Edited and adapted from Ari’s Grill & Torah for Yom Kippur – October 11, 2026
I kept the wording and structure, but merged the short, choppy blocks into fuller paragraphs so it reads more naturally as an article.
It’s Erev Yom Kippur, and tomorrow I will be davening, as I have for probably twenty years already, in a shul that Rav Goren was the first to establish. It sits on top of the Kotel, all the way on the left side, above the wall. When you look down, you are actually looking into the Temple Mount.
I will spend the entire day there, and like Jews everywhere, the day will be filled with prayer, repentance, and prayers for a new year filled with peace and happiness. But I think there is something fundamental about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that we have to understand.
There Has to Be Truth
Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, of looking at ourselves and asking whether what we did was right or wrong. But the first thing we have to understand is that there is truth. No matter how we feel about something, the question is whether it is actually right or wrong.
Even the most evil people in the world thought they were good people. If you put Hitler, yemach shmo, on one pedestal and the greatest rabbi on another and asked them, “Which one of you is the better person?” there is no doubt in my mind that Hitler would say, “I am the better person.” The rabbi would still be wondering whether he had done something wrong that day.
Thinking that you are right, and thinking that you have done nothing wrong, does not necessarily make it true. There has to be an objective level of morality in order for a person to judge himself objectively. If your morality is based entirely on your own opinion, then you can never really be immoral, because you can simply change your opinion whenever you want.
In Judaism, the Torah is our moral compass. We all make mistakes. We all sin, purposely or accidentally. Once a year, we have to put ourselves in check. We have to rethink. We have to recalibrate. And we pray that the coming year will be better for everyone—on a personal level, a national level, and a universal level.
The world is a little bit of a scary place today, and I’m not only talking about violence. Violence is scary. But I’m talking about the loss of any kind of moral compass. Nobody is right. Nobody is wrong. The good guys become the bad guys, and the bad guys become the good guys.
We see it in America, where suddenly the police can become the villains and criminals can become the heroes. We see it in Israel, where somehow Israel becomes the bad guy even when we are the ones who were attacked. I’m not getting into politics here. The point is that Yom Kippur forces us to stop and ask: What is right, and what is wrong?
What Was the Test of Avraham?
We read the story of Akeidat Yitzchak, the almost-sacrifice of Isaac. And there is a serious question. Judaism does not believe in human sacrifice. So why would God command Avraham to sacrifice his own son?
We believe in v’chai bahem—that we are supposed to live by the Torah, not die by it. The overwhelming majority of the commandments are set aside when a human life is in danger. So if God says to Avraham, “I want you to sacrifice your own child for Me,” why shouldn’t Avraham’s answer have been no?
And there is another question. After Avraham goes to sacrifice Yitzchak, God stops him. God is essentially saying: I understand. I see your loyalty. Do not touch your son. Yet according to several of our sages, Avraham still wanted to go further.
Why? What exactly was the test? Was the test simply whether Avraham was prepared to give up someone he loved? That doesn’t really make sense. According to Judaism, life itself is of enormous value.
I think the idea goes much deeper.
Does Your Opinion Shape Your Religion?
We know that Avraham’s defining trait was chesed—kindness. The question was: Where did Avraham’s kindness come from? Was it simply his own personality? His own logic? His own feeling that kindness was right? Or did his morality come from something higher than himself?
How do we define morality? Do I say, “I think this is right, and I think that is wrong, and therefore it is right and wrong”? Or is there an objective truth that exists whether I agree with it or not?
God gave Avraham a test that went directly against his natural trait. Avraham was a man of kindness. His entire being was chesed. And now he was being commanded to do something that appeared to contradict everything within him.
That brings us to a very simple but very difficult question: What shapes what? Does your opinion shape your religious beliefs, or do your religious beliefs shape your opinions?
If I have an opinion and my religious belief tells me something different, do I change my actions because of my religious belief? Or do I reshape my religion to fit whatever opinions I already have, based on my experiences, my community, society, or anything else?
