Entering into Yom Kippur

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In a few hours, just before sunset, Israel's streets will be empty of cars, except for any needed emergency vehicles.
Ben-Gurion Airport is already closed to all air traffic.
Judea and Samaria are under general closure and the Taba crossing into Sinai is closed.
Soon we will have our last meal and last drink of water until Saturday night, when the fast ends.
And soon I will shut down my computer for its yearly day of rest.

Jews will congregate, the religious and the one-time-per-year observant will be praying together in neighborhood synagogues all evening and all day tomorrow until sunset; the seculars will flock to the car-less roads on bicycles or skates or with strollers.

Yom Kippur, the solemn Day of Atonement, God's day of reckoning, our day of introspection and repenting, begins.
This year it falls on the Sabbath, so we get a double dose of holiness.

You can already feel the special hush falling over the land.
This is something you can feel only in Israel.

So I leave you now, until tomorrow night, wishing you all Shabbat shalom and a gmar chatima tova, "a good final sealing," i.e. May you be inscribed (in God's Book of Life) for all good.
May all the world have a peaceful, healthy, and fulfilling new year.
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