A story is told about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditzev (1740-1809). One year, a few days before Yom Kippur, he was standing in his study, gazing out the window. He saw an itinerant handyman walking up the street carrying his bag of tools looking for work and shouting “Who has something in need of repair? Who has something that needs fixing?”
At that moment, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak fell to the floor and cried out… “Oy! Woe is me! And woeful is my soul! The Day of Judgment is upon me and I still have not repaired myself!”
Broken vows. Broken relationships. A broken world. Sometimes it feels like there is brokenness all around us.
Now is the time for repair, for tikkun.
For the Jewish mystics, known as the Kabbalists, prayer is the beginning of tikkun.
We reflect on the person we wish to be, the world we wish to inhabit, and then we humbly ask for God’s help on our journey.
Tikkun happens, and our world is made a bit more whole, when we turn our prayers into action and we make t’shuvah, true repentance, by changing our behavior.
The Day of Judgment is upon us.
May our worship, our study, our mindful reflection, and our communal involvement inspire us to be better, more loving, more giving, kinder people worthy of forgiveness.
May we commit ourselves to becoming m’taknei olam b’malchut Shadai—God’s partners in the repair of the brokenness in ourselves and our world.
— Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback