Spanking the monkey in my rabbi's bathroom...

Possibly breaking "the biggie" by visiting numerous shinto/buddhist temples while in Japan, performing the water purification ceremony (Jewish -- really -- hold ladle in left hand, pour on right, hold ladle in right, pour over left, pretend to take a sip but not really), occasionally throwing coins in the charity box, clapping twice and bowing. Since my return, I've been violently ill for months withe a mystery illness, so I also must atone for thinking of myself as somehow important enough that G-d is punishing me. I'm agnostic (for which I also must atone) despite a desire to believe that is weaker than my capacity for rational thought, but I really am afraid I willfully committed idolotry and am being punished.

The ONLY reason why Yom Kippur is such a big 'Jewish' holy day is because most Jews have addopted the Christian culture, it is our token day of Catholicism. It, like the contemporary Jewish celebration of the Holocaust, and the state of Israel, represent  a new branch of Jewish obseverance and ritual, it if filled with pain, guilt and twisted sense of nationalism, based on collective suffering and ultimately self hate.

Repentance and atonement are not big features of Authentic Judaism. The hebrew word for repentance 'Teshuva' means 'return', i.e. return your consciousness and your deeds to the awareness of the Oneness of All reality.

That's why the Kick Ass Kung Fu Kabbalists explain that the word Teshuva has the same hebrew letters as The Shabbath (HaShabbat). Which is particularly a focus of this years Yom Kippur which takes place on a Shabbat.

Yom Kippur is actually a Yom Tov, a happy and festive day, an oppertunity to reconnect your inner Oneness with the All, to discover a deep and tranquil sense of inner peace and happiness.

A level of Happiness that is not dependent on external stimuli, such as eating, drinking, shagging, covering yourself with oils, wearing nice shoes, having a hair cut, chatting with friends, watching TV, etc.. etc...

In the Jerusalem Temple the High Preist would enter the Holy of Holies and come face to face with the Divine Presence, so too each of us has an oppertunity to enter our own inner temple, and to discover that, the Holy of Holies is found within us, that you are Holy! - When you realise this - all your sins disapear, you are forgiven, because you have forgiven yourself!

Wishing you all a Deeply Happy Yom Kippur and a Very Merry Sichat Torah!

I beg to differ, Max. Yom Kippur is nothing like Catholicism. I am not the foremost authority on Judaism or on Catholicism, but I am an ex-Catholic Jew, for whatever that's worth.

I assume you are analogizing the Shabbat Shabbaton to the weekly (or more, depending on how much of a sinner you are and how much time your priest has) ritual of Penance and Absolution popularly known as Confession (here, picture a little girl in a plaid uniform staring in utter panic at the empty Confessional, streams of weak light coming through the screen at the left, dust falling onto the bare wooden kneeler).

There are so many differences between these two experiences of repentance that I cannot address them all, but I will touch on one: Yom Kippur is about a communal atonement, one which takes place under conditions personally challenging (fasting, abstaining from certain pleasurable acts, etc). This "self-denial" (Vayikra/Leviticus 16: 29-30) happens, though, in a communal context: the entire people confesses to the sins of the Jewish people as a collective, and professes teshuva, a turning back to God's ways. This, to me, feels very different from confessing your individual sinfulness in the utter isolation of a coffin-like Confessional (or, worse, closet-like!).

Perhaps I did Catholicism "wrong," but I always felt I was being asked to confess to something deep and enduring about myself, that I was being cleansed as an individual, thereby implying that I was dirty (incidentally, I was, as I was a total lesbian even as a pre-teen, but that's beside the point!). On Yom Kippur, we are asked to confess to actions that are wrong, to admit to them, to express a real intention to turn away from those actions. As Isaiah reminds us, it's not about punishing our "bad" bodies, but about doing gemiult chasadim, acts of lovingkindness. Attending the service is only part of Yom Kippur. Teshuva is the point.

"Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when HaShem is favorable?
No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home,
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And nnot to ignore your own kin."
(Isaiah 58:5-7)