Yom Kippur Reflection
What was your fast like? Did you think "I'm so hungry?" Or, "How will I change?"
From the Yom Kippur morning haftarah reading (Isaiah 58)Is this the fast I have chosen? A day of self-affliction? Bowing your head like a reed, and covering yourself with sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal? Is not this the fast I have chosen: to unlock the shackles of injustice, to loosen the ropes of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to tear every yoke apart? Surely it is to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, never withdrawing yourself from your own kin. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall quickly blossom; your Righteous One will walk before you, the glory of the Eternal One will be your rearguard. Then, when you call, the Eternal One will answer; when you cry, G-d will say: Heneini.
Image by Richard Cahan via Flickr