The Yom Kippur liturgy is intentionally repetitive. In compelling us to confess our sins, over and over again, the rabbis understood very well the psychological techniques we use to evade grappling with our weaknesses. Denial, projection, “pettifogging,” etc. And especially arrogance, a sense of entitlement. They even include in the confessional itself the sin of “vidui peh,” of confession “of the mouth” but not of the heart. As Kenny Chesney said in Down the Road, “Her mama wants to know, am I washed in the blood or just in the water?”
One of my favorite sins, if you can call it that, and in our world today one of the most serious ones is “chozek yad.” Literally, “the power of the hand.” And it is one of the easiest to ignore because often the consequences are invisible to us.
Sometimes, it can be a small matter, like parking in a way that blocks a handicapped spot, chatting at the checkout aisle when there are people behind you, or walking through a parking lot in the center of an aisle, so no one can get past you.
Other times, it can get more serious, like screaming at fast food workers, expecting workers to work without pay, or (I’m not making this up) firing an employee who donated a kidney to you but didn’t come back to work quickly enough because she had a slow recovery.
And then, there are the bigger exploitations. Price gouging sick people who have no choice but to buy expensive medicines or die. Cutting employee hours so they are just below the limit for health and other benefits. Using deceptive practices to charge people for things they didn’t even know they had.
Someone once said that poverty exists not because we can’t feed the poor but because we can’t satisfy the rich. We commit the sin of “Chosek yad” when we say to ourselves that it’s supposed to be that way.