Dear God:

I'm sorry for not believing in you.

I know I stood up there on the bimah, in front of all those people at Temple B'nai Israel, wearing the yarmulke with my name printed on the inside and that terribly uncomfortably suit my parents bought me, and sang those prayers and that incredibly long Torah portion. (Must have been like six chapters, right? I swear to... you, I was going for 45 minutes.) It was all in Hebrew. I didn't understand a word of it. I know I was supposed to be "reading" it-it was written there, in that enormous book that was open in front of me, but again, in Hebrew. I had memorized it off the tape the cantor had made for me. Six months, up in my bedroom, every night after dinner, rewinding and singing, rewinding and singing. (Believe me, there are things I would have rather been doing alone in my bedroom all those hours other than that. I was twelve years old. I had already memorized the copy of The Joy of Sex on the shelf in my parent's room down the hall.) Anyway, I'm guessing that somewhere in all that indecipherable Hebrew, there might have been something along of the lines of "I believe in God." So, sorry for lying.

If you do in fact exist, especially in the omniscient way that everyone talks about, I realize I'm in big trouble. I have broken eight of your ten commandments at some time or another. (Seven, on a more generous count. How strictly do you define the word "neighbor"?) If you do exist, here's hoping you are not as vengeful a God as some people say you are. Here's to forgiveness. That's a nice shirt, by the way.

In not believing in you, I don't mean to insult anyone who does. It's an intellectual position, that's all. I know the thought of you brings great comfort to many people. I realize lots of good gets done in your name. Charity organizations, etc. You've inspired some great architecture, too. And books and sculpture and painting and music. (Thank you for Prince's "The Cross," for example. Though I generally prefer the profane side of His Royal Badness to the pious.) But taking into consideration all the war and mass murder that people do for you, all the unbridgeable division and entrenchment of thought that irrational faith leads to, all the ending of discussion and diplomacy, all the forsaking of responsibility for human action, I happen to think the world would be a better place if no one believed in you. Even if you do exist. We're better off thinking, even if incorrectly, that we're on our own. Maybe people would take care of each other better if they believed they were really in charge. Maybe people would clean up after themselves.

All of which is to say, I will be eating food today. Probably nothing as delicious as the scallop wrapped in bacon I had Saturday night, but who knows? I could get lucky. This makes me think. If you do exist, and you did create in fact create the world and everything in it, but with the intention that human beings, equipped as we are with taste buds, were in fact not supposed to eat something that tasted so delicious, well that's just kind of mean, isn't it?

But it's Yom Kippur. I shouldn't start an argument. And I do write this as a form of atonement. I know I make mistakes, I'd like to make up for them. I try to be a good person. That's what it's all about, right?