A meditation and a prayer.
Last year, we were truly a mess on Yom haKippurim. Publicly fighting over how and where to sit during services, with acrimony and venom and self-righteousness and hatred. On the day when we should have been most united in love for each other and for our Creator, we showed our worst selves.
Then came October 7th. On the day we should have been celebrating the Torah together, we were in hiding. Savagery and devastation swept the south while rockets rained across the entire land, leaving hundreds in captivity and an entire nation traumatized. In the wake of such a morbidly potent reminder of who we actually are to our actual enemies – and their supporters worldwide – we came together and mobilized waves of support for the survivors, the families, the homeless, and the soldiers. We showed our best selves.
It’s true that a year later, the war frustratingly still continues while the captives inexplicably still remain imprisoned. It’s true that hundreds of thousands of people are still refugees from the north, the south, and the Gaza Strip. It’s true that waves of missiles still target our homes and masses of rioters still call for our collective death. And it’s painfully true that after so much seemed to change so quickly that morning one year ago, so much in our country and our world still seems to remain the same.
But this year, we met October 7th before Yom haKippurim. This wasn’t just a day of remembering the fallen and the lost – truthfully their memory has not left us a single day of the past three hundred and sixty five and is always before our eyes, in our feeds and groups and Shabbat newsletters. This was a day of remembering how we came together and supported one another in the wake of the worst horror since Auschwitz, an ongoing nightmare for countless families, a doom against which we have collectively, consciously chosen to offer hope and light.
This year, as we make our way across the narrow bridge between Rosh haShana and Yom haKippurim, we pause and remember who we have shown ourselves to be over the past year. People who step up and who volunteer and who care and who fight for each other. People who choose hope and light, even as many in the world choose darkness. May we bring that hope and that light in our return to the Holy of Holies on Yom haKippurim this year, and may we merit to see the day when all creations are united in the sacred peace of knowing our Creator.