Yom Kippur: Looking at the Truth

There’s a story about a man who has lived in the same house for many, many years. After such a long time, the house has become run down, with cracks in the paint and holes in the walls. But the house is this man’s home, and he likes it just as it is. It’s what he knows, and he’s comfortable with it, so he doesn’t feel the need to fix it up at all; he just puts a painting over any particularly big crack.

One day, a friend of his who works in construction comes over, sees the condition of things, and says, "I can’t stand to see you living in this mess. I’m going to fix your house and I am going to do it for free."

At this, the house owner is sort of happy, but he’s unhappy at the same time. He likes his mess. It’s comfortable. He doesn’t want somebody to fix it for him.

We, too, often find ourselves living within the cobwebs of our own mess. We lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that this thing that we are doing is right. We come to a space inside of ourselves where we’re comfortable, where we don’t want to fix the holes or the cracks. We like them, thank you very much. In fact, not only do we like them, but we rationalize and figure out a way to convince ourselves that it is right that we keep things just as they are. We, consciously or unconsciously, lie to ourselves.

But today, on Yom Kippur, we can step into the Holy of Holies. We can go to the place of the High Priest if we are willing to reconstruct our life, if we are willing truly to visualize those things within our character that we can alter to enable us to create a better bond with the Creator. Thereby, we can enter this new year with a clean house, a fresh coat of paint, and a lot of new possibility and Light.