Bribing Men and God

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Yom Kippur’s Omission in Deuteronomy
The book of Deuteronomy, ... makes no reference at all to the tenth of Tishrei, or the various rites associated with that day. From a theological perspective – considerations of chronological and historical development aside – this silence accords well with Deuteronomy’s overall orientation. Priestly-ritual matters are often deemphasized or given a more abstract or conceptual significance in this book.

Deuteronomy calls upon Israel to make a spiritual effort to purify the heart (4:39; 10:16) and obedience and loyalty are not beyond reach but are very close to one’s heart (30:11—14). All a person needs is to educate diligently and to place the law “upon your heart and spirit” (11:18—20). And if Israel goes into exile due to sin, they will find their God anew when they seeks God out and return in sincerity (4:29—31).

In short, according to Deuteronomy, though the temptation to sin is real, Israel’s ability to be loyal, or to successfully repent and wholeheartedly return, is sufficiently strong to make priestly rituals of atonement of secondary importance at best. Actually, the lack of emphasis on priestly rituals focusing on the sanctuary may well reflect a sense of their spiritual danger. If the priests can guarantee divine absolution of sins on a regular basis, then a feeling of complacency is likely to set in, and no true improvement will ever come about. Priestly atonement is spiritually dangerous in that it weakens the urgency of improvement and repentance. See: Recasting the Temple Purification Ritual as the Yom Kippur Service, Prof. Rabbi David Frankel

The ransom theory of atonement was a theory in Christian theology as to how the process of Atonement in Christianity
had happened. It therefore accounted for the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ. It was one of a number of historical theories, and was mostly popular between the 4th and 11th centuries, with little support in recent times. It originated in the early Church, particularly in the work of Origen. The theory teaches that the death of Christ was a ransom sacrifice, usually said to have been paid to Satan, in satisfaction for the bondage and debt on the souls of humanity as a result of inherited sin.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_theory_of_atonement

Kapparot
Kapparot (Hebrew: כפרות, Ashkenazi transliteration: Kapporois, Kapores) is a customary atonement ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur. This is a practice in which either money is waved over a person's head to try and transfer the sins of the person and then donated to charity, or else a chicken is waved over the head to try and transfer said person's sins and then slaughtered in accordance with halachic rules and donated to the hungry.[1] It is important to clarify that it is not a sacrifice as it is not even an offering and it can be eaten just as any other chicken. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KapparotTsh

No one is sure. It's not mentioned in the Torah or Talmud. The first reference appears in the 9th century in a responsa, a kind of question-and-answer session, with the scholar Amram ben Sheshna. As head of a revered Babylonian academy, Sheshna was considered a great sage, but when asked about kapparot's origin, he said, "For we do not know."

Historians believe it probably began several centuries before Sheshna's commentary and then became widespread, requiring the rabbis to devise an ex post facto explanation. Sheshna said it derived from a practice in the ancient temple, where a goat bearing the sins of the people was sent into the wilderness to die. But after the destruction of the Temple, Jews were prohibited from carrying out the practices once done there. Sheshna said kapparot was a convenient workaround with another animal. See: Kapparot: The Yom Kippur Tradition of Chicken Twirling, Brandeis University

Petty Bribing in Gotham

They follow a slew of other corruption charges that together form a dispiriting whole. An 8.5 million-person metropolis built on muscle, willpower and can-do innovation finds itself sidetracked with investigations into grifts, gifts and side hustles with pointedly low returns. ... Mr. Adams’s former director of Asian affairs, Winnie Greco, now a campaign volunteer, was suspended on Wednesday after she handed more than $100 in cash — stuffed not in a carpetbag, but a Herr’s potato-chip bag — to a reporter covering the election. .. For workaday New Yorkers, the accusations of valuable political favors given in exchange for bribes best suited for gift cards are doubly unwelcome. They are disappointing abuses of power, to be sure, but also — really? See: New York Is a Big City. Its Graft Has Become Small-Town Stuff. By Michael Wilson Aug. 22, 2025

