At the heart of the Yom Kippur service is confession, and behind the confession
is serious intolerance. Over and over again,
ten times, we confess out loud that we sinned.
The weirdness of it is that there is no Rabbi sitting across from us, and
G-d definitely knows what we did or didn’t do, so no use telling him; the
confessions seems to be to our self. But
how does that help? We also know what mistakes we made so how does speaking it out achieve anything?
The reason is because we are inclined to be very tolerant of our
self. When we make a mistake, there is a
tidy excuse that explains everything. In every situation, we view our self as
essentially good, but in certain situations, we were pressured or stressed and made
an uncharacteristic mistake.[1] With others, we are not so tolerant. When others are late or cranky, we chalk them
up as people with serious issues and hearts of stone. It takes much more effort to say they are
great people who made temporary errors.
But that is what we should be doing. Increasing our tolerance for others
and decreasing the tolerance for our self.
The point of confession is to identify and admit our short comings. The word confession, ודוי is
related to the word ודאי, or certain. Our mistakes are real. No, we are not amazing people who made uncharacteristic mistakes every
once in a while. We are decent people who make characteristic mistakes all the time,
and that is intolerable. But, this point is difficult to do. Admitting failure and
intolerance of our self is not the natural way to go. So ten times, we have to tap our chest and,
say, this is the real me and I can’t stand it.
After recognition comes regret. Things get really spooky here. To the extent
that we regret what we have done is to the extent that we catapult backwards in
time and turn an indecent action into a source of inspiration and dedication,
and that is a miracle. In nature, if you
break a bone, it may heal but it will never be the same again. In the realm of the metaphysical, we can
travel back in time and things not only heal, but become a fountain of strength. Why? We appreciate how far we were from the ideal,
and yet, we were not abandoned. That
gives us energy to move forward with more confidence than before.[2] This is the goal of Yom Kippur. It is a time to get intolerant of our self and
then feel a deep regret as we realize what could have been. With that, we turn previous
iniquity into fuel for a brighter future.
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