Accounting For All
Every Yom Kippur, Jews all over the world recite Viduy, the confession. Some of the sins listed may be familiar to the person reciting them, and those certainly deserve mention. However, there are other sins listed about which the confessor may have definite knowledge that he is innocent. He may wonder, “Why am I confessing a sin that I did not commit?”
This is especially true of individuals who recite the lengthy tefillah by Rabbeinu Yonah recited on Yom Kippur before or after Kol Nidrei. The text there states, “I have violated all the mitzvos.” I once heard R’ Becher make an interesting point, and it is embellished here. To accomplish the feat of violating all the mitzvos, one must be a man, a woman, single, married, divorced, a Kohen Gadol, a Levi, a Yisrael, a farmer, a judge, a king, a prophet, a parent, a homeowner, a slave-owner, a moneylender, a thief, a metzorah, an accidental killer, and be living in Israel! Don’t try this at home! Why confess sins that one certainly could not have performed?
In the liturgy of the Yamim Nora’im there is a piyut about the tragic deaths of the Ten Martyrs.