Yom Kippur: The Night Journey Of The Soul

By: Rabbi Moshe Taragin

Yom Kippur is a personal and solitary experience. We descend into the chambers of our personality and search for what we spend the year avoiding. We confront weaknesses we would rather ignore, habits we have learned to excuse. We peel away layers of ego, conceit, self-deception, and artifice, stripping ourselves down to something exposed, genuine, and vulnerable. Without our usual protections, we search for painful truths and hope to summon the courage to change.

Yom Kippur is the night journey of the soul. For one day, distractions recede and we confront who we are, what we have failed to become, and the brevity of our lives against the backdrop of eternity. Few images capture Yom Kippur more powerfully than a Jew bent over a Machzor, quietly reciting Ashamnu and Al Chet, striking their heart as they name their failures before Hashem.

Yet Yom Kippur is also a time for collective teshuvah. For the first time in 2,000 years, we live as a sovereign Jewish nation in our ancestral homeland. Just as individuals must examine themselves, so must a nation. The past three years have tested Am Yisrael severely, and we have responded with extraordinary faith, courage, sacrifice, and resilience. But gratitude for what we have achieved cannot exempt us from honest self-examination. As a people, we too have an Al Chet to recite.

Collective viduy is inevitably personal and subjective. Yet there are failures that we as a people should be willing to acknowledge on Yom Kippur and address through our collective teshuvah.

One of the sins listed in the Machzor is timhon levav, confusion of the heart. During these years, we have sometimes become consumed by questions about Hashem’s decisions and hashgachah, without allowing sufficient emunah to steady us.

Under the strain of war and uncertainty, pessimism about the future of our people and of the State of Israel has sometimes crept in, weakening our confidence in the destiny Hashem has promised His people. We have witnessed remarkable victories made possible by Hashem’s Providence and the courage and heroism of our soldiers. Have we also sufficiently thanked Hashem and recognized His hand in those achievements? Have we allowed uncertainty to deepen our emunah, or has it weakened it?

We are living through Jewish history. October 7 was an event that will shape, and should shape, the remainder of our lives. We will tell its story to our children and grandchildren, just as previous generations transmitted the great upheavals they witnessed.

Yet it is possible to live through history without absorbing its meaning. We can remain absorbed in our own stories even while the larger story of Am Yisrael is hurtling forward around us. We can witness events of enormous historical consequence and still fail to ask what Hashem is demanding from us through them.

Have we sufficiently taken the measure of this moment? Have we thought seriously enough about what these years mean for Am Yisrael, the State of Israel, and the long arc of Jewish history? Or have we retreated too quickly into our private lives?

Our society is exhausted. Three years of war have left us carrying grief, anxiety, and disrupted lives. The news cycle has been dizzying, with one major event barely settling before another arrives.

Being tired is no sin, but prolonged exhaustion can quietly become numbness. Tragedies that once would have stopped us in our tracks become just another headline. Stories of sacrifice begin to sound familiar. The suffering of another Jew becomes part of the background of life.

Have we begun, simply from sheer fatigue, to stop feeling what once would have shaken us?

The burdens of this war have not fallen equally. Some families have endured losses that are almost impossible to imagine. Their heroism and sacrifice should never become part of the background scenery of war.

Bereaved families, wounded soldiers, reservists and their families, displaced families, and everyone who has shouldered an enormous burden deserve our gratitude, compassion, and support. Their courage has protected us all. Have we embraced them with the love and hakarat hatov they deserve?

We must also be extraordinarily careful when speaking about their experiences. Pain is intensely personal, and even our well-intentioned words can wound when they are careless or insensitive. Have we always chosen our words carefully enough? Have we sometimes spoken too casually about sacrifices we ourselves were not asked to make? Have we ever diminished someone’s pain simply because others have suffered more? There is no hierarchy that determines whose suffering is worthy of compassion. We should never become blasé about another Jew’s pain.

The war and its aftermath have caused simmering tensions to resurface in our nation. We have slipped back into some of the social strife and divisiveness that troubled us before October Seventh. People from all strata of society have solidified their positions on questions of Jewish identity, Torah, and the meaning of Jewish life in the modern State of Israel.

Conviction is necessary, particularly when the issues are serious. Torah Jews should hold convictions and should care deeply about the religious and moral character of our people. But conviction can harden into certainty that leaves no room for humility.

We should ask whether we have left enough room for the possibility that our own judgments might be mistaken, or at least incomplete. Have we rushed to defend our positions without examining their weaknesses and limitations? Have we confused commitment to our values with certainty that we fully understand every complicated issue facing Am Yisrael?

Religious conviction should produce humility before Hashem, not absolute confidence in ourselves. We are obligated to follow what we believe to be true, but we should never imagine that our understanding is identical with Hashem’s.

Even amid profound ideological divisions, our language demands greater care. The issues dividing us are painful and touch deeply-held values. Too often, though, we escalate our rhetoric rather than speak with restraint, respect, and nuance.

At times our language has become outrageous. Calling another Jew a Nazi displays historical blindness and is deeply disrespectful to Holocaust victims. Similarly, casually branding another Jew an antisemite distorts both Jewish history and the bonds connecting us as a people. We can believe another Jew’s position is profoundly mistaken, perhaps even dangerous to the Jewish future, without reaching for language that casts him outside of Am Yisrael. Perhaps no failure has contributed more to the escalation of our internal divisions than the misuse of language. Words can intensify conflict, destroy trust, and leave wounds long after the argument has faded.

On Yom Kippur we confess not only for what we have done but for what we have said. Our national viduy must include the words we have used against each other.

We conclude Yom Kippur by dreaming of L’Shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim, longing for the day when the Jewish people will gather in a redeemed Yerushalayim. That shared destination should shape the way we look at each other now. Despite our differences, we share a common past and destiny. When we forget that, we begin to treat each other as if we do not belong to the same people. Even when we disagree deeply, we remain partners in the same covenant and travelers toward the same redemption.

As we bend over the pages of the Machzor and recite our catalogue of private sins, perhaps we should also imagine another book open before us: the book of Jewish history. We are living through one of its most consequential chapters, and we are helping to write it.

Some of the sins that belong to this book are not found explicitly in the Machzor. They are written into the way we live our moment: how we speak, how we disagree, how we carry the pain of others, how we recognize Hashem’s hand, and how faithfully we remember our shared destiny. On Yom Kippur, Hashem examines the hidden chambers of each heart. Perhaps He also examines the characters of the people we are becoming together, and the way we are writing this chapter of His people’s history. 

Rabbi Moshe Taragin is a rabbi and educator at Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush). Find his latest book, “Echoes of Rashi” for Bereishit at mtaraginbooks.com