{"id":34924,"date":"2017-02-17T17:31:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T23:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=34924"},"modified":"2017-02-17T17:31:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T23:31:23","slug":"off-the-pulpit-older-and-wiser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/off-the-pulpit-older-and-wiser\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Pulpit: Older and Wiser?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE<\/p>\n

When I was young I made an astonishing discovery about Jewish daily prayer. Each morning service had a confessional. I remember wondering, do we really sin each day?<\/p>\n

When I paid attention to my own conduct and that of my classmates, I realized the prescience of the tradition. We hit each other, hurt each other and often said cruel things. We were kids. The confessional gave us a moment in each service to think about what we had done and to face up to it before God.<\/p>\n

But I do remember thinking \u2013 surely when I get older I will get better at this! I did not like all my teachers equally but I could not imagine that they would do the sorts of things I did, so I assumed that the confessional when you got older would be pro forma \u2013 something one did because it was part of the service, but not as essential as when one was young.<\/p>\n

Now I am the same age, and in some cases older, than the teachers I had back then. The daily confession is still in the service \u2013\u00a0and once more I tip my hat (or unclip my kippah) to the tradition, which was far wiser than I.<\n\n

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