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Yom Kippur is not exactly a holiday that we look forward to, observed by not-eating while we spend the day consumed with critical self-inquiry about the harms we inflicted over the past year, but have yet to admit to ourselves or apologize for.
However, it happens to be my favorite Jewish ritual because it illustrates where Judaism departs from the “Kantian tradition,” or the view of ethics introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) that I found so disturbing in grad school. According to this tradition, white men can affirm the purity of their souls after declaring the principles that justified their intentions to be logical, free of contradiction. (This is, in fact, a pretty good summary of Kant’s moral theory). Even more, Kant insists that white men are better at knowing their souls than all women or Black people (anywhere), for they aren’t fully rational (a fact dismissed as irrelevant to Kant’s theory by my professors at the fancy-schmanzy grad school).
In stark contrast, we can imagine the Jewish position as a scene in which Yom Kippur (now personified) responds to a young Kantian who just discovered his pure soul:
“Oh really, you think you’re so special? If you don’t know how you harmed people over the past year, it’s because you haven’t thought hard enough, but instead use logic to defer your shame. It’s not a question of ‘if’ but who you harmed while you were too busy praising your beautiful mind to feel any empathy for those who suffer from your lack of sensitivity to their pain.
When you insist ‘Their pain doesn’t matter but only what I intended to do!’ you sound like a child—not yet Bar Mitzvahed—who has never taken responsibility for how his actions affect others. Your concern with logical consistency cannot “stand in” for accountability and you are not “pure”—look who thinks he’s the Holy One!— but certainly inflict more harm with your juvenile, solipsistic view of morality than Jews who go to shul to admit they are human and fallible, and aquire the humility to beg forgiveness to those they have harmed.”
And she be right. As my teenage self at a Jewish Day School, I would complain with my peers about the illogic of fasting on Yom Kippur (“how are we supposed to repent when we’re starving!”), in the hallways and out of earshot from our Rabbi-teachers, an underground yeshiva we thought was really rebellious.
It only took me 30 years to see why we were wrong, or why being hangry is the ideal condition for self-reflection on Yom Kippur. It’s impossible to believe in the conceit of pure reason when your holy introspection is constantly interrupted by the hunger of missing a single meal; you feel shame for every occasion in which you justified your failure to help another who was in pain or needed food.
This year I have a new concern as Yom Kippur approaches, about my use of cannabis to manage my anxiety on the only day it serves a mitzvah, and helps me fulfill my Jewish duty to empathize with someone I have harmed. In other words, it’s not a day to be *too* content with oneself or giggle in shul; so I’m looking for a way to get some cannabinoid therapy that is just a little less effective than a joint or an edible. You can find my review of balms infused with THC in the Canna-Jewish Product Review to see what happened when a Jewish woman with complex trauma skipped her morning joint for a dab of lavender balm behind her ear to prepare for Yom Kippur.