Protektsia
The word you are likely looking for is "protektsia" (or protekciya), a term for using personal connections and influence to receive special treatment. It is derived from the Latin word for "protection" but has taken on a more specific, informal meaning in various languages.
Meaning of "protektsia"
Preferential treatment through connections: It refers to the act of using personal ties or a network of influential people to gain an advantage, such as a job, a place in a university, or to bypass bureaucratic obstacles.
"Vitamin P": The term is well-known in Israel, where it is often referred to as "Vitamin P". It describes the use of "kasharim" (connections) to get things done efficiently, often by leveraging military or political ties.
Widespread concept: The practice is found in many cultures and is often compared to similar concepts, like guanxi in China or wasta in the Middle East.
Rooted in patronage: The underlying idea is a form of patronage, where an influential person (a "patron") offers support to another person (a protégé).

MEANING:
noun:
1. The entire set (as in the whole schmeer).
2. Bribe or flattery.
3. Spread or paste.
verb tr:
To butter up: to flatter or bribe.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Yiddish schmirn (to smear, grease, or flatter), from Middle High German smiren. Earliest recorded use: 1930.

NOTES:
Literally speaking, to schmeer is to smear, cream cheese on a bagel, for example. The term is also used in many metaphorical senses: to flatter or bribe someone. Many languages have similar terms. In English we have: "to grease someone's palm" (to bribe) and "to butter someone up" (to flatter). There's another metaphorical sense in English that makes use of schmeer's cousin, smear, as in "to smear someone's reputation".

Tashlich
The Tashlich ritual, which means ''send out'' or ''cast away'', elegantly expresses this goal of ''sending out'' our sins. The symbolic act of tossing out crumbs somehow, almost magically, is thought to achieve that archetypal human need of cleansing ourselves of our negativity & waste. Tashlich is like Jewish ritual medicine. It''s a classic psycho-spiritual technique for inner-cleansing and health.
So what is really going on for us psychologically as we toss out our crumby sins? I would posit that the therapeutic power of tashlich is much like the psychological idea of catharsis. ''Cathartic therapy'' was introduced by Freud and Breuer in the 1890''s. It is is based on the belief that we can cure symptoms and relieve anxiety by the expression of repressed feelings and fears.
The process of psychological catharsis is 2 fold. First it involves a powerful experience of emotional expression and release. After that emotional phase comes a more cognitive one. After the release, new insights and realizations are able to emerge in the space vacated by the hitherto pent-up emotions. The ''sending-out'' of tashlich likewise recreates a symbolic release and in that voided space there is now room to birth new insights and next steps.
This cathartic release is achieved through a technique called ''distancing'' – that is watching from a distance as someone (or something) else goes through the very thing you are most afraid of. Distancing is a crucial, albeit ironic, tool for accessing our own emotions. For distance creates safety. This notion of distancing is inherent to the idea of tashlich, which is all about sending out from, or distancing ourselves from. We send out the crumb – we cast it away from ourselves. It''s not me, its the crumb who gets plunged into the watery abyss. It''s not me who is drowned or consumed by the fish of the deep, it''s that crumb.
the core reading of the day is the original and literal Biblical scape-goat. We read the theatrical retelling of the biblical Yom Kippur ritual. The priest places his hands on the goat''s head and transfers the communal repository of sins onto him. This unlucky creature is then literally “cast out” to the desert, to the dark side, to be devoured by the demonic Azazel. Talk about a cathartic drama!

Our sins are simply carried away in someone else''s coat. Instead of us getting devoured by the demon, it is the sacrificial goat...or in the case of tashlich, the sacrificial crumbs. And so it is that through the act of tashlich ... and the scape-goat, we are actually able to rid of our sins from a safe ''distance''. See: The Psychology of Tashlich By CHAYA KAPLAN-LESTER OCTOBER 6, 2011