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My favorite G.K. Chesterton poem is "Ballad of the White Horse," which ends with King Alfred's anger flaring when a working woman strikes him, God's anointed, in the face, only to set his anger aside and forgive the insult when he considers that God is most connected to those who work: And well may God with the serving folk Cast in his dreadful lot; Is not he too a servant, And is he not forgot? Did not a great gray servant Of all my sires and me Build this pavilion of the pines, And herd the fowls and fill the vines, And labour and pass and leave no sign Save mercy and mystery? The people mob the Temple to stand watch as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, rushes from one step of the Yom Kippur service to the next. Each person carries the weight of his mistakes, burdens and fears on his shoulders. The common person, the worker, mixed in the crowd, is terrified that the King will consider his sins of commission and omission as slaps in the face. How can he possibly achieve atonement? The observers, convinced they are undeserving, are passive as Israel's royalty works to earn atonement for the nation and each individual. They know that the coming year will be determined on this day; their farms and flocks, businesses and families, life and death. "Behold! It is the Day of Judgment! Who can survive the judgment?" (U'netane Tokef) They all look toward the Beit Hamikdash imagining the scene in the Holy of Holies. All are convinced that God is there with the Kohen Gadol, the holiest man in the holiest place on the holiest day. They bow when they hear the Ineffable Name only to rise and again look straight ahead to the place they will never enter. I wonder if they are looking in the right place... "And so shall he do for the Tent of Meeting that dwells with them amid their impurities (Leviticus 16:16)." Rather than look to the Beit Hamikdash and the Kohen Gadol, the people should be looking at the place where they stand and bow, wherever they are, for the Divine Presence is within them. "That dwells with them," is the key. It is not God the Ultimate Judge Who reaches out to them on Yom Kippur, it is God Who dwells with them all year long with all their imperfections. It is the God Who planted the fields and forests, Who herds the fowl and fills the vines. It is God Who worked to create the world who reaches out to those who perform the work of the world, caring, living, trying, aspiring, succeeding and failing. The place where they bow is the place where they will find God. The judgment does not consider the slaps in the face of the King; it examines how the workers at life honor their role and connection to God. We do not have a Kohen Gadol, nor a Beit Hamikdash, but we continue the Yom Kippur service with our words and actions, for the important place is not a place temporarily absent, but right where we stand, within us. The moment when we bow as if we are standing in the Beit Hamikdash is our statement that we need not look to some faraway place and historical figure to find the closeness that leads to atonement; it is where we stand, within us, that we will so intensely connect to God that we will receive atonement. We bow and stand on the Day of Judgment with joy that, "The place where you stand is holy." God observes how we have reconnected to His presence within, rejoices in us, and grants us atonement. He grants us the most powerful expressions of His presence: His mercy and mystery. May each of us merit to find God's Presence within us, where we stand, and receive complete atonement.
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Rabbi Simcha Weinberg, The Foundation Stone,
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