Very Mature

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“And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.”

- Exodus 32:9


For the longest time, as far as I was concerned, the holiday of Yom Kippur was essentially one prayer-- the Vidui (pronounced Vee-Doo-ee)—literally, “Confession” (makes sense, since that’s kinda what the day is all about).
Everyone recites the Vidui prayer together, lightly beating their hearts with the left hand each time another sin is read, through all 22 phrases, a list of sins that we confesses to, in the order of the Hebrew “Aleph-bet.” It is a symbolic means of self-flagellation. The idea is that obviously not EVERYONE committed each of these sins, but we don’t want people to feel singled out so everyone stands and recites them all together.
I wish I could say the prayer jumped off the page for some profound reason—that all people should be responsible for one another, or that everyone is guilty of doing SOMEthing wrong (both noble and terrific idea)… but the truth is… it was because it made me think of erections.
I know! Me! What are the odds?!

“How?” I hear you ask rhetorically, with your eyes.
Well, Number 19 on the list of things we’ve done wrong in the past year is “kee-shee-noo Oh-ref”—literally translated: “We were stiff-necked.” It means being stubborn, something all of us have been guilty of doing. But I didn’t know that, I’d never seen that word before. I’d never seen “neck” used as a past-tense verb, either, so I thought it was pronounced “nekkid.”
“Stiff” and “nekkid.”
See where I’m headed?
I thought, “Well, if you’re gonna be stiff, you WANT it to happen when you’re nekkid.”
And then I LOL-ed. Guffawed, really, in the middle of synagogue... On the holiest day of the year… during one of the quiet parts.
Dozens of pairs of eyes turned towards me. I couldn’t tell anyone what I found so funny, so I faked stomach pains and left the sanctuary.

Repentance is some serious stuff.
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