If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we do not always do the right thing.  No one among us eludes our own fallenness.  We all, as many religions put it, sin.  We all do not always do what pleases or sustains the divine fabric of the universe.

 

Few religious groups understand this as well as the Jews.  Beginning tonight, Jews around the world celebrate Yom Kippur, the "Day of Atonement."  On this night, Jews acknowledge their sinfulness before God.  They admit their wrongdoing, own up to their prevarications. And they repent.  They tell God they are sorry for disobeying and violating his commandments and laws.  Then they announce their intention to begin anew to live lives that please their creator.

     So the Jews have done for many centuries, and so they will do for many centuries more.  Their faith remains.

     Although we may not agree with the specifics of the Jewish approach, and though we may not see wrongdoing in quite the same way, we must all admit that, to repeat, we do not always do the right thing.  Every one of us is (or ought to be) aware that, at times, he or she upsets the delicate balance of freedom and order that governs the cosmos.

     If this balance is to be more than subjective and relative, we must acknowledge the fact of God.  The Jews recognize this clearly.  So do Christians, and so do Muslims.  And so do adherents of countless other religions.  Absolute and therefore genuinely meaningful morality is impossible without God.  Otherwise, repentance is no more than shouting in a situational darkness, the darkness of an accidental, and therefore, as scientist Steven Weinberg observes, pointless universe.