There is no problem. I was just curious about why you are curious. I mean you were polite and respectful in your discussion, but for an atheist it seems like a weird thing to be curious about.
What I mean to say, without denying you the right to be curious, is that a religious person or a person who may be interested in becoming religious would have a deeper purpose in trying to understand these questions. I was just curious if your curiosity is akin to an anthropologist looking at some primitive tribe and going – “I see, now tell me again why you are waving those branches all around you and chanting as you walk around in circles?”

Since neither E-kvetcher nor Muffti thinks it’s a good argument Muffti isn’t sure what the problem is. Muffti was just curious about how the tradition conceives of a certain phenomenon.

e-Kvetcher always gets a kick out this kind of thing because it reminds him of an old philosophers trick/joke:

Muffti: I don’t recognize the existence of (fill in the blank, say, G-d).
e-Kvetcher: What thing don’t you recognize?
Muffti: The existence of G-d!
e-Kvetcher: Oh, so you are saying that there is a G-d and you don’t recognize it’s existence?

e-Kvetcher, of course, has made Muffti look ridiculous since Muffti is both saying that there is something, and that it doesn’t exist.

e-Kvetcher doesn’t endorse this style of argument either, but wonders why Muffti wonders about the nature of G-d?

Happy Sukkot

OK, kewl, that was very interesting. Thank you.

That is, return to the pure, original self-conception that should guide us.

We also note that “teshuva” uses a noun formation that implies repeated/constant/abstracted action.

Another example that is conceptually nearby is “tefilla” – which is the same noun formation applied to the root for “judge/evaluate”. So what is translated as “prayer” is thus another form of stock-taking – and here too, the 18 blessings at the core of the amidah (silent prayer) provides a “laundry list” of points to focus on – concenctric rings of self-awarenes starting from the intimate point of mindful awareness (“chonen ha’daat”) through to our physical existence (“rofeh cholei amo yisrael” and “mevarech hashanim”) outward to our communal roles (ohev tzedakah umishpat) and on to national redemption (boneh Yerushalayim).

There is also room for more specific personal meditation (as per the custom of inserting personal “petitions” or thoughts in the blessing “shome’a tefilah”).

Similar pattern with the Yom Kippur litany.

It’s all primarily about us, and refinement of our goals and will.

Rabbi Dessler writes that people should not think in terms of crime and punishment when imagining the heavenly tribunal. He puts forward a better analogy – that of a heavenly Investor evaluating a business venture. This puts the emphasis less on our guilt and powerlessness, and more on the centrality of our self-concept, action, and stewardship as beings blessed with free will.

But Muffti agrees that if the viduy is not intended as a step along the direction of appologizing/repenting and is more of a list of ways that you know you have fallen short, then the considerations don’t apply.

Thanks, by the way, to y’all. Muffti is learning a lot.

It’s evaluating reality on a day in which we strive to shed the self-serving interests and assumptions that normally cloud our vision.

The word used for “sin” is “chet” – which literally means missing the mark, or being absent. This is the same word shouted in Israeli soccer stadiums when a goal is missed.

We are addressing the gap between the self we have created and lived in the confusing, distracting whirl of our material lives, and the pure concept of our purpose in life that G-d has.

On Yom Kippur – by leaving our material reality behind as much as humanly possible, and after a week of focusing on G-d’s presence in our lives – we can access that purer concept of who we should be.

We are not “apologizing” so much as regretting the shortfall in acheiving our life’s purpose. The shortfall is caused by the undertow of mortal being – which can equal “sinful acts” as we normally conceive of them, but can also be more subtle things such as general character traits.

First, G-d is not like a person. If G-d is G-d, He knows everything about us, even stuff that we don’t know. And so it is probable, indeed it is highly likely, if not certain, that since the Jewish bar is set so high that we failed to reach it, even if we thought we did a pretty good job.

So, what do we do? We say “Hashem, we blew it. We’re not completely sure how, exactly, but we’re pretty sure that we screwed up somewhere, so we’re going to apologize for everything and let you sort it out.”

This might sound like a cop-out, but like JM said, it is a process of messing with your mind, upsetting your normal complacency. Most people think they are decent people. Most people probably are decent people, at least by human standards. Nobody I know beats his wife or kids or goes out of his way to kick the dog for no reason. But by G-d’s standards we always fall short. By recognizing this during the Yomim Noraim, we are stripped of our compacency and are forced to consider how we could do better. Pride goeth before a fall, Muffti. The whole point is to disabuse us of our pride, at least for a few days, anyway.

The other thing is that the liturgy stresses that we are confessing and asking forgiveness for sins we are not aware we committed. How is this possible? How can you commit a sin and not know it? That’s pretty easy: what we consider a sin is usually something that WE think is bad. But sin must also include what Hashem thinks is bad too, no? And if one is going to buy into the paradigm, we must assume that His standards are higher than ours. So we’re going to sin somewhere along the line no matter what we do. Just consider lashon hara. I don’t know of anyone who is not guilty of this on some level. I mean, just look at how we talk to Mobius (and how he talks to us). If that ain’t lashon hara, I don’t know what is. And we revel in it. A big no-no.

On apologizing to people: have you actually ever tried to do it, I mean really? Especially when you think that the asshole deserved it? It is just about the hardest thing in the world to do. Why? because you have to swallow your pride to do it, especially if you think that the other person was at fault, or he deserved it, etc. So, by institutionalizing a formula, a person is saved from undue shame and humiliation. Not only can the person apologize without undue humiliation, it allows the forgiver to forgive easily without indulging in the all-too-human desire to say “You damn right you should apolgize after what you did to me, you schmuck”. If people have consideration for one another. this gives everyone a formula for doing gracefully what might never get done at all.

This procedure of course can be abused, as anything can. But it’s something.

But seriously Muffti, good post.

E-kvetcher, that’s a good point. If they aren’t meant in the way Muffti though, then Muffti is clearly wrong.

You ask forgiveness for stuff you are not too clear you did, because, that strips you of your usual complacency that you are sure you are pretty nice, because, you have been keeping score, and you don’t think you have done anything particularly awful.

It is not about exact accounting, which is done Upstairs. It is about messing with your usual attitude.

A better year to all.