A Mother’s Love & Yom Kippur

My mother passed away when I was 21 – an experience that left me in chronic emotional pain for almost a decade. She was the bedrock of our family. She singlehandedly raised my sister and I after our parents divorced when we were young. When she passed away, I felt like I had lost my very sense of self and was left feeling unhinged and alone. My mother always had my back, was unwaveringly willing to help solve my every problem, and most importantly, loved me unconditionally. Besides the grief, I was left with feelings of guilt that I didn’t appreciate her enough.

But the hardest part of mourning was that I no longer had anyone to turn to for comfort. Who do you go to when you’re in pain if not your mother? I yearned for my mother’s warm embrace – the only place I felt safe enough to really cry and grieve in order to let go of the all the sadness and pain. And that was the very loss I was mourning.

Searching frantically for something to ground me, I began to embrace Judaism. In the aftermath of the loss, I started attending synagogue daily to say Kaddish and eventually started keeping Shabbat. I felt deeply connected to the joys of the Sabbath and holidays - the warmth of community, the uplifting prayers, and inspirational discussions. It helped fill the gaping hole in my life at that time.

Yom Kippur isn’t about guilt. The Talmud says it is the most beautiful day of the year.

But my first High Holidays threw me for a loop. Instead of the warmth, joy, and loving God I was drawn to, the focus switched to one of fear, isolation, and a judging God. For me the Days of Awe were literally awful days. The long hours on my feet in shul while reeling from hunger had little to do with it. There was something more subtle. Yom Kippur seemed to be a day to feel guilty about everything I did wrong over the past year. Still in mourning, my fragile ego did not need to feel worse than I already did. Was this the same Judaism I was attracted to?

Despite all the jokes about Jewish guilt, Yom Kippur is not supposed to be a negative day. In fact the Talmud says it’s is the most beautiful day of the year.

According to Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, there are various spiritual energies that serve to filter God’s Infinite Oneness into tangible attributes that we can emulate. Ancient sources say that Yom Kippur is a day to connect to a spiritual energy called Bina, which is referred to as the Supernal Mother. A father’s love is two-sided. It’s dependent on our actions and our efforts to build that relationship. But the mother loves the child unconditionally. She is one with the child – the child was literally once part of her body – and she loves the child like her own self – for no reason at all. That’s why we refer to our homeland as the “motherland,” or our planet as “Mother Earth” – the mother represents the Source of our existence.

God relates to us in both manners. Like a father, He cares about our actions. But like a mother, He loves us regardless of what we do – exactly as we are. Only in the mother’s warm embrace is it safe to be vulnerable and cry. From that place of unconditional love, we can truly heal. In her arms, it’s easy to apologize for all the things we did to harm that relationship and begin to change.

Yom Kippur is a day to connect to the fact that God loves us unconditionally, like a mother.

Yom Kippur is a day to connect to the fact that God loves us unconditionally, like a mother. Yom Kippur doesn’t provide atonement and renewed closeness to God because we confess our sins – rather because of the intimate closeness to Him on that day, we can finally feel safe to confess our sins. In God’s embrace, we can easily let go of the blocks that damage our relationship with Him. When we recognize how beloved we are, we can commit to change the behaviors that are not aligned with our true self.

Yom Kippur is essentially a day to return to the all-loving “womb” of God – a place where we can become one with God. On Yom Kippur, feelings of insecurity, negativity and guilt can melt away in the unconditional embrace of our Supernal Mother.

Despite my initial hesitations with Yom Kippur in the early years of my Jewish journey, it has since become a source of profound healing and connection. Yom Kippur is the day of great consolation – a day to recognize that we are always loved – unconditionally - by the Creator.

Although my mother is no longer in this world to hold me, I am ever in the embrace of my eternal Mother in Heaven.