Yom Kippur – Held in Our Darkest Moments, Renewed in Hashem’s Embrace

Yom Kippur is unlike any other day of the year. The Torah calls it achat bashanah — once a year — because everything about it is different. The rhythms of daily life are suspended. Food and drink are set aside, ordinary comforts stripped away. The roles we play and the masks we wear, the small defenses we carry to make it through the year, fall away. What remains is the soul, bare and unguarded, standing before its Creator.

Chazal tell us that even the angels look at us with awe on this day. On Yom Kippur, we surpass them. We stand barefoot, in white, without food or drink, and for twenty-four hours we resemble the malachim themselves. And yet, there is something greater: the angels cannot change, but we can. Our very sins can become sparks of return. That is why Yom Kippur belongs to us. It is not only called a day of rest but Shabbos Shabbason — the Shabbos of Shabboses. Not simply the rest of the body, but the rest of the soul itself, at last able to stop running, stop hiding, and rest fully in the embrace of Hashem.

And so Yom Kippur is not only a day of awe; it is a day of extraordinary gift. Hashem Himself promises: “Ki vayom hazeh yechaper aleichem letaher eschem — On this day, atonement will be given to you, to purify you.” The Torah does not say that we achieve atonement on our own strength, but that it is given to us. Atonement is not wages earned; it is a gift bestowed. The Sfas Emes explains that Yom Kippur is not about us climbing upward to Heaven but about Heaven bending down to us.

And if Heaven bends down, then what we discover is our essence itself. Hashem whispers: “My child, let go. Bring Me your burdens, your shame, your hidden corners. Place them in My hands, and I will hold them.”

The Slonimer Rebbe explains that Yom Kippur is not only about kapparah from sin — it is about returning to our very essence. Before we sinned, we were Hashem’s children. After we sinned, we are still Hashem’s children. Nothing can erase that core bond. That is the essence of Yom Kippur — not punishment, but embrace; not rejection, but being gathered in.

And just as Hashem holds us in that place, Yom Kippur asks us to hold each other as well. Teshuvah is never only about me. Our personal return is bound up in our collective responsibility. The day forces us to ask: how do we treat those who are most vulnerable among us? Do we notice the teen in our community who hides behind silence, the child weighed down by trauma, the neighbor who seems fine on the outside but is crying within? Or do we, like Yonah at the beginning of his journey, run in the opposite direction of the ones who need us most?

That question echoes already in the morning’s Torah reading, which takes us into the Avodah of the Kohen Gadol. We follow him into the Kodesh HaKodashim, the holiest place in the world, on the holiest day of the year. Outside, the entire nation waited in silence. Chazal tell us that a rope was tied around his foot, in case he did not survive his encounter with Hashem’s Presence.

Imagine the tension of that moment: children perched on rooftops, elders leaning on their staffs with tears in their eyes, mothers clutching their children close and whispering tefillos. An entire people held its breath, their fate hanging on one man’s prayers.

And yet, before he could pray for the people, the Kohen Gadol had to bring a korban for himself and for his household. Even the holiest Jew alive could not claim to enter the Holy of Holies on his own merit. He too needed kapparah. He too relied entirely on Hashem’s mercy. No one is above forgiveness; no one is beyond being held. And when the Kohen Gadol finally emerged alive, the Mishnah tells us that his face shone with light, and the people fell to the ground and wept for joy.

His survival was their survival; his forgiveness, theirs. The Gemara in Yoma says that when he pronounced Hashem’s Name, the people would fall on their faces and whisper Baruch Shem kevod malchuso. That is why, even today, when we bow in Aleinu during Musaf of Yom Kippur, we relive that awe together.

This is what we recall in Musaf when we cry: “Ashrei ayin ra’asa kol eileh — Fortunate is the eye that saw all this.” Though we cannot see it with our eyes, we can feel it with our hearts. Yom Kippur is not only trembling; it is also the joy of belonging, of being carried together into the holiest place.

Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev once cried out to Hashem: “Master of the World, even when a Jew sins, he is still Your child. And what father does not ache for his child’s pain?” He once even held up a poor Jew’s torn kittel and said: “Ribbono Shel Olam, look at Your children — even in their poverty they try to honor You.”

