No days were as festive for Israel as Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur –Tractate Ta’anit.
What is the Mishna trying to tell us? We understand why Tu B’Av, a magical day of love, was considered a happy day. But Yom Kippur? Isn’t that supposed to be the day that we punish our bodies by fasting and reflect on the many awful things we did in the previous year? How does that promote simcha (Jewish joy)?
For those of us with low self-esteem, Yom Kippur can be tough. On the one hand, there is real value in engaging in a serious cheshbon hanefesh (“accounting of the soul”) practice. On the other hand, I already spend a lot of time beating myself up, so there is the danger that if I think too much about my flaws, I will become mired in despair or hopelessness.
There are two things we must remember to counterbalance the widespread tendency towards despair before Yom Kippur
- G-d loves us like a parent loves a child, despite our sins.
As Rabbi Noah Weinberg (may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing) wrote:
God’s love for us is unceasing, and feeling God’s love causes us to love Him in return. As King Solomon says, “I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me” (Song of Songs 6:3). It’s a two-way street and God is always ready to be involved.
2. Because we are blessed to still be alive, there is time for us to repent: to repent to God for sins against him, and to ask people for forgiveness for our sins against them.
The great Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883) was once walking by a shoemaker. Rabbi Salanter saw the man struggling to work by the light of a small candle late at night.
Rabbi Salanter asked the shoemaker why he was working so late.
The shoemaker responded, “As long as the candle is burning, it is still possible to mend.”
Rabbi Salanter reacted emotionally to the shoemaker’s words and was heard repeating them for many days afterwards.
We still have a chance to mend. We can unburden ourselves of guilt, right the wrongs we have committed against others and start fresh on the path to becoming more virtuous Jews. That’s truly a reason to be happy this Yom Kippur…