Yom Kippur Reverie

As I fasted and attended Yom Kippur services, I was struck by the genesis of the distressing self-examination afflicting Jews and the people of Israel at this time.

Leaving aside the flood of unrelenting world criticism directed at Israel as a result of the mass killings of Palestinians at the Beirut camps, I would like to focus on the spectacle of the inordinate amount of self-flagellation going on within Israel, itself.

I believe I found the answer in the Yom Kippur prayerbook. I seemed as though every few minutes we were called upon to ask forgiveness for every manner of transgression, both real and fancied. I was awed at the number and variety of appalling sins and violations that were set forth and for which we were seeking absolution.

So there it was. From ancient times "the people of the Book" held themselves to the highest moral standards, a sort of flagitious double standard of behavior which no other nation observes.

While a part of me is proud and gratified by this uncompromising moral purism, I submit that in its pressing insistence it is self-defeating and counterproductive. Such continual self-examination, in the face of outside unsparing criticism, seems to defeat and immobilize productive action.

You can see it reflected in the lack of action on finding the killers of Bashir Gemayel and the actual murderers of the hapless Palestinians. Tragic as the incident was, there should be a closing of ranks among Jews and Israelis and a turning to the pressing tasks that lie ahead.

Breast-beating and blame-casting have their place, but Yom Kippur is over. We have said our "alchaits" and "ashamnus," and it's time to put it behind us.