The Sin for Which We Ask Forgiveness

The word Kippur comes from the root k-p-r, and this root has three different meanings. Each one tells us something different about this day.

The first is covering. To atone means to cover. We cover our narrow ego; we do not use it on this day.

The second is ransom, in the sense of redemption and exchange—to replace one thing with another. This is what lies behind the custom of kapparot, in which a person circles a rooster over his head or redeems it with money. The external substitute is only a symbol. What is truly redeemed there is the private ego, and the price is the willingness to relinquish it for the sake of others.

And the third is the surprising one: Ki-Purim. Like Purim. The heaviest day of the year is named after the happiest day of the year. And this is not irony. Purim is the complete correction, the state in which all desires have already been corrected. Kippur is the stage before it: we are not there yet, so for the time being we restrict ourselves. We stop. We make room.

When we look at it this way, the entire day appears different.

The five prohibitions are not physical punishment and are not torment. They are five actions (customs) corresponding to every layer of the ego.

From eating and drinking, which are the most basic existential needs, to wearing shoes—which sounds like a completely technical detail—this last one is actually the deepest of all. Shoes are made of leather, and leather symbolizes the degree of Malchut, the lowest egocentric desire within us.

After we have made all these restrictions, the question arises: what, in fact, is the sin for which we ask forgiveness? Here comes the most unexpected point. The deepest sin is not an external act we committed. It is that we did not ask for help to change our nature—that we forgot that there is none else besides Him.

Toward the end of the day, during Mincha, we read the Maftir of Jonah, who was sent by the upper force to Nineveh, a great and corrupt city, to explain to the people the importance of connection and love of others. He did not want to. He fled to Jaffa and boarded a ship sailing in the opposite direction. Then came a storm at sea, a fish, and three days in its belly. In the end, he was cast onto dry land and went to Nineveh after all.

The word Maftir comes from the root p-t-r: exemption, release into freedom. Jonah was freed from enslavement to the ego in order to set out on his mission.

And this seems like a side story at the end of a long day. In fact, it is the central story, because it speaks about the role of each one of us.

May you be sealed for good!!!