Yom Kippur: From Atonement to Attunement

As a child, I anticipated Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, with fear and dread. It meant fasting until my head pounded, spending countless hours at a shul service devoid of spiritual meaning, and fearing that I wasn’t good enough to be sealed in the Book of Life. After all, the central prayer of the High Holy Days is the Unetaneh Tokef, which ponders who shall live and who shall die in the upcoming year, and includes terrifying examples of how we might perish – flood, fire, wild beast, even strangulation!

I was taught I had to repent for my sins, which as a “goody two shoes,” I could count on one hand if I didn’t include my unexecuted thoughts, like talking back to my father or calling out my mother when she was compliant with his violent outbursts. Of course, there was the time I was babysitting and pushed my sister into the end table, resulting in what appeared to be an endless pool of blood spurting from a cut on her forehead. The feelings of shame and guilt persisted way beyond Yom Kippur. (Sorry, Ellen). I thought, that it was a miracle I was still sealed in the Book of Life.

Now, after decades at my Reconstructionist synagogue and studying Mussar, I anticipate Yom Kippur not as a day of fear, but as a day of opportunity. Rather than guilt and shame, I look forward to grace and growth. It’s a time to ask others for their forgiveness, to let go of my regrets, and to move forward with the intention of becoming a better me. To help with those goals, this year I’ve developed a new motto for Yom Kippur. Rather than a Day of Atonement, I am approaching Yom Kippur as a Day of Attunement. (Thanks, Rabbi Jamie, for the inspiration.)

I will start with self-attunement because if I am not in tune with myself, how can I be in harmony with others?   

“Self-attunement feels like being home to yourself – it’s a felt-sense of being in rhythm with your own body, your own breath, your own emotional truth,” writes Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Doctor in Clinical Psychology in Creative Mind Psychology. 

To self-attune, I will use this holy season to ask questions using Mussar traits: Can I become more mindful and patient when I feel out of tune with my body?  Can I treat myself with compassion and kindness, accepting my emotional highs and lows? Can I be more in concert with my well-being when choosing how to prioritize my time?

If I am more self-attuned, I can hopefully be more attuned to others, fostering meaningful relationships with family and friends.

Dr. Dan Siegel says, "When we attune with others, we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships.”

To be attuned to others, the first step is awareness – being an appreciative audience for the other person. It’s about seeking to be in sync with the other person’s perspective without getting defensive, and to be empathetic toward their experience.

The questions I’ll ponder: When I talk to a friend who has a different political perspective, can I be curious about the dissonance? Can I take a musical rest, a moment of silence, before reacting rather than responding to a colleague’s comment or action that provokes me?  When my grandson is excited about his cybersecurity project, can I be a tuned-in listener rather than trying to multitask and cook dinner?

Yes, this Yom Kippur I will adhere to my tradition of atoning for my regrets. And I will move forward, questioning, with an ear toward attunement – to myself and to others.