Recently, thanks to the Rabbi’s without Borders alumni list,
a number of jokes have been circulating that might be appropriate to use for
the High Holy Days. I want to share one
with you:
A Jew goes to his Rabbi and says, "I’m done with Judaism."
The Rabbi says, "Why is that?"
And he says, "Well, I’ve been coming every
single year for the High Holy Days and I think that Judaism is just so serious,
somber and boring."
The Rabbi replies,
"Why didn't you say so? You've just been coming to synagogue on the wrong days, come
back for Simchat Torah and Purim and then you’ll see, Judaism is actually very
different from what you’ve previously thought."
So the man takes the Rabbi’s advice and a year later he storms back into
the rabbis office and says "I’m done with Judaism, it’s all fun but
it’s just not serious enough."
When we think about Yom Kippur, we think about it as the
most serious and solemn day within our Jewish calendar, and yet, when we go
back to the Mishnah we read that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said, there were
never happier days for the Jews than the 15th of Av and Yom
Kippur. From those days the daughters of
Jerusalem would go out wearing borrowed white clothing so they should not embarrass
those who did not own such and then the daughters of Jerusalem would go and
dance in the vineyards and say young man lift up your eyes and see what you
choose.
The 15th of Av has become effectively a Jewish
Valentines Day where we celebrate love. But
Yom Kippur as a day of happiness seems quite far removed from what many of us
experience. In reality, Yom Kippur is a
serious day, it is a day when we stand before God and admit our sins and pray
for forgiveness. But at the same time,
there’s a transitional moment as we come towards the end of Yom Kippur
approaching the Neilah service where we have faith that our prayers have been
heard, that our prayers have been
accepted and that we have been forgiven.
In this way we move from somberness into joy and celebration at the year
that lies before us. On a day such as
this it would be appropriate to then think about our families and think about
finding a partner to spend one’s life with, and that gives us the joyfulness of
Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a serious day
within our calendar, and there is a somberness to much of the day. But at the end of the day, we have faith,
that we will be forgiven, we have faith that a year is opening up before us,
and as such, we move to a mood of celebration.
May this Yom Kippur be for us a day of reflection, a day of
serious prayer and may it culminate in becoming a day of happiness.
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