Yom Kippur 5784
A Jew comes to a Rabbi, “Rabbi, you gotta help me, I want to do teshuva, repentance. I didn’t wash my hands and recite the blessing before eating bread”
“Nu? The Rabbi said, “Just learn the laws in the Code of Jewish Law to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Why did you neglect to wash your hands, nor did you say the blessing in the first place?”
“You see Rabbi, it was awkward, I was in a non-Kosher restaurant.”
“Why were you eating there?” the Rabbi asked.
“I had no choice, all of the Kosher restaurants were closed”
“Why were they all closed?” the Rabbi asked incredulously.
“It was Yom Kippur”.
The Torah’s mention of the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, intimates to us that the day itself - just us living and breathing - during these 25 hours causes atonement for every Jewish person no matter what their spiritual standing. It is just how you observe the sanctity of the day - on a personal level - that affects whether or not the wonderment, the freedom, and the clarity becomes palpable or just a passing shadow.
When we exert ourselves by fasting, praying and going inward, the tenor of the day becomes transformative and life-changing.
When the U.S. Air Force developed rocket planes that could break the sound barrier, the pilots who flew them kept dying.
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