walked toward my house, I began comparing these two very different styles of sin management.  As Ben described the Jewish approach, there is intensity and depth, with sins specifically named and acknowledged.  But, it is done formally only once a year.  However, I did assume that Jews are always free to make a "sin self-examination" informally at any time.

In my experience as a Presbyterian, I recall that every Sunday in Worship we formally acknowledge in general terms  that we are sinners, without publicly being specific about the whole range of sins we may have committed.  But, we do this every week.  Perhaps we only give our sinfulness a glancing blow, but we do it frequently.

I began to wonder if there might be some real value in each approach.  Do we Presbyterians need a little more intensity and depth, while perhaps the Jewish practice would benefit from a little more frequency, in seriously addressing personal sinfulness?  But, one solution does not fit all people!  Each of us must find our optimal intensity, depth and frequency to address the inherent tendency to sin.

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Education Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this fall at CPC.

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