15 Sep 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 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.