Yom Kippur Message: Take a Load Off!

By Rabbi Dov Linzer

So many of us have felt weighed down this year. Growing anti-Semitism, Israel, elections past and upcoming, data centers, housing costs, the list goes on. So much weighs on us that it’s hard to look toward the future with hope.

And during this time of reflection and introspection, many of us may also find ourselves weighed down with guilt or regret for things we wish we could have done better in the past.

That is why there is Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur is the day God tells us: Take a load off. Let Me help you carry it. When we do teshuvah, God is nosei avon — God carries our sin, so it no longer crushes us. And on Yom Kippur, the seir la’azazel lifts and carries our sins (vi’nassa ha’sair) into an uninhabited, distant land, so they burden us no more.

The Torah knows that the weight of sin and its corollary, guilt and regret, hold us back from being our best selves, from doing the good we could do. So God gives us one day each year to wipe the slate clean, to start fresh, unencumbered, with hope and a sense of yet-to-be-realized potential.

And when world events weigh us down, we do not have to carry that burden alone either. God can help: השלך אל ה’ יהבך והוא יכלכלך — “Cast unto God your burden, and God will sustain you” (Tehillim 55:23).

The Dubner Magid told a story to explain this verse. A poor man was walking down the road with a heavy satchel — his pekalach — on his back. A wagon driver saw him and offered him a ride. A few minutes later he looked back — the man was still sitting there, satchel still on his back.

“Why are you doing that?” he asked. “Put your bundle down — let the wagon carry it!”

“My dear wagon driver,” said the poor man, “you have been so kind to carry me. How can I ask you to carry my burden too?”

God carries the entire world, said the Dubner Magid, yet we feel we cannot ask God to carry our burdens too. Cast them to God. Let God carry them for you.
The key word is bitachon — faith, or better yet, trust. Yes, things can look bleak, but worrying about them won’t make them better. Have a little faith; trust that God will help things work out.

This bitachon does not mean becoming passive. Quite the opposite. It is a bittachon that translate into action. We are not forgiven on Yom Kippur so we can sin again; we are forgiven so we can act, so we can fully actualize ourselves. With trust in God, we can do our part to make that future happen. It is the bitachon of a Nachshon, propelling us forward with the belief that God will see us through.

My prayer for us this Yom Kippur, and this coming year, is that we take a load off, that we do the teshuvah we need, no longer held back by the past. And that we bring more bitachon into this year, trusting that God will be there for us and for all of Am Yisrael, so that unencumbered, we can do our part to make that vision real. So that we can truly fly.

Shanah Tovah and Gmar Chatimah Tovah.