What Happens When the Illusions Fall Away

by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman

Yom Kippur is an invitation to purely honest not-knowing. A wake-up call to the truth of impermanence. An annual reminder that, truthfully, we have no idea what the coming year will bring.

In the opening chapters of Mishnah Yoma, the Tannaim—rabbis of the Mishnah—invite the learner to explore in great detail the service performed by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. One might wonder why the rabbis, who compiled the Mishnah after the Temple’s destruction would spend so much time and intention on recalling and reconstructing a service they never experienced. Why attend to every potentiality and add in some scenario planning for unexpected emergency situations? What function does this central ritual play across geography, generation and lived experience?

The High Priest, on Yom Kippur, is ritually enacting a much grander human yearning. We need to know we’ll be okay. If the High Priest emerges from the Holy of Holies unharmed, a weight is lifted. This year, please G-d, will be a year of bounty, of plenty, a year in which the way the world seemingly works will continue unabated, the High Priest prays. The Tannaim preserve all of this not only so that future generations of learners can study and receive reward, but also because, in a profoundly raw way, they—and we—need to create some semblance of certainty, some vehicle through which we can retain a belief in the illusion of permanence and okay-ness.

This thread continues in contemporary Jewish practice. Though we often think of Yom Kippur as a day in which to immerse ourselves in the work of teshuvah—and particularly teshuvah between ourselves and our relationship with the Holy One of Blessing, Yom Kippur is, when all else falls away, a day to honestly encounter ourselves and the essential truth of our not-knowing. As disabled folks, most of us don’t have the luxury of immersing ourselves in illusions of permanence and stability. We don’t live in a world in which we can fool ourselves into earnestly thinking that if I just say all of the Al-Chets with unparalleled intention, if I do all the teshuvah work I need to do before Yom Kippur, if I promise I’ll grow in my relationship to mitzvot this year, all will be well. Our lived experience tells us that’s not how this works, not at all. Bodies change. Abilities change.

Of course, teshuvah work is crucial work in and of itself as part of living in right relationship with others and in alignment with our best selves. But the work of Yom Kippur isn’t chiefly about doing. It’s not about how many words you say or how quickly you can get through the seemingly endless prayers and poetry. The words in the machzor and the words in our hearts and souls are containers we may choose to use as part of expressing our own yearnings, fears, heartbreak, joy, and all else that we carry with us. And we know that the words often don’t capture the needs of our hearts. I like to think of the prayers available to us in a codified form as expressions of deep human yearning that we might find connection with or we might choose to place them to the side and go deeper within ourselves to find our own words.

Sometimes, though, the codified words and actions of how you are supposed to “do” Yom Kippur become the point of the day. They distract too many from the not-knowing at Yom Kippur’s center. They allow us to turn away, to continue to nurture an illusion of knowing. Often, during the greatest gate of the year, the day on which we are given permission to be truly raw, we disallow vulnerability. We perform, in a certain troubling sense, don’t we? And so, it’s no wonder that for many disabled folks, the liturgy falls flat at best, alienates us at worst, or simply just doesn’t meet us in the truth of our own experiences. We may be feeling very unmoored, checked out, unsure how or if we want to spend the day in community at all. And who can blame us when it feels like people are carrying on as usual while our lives have been upended? What does this performance do for us but keep us stuck in illusions of separateness and invincibility? Yom Kippur requires precisely the opposite.

Like the High Priest, we, too, don’t know what this year will bring. We, too, are in suspension between what was and what we pray will come to pass. And, like the High Priest, we have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C and beyond. We try to create a foundation upon which we can rest, knowing, ultimately, so much is out of our control. And this is absolutely terrifying and painful. Yom Kippur’s holiest gate can hold it all. We have the opportunity on this day to get real—very real—with the Divine, with ourselves and the truth of our lives. Yom Kippur is about being. Being who we are, honoring ourselves as the precious souls we are, especially when every day, we receive messages that our lives aren’t sacred, G-d forbid. We ask to be written in the Book of Life as an affirmation that we belong, just as we are. We recite Psalm 27 in which we yearn to dwell with the Divine, to connect to the presence and vastness that we are integrally part of.

And Yom Kippur not only can hold the hard emotions. It is also a day of boundless joy. Joy is an act of deep resistance for us as we live in an increasingly hostile world, a world that devalues our holiness and ways of knowing. We can delight in the joy of a new beginning, even as we don’t know its end. We can invite ourselves to recall as a corollary to the confessional prayers all the good we did this year, all the love we showed, all of the material good we did for those more vulnerable than ourselves. We can honor the wholeness of our humanity on this day and every day. May we find our unique way to experience Yom Kippur’s power. May we bring unending gentleness, compassion, and tenderness towards ourselves as we rest in the not-knowing. And may we give ourselves the permission we may need to let the communal noise around us fall away, knowing each of us has our own spiritual curriculum to attend to. We, too, have a part in Torah. We, too, may enter this great gate and emerge at its end changed and transformed. May it be so.

Rabbi Lauren Tuchman is a sought-after speaker, spiritual leader, and educator, who was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in 2018.

Based in the Washington, D.C. area, she teaches, consults with, and provides workshops and trainings to individuals and organizations across North America on a variety of matters pertinent to disability access and inclusion. In 2017, she delivered an ELI Talk entitled We All Were at Sinai: The Transformative Power of Inclusive Torah. Rabbi Tuchman completed the SVARA Kollel in 2019 which nurtured her love of rabbinic literature. She brings a deep commitment to radical inclusivity and a belief in the ability of anyone to take hold of Torah and contribute their unique insights to all of her teaching.

 Rabbi Tuchman passionately believes in the power of spiritual and contemplative practice as a path of transformational personal and collective change for the Jewish world and beyond. In 2024, she launched Disability Wisdom As Soul Care in partnership with Kirva. She is an alum of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program. She is completing the third year of the three-year Gates of Awareness Jewish mindfulness and meditation teacher training program under the auspices of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and Or haLev. She is a teacher for multiple Jewish mindfulness and meditation communities.

Rabbi Tuchman writes the Contemplative Torah Substack.