Yom Kippur for US All

Yom Kippur, the annual Jewish day of repentance, is upon us, and while we may not all literally believe that going to synagogue and repenting for our sins wins us points Upstairs, this holy day provides a tremendous opportunity for self improvement. Our busy lives are easily consumed by daily tasks and distractions (MTV’s Real World is my personal distraction-of-choice) that prevent us from stepping back and evaluating the world and our place in it. Yet, in order to improve, as individuals and as a community, we must take stock of our faults and strive to learn from them.

Coming as it does on the heels of the Jewish new year, Yom Kippur’s invitation to acknowledge our shortcomings is not so different from our annual New Year’s resolutions to quit smoking or volunteer more. A new year brings the chance to learn from our transgressions and remake ourselves to better reflect the people we would like ourselves to be.

As I sit in synagogue, I will confess my own personal sins. Here’s a sneak peek. In the past year, I have done too much talking about problems and too little actual problem-solving (this column doesn’t seem to help, does it?). I have not acted on compassionate instincts out of trepidation at taking a first step, fear of overall failure, or downright laziness. I have criticized others without doing anything to help. Perhaps most damningly, I have listened to hours upon hours of public radio without pledging any support. I feel that I have done some good, but there is no reason I should not be doing more.

This year, Yom Kippur comes at a particularly appropriate time for our country. For the first time in several years, we, as a country, are beginning to take stock of our failures. Slapped into reality as we were by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, we have the opportunity to learn from mistakes and remake ourselves into a country more in sync with our professed ideals.

In foreign policy, we rarely take into account more than simply strategic military objectives. Considering a more comprehensive perspective would have led us to consider not only the broad strategic benefits of a democratic, WMD-free Iraq (choose your own war rationale), but also the number of lives, American and to a greater extent Iraqi, that would be lost pursuing that goal. Instead of hiding the bodies coming home and ignoring the innocent Iraqis dead, we would acknowledge such sacrifice, honoring it with honesty about the true costs of war. A broader perspective would have forced us to act with more than skin-deep concern for the human beings being slaughtered in Darfur. Perhaps we even could have limited the culture that allowed for our soldiers to torture prisoners, shaming themselves, their comrades who behave most admirably around the world, and us.

At home, Katrina exposed the deep bruise buried at the very root of American greatness. After 229 years of striving, we are still not a country where all men and women are created equal. We do not provide equal opportunities to succeed for children. We do not provide health care for our most vulnerable citizens. We do not take care of our Veterans in a manner consistent with the degree of their sacrifice for us. When I walked home in Boston every day, I passed a homeless shelter for Veterans. Homeless veterans? These people, a pool that is disproportionately poor and minority, put their lives on the line so that we could continue thriving in a secure country. Yet we cannot even successfully reintegrate them into civilian life. Domestic policies that recognized these shortcomings rather than shuffled them under the rug would make our community a healthier place for all of us.

There is much we do right in the United States, but being good does not excuse not being better. Patting ourselves on the back is for Independence Day, not Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur, we strike ourselves in the heart in repentance and in the eternal hope that next year we will be better husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends, neighbors, and citizens. That is a practice all Americans can gain from.