Tuesday, 22 September 2015

Miller's Musings Yom Kippur



 
Yom Kippur, a day of Teshuva, repentance and atonement.  A day will bring well spent will bring absolvement from all our sins and a clean slate.  But how can this really the case? How can all the terrible things we have done just be wiped away and our neshomo be cleansed of all the blemishes we have brought to its pure essence?  We know Hashem is all merciful, but how do we understand the mechanism of Teshuva that seems to ignore past iniquities?  

 

There is a well known axiom of the Torah, that Hashem recreates the world every single moment.  This means that every moment the world is endowed with new energy from the Creator so that it can continue to exist.  Were this to ever stop, even for the most infinitesimally small amount of time, our reality would cease to be.  The corollary of this is that at any moment, if Hashem so desires, anything that was, can in its new iteration change to be something entirely different.  Reb Shimshon Dovid Pinkus zt’l explains that this is the process which allows Teshuva to take place.  Hashem does not need to expunge the evil from us, He recreates us entirely anew after we have truly repented for our failings. 

  

Every year we come to Yom Kippur and spend the day asking for forgiveness and sincerely determining to be better next year.  But the choices we make and the changes we resolve to implement can sometimes lack the conviction required to bring about lasting change.  Part of the reason for this may be our own doubts about our ability to genuinely transform ourselves.  How can we rid ourselves of all the past mistakes that seem to have left us unalterably tarnished?  But if we sincerely believe in what we have said and internalise this truth as a reality, we will know that our resolutions will not just bring about a reformed us, but a totally new us, a rebirth and a chance to begin again.  Let’s not waste this opportunity for a new start and the chance to become a new you.  The you that you have always wanted to be.  

  

May the sanctity of Yom Kippur awaken us to a new beginning.

L’ilui Nishmas Leah bas Avrohom

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