Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur - the day of atonement.

A very powerful day. Jews all around the world have opinions on their religion that range anywhere from the atheistic to the fundamentalistic. You can almost never get two Jewish people to agree, regardless of who they are or where they come from.

If there's one thing that still holds sway over many people, it's Yom Kippur.

I've heard of people saying that they feel guilted into going to Shul/Synagogue/Beyt Knesset. It's not something they do regularly but they feel bad if they don't go at least at some point. What better time to go than during the Day of Atonement. I was talking earlier with my "Low Anglican" Marketing Supervisor about atonement. She offered that pretty much every religion she could think of provided some outlet for forgiveness, atonement. It has to be part of the human condition that we get forgiven for the things we do, if we are to have any modicum of confidence as people.

I've made mistakes with people in the past. Sometimes I've felt like I couldn't do things the right way. I think it's at that point which a relationship stops being a relationship, and starts being some toxic dynamic of debt and guilt driven servitude.

Imagine how many times you've made mistakes in your relationships with other people. How many times you have said the wrong thing, or maybe said something you thought was right but it turned out to be hurtful. There is a lot of potential for us to screw things up with our fellow humans. We can't strive to be perfect, and we can't demand perfection out of other people. Expectations are rarely met to the fullest, so why impose them on people?

It is said in my religious tradition that when G-d created the world, He created it with solely Justice as the foundational principle. This was problematic; a world created with justice alone can not maintain itself for the better. This is why He added another element into creation - Mercy.

Maybe that's what Jews of all shapes, colours, sizes and opinions are hoping for. Maybe they don't conform to what traditional Judaism asks of them, but they do understand that for one day, G-d will show them mercy for all the stuff that they did in the past year.

This is something I'd like to take to heart and utilize in my relationships with people. If I can forgive people for their imperfections, then maybe that will help them be a little more confident about themselves than they already were.

Anyway I must get ready for Beyt Knesset now.

Atoningly,
- Inkhorn