My Ten Days of Awe and Thoughts as Yom Kippur Approaches

 One more day to go. As the sun sets tomorrow night, Jews the world over will usher in Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is the most austere day in the Jewish calendar, a day when, according to tradition, our individual fate for the coming year is sealed by God in the Book of Life. Yom Kippur is also the culmination of the ten days of awe, the ten day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we seek forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and recommit ourselves to do better.

I have had a unique Rosh Hashanah and ten days of awe.

For the first time I can remember, I have been traveling and am away from family and my family of friends. I have to admit that even for me it is a strange feeling. I have been in Cambodia seeing some wonderful sights, meeting some wonderful people and having many emotional experiences.

Much of my time has been spent on the usual things tourists do when visiting Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. But the majority of my time has been spent visiting many small NGO projects run by many special, giving, dedicated and inspiring people. In the course of these visits, I have also met many of the beneficiaries of these projects. These are by and large at-risk children and youth, orphaned or abandoned, and extremely underprivileged young people who are doing their best to take advantage of the opportunities these kinds of organizations are working hard to provide.

 I have been to schools, orphanages, youth villages, squatter shanty towns and training & rehabilitation workshops. I joined in some art projects with orphans and spoke with university students from subsistence farming families studying on merit scholarships and who in return, as a condition of receiving their scholarships, are running language schools for other underprivileged teenagers and managing micro-finance programs for the organization that provides their scholarships. I had the honor to speak with business owners who make social responsibility and giving back to the community a core feature of their business ventures.

As Yom Kippur approaches I am reflecting back on all the dedicated people I met struggling to make better lives for themselves and for their families and all the inspiring people I met struggling to help them. Two quintessentially Jewish thoughts from ancient rabbis have been in my mind during my experiences: "The time is short, the task is great and the Master is demanding” and "If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?"

In Judaism, all the 603 commandments and precepts can be divided into two groups. One group are those precepts defining the individual's relationship with God – things like keeping kosher, observing the Shabbat and conducting daily prayers. The other group are those commandments between man and man, the precepts defining our relationship with our fellow human beings like giving charity, caring for the sick, respecting our elders, being honest, refraining from gossip and the like.

Our tradition teaches us that all of the commandments, whether they be between the individual and God or one individual and another are of equal importance. In other words, we are fulfilling God’s purpose equally well whether we religiously pray three times each day and never touch a piece of non-kosher food or ‘merely’ lead a life characterized by honesty, integrity, humility and service to our fellow human beings. Even the most committed agnostic or atheist son or daughter of Moses can find himself or herself in the surprising position of being hailed as a successful and practicing Jew.

Rabbi Hillel was once challenged by a perhaps somewhat cheeky prospective convert to Judaism to teach him the whole Torah while standing on one leg. Hillel thought for a moment and replied, “That which is hateful unto you do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole of the Torah, The rest is commentary. Go forth and study.”

I don’t pretend to know whether there is any implicit lesson to be learned in Rabbi Hillel’s answer regarding the relative importance of the commandments between man and God versus those between man and man. As one who is very weak on the man to God stuff, any opinion I offer could be viewed as extremely self-serving. It is interesting to note that Hillel’s version of what we call the ‘golden rule’ is a central pillar of pretty much every religion on Earth.

In the high holiday season, in the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we reflect on the quality of our lives, on our spirituality and on our relationships with those around us and the world in general. We ask forgiveness from those we have wronged, grant forgiveness to those who have hurt us and recommit ourselves to being better people in the year to come. And for that purpose, having been traveling here now is perhaps as effective a way as any other to be experiencing the ten days of awe and preparing for Yom Kippur.

My best wishes for a happy, healthy, enriching, peaceful, giving and forgiving year.

Comments

[Nizam Bashir]

Gmar Chatimah Tova, Lenny. Good to know you are back safely as well. Take care.

[lennybruce]

Hi Nizam,

Thank you very much for your wishes. To you and your family Selemat Hari Raya Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

Be well.