Happy Yom Kippur?

I don't know if I've told you, but I'm Jewish.

I might have mentioned it in the past, after all what Jew doesn't beat that dead horse for all it's worth. Particularly when you traffic in ranting, raving and pointless bloviating, as Seinfeld once famously pointed out, Judaism is the bottomless goldmine of comedic material.

Today is Yom Kippur, a day of atonement.

As I've also mentioned in the past, I don't have much to atone for.

I don't smoke.
I don't drink (to excess. or often.)
I don't change lanes without signaling.
I don't let my dog out at all hours of the evening to bark and wake up the neighbors.
I don't fight with my wife (to excess. or often.)
I don't cause trouble at work.
I don't park in the handicapped space, despite my chronic rage disorder.
And I don't litter, though many people these days are.

More importantly, not only do I have little or nothing to atone for, I don't know who I'd be atoning to.

I don't know if I've told you, but I don't believe in God.
Or Allah.
Or Jesus.
Or Pastafarian, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

In years past, this has never stopped me from slapping on my monkey suit, sitting in temple to listen to some Hebrew gibberish and then abstaining from food for 23 hours and 45 minutes.

I don't know why I did it, I just did. Perhaps to honor my parents, my grandparents and their parents, who were mercilessly beaten up by Kosacks and always chosen last for the soccer team.

But, as a mortally-conscious 44 year old, I have dissuaded myself of the notion that they are somehow looking down on me. And judging.

"Step away from the matza ball soup it's not sundown yet. Do you want to disgrace 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 years (the number is always changing) of Jewish history?"

But this year is different. I have two kids in college. Out of state college with outrageous out of state tuitions.

So this year, I'll probably be working on Yom Kippur.

And I probably won't be fasting either.

Unless the guilt thing starts kicking in.

And there's always a good chance of that.