Vayelech & Yom Kippur
What Yom Kippur Is All About
Dear Friend,
As Yom Kippur approaches, it is a time to take account of our deeds and right any wrongs.
We have a chance to find those we may have offended (something that is all too easy in the digital era, when a sharp text, IM, or Tweet can be sent almost instantly to someone halfway across the world) and ask for forgiveness.
Yom Kippur, however, is more than just a day for repentance. After Selichot, Rosh Hashanah and the 10 Days of Repentance, one may wonder: what more is there to do? Have not all the words been said and all the apologies before man and G‑d been made?
Yom Kippur allows us delve deeper into our very essence. Each of the five prayers of the 25 hours of Yom Kippur allows us to dig deeper into our character. Like the layers of an onion, we can peel back one level to reveal another. Until, during the Neilah prayer, we stand alone before the Almighty G‑d. All layers have been removed and our essence stands bare, in the ecstatic union with the essence of the Creator.
We are one and our Creator is one.
One day, one people, one essence.
May we all be sealed for a year of sweetness and revealed good in all matters,
Mordechai Lightstone,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
There are a number of reasons given for blowing the shofar at this time. Here are some of them . . .
We already petitioned G‑d on Rosh Hashanah. Why are we going through the whole exercise all over again on Yom Kippur? Doesn’t G‑d get a little annoyed at the repeat performance?
There is a beast inside, a genius of a beast, but a stupid genius. A clear and thoughtful mind knows it takes an awful lot to get the Creator of the Universe angry with you.
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when we fast, pray, seek forgiveness from G-d and our fellows, and come closer to G-d. It is the peak of the High Holidays.
When is He to be found and near? In the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
In memory of Gedaliah’s tragic death and its disastrous aftermath, we fast every year on the 3rd of Tishrei, the day after Rosh Hashanah.
Some people never ask for our forgiveness. They don’t show remorse, they don’t seem to care that they’ve hurt us, and they may even demean or belittle us for having been hurt. Why should we forgive them?
Yom Kippur holds within it the very essence of the universe and of who we are. It brings together space, time and soul in one indivisible point that paradoxically contains every detail of existence. Yom Kippur is the “fifth dimension” that courses through both the expanse of the universe and deep within us. By paying attention to the way the day itself works, we can gain insight into this transcendent dimension of creation . . .
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