Confessing our communal sins for the New Year

As much as we need to hold ourselves accountable individually for our shortcomings, we also belong to groups that should, likewise, take a frank look at the values and actions they support. These groups — of which we are an integral part — include our communities, our congregations, and our nation.

Jewish tradition stresses responsibility for others, not just for one’s self. A foundational rabbinic teaching holds that kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh — all of Israel is responsible for one another. This illustrates that we are responsible for, support, and even carry one another as part of our national responsibility. It’s a radical level of accountability for what others in our community say or do — a collective responsibility we must each personally address.

On the Jewish New Year, we — in the plural — confess “our sins” and how we missed the mark. So too should we look at the transgressions of our own community. The community, likewise, should seek forgiveness, pursue correction, and do teshuva. Pointing fingers at ourselves, or at our own, can be unsettling. But that is our mission.

Ayin Tova Cartoons recently published a series of cartoons directed at both the Haredi and religious-Zionist communities. In that same spirit, I also turn the spotlight on myself, confessing in a new cartoon the sin of offending others with my critical Ayin Tova cartoons. You can see these cartoons on its active Instagram page or website.

The cartoon accompanying this post is one in that series, highlighting a situation causing grief and shame both in Israel and around the world: hilltop youth forcibly pursuing the settlement of the Land of Israel with violence against both IDF soldiers and local Arab populations.

This violence, and the resulting desecration of God’s Name, should be acknowledged and called out. That’s what Jewish tradition means by confession of sins — we’re called upon to just call a sin a sin, and not to justify it.

We are a holy and just people, so we must also own up when we get it wrong as a community. We should not be silent when others in our midst are sinning in this way. Let’s take this to heart and search our souls for where we go wrong — as a community, a congregation, a society, a nation. Our silence makes us complicit. It makes us partners in those sins.

For the New Year holiday of Rosh Hashana, our hope is to call out — and scrub away — such violence against man and God.