Father loved to play with his little son, for he loved him dearly. Once he brought him a beautiful apple, but did not give it to him at once. As the little boy stretched out his hand to snatch the apple, father drew it away quickly. The boy tried again, and again the apple was way above his head. This was repeated several times in a playful way, but the boy really wanted to have the apple, yet could not get it immediately.
Now the boy was a clever little fellow. He thought of a way to make his father give him the apple at once. Can you guess what he did?
When father pulled the apple away from him again, the boy suddenly said the blessing over fruit, which he knew very well, as all good little boys should. The father had no choice but to give him the apple to eat immediately, otherwise the blessing would have been said in vain!
Something like this we also do on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we fast and pray to G-d to forgive us our sins. In our prayers on that day we say a blessing, praising G-d as the "King who pardons and forgives our sins."
Now G-d would not want us to say a false blessing. So He forgives us, if we really want Him to. But in order to receive G-d’s pardon, we must feel sorry for anything wrong we may have done, and promise with all our hearts never to do anything wrong again.
LOGIN
ASK THE RABBI
