The Desire for Control

Ties Logic into Knots

Yom Kippur, considered by most of the Jewish religion to be its holiest day of the year, translates to Day of Atonement. If you follow its directives, you’re forgiven for the year’s past sins. If you don’t, you risk having a very bad year.

Sins? Who decides what’s a sin?

God.

God? Who or what is God?

An invisible being that people decided created the world.

How do we know this god creator decides anything, including sins?

From god’s torah, and people who say god empowered them to interpret the torah.

Torah? What’s that?

A book written by a person or some people, who say God dictated it to them.

How do we know this?

People prior to our generation conveyed that notion from people prior to theirs.

OK, so, back to Yom Kippur. What are the godly directives I’m to follow to score a get-out-of-jail-free card? How to “atone” for “sins”?

They’re described in the Torah and extrapolated by the select few of long ago.

Let’s recap: I sin by transgressing a rule or law conveyed by people who say they were told by people who say they were told by – eventually – people who got conveyance from “god”, who is unseen now even though IT presumably exists and could tell me directly, but doesn’t. According to those people of very long ago, god will consider my sins forgiven if I follow ITs instructions for Yom Kippur, as explained by those same people.

Correct.

So, the entire holiness of the day and all its accoutrements were created by prehistoric men and reinforced by people through generations, to date. Why honor it today?

Well, not necessarily because people intellectually think with detail about the solidity of the veracity of the underlying foundation of the day and its religion, but rather at least mostly because that’s what’s been done for generations, by those who consider themselves of the religion to which people feel they belong. People do this to feel connected to something wide and deep, connected to many today, and to many of the past. People mimic what others do and did and say to do.

And to buttress up Yom Kippur’s solemness today, it gets fluffed up with mournful melodies, special clothing and prayer liturgies, while abstaining from all food or drink. You’re to stay in the synagogue an entire day, narrowing focus and amplifying all representations. Everything combined, induces a feeling of connection to “your people” – current and past groups - who do and did the same, in many places and eras.

On its face then, it would seem a social construct like Thanksgiving or Valentines Day, created by people of yesteryear.

There’s a distinct difference, however.

If you don’t feel like eating turkey or participating in a party or buying roses, you don’t fear the consequence of doom and death (except maybe if you forget flowers for your special one). The generational social custom of Yom Kippur, however, gets mature adults to adhere to customary details scrupulously well because doing so will truly impact their life, to the extent of life itself. They consider their health and longevity genuinely at stake.

Not all Yom Kippurites fear death for non-compliance. Some might fast and spend some time in a synagogue, as they might eat turkey on Thanksgiving, enthusiastically, as some do an annual cold plunge in the ocean – painful but concurrently rewarding, and optional. They’re simply opting in to a ritual of people to whom they feel connection, maintaining the connection.

There are however, many fundamentalistic religious folks, who genuinely fear a nasty “godly decree” for an iota of non-compliance, and feel their behavior on Yom Kippur will truly affect their upcoming year and their life.

Most of them don’t think much about how the day got to be what it is and the details and believability of each of the ingredients (god, Torah, interpreters).

It’s all part of a package that feels good by association and belonging. The social construct however includes actual fear of bad consequence for non-compliance. Why something is bad and who will dole the consequence, is almost beside the point. The social construct dictates that nothing about the day is optional. Emotions are also part of the day, just like Thanksgiving’s cranberry gravy. Fear of deadly consequence is part of the ritual.

That’s a strange paradox - a ritual whose details and source are not truly examined, but is associated with and triggers genuine fear of consequence for non-compliance. An inherited ritual, which if forensically examined would probably render its practice moot, includes a personal, visceral, existential emotion, like fear of death.

A child might think Santa Claus comes down the chimney, or the tooth fairy puts a dollar under his pillow, or the Easter bunny hides eggs and brings treats for his baby tooth that fell out. Those traditional activities evoke excitement and suspense in the child. But for the adult who did these as a child and still does them with his kids, the associated feelings aren’t part of the ritual. And yet, Yom Kippur ritual’s excitement and expectation continue through adulthood. Seems impossible or unrealistic. And yet it happens every year for hundreds of thousands of adults.

I assume confession with a priest, crossing one’s fingers and across one’s chest, and drinking the holy sacrament might also evoke adult emotions. If yes, my amazement includes those too.

Watch out! There’s a ladder up ahead. Walk around it.

Oh my. A black cat just crossed.

Knock on wood.

I don’t have a punchline for this rant. I’m just amazed. It’s like getting fooled by one’s own magic trick, scared by one’s own puppet show.

Boo!

So, where’s the nearest synagogue?