Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year. A day of purity and soul-searching that accompanies almost every Jew around the world. Even those who are not strict about light and severe try harder for the big day, each person in areas close to his heart.
Even those who don't like to decide, and hold a PhD in procrastination, know that there are moments when you have to decide. Yom Kippur is a day of decisions. Personal decisions, public decisions and decisions about what the coming year will look like for the better. And within this system stands as an independent unit the system of forgiveness and atonement.
More than 70,<> people in Selichot at the Western Wall // Photo: Western Wall Heritage Foundation
The Mishnah teaches us that "transgressions between a person and his friend do not atone Yom Kippur until he pleases his friend." The more we read this Mishnah, the more it will stand before our eyes as a model for life. Just wars and public struggles are worthy of society, but personal injuries, insults, slander, and gossip are never justified. Therefore, despite the Divine promise "that on this day he will atone for all your sins," our rabbis explain that atonement from all sins is before God, but what is between a man and his friend, between a man and his wife, between parents and children, between a neighbor and his neighbor, between left and right - for these sins there is no divine forgiveness.
The Divine plunge into the depths of the human soul demands and says: "For such transgressions there is no Yom Kippur from atonement." It's my responsibility, yours and all of us. Standing before the Creator and confessing is not an easy task, but it is even more difficult when I have to ask another person for forgiveness. We all know how to explain, excuse and explain why we are always right. But it turns out that's not true. We get it wrong many times, big time. Therefore, we all have an obligation every time to ask for forgiveness.
Stop making excuses
The main thing is to change from here on out. Do not offend, do not belittle, do not defame and do not discuss severely. It's hard, very hard. But it is precisely our responsibility to get out of the excuses and explanations of why the truth is with us and to see with a sensitive eye and an open heart the other or the other. If we made a mistake or made a mistake, hurt or humiliated - it's time to make amends. It is clear, then, that not only does the path to a good and sweet New Year pass through the path of apology, but the truth is that the path to a good life passes through a narrow path where one is careful about each other's dignity.
Let us conclude with the words of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizansk, one of the greatest Rebbe, who prayed daily: "Let us see in our hearts each the virtue of our friends and not their shortcomings, and let us each speak his friend in the right and desirable way before you, and do not raise any hatred from one against another, God forbid." Happy and sweet New Year.
Rabbi Yitzhak Neria is Chairman of the B'im B'Tov organization, Chairman of the One-to-One Foundation and Rosh Yeshiva of Torah in Zion
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