9/16/2021 - Yom Kippur

First Yom Kippur! What a beautifully cathartic day. 

I took the day off of work to focus and attend services, which I'm glad I did so because I was not prepared for how emotionally exhausted Yom Kippur is. Sometimes, I hear Yom Kippur referred to as the Day of Sadness, and at some point in the day, it certainly felt so. But by the time the sunset, I felt at peace, kind of like floating on my back in the ocean. Hungry too, but that's aside from the point.

When I woke up, I got settled in, and because I missed the morning service, I read some excerpts from Jewish Literacy to get into the mindset of what the day would hold. What I found interesting in the reading is that Yom Kippur isn't necessarily just atonement for acts against others, but mostly atonement for our sins committed against God. Keeping that in mind, I believe it helped me focus on my repentance. While I reflected on my actions against others throughout the year, I also really dove into my thoughts and fine details of what caused and maintained my sins against God for so many years.  

The first service I attended was in the afternoon With Rabbi Lustig and Rabbi Fischel. What stuck out to me was how they spoke of owning our sins and recognizing, in quite blatant terms, the sins we are prone to as beings of free will. We are to reflect and identify the sins that we have committed with our freedom of free will and recognize that we all sin and the no one, aside from God, is divinely perfect. While ownership of wrongdoings is hard to accept, I believe that it is the core of repentance and a catalyst for changing one's behavior. 

Growing up Catholic we were taught that as long as we confessed our sins to a priest, we would always be forgiven. There was little to no guidance on how to evolve our actions to minimize, if not eliminate, the sins we are prone to as beings of free will. The common guidance after confession was to say 10 Hail Mary's, but at no point were we encouraged to feel the prayers we were reciting. It was just that, a recitation. As if the quantity of the prayers said made our actions excusable. My opinions and statements on my Catholic upbringing are by no means an attempt to demonize the religion. I'm sure that at its core it is an earnest faith, but that was not what I had seen or experienced in both the church I attended and our familial practices.

So, later in the day, as Rabbi Fischel recited the Al Chet while tapping her chest with each confession, I began to understand, in full, the severity of my actions against God. I guess you could say I put myself in God's shoes to see how my actions felt as if I were the person it was inflicted on. And it filled me with sadness to realize that I had voluntarily been living in ignorant oblivion because I was mad at God for so many years. As I was standing, both in temple and virtually, I felt a sense of immense humility because I was presenting my offensive sins against God and seeking forgiveness from Him when I felt that I did not deserve His forgiveness for what I had done. Not just forgiveness, but also a chance to not start new, but to own my past decisions and show Him how I can evolve from them.

I don't really think there's ever a "fresh start" with God. We cannot erase what we have done, but we can learn from it and become better versions of ourselves. Our lives are like rough drafts as we attempt over and over again to reach what we believe is the perfect, final product. But I'm sure that even the greatest writers would still make edits to their published books as they sit next to a bin of crumpled drafts. A rewrite is not a fresh start, but an evolution from a draft.

Maybe Yom Kippur is less about forgiveness and more about making peace. Or perhaps they go hand in hand. Maybe Yom Kippur is like agreeing that the previous draft wasn't great. Maybe Yom Kippur is seeing the edits needed in a draft and agreeing to move forward to create a better version of that draft.

In all honesty, Yom Kippur is much more complex than I had initially thought. But through the complexities and studies, I now understand why it is considered such a high holy day. Toward the end of the evening, I was in a state of utter awe knowing that God is so willing to bless us with forgiveness even when we may believe that we have committed the unforgivable.

It was a very emotional day as I prayed not only with God but with the congregation as well.

At the very, very end, Rabbi Lustig spoke of those not born into Judaism but who choose to practice Judaism anyway. He said they are doing the Jewish faith an honor by practicing and honoring its people and history. I remember Rabbi Shankman saying the same thing in our first meeting, but it still filled me with so much joy to hear again. Judaism is a beautifully resilient, communal, and sacred faith that is, in actuality, doing me the honor of allowing me the opportunity to become a part of it.