God will return and show us mercy, and overcome us missing the mark.
I love Yom Kippur. It's as joyous as it is solemn. I love Kol Nidre when it pours out into the streets and I love how attendance triples at Temple. Even the people who proudly eat bread during Passover go. They put on their white clothes and they pray, and they walk the empty roads. They come home and they fast, they read the papers and talk. I love how it's the same wherever you go.
It's not illegal to drive here on Yom Kippur, but it is taboo, and no one does. Stores are closed. TV channels show a black screen from nightfall to nightfall. The airports are closed and the radio stations air a silent wave, kept open, true to form, for emergencies. It's quiet. It's loud, because there's the constant hum of people conversing, but it's quiet. Distractions are gone. The noise doesn't fade but rather disappears, sharply, by the stroke of five. You'd think it'd be scary, but it's a blessed relief. Everything is flooded with something holy suddenly and it swirls through the air, even between the kids who ride their bikes and gulp down water in the middle of the street, oblivious, free of their duties for now.
Without the noise, people talk. You can only read so much. An entire country shuts down to do something else, for once. They say it's hypocritical, an act of guilt, but it managed to do what all the environmental movements in the world couldn't: a car-free, smoke-free, noise-free day. Completely given to our voices and our bodies. No one sells or buys. Hardly anyone argues. Where I live, everyone meets downtown. I mean, everybody. You get to see people you haven't seen in years. The silence forces us to interact, and we love it--people stay out till 3 or 4 AM. They sleep in the next day and wake up to pray. They sit with their families and talk. They hum absently and then realize it's forbidden, and they smile, and stop.
I was walking out today on the road, right in the middle, and I felt free. I felt chosen. And proud.
It's not illegal to drive here on Yom Kippur, but it is taboo, and no one does. Stores are closed. TV channels show a black screen from nightfall to nightfall. The airports are closed and the radio stations air a silent wave, kept open, true to form, for emergencies. It's quiet. It's loud, because there's the constant hum of people conversing, but it's quiet. Distractions are gone. The noise doesn't fade but rather disappears, sharply, by the stroke of five. You'd think it'd be scary, but it's a blessed relief. Everything is flooded with something holy suddenly and it swirls through the air, even between the kids who ride their bikes and gulp down water in the middle of the street, oblivious, free of their duties for now.
Without the noise, people talk. You can only read so much. An entire country shuts down to do something else, for once. They say it's hypocritical, an act of guilt, but it managed to do what all the environmental movements in the world couldn't: a car-free, smoke-free, noise-free day. Completely given to our voices and our bodies. No one sells or buys. Hardly anyone argues. Where I live, everyone meets downtown. I mean, everybody. You get to see people you haven't seen in years. The silence forces us to interact, and we love it--people stay out till 3 or 4 AM. They sleep in the next day and wake up to pray. They sit with their families and talk. They hum absently and then realize it's forbidden, and they smile, and stop.
I was walking out today on the road, right in the middle, and I felt free. I felt chosen. And proud.