A Modern Jewish-American Confession

During the Jewish New Year, congregants recite the “Vidui” – updated and secularized here for the benefit of every American.

During the High Holidays, which includes the Jewish New Year, congregants recite the “Vidui” (or “Confession”), an acrostic prayer that lists all possible sins, alphabetically in Hebrew. Creative English translations also list these sins acrostically, but use the English alphabetic: “We have Abused, we have Betrayed” through “we have been Zealots for bad causes.”

It is time to update and secularize this meditation so that Americans of every stripe and religion can repent of their more contemporary sins in a non-denominational acrostic fashion. So, as the secular New Year approaches, here is a modern Confession we can all recite (per custom, striking our chests as we confess each sin) to repent the many awful thing we’ve done this past year.

We have shared Amazon Prime logins with friends

We have Bullied on social media

We have Cheated at Words with Friends

We have Defriended grandma

We have Eaten gluten

We have Farted and blamed the dog

We have Groped

We have Hacked

We have Ignored use-by dates

We have Jerked off to Internet porn

We have misspelled Krudités

We have Lied in online dating profiles

We have Mixed brown shoes with black pants

We have sent Nude selfies

We have Overused emoticons

We have Posted cat videos on Facebook

We have Quit Windows without installing updates

We have Retweeted celebrity death hoaxes

We have Sexted

We have Twerked

We have Underwritten subprime mortgages

We have Videotaped roommates secretly twerking

We have Wikileaked Democrats emails

We have played Xbox excessively

We post cat videos on YouTube, too

We have abused Zappos’ free returns policy

Howard Zaharoff
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