Friday, September 21, 2007
Yom Kippur
from Rabbi Jill Jacobs:
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Modern history has taught us that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Modern history has also taught us that “just following orders” does not excuse immoral behavior. When we wrest religious authority out of the hands of a single individual, we hold the entire community responsible for our collective action or inaction.
It is for this reason that we utter the vidu’i(confession) in the plural. None of us, I would assume, are guilty of all of the sins listed in the vidu’i. However, by living in a world that allows these sins to occur, we are — by association — complicit in these crimes. Just as we can no longer rely on the Kohen Gadol [high priest] to pray for us or to atone for us, we cannot depend only on our political or religious leadership to solve the world’s problems.
Labels: religion
