Who Do We Ask For Forgiveness On Judgment Day?
A question I received: Who should I ask for forgiveness on Yom Kippur, if we learn in the science of Kabbalah that there is no one outside of me?
My Answer: First of all, we have to ask our friends for forgiveness. If a person doesn’t have everyone’s forgiveness, then he won’t have anything with which to turn to the Creator. But what is forgiveness in spirituality?
Forgiveness is the revelation of my current state, which I can correct, in contrast to the desires I couldn’t even fathom being able to cope with and to ask for their correction. I have to discern my desires gradually and advance step by step.
Forgiveness (Slihot) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) mean the revelation of our broken vessel (Kli) or soul. We check it and compare it with the state of the full correction – Purim. This is why we call the opposite, uncorrected state that we reveal, Ki-Purim – Like Puirm).
Therefore, Yom Kippur symbolizes a time when a person truly asks to be forgiven for all his “sins.” But he doesn’t want this because it is written somewhere, but rather because he reveals how opposite he is to the final state, which he is able to envision. This state is the unity of all the souls for the sake of equivalence with the Creator, the force and desire to love and bestow.
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I am not Jewish. Been raised in the Baptist faith all my life. But lately I have been drawn to learn more & more about Judaism. Especially Yom Kippur. The fasting, the forgiveness, the atonement for our sins ( against ourselves & others) feels so right to me. Christian faith has commercialized everything that would should be holding has Holy. I love God and know he loves me. However; sitting on a church pew and doing nothing and no self introspection at seems so wrong to me. I ask for your prayers on my journey. And it is a journey that I feel God has called me personally to seek him more earnestly.