Everyone has opinions. I have opinions. You have opinions. And I am sure that people think very carefully about them. But if we believe in God, then our opinions cannot be the highest authority.
My opinions are fine. I can have whatever opinions I want. But they cannot define reality. There is reality in the world.
That, I think, was Avraham’s test. His natural trait was kindness. God was testing whether Avraham’s morality came merely from himself—from “I believe,” “I think,” “this is my opinion”—or whether it came from something higher.
When Avraham was willing to act against even his deepest natural tendency because he believed God had commanded him to do so, it demonstrated that his values were not merely expressions of himself. And when God told him to stop, Avraham wanted the lesson to penetrate even further: that his morality was not simply the accumulation of everything he had personally felt and experienced from birth until that moment. It was rooted in an objective morality which, according to Judaism, comes from God.
Yom Kippur Is a Day of Checking Ourselves
That is what Yom Kippur is about. Let’s put ourselves in check. What are our opinions based on? Are we fluid enough with our opinions that we can change them when we discover that they are wrong—not only factually, but spiritually?
I may really want to eat a cheeseburger. It might taste very good. But I’m not going to eat it. Why? Because Judaism teaches self-control.
People sometimes tell me how difficult dieting is. If you are religious and you wait between meat and milk, then you already understand the concept. You have the ability to control what you want because something greater than your immediate desire tells you no.
Religion takes man, woman and child out of the center of the universe and puts God there. The world may have been created for each and every person, but our responsibilities in the world are not determined solely by ourselves. Yom Kippur is a day to check ourselves and ask what our opinions are really made of.
Where Do Our Wisdom and Beliefs Come From?
Every morning we say in the Amidah: Atah chonen l’adam da’at—You grant man knowledge. We speak of da’at, binah, v’haskel. There are different forms and levels of knowledge and understanding: knowing facts, understanding one thing from another, and reaching toward something deeper.
And at the end of the blessing we ask God to grant us that knowledge and understanding. The point is that our opinions, ideologies and beliefs should not come from randomness. Not simply: “I believe this because I believe it.” Their source should be something higher.
So my blessing to everyone, including myself, is that our opinions, our beliefs, our dreams and everything else in life should be sourced in something objective—from God—and that we should not become so trapped in our own opinions that we throw away the objective morality of the world. That is a very dangerous place to be.
Asking Forgiveness
I also want to use this time to ask forgiveness. If I have offended anyone because of a political debate or anything else, I never mean for those disagreements to become personal attacks. We can disagree strongly about opinions and ideologies without making it personal.
And remember something else: whatever your opinions are, when I am in uniform, I would take a bullet for you. This is not personal.
I am not asking forgiveness for disagreeing with someone or for pointing out something that I believe is inaccurate. But if I have hurt someone personally, then I sincerely ask forgiveness.
We Are Not Supposed to Be Identical
May we all merit to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life—a good life, a happy life, one filled with health, blessing, happiness and joy. And may we be able to focus our opinions, our ideologies and our dreams around God.
That does not mean everyone has to be the same. Judaism does not believe everyone is supposed to be identical.
Imagine an orchestra where everyone plays the drums. That isn’t music. It is just noise. One person plays the drums. Someone else plays another instrument. Everybody is different. Everybody has different strengths. And we need everyone.
That is true within Judaism, and in a broader sense it is true universally as well. We need different people. We need different kinds of people.
So I wish everyone a Gmar Chatima Tova. May we all be sealed in the Book of Life. May we have a wonderful year ahead of us—a year of security, victory and peace.
May we see the quick downfall of our enemies or their complete change of heart and mind. At the end of the day, I don’t need to fight anyone. If they would simply change their minds and stop trying to destroy us, that would be wonderful.
As has often been said: if our enemies put down their weapons, there will be no more war. If Israel puts down its weapons, there will be no more Israel. So may we see either the quick downfall of our enemies or their quick change of heart—whichever comes first.
May we witness the uplifting of Israel in the Land of Israel. And may we merit next year to celebrate Yom Kippur and all the holidays with the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash.
Gmar Chatima Tova.