Repentance

Embrace Yom Kippur with joy, not sorrow as prayer is today’s greatest offering

A sacrifice for a deliberate sin is never atoned, but heartfelt prayer does.

ON YOM KIPPUR, feel the joy that bursts forth from a cleansed heart and purified soul.
IN THE early morning before Yom Kippur, 2024, prayers for forgiveness are recited at the Western Wall and elsewhere in the Jewish world.

Teshuva is an emotional landscape

 The Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.

Yom Kippur 2024: Reconciling our personal journeys and collective experiences - opinion

 SETTLERS HURL stones at Palestinians during the annual harvest season, near the settlement of Yitzhar in 2020.

Why I spent Yom Kippur protecting Palestinian villagers from settler violence - opinion


Our greatest sin is emissions: We must repent for climate change - opinion

The State of Israel is part of a global ecocide trend of doubling down on fossil fuels at a time when there needs to be instead a speedy move away from oil and gas to renewables.

 THE ASHALIM solar power station in the Negev desert shown in this illustrative photo, provides 121 megawatt of electricity, equivalent to 2% of the Israeli consumption. Developing solar fields will employ 10,000 Bedouin and create 5,000 MW of clean power, the writer says.

Yom Kippur: May God forgive Jews for forgetting about him - opinion

Verbalizing erroneous ways helps concretize the painful realities that we would rather not consider.

 PRAYERS FOR forgiveness are recited before Yom Kippur, at the Western Wall.

Yom Kippur: Charity as a path to repentance - opinion

The obligation to give charity is based on both our need to take care of each other and a recognition that we are just the custodians of money.

Israeli shekels

Yom Kippur: Opportunity for forgiveness

People who can forgive those who have wronged them demonstrate a noble and humble soul. In doing so, they receive the appropriate treatment from God.

 OPEN A new, clean page for the coming year.

'Teshuva': How can one atone for their sins and get God's forgiveness?

While people should in fact do teshuva for all their sins, they should not be paralyzed by the enormity of the work that needs to be done. 

  The most fascinating part of ‘teshuva’ is the very possibility of it.

The sins of Israel: Why the Netanyahu government must repent - opinion

Is this the end of the State of Israel – and by extension, the Jewish people – as we know it? Can we survive a constitutional crisis? The coalition has so many sins, it's hard to know where to start.

 LET IN the light: Positive ‘vidui.’

Yom Kippur: Time for a spiritual reboot for the Jewish people - opinion

Yom Kippur is the single greatest opportunity we have to rekindle the flame within us, to rededicate ourselves to the holy mission each and every one of us shares.

 MIDDELBURG SYNAGOGUE builder Dr. Aad Vos.

Your secret sins behind closed doors infect the world in real-time - opinion

What happens online quickly influences what happens in real-time. Our world is angrier and ruder, in part because of the way we speak to one another on the net. 

 Anonymous hacker with hood and mask sitting next to computer (Illustrative).

Corrupt, amoral religious Jews in US, Israel – repent for political sins - opinion

So many religious politicians have behaved so irreligiously for so long that it often seems easier to believe that the more religiously Jewish you are – the less politically ethical you are. 

 US REPUBLICAN presidential candidate Chris Christie attends a conservative political conference, earlier this month. ‘Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct,’ he says.

Yom Kippur: 4 big ideas for Israelis to reflect on during the fast day

Yom Kippur is not just a personal day, it is a public day that invites us to contemplate various aspects of our collective life.

 PEOPLE ON THE empty Jerusalem roads, on Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur: A snowy day at the laundromat

Isaiah depicts two very different metaphors for whitening our red sins – snow and laundered wool. How do these two metaphors illustrate the experience of repentance? 

 Removing stains today will make them significantly easier to remove tomorrow.