If a stranger entered a synagogue on Yom Kippur, he would stand in wonder listening to the different prayers, especially noticing the intensity and emotion of the worshipers.
Many people – rich and poor, educated and uneducated, young and old, religious and less religious, women and men, those from a high socioeconomic stratum, and those from the fringes of society – stand together before God without discrimination and do something pretty extraordinary: request forgiveness.
All people have regrets. Regret is an inextricable part of being human. It could be said that whoever has no regrets must lack self-awareness. To have regrets, a person need not have committed an outrageous crime, stealing, or, heaven forbid, committing murder. It is enough not to have treated our partner nicely or to have offended a friend. Slights, even minuscule ones, leave a small scar that necessitates forgiveness, purity, and atonement.
Our sages, though, put up a big warning sign that says: Sins that are between a man and his fellow are not atoned for on Yom Kippur (Tractate Yoma, Chapter 8). Indeed, one cannot offend another person and ask for forgiveness from God. Forgiveness must be asked from the person we hurt; only he or she can pardon us.
How does Yom Kippur lead us to become better people?
On the morning of Yom Kippur, we read a section in Isaiah (Chapter 58) where the prophet presents a debate as though it takes place between God and human beings. Here, we see how Yom Kippur leads us to repair our ways and be just and kind to our fellow man.
Isaiah says that people claim the following before God: “How is it that we have fasted, and You did not see; we have afflicted our soul, and You pay no heed?” This question is asked after the fast, when the yearned-for pardon is not on the horizon. Out of despair, the people turn to God asking, “Why hasn’t the fast helped?!”
God’s response is clear and unequivocal: “Is this the fast I desire – a day for man to afflict his soul? Is it to bend his head like a fishhook and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Do you humans think that I desire you to suffer?! And do I get any benefit whatsoever from the fact that you bend your heads and afflict yourselves?!”
If the fast is not an end in itself but the means to reach something else, what is this yearned-for goal? God responds to this question with the following surprising answer: “This is the fast that I desire... to share your bread with the hungry, and take the poor, who are moaning, into your home. When you see someone who is naked, clothe him, and do not turn away from your own kin.”
This, explains God, is how I want your fast to be. This is the goal that I expect your fast will help you reach.
THE PURPOSE of the fast is not to suffer (or diet). Instead, we should think about those who are miserable and poor, who have neither food nor clothing. There should be a sense of solidarity among all people, and we must not ignore human suffering. This is the purpose of the fast!
Isaiah promises that “Then you shall call and the Lord shall answer; you shall cry and He shall say, ‘Here I am.’” God will answer our call when we end Yom Kippur with a sincere decision to do more for others, to work to make the world a slightly better place, to treat our families better.
Yom Kippur influences us in a positive manner in another way. One of the sections repeated over and over again on Yom Kippur is a short part of the Torah termed “The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy.” Again and again, we repeat these verses:
“Lord, Lord, benevolent God, who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, preserving loving-kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and rebellion and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7).
The repetition serves different purposes. One of them relates to the essence and idea of this sacred day. When we repeat this declaration over and over, we become persuaded that the correct path between us and our fellow man (and not only between us and our creator) is the path of compassion, forgiveness, kindness, and truth.
There is virtue in this statement. We turn to God in the merit of those same qualities of mercy with which He identifies Himself, and thus we awaken those same traits in all of human society – especially in ourselves.
Our sages have said that whoever deals indulgently and forgivingly with his fellow men earns similar treatment from the Almighty. If we make a habit of displaying undeserved grace and kindness to others, including those who have committed wrongs against us, then we are guaranteed to earn this same kind of undeserved grace from above.
A person who concludes Yom Kippur with this message, one of compassion and forgiveness, is someone who has internalized what the Torah calls “the path of God,” the way that God treats the world. This person can feel confident that after Yom Kippur he will be purer and his sins forgiven. ■
The writer is the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.