That is the essence of the Kohen Gadol’s Avodah. He did not enter as an angel; he entered as a child before his Father, carrying even the torn garments and broken cries of his people into the holiest space.

And at the very heart of those prayers stood one act more than any other: the offering of the ketoret — incense whose smoke filled the chamber until nothing could be seen. Chazal say the ketoret atoned even for sins hidden from sight, failures no one else knew about. The Zohar adds that the ketoret neutralized poison, just as confession neutralizes shame. The smoke rose upward, carrying even what could not be named. This is the heart of Vidui. We beat our chest, we name our sins, but what matters most is not the polish of the words — it is the courage to bring the hidden poison into Hashem’s embrace.

The Baal Shem Tov told of a child who could not read the prayers in shul. All he knew was how to whistle. And so, in the middle of davening, he put his fingers to his lips and whistled with all his heart. The melamed tried to silence him, horrified by the disturbance. The room froze in shock. But the Baal Shem Tov said: “That whistle split the heavens.”

Vidui is like that. It is not about polished words, but honest ones. Hashem, like a loving parent, echoes our words back to us — as a parent smiles and repeats a toddler’s first “Abba.” Vidui is not a courtroom where we plead guilty. It is an intimate conversation, where Hashem bends low and says: “Yes, I hear you. Yes, you are Mine.”

The Baal Shem Tov once added another image: when a Jew beats his chest in Vidui, it is like a child knocking on the door of a locked house. The child may not have the key, but the knocking itself is enough to move the Father inside to open the door. That is Vidui. We may not have all the right words, but our knocking cannot be ignored.

Notice, too, that we confess not in the singular but in the plural: Ashamnu, bagadnu — we have sinned, we have betrayed. Yom Kippur is not the day of the isolated self. It is the day of the people. On Yom Kippur, our broken words become whole, not only because Hashem echoes them back, but because we say them together. If there are teens in our community carrying silent pain, or parents bent under the weight of worry, then their burden belongs to all of us. Vidui means we do not leave them to stand alone. Their cry is our cry.

And if Vidui teaches us to be honest with ourselves, Isaiah teaches us to be honest about the world around us. This is why the Haftarah pierces so deeply. The people thought fasting itself was the mitzvah. But the prophet thundered: “Is this the fast I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is this not the fast I have chosen — to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free?” 

Isaiah overturned their understanding of the day. Fasting is not the goal. Freedom is the goal. The Sfas Emes explains: the true hunger of Yom Kippur is not in the stomach but in the soul — hunger for belonging, hunger for connection, hunger for Hashem.

Isaiah continues: “to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor into your home, to cover the naked.” Hunger may mean the child starved of affection, not only food. Nakedness may mean the shame of feeling unseen, not only the lack of clothing. A neighbor may appear clothed and full but be starving for love, naked in spirit. We can all think of the quiet child at the Shabbos table who never interrupts, but whose silence is really a cry for attention. Or the man in shul in a pressed suit, smiling, shaking hands, but who goes home to crushing loneliness.

These are the hungry and the naked of our generation. Rebbe Nachman said: sometimes the greatest tzedakah is a smile, for it can lift a broken heart. Isaiah is not speaking abstractly. He is speaking to us. Do not turn away from the hidden pain in front of you. Loosen their chain.

And this vision flows straight into the story of Yonah that we read in the afternoon — because both confront us with the same question: what do we do when people are trapped, when life itself feels suffocating? Yonah flees from Hashem, flees from his mission, flees from himself. Again and again the pasuk says he “went down” — down to Yafo, down into the ship, down into the sea, down into the fish. Descent after descent.

Many of our children know this story not as allegory but as lived experience. They run from pain, seek escape in whatever they can, sometimes swallowed by choices that threaten to consume them.

And yet from the belly of the fish Yonah cried: “Mi’beten she’ol shivati — from the belly of the depths I called.” The Malbim explains: Yonah had no clarity. His teshuvah was incomplete. But the cry itself was enough. Hashem does not wait for perfect repentance. He waits for the cry. And the fish? It was not punishment. The pasuk says Hashem appointed the fish.

