As we approach Yom Kippur in Israel I find the need to make a few final comments about this special day in the life of an Israeli/American Jew living in this amazing country.
Yom Kippur means the “day of atonement, or rather the day of
At-One-Ment. It is a day that culminates the inner-work that we Jews are asked to do especially intensively since Rosh HaShannah, the “New Year” according to the Jewish calendar that is marked by the Moon cycles with some adjustment so it coincides closely with the solar calendar. Actually, to be more precise it is from “Tish Baav, the day when we fast and remember the destructions of the Temple past and all of the other tragedies that have befallen on us as a nation. It is from this moment that we search for the part of us that inspires forgiveness and substitutes the darkness with in our souls, for the light that we are and have always been in spite of the forgetfulness of daily life. As Einstein once said, darkness does not come from G-d but from an absence of light.
So it is with the world around us. The hatred, ugliness and nastiness we have within us destroy everything and everyone around us through all kinds of rationalizations in order to be right and in the truth. But when we take this time to search out the deep places of our soul for those broken parts of us that have been fragmented through the year we are painfully reminded that we must ask forgiveness of ourselves and all those around us for any harm that we might have caused, intentionally or not.
It is in this spirit that we culminate this expression of remorse and celebrate life by asking G-d, the One-source, the eternal, or even the No-God, for another year of life in the hope that we will be more aware as we proceed down this path of life and living in the community of men-women. Yom Kippur is the day that arrives each year for Jews in which we dress in white, as the angels that we are and dance, cry, prayer in order to WAKE UP and be human and hope that our lives have been spared for one more year in order to get it right.
But even after this day, a day in which all of Israel refrains from driving and walks the streets of the cities and villages of this blessed country and greets each other in a kinder and gentler way we then celebrate life in a flimsy room outside lest we not forget how temporary life really is. To get it right so to speak and hope we can take it with us moment to moment.
Bless all of you Jews and Non Jews a like in the celebration of life knowing full well that there are people all over the world that still suffer from oppression, poverty and lack of opportunity. Until all of us are free there will always be a piece of us that is a bit torn in the pain of the suffering.
