For the Sin of…

By Dr. Erica Brown

COVID has introduced a whole new level of wrongdoing and also possibilities for right-doing. Feel free to add your own to this growing confessional for a different Yom Kippur that I’ve put together with some crowd-sourcing…

For the sin of inattention.

For the sin of too much tie-dying.

For the sin of living at work instead of working from home.

For the sin of not giving to Jewish organizations that need my help now more than ever.

For the sin of not showing my face on Zoom when you showed yours.

For the sin of baking as a sport.

For the sin of not recognizing you under that mask.

For the sin of bad multi-tasking.

For the sin of wearing only elastic waistbands since March.

For the sin of “listening” to a speaker while shopping on Amazon.

For the sin of not singing a full Hava Nagila twice when washing my hands.

For the sin of not being on mute.

For the sin of muting myself too much.

For the sin of impatience with myself.

For the sin of impatience with those I love.

For the sin of impatience with those I do not love.

For the sin of judging those who are less fastidious than me about COVID as careless and those who are more fastidious as fanatics.

For the sin of not wearing pants to important meetings.

For the sin of not remembering I wasn’t wearing pants to an important meeting.

For the sin of not wearing my mask when I should have.

For the sin of thinking racial injustice is someone else’s problem.

For the sin of watching every episode of Tiger King and thinking it was normal.

For the sin of not spending enough time outdoors.

For the sin of not doing my bit for the environment.

For the sin of not sufficiently thanking first responders.

For the sin of not being first to respond to friends in crisis.

For the sin of not supporting teachers.

For the sin of throwing work/life balance out the window.

For the sin of eating too much comfort food.

For the sin of sending too many memes.

For the sin of not smiling beneath my mask.

For the sin of not calling those I know who feel most alone because I didn’t want to be reminded of their loneliness.

For the sin of not buying stock in Netflix.

For the sin of not encouraging everyone I know to vote.

For the sin of being too overwhelmed to respond to all my emails and not wanting to explain why.

For the sin of mixing science and politics.

For the sin of not being sufficiently joyous.

For the sin of not making every holiday special enough.

For the sin of not letting others be vulnerable.

For the sin of social media binges.

For the sin of letting go of the structures that keep me whole.

For the sin of not being kind to myself.

For the sin of not being kind to others.

For the sin of having too rigid a schedule.

For the sin of having no schedule.

For the sin of calling this is the new normal when it’s really the new abnormal.

For the sin of believing that exercise is for other people.

For the sin of not using the time to learn something totally new.

For the sin of being lax simply because I thought no one was watching.

For the sin of overly-watching my own face on Zoom and continuously finding fault with it.

For the sin of not being able to give hugs because words don’t always say what needs to be said.

For the sin of mis-spelling quarantine.

For the sin of despair.

For the sin of not knowing what time it is.

For the sin of hoarding two-ply toilet paper.

For the sin of not having a sourdough starter.

For the sin of having to teach our toddlers the word social distancing.

For the sin of secretly wanting a designer mask.

For the sin of thinking this will never end.

Dr. Erica Brown is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University and director of its Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership.