Yom Kippur
Online
Confessions
AtoneNet.com allows you to apologize
anonymously — but does it really
allow you to atone?
ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
T
echnology affects nearly every
aspect of life today, so why not
the Day of Atonement?
With Yom Kippur nearly here, some
Jews comfortable with using the
internet have taken to confessing or
apologizing for their sins or shortcom-
ings on an online site, AtoneNet.com.
Submitters are assured that the mod-
erator has no way of determining their
identity.
David Zvi Kalman, who was
raised Modern Orthodox, launched
AtoneNet.com in 2013. He said his
site is inspired by the long confession
Al Chet, the centerpiece of the Yom
Kippur liturgy. Worshippers ask God
and each other for forgiveness for
their sins or transgressions and com-
mit themselves to acting differently in
the new year.
As Kalman explained, “Since it is
unlikely that any of us would willingly
share our deepest shames publicly, I
have set up a website where anyone
can — anonymously — describe what
they’ll be asking forgiveness for on
Yom Kippur.”
Website visitors are invited to post
their answers to one simple question:
What do you want to ask forgiveness
for this year?”
Local rabbis contacted from dif-
ferent streams of Judaism gave their
views on the concept of Jews using
an online confessional booth for their
Yom Kippur atonement.
“I think the idea is OK if it is viewed
as a way to motivate someone to
atone in person if he or she has hurt
someone. It cannot be a substitute,”
said Conservative
Rabbi Aaron
Bergman of Adat
Shalom Synagogue in
Farmington Hills. “It
might be a good tool
to help people forgive
themselves if they
have done things to
Rabbi Aaron
harm themselves. It
Bergman
34
September 13 • 2018
jn
is probably also OK as a way to atone
to God for religious-oriented sins,
though I think there is a power to
being in synagogue in person as part
of a community.”
AtoneNet is “as good as any other
technique of writing down regrets
in order to help deal
with them,” said
Rabbi Jeff Falick, who
leads the Humanistic
Jewish congregation
Birmingham Temple
in Farmington Hills.
Falick doesn’t see
AtoneNet
as an “apol-
Rabbi Jeff Falick
ogy site” because
“who is there to receive the apology or
accept efforts at reconciliation?”
Getting settled with God is of no
concern in Humanistic Judaism, so “if
we want to improve, we need to make
right our wrongs with those whom we
have wronged,” including wrongs to
ourselves, he said.
Falick called AtoneNet “a place to
vent about not living up to our own
expectations and, as far as that goes,
it’s a fine effort. It makes no sense if
it’s seen as a way to reconcile with
other people.”
Orthodox Rabbi
Herschel Finman,
co-director of Jewish
Ferndale and the
Jewish Hour radio
program, considers
the site “unneces-
sary, as the confess-
ing of one’s sins is
Rabbi Herschel
to HaShem, and
Finman
HaShem doesn’t need
the internet to hear
one’s prayers.”
At the same time, he noted that
“any tool that brings a person closer
to HaShem is a good thing. If a person
feels this is the proper method for
them to get closer to HaShem, then
baruch HaShem, they should use it.”
Rabbi Aura Ahuvia of Reform/
Reconstructionist
Congregation Shir
Tikvah in Troy said
she doubted that
Reform Judaism
would have any
prohibition against
apologizing online.
Rabbi Aura Ahuiva
She said her
stream “tends to
allow great leeway in allowing people
to find what works for them. If some-
one would find it meaningful to apolo-
gize for their sin in this way, I’m not
against the idea of trying it out.”
One benefit of an online apology
is the “possibility of being noticed,
despite the anonymity that the site
provides,” she said. “If all one wanted
was anonymity, you could simply con-
fess alone and in private.”
She wouldn’t recommend the site,
however, because of the Jewish tradi-
tion’s “insistence on confessing with
one’s community. There is a great
power in physically coming together
to pray, which online sites miss.”
Much to his surprise, Rabbi Michael
Zimmerman of Kehillat Israel, a
Reconstructionist and Conservative
synagogue in Lansing, said he felt
pretty good about the website once he
had a chance to review it.
Zimmerman said he could imag-
ine a confessor “would feel some
release by posting on
AtoneNet, but wheth-
er this feels more or
less like legitimate
atoning than personal
prayer really depends
upon the individual
and the kavanah
(intention) behind the
Rabbi Michael
confession.”
Zimmerman
Still, he sees that
“conveying the illusion
of public confession to one’s com-
munity under the protective shield of
anonymity definitely has therapeutic
value, just as when a therapist advises
a client to write a letter to a dead par-
ent or an ex-spouse, but not to send
it.”
Confessing online, Zimmerman said,
“could work in the case of someone
who feels an unusual burden to con-
fess without directly communicating
with the parties involved.”
As for himself, “I’ll stay with the old
tried-and-true methods” of private
prayer and supplication for settling his
own accounts with God. •
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