The Midrash teaches that inside it was lit like a beis midrash, giving Yonah space to breathe, to reflect, to pray. What looked like suffocation was actually salvation. What looked like abandonment was Hashem’s embrace. Chassidim added that the fish was not a prison but a womb. Yonah was not only trapped; he was being reborn.

A candle, Chazal say, flickers lowest just before it flares back to life. Yonah’s descent was not his end. It was the prelude to his rebirth. The Kotzker Rebbe once asked: “Where is Hashem?” He answered: “Wherever you let Him in.” Yonah discovered that even in the belly of the fish, Hashem was waiting. This is the message for us and for our children: even when you feel swallowed by the deep, Hashem has not let go. Even when we run, He runs after us. Even when we flee, He appoints unexpected places to hold us until we can breathe again.

And then comes Ne’ilah. The sun sinks lower. The fast has drained us. Our strength is gone. The shul grows darker, candles flicker, voices crack from exhaustion. People lean on walls for support, holding on for the last moments. And just then the chazzan begins: “Pesach lanu sha’ar b’eis ne’ilas sha’ar — Open the gate for us at the time of the closing gate.” 

We imagine gates slamming shut, locking us out. But the Zohar teaches the opposite: at Ne’ilah, all gates are closed except one — the innermost gate, the gate of intimacy with Hashem. At that moment, the gates of Heaven and the gates of the heart close together — and in that closing, they meet. Ne’ilah is not Hashem locking us out; it is Hashem locking us in. The world disappears. Only you and Hashem remain.

The Berdichever told a story of a simple wagon driver who could not recite the long prayers of Yom Kippur. As Ne’ilah approached, he began to weep. All he could do was cry out the letters of the Aleph-Beis. Over and over he said: “Ribbono Shel Olam, I do not know how to form the words. You put them together into the tefillos.” The people grew embarrassed, but the Berdichever silenced them and said: “That cry of Aleph-Beis split the heavens and carried all our tefillos with it.”

That is Ne’ilah. It is not about eloquence. It is about essence. When the gates are closing, we discover that all we ever needed was the raw cry of the heart. The Piaseczner Rebbe taught that in that final cry of Shema, every Jew touches the deepest point of the soul — a place beyond words. It is the place of ani ma’amin — even when we cannot explain, even when we have no strength left, the cry itself declares: “I still believe.”

That is why the final cries of the day carry such power: Shema Yisrael, Baruch Shem, Hashem Hu HaElokim. Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev taught that when a Jew cries out Shema Yisrael at Ne’ilah, even the angels fall silent, because there is nothing purer than that last shout. It is not despair; it is union. It is the cry of a child held tight in a Father’s arms. And the Zohar adds: at that moment, Hashem Himself says: “I will testify for you.” Not only are we not alone; Hashem becomes our advocate.

So as we enter Musaf, let us carry the awe of the Kohen Gadol and the joy of a people carried together. As we say Vidui, let us hear Hashem echoing our words, smiling at our stumbles like a parent teaching a child to speak. As we fast, let it not be about affliction but about freedom — freeing ourselves, and freeing those bound by chains of silence and pain. As we read Yonah, let us know that even from the depths, the cry itself is enough. And as we rise to Ne’ilah, let us not fear gates closing us out, but feel Hashem closing us in, whispering: “You are Mine, forever.”

And when we leave this Yom Kippur, may we leave lighter in our own souls but also more determined to lighten the burdens of others. Imagine if each of us took on one small kabbalah — to call the neighbor who is alone, to look our child in the eyes and say “I love you,” to open our home to someone who needs warmth.

If every Jew left Yom Kippur with just one act like that, imagine how our world would look. That is how Yom Kippur transforms not only us, but the world around us.

May we hold each other, especially our struggling children, just as Hashem holds us.

May we see the hidden pain, loosen the chains, and bring light where there is darkness.

And may we be sealed for life, for compassion, and for peace.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

Yaakov Lazar

Yom Kippur Embrace - Just as we embrace our children, Hashem should embrace us.