There is a silence that only this day knows.

It’s the silence of the soul remembering where it came from.

The space where your humanness and your holiness finally stop fighting

and realize - they’ve been on the same side all along.

I believe in that place that my soul meets the heavens that Yom Kippur is not just about being forgiven

It’s about remembering there was never anything to forgive.

Maybe you forgot your Self with a capitol "S".

Maybe your forgot your soul.

Maybe you wandered into the lands of fear, into proving, into trying to matter.

Maybe you thought because of some programming that you needed to earn your belonging.

But G-d never left.

Your soul never left.

You were only in a moment of forgetting

And today,

If you choose

you wake up.

You wake up into the knowing that Love is not a reward.

It’s your oxygen.

It’s what you’ve been breathing this whole time.

This day is a homecoming.

It’s the moment your spirit looks at your body and says,

“I forgive and thank you for waiting for me.”

Yom Kippur is a reunion.

Between your heart and your Source.

Between your silence and your truth.

Between the small you who tries

and the vast You who is.

You don’t have to do anything to be worthy.

You don’t have to practice perfectly or pray loudly or understand every word.

You just have to be here.

Fully.

Raw.

Open.

Willing to remember that you are made of G-d’s breath.

The world will tell you holiness is somewhere up there.

But Yom Kippur tells you -

it’s right here.

Inside the space between your inhale and your exhale.

Inside your tenderness.

Your connection

Your soul

Your beating heart

Inside the love that aches to live through you.

So let the day strip you bare.

Let it quiet you until only truth remains.

Let it remind you that your soul is still radiant.

That your heart is still pure.

That nothing real can ever be lost.

This is not a day of fear.

It’s a day of love remembering itself.

And you -

you are the remembering.

I love you so so big

G'mar Chatimah Tovah

Love,

Rivky Gross