c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ If President Bill Clinton, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., and other officials who have publicly admitted sexual misconduct were to attend Jewish High Holy Days services this month, they would find the experience worthwhile.

They quickly would discover the central themes and prayers of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year, Sept. 21-22) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, Sept. 30) deal with personal responsibility and are never out of date. Indeed, this year they seem to have special meaning.

Once the president, the congressman, and their colleagues entered the synagogue for the evening Rosh Hashanah service, and opened their prayer books, the political leaders would come across the ever-fresh words of 12th-century Rabbi Moses Maimonides:”Free will is given to every human being. If we wish to incline ourselves toward goodness and righteousness, we are free to do so; and if we wish to incline ourselves toward evil, we are also free to do that. … Do not imagine that character is determined at birth. … No one forces us, no one decides for us, no one drags us along one path or the other; we ourselves choose our own way.” Human beings are accountable for their individual actions and are not permitted to play the highly popular”blame game”that allows people to avoid personal responsibility.

A powerful image of the High Holy Days is the”Book of Life”into which all personal actions of the past year are symbolically (many believe literally) entered for divine judgment.

Again, Maimonides:”We can become as righteous as Moses or as wicked as Jeroboam. … We ourselves decide.”We write our own Book of Life.

As a gifted physician and rabbi, Maimonides was familiar with the foibles of human behavior:”Smooth speech and deception are forbidden. Our words must not differ from our thoughts; the inner and outer person must be the same; what is in the heart should be on the lips. We are forbidden to deceive anyone … honest speech, integrity …. that is what is required of us.” Precisely because there is personal free will, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur compel worshippers each year to face themselves honestly, and through sincere prayer seek the strength to make purposeful changes in their lives. It is not easy, but then serious adult religion is never simple or painless.

On Yom Kippur, 10 days after Rosh Hashanah, the pressure for personal confession intensifies. A daylong fast, haunting synagogue music, stirring prayers and an absence from work and school focuses our thoughts on the things most people avoid the rest of the year: sin, regret, and repentance.

If Clinton, Burton, and others were to attend Yom Kippur services, they might see people actually pound their chests as they acknowledge the sins of the past 12 months. The visitors from our nation’s capital would see adults crying aloud as they seek atonement for deceit, deception, and duplicity. They would see rabbis and cantors garbed in white as symbols of purity.

Above all, the visitors would hear repeatedly that God does not seek the life of sinners. Rather, God desires only that sinners repent and mend their ways.

Some of the ancient Yom Kippur prayers sound as if they were written during the past few months:”We sin against you, O God, when we sin against ourselves. For our failures of truth, we ask forgiveness. For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts, and for distorting facts to fit our theories. For deceiving ourselves and others with half truths, and for pretending to emotions we do not feel, and for denying responsibility for our own transgressions.” The Yom Kippur litany of personal sins is unrelenting in its specifics: “We ask forgiveness because we have confused love with lust, and for pursuing fleeting pleasure at the cost of lasting hurt, for using others as a means to gratify our desires. … At first sin is like a spider’s web; in the end it becomes as thick as a ship’s cable. At first sin is a visitor; in the end it becomes master of the house.” And at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, after all the prayers have been said and all the songs sung, our political leaders would find spiritual solace in the knowledge that the gates of true repentance are always open to them.

But the always realistic Jewish tradition also stresses that sincere words of prayer alone are not sufficient. Repentance requires concrete actions of atonement, too.

DEA END RUDIN