Who am I kidding? Not G-d

In a few hours, I will stand before G-d on Yom Kippur. Before I do, I find myself asking a simple question: Who am I kidding?

Certainly not G-d. I may sometimes kid the people around me and, more dangerously, I may kid myself.

But I am not kidding Him.

I have plenty of reasons to make excuses. You may have heard them. I am 51 years old and living with PSP, a terminal neurological illness. I live with pain and disability. I was forced to retire, can no longer drive and have lost much of the independence I once took for granted.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

All of that is true.

Everyone has a file like this. The difficult childhood, the impossible job, the terrible year. Mine just happens to be better documented than most.

But I write constantly about agency and frequently quote Viktor Frankl. I tell myself and others that I cannot control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond. I write about gratitude, purpose and making the best of what remains.

I cannot spend the year telling people that I still have agency and then arrive at Yom Kippur asking G-d to treat me as though I have none.

I cannot write about gratitude when it inspires me and hide behind suffering when accountability becomes uncomfortable.

Either I believe what I write or I do not.

I am limited, but I am also capable. I am capable of much more kindness, restraint, patience and apology. I am capable of recognizing when I have done something wrong. I am capable of making better choices.

If I am capable, I am accountable.

Yom Kippur is not the day for me to put G-d on trial. I have questions for Him, and there are times when I am angry with Him. But today is not about what He has done to me.

It is about what I have done with what remains.

I might prefer a candy-coated G-d who appears for the happy moments and politely disappears when we do something wrong. That is not the G-d I believe in. I believe in the G-d who created me, gave me free will and sees directly into me, past my words, my explanations and my carefully constructed case for the defense.

One of my children once told me that, when they were young, they had seen people they knew secretly using their phones on Shabbat while claiming otherwise. They were convinced we did the same, so they noted where we left our phones before Shabbat and checked later whether they had moved.

We passed.

Children do not only listen to what we say. They watch what we do. G-d sees a great deal more than a child checking a phone, and He does not need to check. Yom Kippur is not His opportunity to discover the truth about me. He already knows. The opportunity is mine.

So let me be honest about how honest I am prepared to be.

There are sins I will not confess in this post. They are between me and God, and between me and the people I have wronged, and that is where they will stay. I am not going to pretend that what follows is the full list.

But I will admit this much.

There have been times this year when I hid behind the mask of PSP. Times when I was frustrated or short with family members and let the illness take the blame. The illness is real. The pain is real. But the frustration was mine, and so was the choice to aim it at the people who carry this illness alongside me. I could have been a better person in those moments, and I was not.

And there are the things I simply did not do. The comment I should have answered. The things at home I could still have managed and left to someone else. Each time, I told myself I was tired and had earned the right to step back. Sometimes that was true. Sometimes, it was merely convenient.

PSP explains a great deal. It does not excuse everything I have asked it to excuse.

Which relationships can I still repair? Which apologies do I still owe?

This year, I will not fast. I take more than 40 tablets and pill pieces every day, and Jewish law requires me to eat and protect my health.

That changes how I observe Yom Kippur. It does not make the day less serious. If anything, it makes it harder. I must not treat the absence of fasting as the absence of Yom Kippur.

For me, and for others who believe that G-d is real, Yom Kippur is a gift: 25 hours set aside to stop, confess, take responsibility and begin again. I must not waste it explaining myself. I do not need to persuade G-d that my life is difficult. He knows. I need to acknowledge where I fell short, ask forgiveness from Him and from the people I have hurt, and decide what I will genuinely change.

Not theoretically. Not in another blog post. In my life.

So, Ben, stop building the case for the defense. Stop hiding behind your many excuses, all of which G-d already knows and has already factored in.

I say I have agency. I have written it hundreds of times. I am grateful. I have told the world.

Now I must prove to myself that these are not merely words I use when they suit me.

Who am I kidding? Not God.

For the next 25 hours, I do not need to write about agency. I need to use it.

Wishing people an easy fast and Gemar Chatima Tovah.