We have what to be proud for this Yom Kippur!

בס”ד

With the sweetness of Rosh HaShana still on our lips, our hearts and minds turn to the seriousness of Yom HaDin, Yom Kippur.

I have learned over the years to actually enjoy Yom Kippur. The entire shul is adorned in white, the men are wearing their white kitels and many women wear white dresses. I don’t think of it as a day of torturing my physical existence but rather as a day of leaving it aside, ignoring its needs for food, and drink, bathing and intimacy and behaving more like angels. This allows one to free their soul somewhat from their body and be that much closer to the Divine.

I think often of the whole idea of repentance, and confession of our sins and the concept of judgement and sentencing that is such a significant part of our prayers for the High Holiday season.

Ever since I was a child I had difficulty relating to all the sins listed. I remember feeling “hey, I never did this” or “I would NEVER do that” or even “I have no idea WHAT that is!” I never felt that I had any sincere experience of acknowledging my shortcomings. I could bring up specific incidences where I felt that I had behaved incorrectly but in truth, I spent much more time and energy defending myself.

I was recently at a shiur given by Rav Yuval Mittleman . I allow myself here to paraphrase an idea that he presented to us. When we come before HaShem to plead our case, if we present ourselves as worthless losers with no redeeming features why in the world would God decide to grant us another year? Rav Mittleman makes a good point. He described us as “pipelines” to bring God’s bounty to the world.

This idea was expressed by other Jewish leaders and philosophers throughout our history. I present a few examples here:

The Ramban writes in Torat HaAdam that a person should mention their good deeds when praying for mercy: “A person should recall the good deeds he has done… and use them as an argument for divine compassion.” The Ramban states that this is the proper way to pray.

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 16b) states: God judges us by both sins and merits.  The Gemara teaches: “One who has more merits than sins is judged favorably.” This is not just metaphysics — it’s liturgical. Many commentators say this implies that bringing our merits consciously into prayer is appropriate, because the judgment itself weighs them.

Rav Kook writes in Orot HaTeshuvah that focusing only on sin distorts the soul. “One must not forget the good within oneself… for this strengthens the soul and elevates teshuvah.” He argues that teshuvah is crippled if we only speak of failure. The soul needs to hear its own goodness to return to God fully.

Rav Soloveitchik states: We must present our spiritual achievements. In Al HaTeshuvah, the Rav explains that the Yom Kippur experience includes:“A review of one’s spiritual accomplishments and failures. He insists that the cheshbon nefesh (soul accounting) must be balanced, not self‑negating. The Rav’s students often quote him saying that God wants the whole truth — including our victories.

The Zohar (III:88a) describes Israel on Yom Kippur: “Israel enters the day with their merits before them.”

Rav Jonathan Sacks says: We must speak of our moral achievements. He writes in his book Ceremony & Celebration “Yom Kippur is not only about confession of sin but also about reaffirmation of the good we have done.” He says that Jewish prayer is not meant to humiliate the worshipper, but to strengthen moral resolve, which requires acknowledging our successes.

The more thought I gave to the matter, the more the liturgy seems to reflect the reality of Galut. And we are in a totally different place now. Maybe all the feelings of “we are worms” and “dust” and sources of embarrassment were ways that allowed the congregations of old to explain how God could allow all the pogroms and hatred and antisemitism. In a reverse sort of logic if God brought all these “punishments “ upon us, it must be because we were so deserving of them?

But we have lived in our State, under our own government, for 78 years. We have seen countless blessings, unending miracles. This year, the davening on Rosh HaShana was so subtly different from last year’s prayers that it was necessary to stop and recall how fervently we prayed for the hostages to return; how we hoped and cried and begged and pleaded that they would be returned to their families and to us.

And this year, in retrospect, there should have been special joyous prayers of thanksgiving; there should have been singing and dancing, for there are NO MORE hostages (or bodies) in Gaza!! It is truly a miracle and a sign of God’s love for us.

