The Day After Yom Kippur

Each one of us should consider that throughout the day of Yom Kippur, we will have elevated ourselves to a majestic spiritual plateau. However, what will happen the day after Yom Kippur? That is the big question. Will we return to our homes the night after Yom Kippur and feel lighter, as if we escaped from a confined, locked-down environment where everything we did was weighed and calculated. Now, however, the battle is over, and we can return to our old selves. Or, alternatively, will we feel that we are genuinely different people?

Throughout our lives, we have been through many days of Yom Kippur. We must ask ourselves, each year, are we sincerely better Jews than we were in past years? Or are we staying put and finding ourselves in the same place? We go through the motions, but nothing deep has changed within us. If that is so, who are we fooling? We cannot fool Hashem.

We have this incredible opportunity to improve ourselves and do teshuva, and if we opt to not take advantage of this very gift of doing teshuva, we are taken to task.

The Rambam writes that a person should view himself as if his scales are exactly half meritorious and half liable. If he does teshuvah, states the Rambam, then he will tip the scales. The Rambam does not, as the gemorah seems to imply, say that any one mitzvah needs to be done in order to tip the scales. That “one mitzvah” which the  gemorah describes and references, the Rambam tells us, is  teshuvah.

Hashem is giving us this unbelievable, precious gift; how could we not seize the opportunity and maximize it to its fullest?

May we all merit to make these days spiritually useful, enhance our lives, and develop into changed people.

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Adapted from the TorahAnyTimes newsletter, Yom Kippur edition, 10th of Tishrei, 5781; September 28, 2020. Compiled and edited by Elan Perchik.