Blog

When asked, I would expect that most Jews will respond that Yom Kippur is the most important day of the year, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. We fast for 25 hours and confess the sins that we have committed against God, both knowingly and unknowingly, the ones that we have remembered and the ones that we forgot but God remembers, in the hopes that our sincerity will encourage God to forgive us. The precursor to this is the Ten Days of Penitence, from the beginning of Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, when we are to reach out to all those in our lives and confess the same thing. Little do we think if God is watching us during those Ten Days of Penitence, adding our actions or inactions to God’s Excel Spreadsheet of our deeds. In the absence of any Divine communications, we assume when we leave the synagogue that God has accepted our pleas for forgiveness. But what of the next day?

Are we changed through the experience of Yom Kippur in some manner? Have any particular words in the machzor, the chant of the hazzan, or the rabbi’s sermons, impacted us somehow? I would suggest that if our experiences in synagogue during Yom Kippur were meaningful, we should be changed somehow. Perhaps we might be a bit kinder, or a bit more patient, or a bit more loving, or a bit more generous, or a bit more ________ (add your own adjective). If we resume the precise path that we were travelling previously, then what is the purpose of Yom Kippur? As evolving organisms, our bodies change without us doing anything to them. It’s called aging. But we can impact how others view us by partnering with God to become an even better version of ourselves, and the ways that we can do so are limited only by our imaginations. If we want to be a more caring person, then become a more caring person. If we want to be more generous, then be more generous. If we want to be more loving, then be more loving. Change is hard, but the end results, especially positive ones, are worth the effort. If we are not sure how to go about affecting the change we desire, seek out role models that emulate the behavior that we strive for, engage in a conversation to learn what might be needed to effect that change, and work on it.

God speaks through the prophet Isaiah, whose words are recited as the Haftarah on Yom Kippur morning, saying:

            Because on your fast day you see to your business and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention, and you strike with a wicked fist! Your fasting today is not such as to make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day when the Lord is favorable? No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin. Then shall your light burst through like the dawn and your healing spring up quickly. (The New Mahzor, pp. 555-557)

God makes it clear what is expected of us, and challenges us to meet a very high standard, but a worthy one indeed. Modelling moral and ethical behavior in a world where it seems to be lacking is always difficult. Yet in a world filled with evil, Noah did so, and became the model for being righteous amongst the wicked. We are called by God to do the same thing today. Are you ready to answer God’s call?