Why stray from the Yom Kippur script?
IF YOU ask most people which parts of Yom Kippur prayers stick in their mind, they are likely to mention Kol Nidrei, with its hallowed atmosphere, and the shofarblowing at the end of the fast. Coax them to come up with a third and it will often be the or confession segment of the services, when the whole congregation beats their chests and lists sins.
is such a feature of Yom Kippur prayers. It is recited 11 times, several of them with the whole congregation intoning it together. I always look at the spectacle of a synagogue where hundreds of people are tapping their chests with their fists, as per tradition, and think about the world of difference between this Jewish confession and the Catholic version.
Even if you have never seen a Catholic confession close up, you will have seen it featured in enough films to know the drill. It is a most private of experiences, carried out in a chamber designed especially to safeguard privacy. The person offering their confession does not even see the face of the priest in the other part.
It is easy to view the Jewish confession critically. To complain that it is scripted, as opposed to other forms of confession which dig deep to uncover people’s real sources of guilt. To object that the busy synagogue setting, with children running around all over the place and people chatting, is not conducive to genuine self-criticism.
But I would say that there is something special about a scripted group confession. The script is in the plural — it refers to the Jewish collective and repeatedly uses the phrase “we have transgressed”. Reciting this as a community is an act of humility, of modesty and one which recognises this humility and modesty in others. This underscores the principle that Jews are connected and that, as the sages say, “all of Israel is responsible for one another”.
But even if we are confessing communally and recognising the challenges everyone faces, should we not be more reflective, instead of using a set wording? Long ago there was the custom that everybody would shout out the things they did wrong in front of the community but this was embarrassing and ineffective. A script allows everyone to mention a full roster of misdeeds and focus their thoughts on those that are most relevant. It has all the advantages of a group confession, while offering opportunities to let one’s mind divert to more private reflection.
Maybe some of the items on the confession list seem obscure, outdated, or archaic. But it is remarkable how many of them are just one step away from misdeeds we encounter in modern life, in public, in workplaces and even in our online existences.
A group confession is an act of communal humility’