After all, the learned Rambam (Maimonides) tells us to ignore the massive sins and look toward the lighter crimes,,,gluttony (Who hasn't on occasion eaten a bit more than they should have?), anger (Well, I remember a few years ago when my boss!), and vanity (Saks=Jewish). Rambam was, in a word, brilliant. He understood that humanity naturally thinks the best of itself. People instinctively lurch when they feel accused. It reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where a boy confesses his sins to the priest -- rather opaquely -- then practically shouts "and covet Father, heavy on the covet!" We can stand bearing the guilt of lesser crimes, but not the big ones.

The truth is we do commit the big ones. Who can honestly say they haven't lied? Know what that makes us? A liar. Who will confess that they have not been lewd with their off-color joke or comment? With their revealing outfit meant to attract stares? Is there a person who has not stolen? "Oh, it was nothing. Just some money on the street."

But the Rambam does not want to wrestle with us. He is far too wise. His goal is to not make us so defensive that teshuvah becomes impossible. Instead, he disarms us with us his casual introduction to our small warts.

Have you heard the old tale about "for lack of a nail the war was lost?" The basic premise of the prose is that when small things are ignored they lead to dark and implacable consequences. The Rambam seeks to make us aware of the bad things in ourselves that we can own and then change. We cannot repent (do teshuvah) for things we do not see. Which brings us to the most important point: part of being Jewish is to be awake to the Self. Merely reciting the words by rote or dryly reading them from the Mahzor (High Holy Day prayer book) is not enough. We need to feel. Prozac aside, folks. True teshuvah means being awake to our true Self. Now get this; even if that means ignoring our gross sins because they are too large for us to acknowledge and take in. Rambam is going out on a limb here.

You cannot repent what you do not feel, implies Rambam.

Further, he indicates, small sins are so innocuous that they will be repeated without a thought. It is a bit like eating. We never think about chewing before we swallow; it just happens. So it is with our crimes, repetition leads to habit. We lie once, we lie twice. By the fourth time it is no longer a lie in our mind, it is what we do.

So our insightful Rambam yields another great yawning human cavity: we need to come to terms with what we do routinely. Perhaps the worst sins we do are the one we no longer label as sins. Long, long ago we ceased making excuses for these behaviors. We do it. It is what everybody does. Or so goes the rationale. The awful pain of teshuvah is the sudden realization that we are not what we think we are. Perhaps that is the meaning of the verse which he quotes "May the wicked abandon their path.." The path is what we tread without an awareness of where and how we have been walking.

Temple Beth El -- Poughkeepsie, New York