{"id":1645,"date":"2007-09-21T13:36:32","date_gmt":"2007-09-21T13:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/21\/yom-kippur-re\/"},"modified":"2015-03-31T10:36:42","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T17:36:42","slug":"yom-kippur-re","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/21\/yom-kippur-re\/","title":{"rendered":"YOM KIPPUR – REDUX"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dscn0193\"<\/a>This is Safat – a mystical city in Israel — with the sun setting on a summer evening.\u00a0 Tonight is Yom Kippur and so I offer this lovely photo along with wishes for a happy and healthy year whether you are Jewish or not.<\/p>\n

Last year I wrote about the holiday – I’m repeating it here because it says most of what I feel and believe about this day.
\nHere goes:<\/p>\n

September 26, 2006<\/p>\n

If\u00a0you’re Jewish this is a particularly important time of year.\u00a0 We just
\ncelebrated Rosh Hashanah – the New Year – and now are in the ten days
\nbetween the New Year and the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur – the
\nholiest day — the day of repentance.\u00a0 It’s interesting to have an
\nopportunity once a year to examine one’s life and seek improvement.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Where I grew up most people were Catholic and so I know a bit about
\nConfession in those terms, but what we do is a bit different.\u00a0 We must
\nseek forgiveness from those we have harmed – and take responsibility
\nfor our sins.\u00a0 It is our duty to give extra charity and to fast and to
\nseek a better self beyond the confession of past transgressions.\u00a0 If
\nyou take it seriously it’s a valuable exercise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

I\u00a0have been fascinated in my now three year adventure with a more
\nreligious lifestyle – to notice the similarities between Judaism and 12
\nStep programs.\u00a0 I’m involved with Al-Anon – for people affected by the
\nalcoholism of others – but here are some of the 12 Steps from AA<\/a> – they are remarkably similar to redemption within faith:<\/span><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 \u00a0Made a searching and fearless moral<\/span><\/a> inventory<\/span><\/a> of ourselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 \u00a0Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 \u00a0Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 \u00a0Humbly<\/span><\/a> asked Him to remove our shortcomings. <\/span><\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 \u00a0Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. <\/span><\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 \u00a0Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. <\/span><\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. <\/span><\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 Sought through prayer<\/span><\/a> and meditation<\/span><\/a> to improve our conscious<\/span><\/a> contact with God, as we understood Him<\/em>, praying only for knowledge<\/span><\/a> of His will<\/span><\/a> for us and the power<\/span><\/a> to carry that out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

I\u00a0guess it makes sense – there’s a reason AA works and it’s probably got
\na lot to do with the same phenomena that enable us to find true penance
\non Yom Kippur or the other rituals of penance in other faiths.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Anyhow,\u00a0it’s a beautiful fall day, I’m working on my penance and the privilege
\nof a new year – and wish you all the pleasure of the autumn sunshine
\nand a peaceful heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Safat – a mystical city in Israel — with the sun setting on a summer evening.\u00a0 Tonight is Yom Kippur and so I offer this lovely photo along with wishes for a happy and healthy year whether you are Jewish or not. Last year I wrote about the holiday – I’m repeating it … Continue reading YOM KIPPUR – REDUX<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,98],"tags":[2105,2104,222,219,114,2103,221,2107,2106,1185],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-religion","tag-aa","tag-confession","tag-faith","tag-judaism","tag-new-year","tag-penance","tag-religion-2","tag-safat","tag-twelve-steps","tag-yom-kippur"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-qx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3094,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/3094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}