Yom Kippur: A Day of At-One-Meant

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I want to talk today about Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish tradition, and its universal message and its universal practice, so that whether you adhere to the Jewish faith or the Christian or Buddhist, or maybe you have your own spiritual practice, you, get to know and become familiar with the beautiful universal message and practice that is part of Yom Kippur.

Now, there is a well known, quote that says, “The map is not the territory.” What that means is the territory is source and the map is the doorway in which we go into source and have this communion with source.

And so in the Jewish faith, people go in one way and in the Christian faith they use another map, another doorway to go into source. And it’s important to honor your family and cultural traditions or whatever tradition you’ve created for yourself or you’ve adopted consciously with choice as an adult.

So there’s a place to respect the different maps and the different doorways to source. But it’s also important to see that we’re all trying to get to source.

We’re all trying to have a communion with the one with source, with the universe, with God, however you want to call this unfathomable force that creates, sustains and destroys worlds.

And so I want to share with you part of my tradition, which is Yom Kippur and its universal message, Yom Kippur is also known as the day of atonement atoning for our sins.

Now if you look at the word atonement and then divided into three separate words without changing anything, any letter in the word, you get the three words: At-One-Meant.

So originally this is a day of at one moment with the divine, with source and culturally, historically it has become a day of atonement, which means atoning for our sins. Now it’s interesting because the word sin in the Hebrew language shares the same root with the word to miss the Mark.

Now to miss the Mark means where have I gone astray? Where have I not been true to myself? Where have I lost my center and my sovereignty and I’ve given into desires or cultural things or familial beliefs and patterns and pressures that would, that’s what it means to have missed the Mark. But again, culturally, historically it has become, instead of missing the Mark, it’s been about sins and in Hebrew also it’s about sin.

The way that we know it and so Yom Kippur is about atoning for our sins. But I want to reclaim this because it’s a universal message and an opportunity any day of the year, but specifically now when it is, Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith to look at this as a day of atonement, a day of having missed the Mark and reflecting on where have I missed the Mark, where have I stayed off center, my center, my alignment between my, the essence, the spiritual essence of my calling and its material expression and sharing my essence in all areas of my life with people I work with and people I love and I play with my family, my friends, everything I do in my life. So it’s a day of at one moment and a day of seeing where you’ve missed the Mark. And it is the holiest day in the Jewish tradition.

It’s a day where if you follow this practice, you fast for 24 hours. And we know in all traditions that fasting just keeps us clean. We’re not focused about what we’re going to eat an earthly matters. We’re really focusing inwards. We’re meditating, we’re not dealing with food, we’re contemplating.

And the contemplation is where have I missed the Mark? How can I realign myself to be aligned again and in my sovereignty and be in communion at one moment with source. So it’s a beautiful practice and you can try doing it.

You can try doing it this week. You can do it as a practice every morning. Where have I missed the Mark? How can I commune with source today? Or at this moment you can even do it driving down the highway to work and just taking a moment and saying, Hmm, how can I realign? How can I commune with source right now without closing your eyes?

But just being in this expansive state where you remember and you’re realigned to your source, and when you realize your source, you become connected with universal source. So enjoy this practice. It’s a beautiful practice that can take a few minutes, um, in your daily routine. You can do it once a week before you start the week, and you can do it now. And it’s the season and when it is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur blessings.