Thoughts Before Yom Kippur 5769

For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before the LORD. - Leviticus 16:30

For those of you who don't know, Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish faith. From the time the Kol Nidre prayer is recited this evening until the Shofar is sounded tomorrow night, Jews around the world will draw nearer to God through acts of atonement, fasting, and prayer.

Jewish tradition teaches that on Yom Kippur, God remembers every name, listens to every petition, and offers forgiveness to the repentant.

Jews are stubbornly optimistic (we have to be to have survived for so long!); we have faith that God will hear our collective pleas for forgiveness--punctuated by individual petitions--and respond favorably. We believe there's a plan and we're confident that God is good, His actions are good, His intentions positive.

That's an increasingly tenuous position to hold, given the world's precarious current financial and geo-political position. But still Jews around the world flock to synagogue, listen to the timeless Kol Nidre prayer, and beseech God to "inscribe us in the book of Life."

As a child growing up in an Orthodox synagogue, I looked at Yom Kippur with dread: An interminable day in temple, unfamiliar prayers, no candy from the candy guy, Harry Meyers.

Time and experience has thawed my dread of Yom Kippur to the point where I now look forward to it: I eagerly anticipate communing with my fellow Jews around the world, "meeting" with God, and the comforting liturgy that accompanies the expiation of sins. The fasting seems a small sacrifice indeed. The once-unfamiliar liturgy no longer intimidates; rather, it comforts and sustains me as the sun traces its inexorable path across the sky.

For one day I am truly detached from the world around me: No email, no voice mail, no meetings, no exercise. A "Sabbath of Sabbaths", set aside to take stock of my life and resolve to do better, be better, act better.

Tomorrow night as the gates of repentance close and the sun sets on another Yom Kippur, I hope that through the repentance, prayer and charity of Jews across the world, God chooses to make all our lives better. Tonight and tomorrow I'm not just praying for me and for my family, I'm praying for all of us.

On its own, mine is a small voice. But in chorus with Jews across the world, I hope our collective voices make a positive difference for all humanity.