Back To Back, They Faced Each Other; On Yom Kippur, They Embraced Each Other
Back To Back, They Faced Each Other; On Yom Kippur, They Embraced Each Other
Tech Tribe Dispatch #271
💡 Think:
Why does Judaism set aside Ten Days of Repentance — the days that begin on Rosh Hashanah and culminate on Yom Kippur — as the time for making amends? Isn’t the ability to repent and return something that can happen at any place or time?
And if G-d is with us, in all places and all times, what return can exist in the view of an omnipresent Creator? Can we ever hide from the Infinite?
The answer lies in the meaning of teshuvah, repentance:
The act of teshuvah is to return, to draw closer to our source, closer to G-d…
It’s not a question of turning over a new leaf, but rather getting in touch with who we really are: that transcendent, beautiful place deep within us, that is unmarred by the vicissitudes of life.
The Essence of Return
What is the farthest place from someone? Is it when we are in the other room? Behind a wall? Across a bridge? Perhaps on the other side of the world?
If I am in Brooklyn and you are in Perth, are we now finally the farthest we can be from each other?
In truth the farthest point in the world is not when we are on opposite sides of the world. Rather it is when we are on opposite sides of each other.
When I turn my back to you, and you turn your back to me… That is the farthest place in the world.
For there is nothing as distant as two people standing back to back, with the entire circumference of the world between them, and nothing as near as when they turn around and realize, face to face, they were always together.
On Yom Kippur, all we need to do is to turn around, face to face — with our Creator.
Yom Kippur is when we reconcile the sense of inner estrangement - from ourselves, our Judaism, our Creator. This return, to reconcile with these essentials, brings us back into an intimate embrace with the Divine.
This act of turning inward, reconciling with the Creator face-to-face, takes place over the Ten Days of Repentance.
Each day of these ten days (corresponding to the ten Kabbalistic emanations of the soul), we dive ever inwards and refine all the expressions of the soul - as they flow from thought to action…
Then comes Yom Kippur, when we don't eat drink, or engage in other physical expressions of the external self. We refine our innermost core - free of any external connections to the world.
We've moved inward into a place of purity that transcends any connection to our Creator by name. It's a moment of essence embracing essence.
Based on Likkutei Torah Acherei Mot 2
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📚 Read:
🙏🏻 Tech Tribe member Armin Rosen writes about Giving Thanks to God at Auschwitz
🔥 WSJ Opinion: "Get the Jew": The Crown Heights Riot Revisited
👓 A matter of time: College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time
🔗 You aren't upset enough about the war on hyperlinks
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This week, light Yom Kippur candles in NYC at 6:03 PM
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