Yom Kippur

There are no cars in Jerusalem on YOM KIPPUR.  The entire city is closed, including the airport.  For 25 hours, I was able to walk around in the middle of the street, right down the dotted lines.  The busiest intersection in the center of the city was completely still, except for crowds of Jews wearing white, rushing to synagogue.  There are a number of explanations for why we wear white on Yom Kippur, but the one I like most is that on Yom Kippur, we are like angels as we fast, afflict ourselves in other ways (like not wearing makeup or jewelry), and speak directly with G-d.  The white can also symbolize the purity of staring over, a clean slate.  Even the most secular Jew living in Israel was in shul (synagogue) on Yom Kippur.

During the season of repentance, which starts even before Rosh Hashanah, we’re supposed to think about G-d as a judge, literally weighing whether we should live or die based on all of the sins we have committed in the past year.  Yom Kippur is our last-ditch effort to appeal to G-d, to truly apologize and promise to do better, in order reverse this evil decree placed upon us (as the Yom Kippur liturgy says).  To be completely honest, I have a problem with the idea of G-d as a punishing judge, and with the idea that bad things happen to people who deserve them.  We all know good people who have had bad things happen to them—and we all wonder why.  I prefer instead to believe that G-d wants us to be our best and most successful selves, not because we fear G-d and G-d’s punishments, but because we want to, because we want to be good people and do the right thing.  I see G-d’s relationship to the Jewish people as more like a parent (and onYom Kippur, a disappointed parent), expecting the best from us and not afraid to tell us that we messed up and could do better.  In his commentary in the KOREN Yom Kippur Machzor, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks says that G-d does not ask us “are you perfect?”, but instead “can you grow?”

As many people know, Andy does not like the KOTEL (Western Wall).  It’s crowded, it’s noisy, people are pushy and smelly, and when you finally push your way to the front, you see—a giant wall.  A giant wall which thousands of people before you have kissed or filled with notes and touched all over with their germy hands.  So when Andy told me that he wanted to daven (pray) Ne’ilah (the concluding service of Yom Kippur) at the Kotel, I knew that we were going to experience something special.  And despite my best efforts, I got excited to spend the holiest hours of the holiest day of the year in the holiest place in the holiest city in the world.  This was gonna be good.

After taking time to individually pray, think, and reflect, we joined together near sun down to listen as the SHOFAR sounded, indicating the end of Yom Kippur (and the fast!).  Above the din of thousands of Jews fulfilling the tradition of their ancestors and begging, pleading, with G-d for forgiveness, we suddenly heard church bells chiming.  And shortly after, as the sun began to set, we heard the Muslim call to prayer being broadcast throughout the city.  The noise of the church bells, the call to prayer, and the wails of the repenting blended together in a stunning statement of oneness, reminding us that we are all one people, united together in the holiest city to our three religions.  We are linked together infinitely into the past and forever into the future as worshippers of religions based right here in Jerusalem.  And as the final blasts of the shofar sounded, doves (a symbol of peace and love) circled over the Kotel, as if to fly our very last prayers and pleas directly to Hashem (G-d), in whatever form you believe G-d takes.