Yom Kippur: Returning to Your True Self

by Mitch Ditkoff

Thank you, Rabbi Zoe, for your kind introduction. Thank you to Chazan Robert Micha’el Esformes for his gentle guidance with this piece. And thank you to everybody who helped prepare the temple tonight for this sacred gathering.

I am happy to have a few minutes with you at this very special time to help invoke the spirit, meaning and opportunity that Yom Kippur provides – the most significant and holiest day of the Jewish year – a time for each and every one of us to return to the very best of who we truly are.

It is said that Yom Kippur is the day of atonement – a time when the Jewish people reflect, look within, make amends and seek forgiveness.

From what you may ask.  Only you can answer that question.

But if I were to  hazard a guess, I would say it has something to with forgetfulness – the kind of uninvited amnesia that robs us of our most prized possessions – the essence of what makes us true human beings.

Like kindness, for instance. Like empathy and compassion. Like generosity, tenderness, patience, gratitude, love and selflessness just to name a few.

Yes, we have these qualities. We do.  And yes, we forget them from time to time. Like forgetting to turn off the tea kettle when we leave the kitchen to find something in the living room, but somehow, when we get there, can no longer remember what it is.

It is Yom Kippur, my friends. Yom Kippur. As contemporary Jews, we come to the temple tonight not as an obligation, but as a choice. 

So much depends on that – the way we approach the returning to our higher self – how we pause, reflect, take stock, make amends (without guilt, I might add), and yes, forgive.

Forgive whom?  Well, for starters, our own selves.

Indeed, until and unless we can forgive ourselves it will be very difficult to forgive anyone else.  It all begins with us.

Yesterday, just before breakfast, I googled the word “forgiveness.” In less than a second I had access to 863 million articles and definitions on the topic. 863 million!

Wanting to make sure I made it to tonight’s service on time, I didn’t read them all, but I did find one I really liked. And here it is:

“Forgiveness is the fragrance flowers give off when they have been trampled on.”

Allow me to repeat this again.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance flowers give off when they are trampled on.”

Do you know what’s amazing?   All of us – no matter how different we appear to be from each other – are flowers. We are. Deep within, a sacred seed has been planted in us, watered sometimes with our efforts and sometimes with our tears. 

And this sacred seed always has the potential to blossom and open to the light.

Yes, this flower is delicate,  but when it’s trampled on – either by our own disregard for it or the trespasses of others – still it is fragrant, still it emits a natural beauty and all the proof we need that God is very much alive.

And so, in the spirit of Yom Kippur, my friends, may each and every one of us – with great care, compassion and humility – continue taking the time on this high holiday to pause, reflect, forgive and make amends.  

Not just tonight, of course, but as often as we can.

Whatever you need to do to become a better person, now is the time to do it. And if you don’t yet know what you need to do to become a better person, now is the time to reflect in a way that it will become abundantly clear to you.

You don’t need to write a new scripture. You don’t need to save the world.  You don’t need to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Returning to who we truly are is much simpler than that.

Maybe all you need to do is make someone a cup of tea… or listen a little more deeply… or give flowers to a stranger… or tell your loved ones that you love them.

And when it’s time to do nothing at all – simply rest and renew – allow yourself that pleasure. That is not selfishness. Quite the contrary. It is preparing the ground from which selflessness takes root.

May you lay fallow in the field of your own rejuvenation made more fertile here tonight by your highest intentions, the power of collective prayer, and the letting go of whatever burdens you have carried with you this past year.

G’mar chatima tovah. A “good final sealing” to you all!

YOM KIPPUR: Returning to Your True Self • © Mitch Ditkoff, 2023