Yom Kippur

I went to a very powerful shiur on Friday night after kol nidre by Rabbi Rowe and i thought i might share some ideas with you - a nice way to start a clean slate i thought.

I was on, what is atonement? The truth is that we talk about forgiveness and atonement but do we really know what they mean? In fact we use three words for it in the Yom KIppur davening - slach lanu, mahal lanu, karpe lanu - forgive us, pardon us and attone for us . Why do we say three different types of forgiveness and what is the difference?

The first type of forgiveness (slach lanu) is the sort of forgiveness which follows after this sort of mistake, "oh my goodness, ive done something awful, they're gunna kill me, i hope they forgive me" Its the forgiveness you ask for to stop punshiment falling on you. PLease forgive me and don't punish me for what i've done. This forgiveness is fine for small everyday things where you realsie your mistake quickly.

The second is mahal lanu - pardon us. This type of attonement comes after something far greater. "Oh my goodness i can't believe i did that to them. I dont care what the repocutions are on me i just want our relationship repaired to how it was." Its the type of forgiveness where afterwards the person not only forgives you; they no longer have the error in mind at all. Its one thing to forgive someone and another to forget completely what they did and carry on as if its never happened. The first type of forgiveness was for very small things but this is for when a relationship has truly been damaged. It is for us to think how we can repair that relationship. Thinking about the other person and not ourselves and trying to bring the relationship back to where it was. This will take a lot more than just asking for forgiveness.

And finally there is Karpe lanu which seems unecessary. After the first two we have been forgiven, have no punishment and it is as if we never did the sin - so what is left?
Every time we do anything bad the entire world is affected. Anyone who tells you to go and screem into the pillow as it does no damage is wrong - just by releasing negative energy into the world it will change you in a way and have an effect on the world. All we do, good and bad is going to change the world ultimately also. SO the attonement we do for karpe lanu is to try and rectify what we have done, moving the world away from its positive value.

When we asked for forgiveness before Yom Kippur we have to think whether that was enough or whether we have to work to restore our relationships with others so they are in a position to forget it and we are in a position to repair the damage we have done to the world.

Also another Rav (Rabbi Roodin) was talking about why we fast on Yom Kippur. He said on tish bav we fast because we can't eat because we are crying too much. On yom Kippur we fast because our bodies have left us, we are just a soul and a soul has no need for food. I thought that was quite lovely.