Selichot (Yes, There Actually Is a Judaism Component to This Blog)

The first year that I don't go to slichot nightly - not because I have gone down in belief, but simply because I fear to confront myself. I don't remember ever going into a yamim noraim feeling so "off the derech" - not literally. I still observe halacha, etc, but - spiritually. I don't feel like I have been integrating God into the minute details of my life - which is essentially the purpose of mitzvot. (Not willing to engage in the "do mitzvot have a purpose/if so what" debate at the moment.)

So can a blog post replace selichot? If I were to suddenly write down every sin I had committed, exposing myself to public embarrassment (according to some rabbis, benificial to teshuva, though I've also read that confessing a ben adam laMakom in public is actually considered vain and a chilul Hashem) would that do the trick?

My question reminds me of the midrash's story of Korach asking Moshe: if I have a garment of tzitzit that is all techelet, why does it matter if certain strings are techelet? ie, if something meta-halachik seems to fulfill the purpose of the halacha, why bother with the halacha at all - why not just circumvent it and use the meta-halachik method to achieve that purpose. This is the danger of finding "purposes" to mitzvot.

According to Yeshayahu Liebowitz, the very purpose of the mitzvah is that we observe the will of God. There is no purpose beyond that. The means (halacha) become the ends, so there can be no meta-halachik ways of fulfilling God's will, for inventing those ways, we would be negating that will - which is that we subjugate our wills to His. (not that God has a gender)

I am not sure where I am going with this. I guess I just wanted to think about God and write something on those thoughts, for myself. At the moment, tonight, stranded between two art history papers, this is the most introspection I feel capable of giving - and that makes me sad.

I believe that who we are during the aseret yemey teshuvah is who we truly are, stripped of the layers of sin that accumulate throughout the year. We are like beautiful silver - during the aseret yemey teshuva we polish ourselves, getting rid of the rust and revealing the true beauty within. Of course, the rust builds up again, which is why we must polish ourselves on a yearly basis - but our essence is still that beautiful silver, even when covered by a removable layer of grime.

There is a chasidic story that a certain man was a secular business man during the year. Starting during the three weeks, he grew a beard. On tisha biAv he would go to a chasidic rebbe and stay with the rebbe through Yom Kippur. One day, he came to the rebbe sans beard, in secular garb. The rebbe began to cry. "I always knew you were a secular businessman, but as long as you came here looking like a hasid, I thought deep down you were a hasid and circumstances forced you to be the businessman. Now that you come here without even putting on the pretense of being a hasid, I know that deep down you're actually the businessman."

I feel like God is the rebbe, and the chasidic garb is being the best we can be. And I am worried that at the moment I am not wearing my metaphorical chasidic garb.