15 Sep WHAT IF THAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU SAID?

We are living in a time
of more words than
ever before. Think
about how many
words we encounter
and produce in a single
day. Texts,
WhatsApps, emails,
posts, comments, voice notes, captions,
reactions. And now with AI, we can generate
paragraphs, articles, responses, even entire
conversations almost instantly. We have
never had more words available to us, and
we have never been able to produce them
with less effort. The danger is that when
words become so easy to produce, they
begin to feel cheap. We type something and
hit send without fully thinking. We often
react and respond before reflecting. We
sometimes write things about people we
would never say to their face.
Yom Kippur comes along and reminds us
that words aren’t cheap at all. They are
enormously consequential and indeed create
worlds. Usually, we are encouraged to live
by the dictum of Chazal in Pirkei Avos, אמור
הרבה ועשה מעט, say little and do much. On
Yom Kippur, strangely, we reverse it. We do
very little and say an enormous amount. We
aren’t out there taking action to demonstrate
our transformation. We are in Shul davening
and davening and davening, talking about
our regret, confessing our mistakes,
describing who we have been and who we
want to become.
And remarkably, so much of what we
confess is about speech itself. In Ashamnu
and in Al Cheit, we confess for what we
expressed with our lips, for foolish speech,
impure speech, lashon hara, mockery, idle
conversation and gossip. So much of what
went wrong this past year came from our
mouths.
And what is fascinating is that we made
mistakes with speech and we fix them with
speech. The Torah tells us, אליך קרוב כי
this For “,הדבר מאד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו
matter is very close to you, in your mouth
and in your heart, to perform it.” The
Ramban asks, what is the davar that is so
close to us? He explains that the Torah is
talking about teshuvah. Transformation isn’t
somewhere far away. We don’t need to
become different people, move somewhere
else, or wait for some dramatic moment of
inspiration. It is accessible right now, and it
begins בפיך, in your mouth. The path back
must begin with saying what happened,
admit it, and articulate responsibility. Say
what you regret and say what you are going
to do about it.
That is why teshuvah requires vidui. The
Gemara in Yoma asks, how does a person
confess? And the answer begins, אומר, he
t’isn It .אנא ה‘ חטאתי עויתי פשעתי :says

enough to know we did something wrong. It
isn’t even enough to feel badly about it. We
have to say it. Indeed, the Shulchan Aruch
tells us that even though we already
confessed before Yom Kippur, we confess
again on Yom Kippur itself, and then again
and again throughout the day. The repetition
isn’t because we forgot that we already said
it. It is because there is something
transformative about articulating who we
were and who we want to become.
The Navi Hoshea says, דברים עמכם קחו
ה אל ושובו‘, take words with you and return
to Hashem. Chazal say, ?ישראל יתכפר במה
בדברים. With what will the Jewish people
achieve atonement? With words. But that
sounds almost too easy. Isn’t that exactly
what we call lip service? You behaved one
way and now you say some words and
everything changes?
I think the answer is contained in the Hebrew
language itself. דברים means things, while
דיבור means speech. The same root describes
the words we say and the things that exist.
That isn’t coincidental. When we speak, we
create things. Dibur creates devarim. Words
create realities. A few words can end a
friendship or begin one. Words can destroy a
reputation, damage a marriage, alienate a
child or humiliate someone. But words can
also restore confidence, repair a relationship,
give someone courage, express gratitude,
offer forgiveness or make another person
feel seen. We tend to think words describe
reality. Torah teaches that words create
reality.
That is why Yom Kippur begins in such a
strange way. The shul is packed, everyone is
wearing white, the sifrei Torah are held at
the front, the chazzan begins that haunting
melody, and what do we say? Kol Nidrei.
All vows, prohibitions, oaths and
commitments that we have made should be
null and void. That’s our great introduction
to the holiest day of the year? The answer is
yes, because what is a neder? I can take
something completely ordinary and
permissible and, with nothing more than
words, change its halachic reality. A shtender
that was perfectly permissible a moment
ago can become forbidden to me because I
said so. Nothing physically changed. I didn’t
touch it or alter it. My dibur created a davar.
We begin the day by reminding ourselves:
never underestimate what comes out of your
mouth.
Benjamin Zander, the longtime conductor of
the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, tells a
story he heard from a woman who survived
Auschwitz. She was deported with her little
brother. She was fifteen and he was eight.
Their parents were gone, they had no idea
where they were going, and while they were
on the train she looked down and realized
that her brother had lost his shoes. Like an

