“Come, let us bow down and kneel.” (95:6)

Judaism incorporates some bowing into daily liturgy and a little bit of symbolic not-quite-kneeling. A few times a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, traditional Jews take kneeling one step further into full prostration. Excessive bowing has the appearance of false, obsequious, groveling, but careful, judicious, but serious, bowing, is useful to one’s character to remind oneself that no matter how powerful we might feel, that our power is limited. We bow to show our humility before God, and we bow to remind ourselves to behave with humility before others