08 Oct YOM KIPPUR: I WANT TO COME HOME, BUT I DON’T KNOW IF DAD WILL LET ME IN

I would like to share a
thought about Yom
Kippur. As Rav Dovid
Kronglass used to say,
this is the most
important week of the
year. We have a
tremendous task in
front of us and that is
the work of repenting. We should always bear in
mind one very important fact: how desperately
the Ribono shel Olam wants us back.
Every day in Shmone Esrei, we recite a blessing
about Teshuva. The blessing begins with the
words “Bring us back, our Father, to Your
Torah, and bring us near, our King, to Your
service, and influence us to return in perfect
repentance before You.” The blessing ends with
the words “Blessed are You, Hashem, WHO
DESIRES REPENTANCE (haRotzeh
b’Tshuva).”
We recite these words so many times during the
year that perhaps they lose their impact.
However, haRotzeh b’Tshuva does not merely
mean that the Almighty will accept our
repentance. It means He WANTS our
repentance. His desire for us to come back is so
enormous that as long as we make even a
minimal effort, He will be waiting there to take
us back.
I once read a short story from a Gentile author.

The story is fictional but I believe it is very
powerful and has a beautiful message that is
directly related to the idea I just mentioned. The
story encapsulates what it means when we say
the Ribono shel Olam is a Rotzeh b’Tshuva.
In the story, there was a boy who finished high
school and, as is quite typical of youth that age,
he told his parents he wanted to discover and
see the world. His father told him, “No, I want
you to start college.” The boy would not accept
his father’s advice: “I need to spread my wings
a little and see what the rest of the world is like.
I want to travel and see the rest of America.”
The father told his son “If you leave, do not
bother ever coming back. You can start college
now or you can leave this house and keep on
going because you will never be welcome in my
house again.” The boy decided to leave anyway.
He left his home in Maryland and began
hitchhiking across America. He picked grapes
in California and he did odd jobs here and odd
jobs there just to keep himself going. As is often
the case, after some time, the boy became home
sick. He missed his parents. He missed home.
He missed having a permanent roof over his
head. He missed knowing where his next meal
would come from. He started hitchhiking back
to the east coast, which was his point of
departure.
He got as far as Iowa, sat down on a curb
somewhere and wrote a letter home: Dear Mom,

I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m lonely. I want to
come home. But I don’t know if Dad will let me
home. Mom, you know the train track crosses
our farm and near the farm is an apple tree. If
Dad will let me in, I want you to tie a white
towel around a branch of that tree. I will get on
the train and I will look for the apple tree and
check to see if there is a white towel wrapped
around one of its branches. If dad still feels the
same way he did the day I left when he told me
not to ever come home again, I understand that
there will be no white towel there and I will
know that I can’t come home.
The boy made it back to the east coast, near
Maryland, boarded a passenger train, and
started heading towards home. As the train
approached the farm, he became terribly
nervous. Would there be a towel there or would
there not be a towel? As the train came closer
and closer, he turned to the fellow sitting next to
him on the train and said, “I want you to do me
a favor. We are going to pass a farm with an
apple tree right near the tracks. I am going to
close my eyes. Just tell me if there is a white
towel wrapped around a branch on that tree. I
am too nervous to look myself.” He was so
scared that the towel would not be there, he was
afraid to even look directly at the tree!
He sat on the train with his eyes tightly shut and
the train passed the farm and passed the tree.
The boy said to the man sitting next to him,

“What happened?” He said, “Son, there is a
white towel around every branch on that tree.”
This said, in effect, that the father could not wait
for the son to come home.
This, l’havdil (distinguishing between a trivial
story and a weighty spiritual lesson), is a parable
of what it means “HE DESIRES
REPENTANCE”. The Ribono shel Olam wants
us back, passionately. Just like any father who
may have had disagreements with his son, at the
end of the day, “as a father has mercy on his
children,” how much more so in the case of the
Mercy of our Father in Heaven, which knows
no bounds. He certainly wants us back as much
as any flesh and blood father would ever want
his son back.
May we all merit to do a complete repentance
and be sealed for a long good life of shalom, a
year of redemption and salvation, and peace
upon Israel.