older sister frustrated
with her little brother,
she began yelling at
him. Why are you so
careless? Why can’t
you keep track of your
things? Now when we
get wherever we are
going, I am going to
have to find you another
pair of shoes.
They arrived at
Auschwitz and were
separated. She never
saw him again. He
didn’t survive. Those
were the last words she
ever said to her eight
year old brother. She
described that when she
was finally liberated and walked out of
Auschwitz, she made a pledge to herself: “I
will never say anything that couldn’t stand
as the last thing I ever say.”
Imagine living that way. Not morbidly, but
mindfully. If these were the last words my
spouse heard from me today, would I be
comfortable with them? If this were my last
conversation with a parent, is this how I
would want it to end? If this message
couldn’t be deleted, unsent, explained away
or followed by another message, would I
still press send?
We live in a world obsessed with having the
last word. We admire the clever comeback,
the devastating response, the viral takedown,
the line that leaves the other person
speechless. Yom Kippur asks us to aspire to
something much greater than having the last
word. Live so that your words could stand as
your last words.
Perhaps that is part of why we say vidui
already at Mincha on Erev Yom Kippur,
before Yom Kippur has even begun. The
Gemara explains that we confess before the
seudah hamafsekes because perhaps, G-d
forbid, something could happen during the
meal and we would never have another
opportunity. When it comes to Yom Kippur,
we want to make sure that if these were our
last words, vidui would be among them. We
would have said what needed to be said.
Words aren’t just sounds, they are acts of
creation. With words we confess and with
words we forgive. With words we apologize,
encourage, thank and inspire. With words
we can tell our spouses we love them, our
children that we are proud of them, our
parents that we appreciate them, our friends
that they matter to us, and Hashem that we
desperately want a relationship with Him.
Change is much closer than we think. בפיך.
It is right there in our mouths.
We begin Yom Kippur with Kol Nidrei,

confronting words from our past and trying
to undo what should never have been said.
But perhaps we should leave Yom Kippur
with a commitment about the words of our
future. Before I criticize, I will ask whether
these words will accomplish anything.
Before I forward something, I will ask
whether it needs to be shared. Before I
respond when I am angry, I will give myself
the space to choose my words instead of
unleashing them. But even more importantly,
I won’t wait to say the words that need to be
said. I’m sorry. I forgive you. Thank you. I
believe in you. I’m proud of you. I love you.
How can I help? I was wrong.
We spend so much time regretting words we
wish we could take back. Maybe we should
spend more time worrying about the words
we never got around to saying. The
compliment we felt but didn’t give. The
gratitude we had but didn’t express. The
apology we kept putting off. The
encouragement someone desperately needed
that we assumed somebody else would
provide. The “I love you” we thought was
obvious and therefore didn’t need to be said.
We don’t know which conversation will be
our last, but we do know which conversation
is our next. We don’t know how many more
opportunities we will have to say what needs
to be said, but we know we have this one.
Take your words with you and return to
Hashem. Take them seriously and use them
carefully. Use them to create, to repair, to
heal and to bring people closer.
That survivor walked out of Auschwitz
having learned through unimaginable pain,
“I will never say anything that couldn’t
stand as the last thing I ever say.” We don’t
need to learn that lesson through tragedy, we
can learn it from Yom Kippur.
This year, let’s stop worrying so much about
having the last word. Let’s make sure the
words we say are worthy of being our last.