I heard Rav Rimon speak at the Binyan Shalem conference this summer in Jerusalem. His shiur excited me to the point of tears! He spoke of the parallel between the story of Esther and Mordechai in Persia and the wars in Iran. Just as the thought of whether or not history would record this miraculous war between Israel and the US vs. Iran entered my mind Rav Rimon stated that “our megillah is being written right now in Heaven.” And he listed so many many miracles, each a part of intricate tapestry being woven to form our Geula. He started with the Russia-Ukrainian war, which occupied the Russians and prevented them from joining in to support Iran in their attack on Israel. He continued through the miracle of the beepers and cellphones, included the hostages returning and the unbelievable performance of the Israeli air force wiping out the Iranian heads of state in one divinely choreographed strike. I suggest that everyone look up his shiur on Youtube, it is well worth listening to.

And now, when I reflect on our Rosh HaShana prayers I worry that we are so calloused and conditioned to living with constant miracles that they become nothing more than a day’s headlines, destined to be forgotten by the next morning.

I believe with all my being that we are living in miraculous times and that our behaviors and actions have changed for the positive because of it. I don’t say that we should stop beating our brows and bending our backs as we recall our less glorious actions, but we need and deserve to give recognition to all the wonderful things that we have witnessed in our nation in the past 3 years; countless women cooking and baking and sending food to soldiers, communities organizing to wash and dry and mend laundry for our fighters who had no time to do so; neighborhoods lending a hand to help wives of reservists with their household and their children, people donating and contributing and organizing and delivering anything and everything that was needed, for soldiers, for families displaced from their homes, for any cause that was brought to the public’s attention.

How many thousands upon thousands of psalms have been read this year? How many challot have been baked with blessings for the recovery of the injured?

We can certainly look back upon our actions with a sense of pride. What do I think? I think that we repeat the 13 attributes of God so frequently during the High Holidays and Selichot prayers. I want to say to God that I did my very best..I strove to emulate You and to act the way You do, with lovingkindness, and patience, and compassion, and mercy. I aimed to be gracious, and slow to anger; set goals to “shower the people I love” and also those that I barely know, with abundant kindness and truth, I vowed to be forgiving and to truly forget any wrong that I felt was done to me. I hoped, I prayed to be a true Eved HaShem.”

I once read a modernized version of the Vidui, the confession we read throughout the day on Yom Kippur. I have put my own thoughts and ideas into creating a new addition to the liturgy, one I think that we all have merited to recite.

אהבנו: We gave of our hearts, with all of our hearts to our family, our friends and even to strangers

ברכנו: we blessed, and we were blessed, with many good things this year, on the most personal level, births, marriages, bar mitzvot and just the joy of being together and on a national level, seeing God’s hand in shaping our destiny.

גדלנ  we learned, we grew, we changed ideas and opinions, and we discovered new paths and new destinations.

דברנו יופי: we looked for the good in each other, and in ourselves.

העלינו we helped to raise each other’s spirits, we gave and received support as only friends can.

ויתרנו we learned to release self-pride, but never “swallowed “our pride, we just changed our priorities a bit.

זרזנו We hurried to offer help, to offer companionship, to be good friends, to volunteer.

חמלנו we learned to do chesed, learned when to step in and when to step back.

טפלנו we did our best to answer any request for assistance to the best of our capabilities.

יעצנו טוב and we always tried to think in the shoes of the person asking our advice.

כבדנו   we always tried to show the greatest respect for one another, for our privacy, for our needs, for our dreams.

למדנו we learned so much and continue to learn and to grow.

מחלנו not only to others but just as importantly, to ourselves.

נחמנו we have shared hard times as well as good ones, with shared tears, hugs and sometimes great sorrow.

סללנו< we found new paths and new roads and new ways to create a sense of unity among our nation.

עוררנו sometimes we created drama, storms or gales of laughter, all in good intent.

פעלנו with all our strength, with all our desires.

צדקנו we tried to bring justice and charity to ourselves and to our communities and to our world.

קווינו we learned that optimism is a source of strength, and faith keeps us going.

רמחנו we strove to sweeten the bitterness that life sometimes provides and to find the best way through any difficulties.

שקדנו really, a lot! Each of us, in so many different ways.

תמכנו We know at our core that unity is the secret to our success and we knew that we could count on the support of our nation, in good times and in times that were less good.

תרמנו we gladly donated our time, our money, our hears to our friends, family and nation.

תקנו we kept the ideal of FIXING THE WORLD as a goal, and put
our efforts into improving what we could, as much as we could, with love.

To a wonderful, peaceful, healthy, prosperous New Year! May we all join together to achieve our destiny!