• Table For Five
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How can we change bad habits and find the right path?

Table for Five: Yom Kippur Edition

In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

 Edited by Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist

[God] says: Build up, build up a highway! Clear a road! Remove all obstacles from the road of My people!

  –  Isaiah 57:14 (from Yom Kippur morning haftarah)

Sarah Pachter, Author, Speaker

Have you ever entered Yom Kippur with a firm intention to make changes for the upcoming year, but then quickly backslide? You wonder, will I ever change? James Clear, author of bestselling book Atomic Habits writes, “Change is not really about motivation, but environment.”

Physician Anne Thorndike from Boston came up with a revolutionary idea. By merely moving unhealthy drink options in the hospital cafeteria out of sight healthy drink purchases rose significantly. Removing stumbling blocks isn’t half the battle—it IS the battle. People choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. The same is true of life’s choices.

I was part of a group that learned A Lesson a Day. This two-volume book was wrapped in an encasement that I kept by my bedside. Every time I tried to take out a book, it took extra time and energy to remove it from the snug packaging. Exhausted, I would rationalize, I’ll do it tomorrow. Then morning came, and I forgot. The energy that it took to get the book out of its encasement was actually preventing me from reading each day. All I had to do was remove the obstacle that blocked me! I took the books out permanently, and now I’ve been learning them for five years straight.

When you remove friction, change happens on its own. My blessing to every reader is that we commit to real change, so next year we can come to Yom Kippur as a new person.

Rebbetzin Miriam Yerushalmi, CEO SANE; Counselor; Author, Reaching New Heights series

The road being cleared of obstacles is the path of our life, and the way to achieve this clarity, we are taught, is through a bris milah, a circumcision, of the heart. The imperative to “circumcise our heart,” isn’t talking about an eight-day-old baby boy—it’s a mission for each one of us to remove negative character traits. This challenge of getting rid of negative emotions like anger, anxiety and sadness is no small thing. It can be likened to heart surgery: first you must prepare your heart, by davening; next comes the “surgery” itself, performed by articulating words of Torah right after prayer. These ritual practices clear away the obstacles, the blockages which Hashem Himself put upon our heart from the start, and those that we ourselves accumulate throughout the year. Whenever we indulge in materialism or give in to a negative tendency—whether intellectual, emotional, or physical—we are doing the opposite of a bris milah; we are adding to those blockages of our heart. Just as we take precautions to prevent hardening of our heart’s arteries, G-d forbid, so too we are prescribed to be careful to avoid creating blockages in the arteries and veins of our soul, the life-force for all of our organs, by behaving in alliance and harmony with Hashem’s Will and our heart’s true will. On Yom Kippur, having worked on ourselves all year long, Hashem will then, with love and compassion, clear the road anew for each one of us, individually and as a nation.

Dini Coopersmith, Founder and Director, Women’s Reconnection Trips, www.reconnectiontrips.com

This reminds me of another verse, where Elisha the prophet tells people “this is not the town, nor is this the road” (II Samuel). When we are going somewhere, we need to know the town to which we are heading, and then we can figure out the road, or the means to reach our destination.

Every year in preparation for the high holidays, we have to rethink our destination, so that by the end of this period in the Jewish calendar, we will have a clear vision of our goals and what we want to achieve this year. On Rosh haShana every year, Hashem recreates the world, as He did 5785 years ago. Each year is its own unit, and has its own mission and tikkun within the overall destiny of the Jewish People. Hashem resets the calendar and recreates us on Rosh HaShana, but since there is no past on this day, the judgment is not based on our past, but on our vision and aspiration for the new year.

On Yom Kippur, however, now that we know “the town”, it’s up to us to build the highway, to repent, clear the obstacles, fix our actions and behaviors of the past year from the road, and figure out how we will reach our goals. The prophet Isaiah is reminding us to “build up a highway! Clear a road! Remove all obstacles from the road…!”, to align ourselves with our souls and true desire to improve and come closer to God.

Judy Gruen, Author, “Bylines and Blessings”

This verse signals a tonal shift in the words of the prophet. Whereas the first thirteen verses of the chapter express Isaiah’s strong repudiation of the sinners of Israel, this verse introduces a distinct hope that they will repent. This is something of a radical statement: God sees hope not just for those who are faithful to Him, but also for those whom He would otherwise condemn. Moreover, God urges all of Creation itself to aid sinners in returning.

These words also contain a compassionate acknowledgment that it is difficult to change bad habits and to correct erroneous presumptions, that we require help in paving new paths of righteousness. If the road we are on is dangerous, we cannot merely backtrack or explore wild and uncharted parallel paths that are just as perilous. We need to diverge and make an entirely new road.

The metaphor of a road is one that suggests forward movement but also a far-off destination. We may be trying to make progress, and we may be able to conceive of our goals, but we can still be hampered by remnants of our experiences and mistakes. Even when we have chosen a new path, and even if we have determined for ourselves a new and more admirable self-concept, we may still encounter obstacles.

On Yom Kippur, all of these obstacles are removed. Nothing stands in our way but our own determination to change for the better. Atonement represents God’s faith in us and in our capacity for improvement.

With thanks to Sarah Pachter, Rebbetzin Miriam Yerushalmi, Dini Coopersmith, Judy Gruen and Rabbi Avraham Greenstein

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