Yosef omets (He Will Be Stronger): On the Ten Days of Repentance

980. It is written in Re’shit ḥokhmah [The Beginning of Wisdom (1579), by Elijah de Vidas]: The name of the Ten Days of Repentance indicates that they were ordained to amend the year. They are days of judgment, when we say “the King of Judgment.”¹ During these days, it is fitting for every individual person to fast and examine his deeds and fulfill the principles of repentance with his whole heart through fasting, weeping, and wailing [see Esther 4:3], and at night he should not eat meat, nor drink wine. Therefore, the heart of one who fears the Word of God will tremble within him, knowing that during this period God will bring into judgment every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14), for a person is judged on Rosh Hashanah and his sentence is sealed on Yom Kippur.

When a person knows that his case will be brought before a flesh-and-blood king, will he not tremble in great fear and take counsel with himself? He will be unable to turn to the right or to the left to deal with his other concerns. Accordingly, how foolish are those who go out to their daily activity and work until the evening [see Psalms 104:23] and deal with their business on the Days of Awe, the days of judgment and justice, when they do not know the outcome of their judgment. Hence it is appropriate for all those who fear Heaven to decrease the time they spend on their business and to set certain hours both by day and by night to seclude themselves in their rooms and to seek His ways and to rise before dawn and study the ways of repentance and how to improve their deeds, and to pray, petition, and entreat God. For this is a time of acceptance, when one’s prayer is heard. Our sages, of blessed memory, expounded that the verse seek the Lord when He may be found (Isaiah 55:6) is referring to the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Therefore, in our place, where it is the custom for fairs to be held on these holy days, let a man not give up eternal life for temporary life and refuse silver (Jeremiah 6:30). At least let him not waste all the hours of the day in business matters and trade and the like. Rather, he should set aside a certain hour of the day, and even more so at night, apart from the hours when we recite the penitential prayers, to study and to probe his deeds. It is written in the Shulḥan ‘arukh that if a person is doubtful whether he has committed a sin, he must repent more than he would for a definite sin, because in such a case he does not repent in the depth of his heart. All the more so, one should not omit any prayer in [a quorum of] ten [men] and he must make sure to say: “Amen, may His great name” and the like in order to attend to his business, for all these are great sins even on the rest of the days of the year. Since on these days the Holy One is close to all who call to Him in truth, and He opens His hand to those who repent, if a person does not call to Him then with all his heart and soul, to return to Him in repentance, will he not be ashamed and abashed, and his sins doubled and redoubled? This is like the story that our master Jonah presented in She‘are teshuvah [Gates of Repentance] from the Midrash about a king who forgave his servant’s crime of stealing and left the prison open so that he would escape. If the servant fails to do so, his master would be angry at him, and in his great rage, he will say, “Your second sin is greater than the first one,” and he would proceed to execute him through harsh and terrible torments, while his wicked comrades would go to their homes happy and content in their hearts. Therefore, one who is filthy with sins all year round, let him not add another sin to his crimes by being negligent in his repentance during these Days of Repentance. At the very least on the eve of Yom Kippur he should turn away from all his business concerns and purify and sanctify his thoughts for the Holy One.

981. Most people refrain from eating the bread of non-Jews in the days of repentance, and they will at least require that the oven has been made fit by a Jew throwing some wood into it. If possible, it is preferable to eat bread baked by Jews from which challah [removal of a portion of the dough] has been separated. On these days, the members of my household and I eat bread from which challah has been taken.

982. One who observed the prohibition for just one year, i.e., he had before him bread that was not kosher, and he desired to eat of it but refrained because of the commandment, his behavior is considered like an oath, and he needs a justification to retract his oath, which he must declare in the presence of three ordinary Jews [sitting as a court]. Most of those who follow this practice continue to do so until after Hoshana Rabbah, which is the last day on which all judgments for the upcoming year are sealed, and this is the correct custom.

983. I have observed that very pious individuals are careful to pay all their debts before Yom Kippur, even if they were not demanded to do so, so that the Prosecutor [Satan] will find nothing against them.

984. It is especially fitting and correct to examine whether one has ever violated any oath, especially those uttered in public in the synagogue before the Torah Scroll, such as a promised donation when a woman has given birth or for escaping danger, or who have donated toward a cloth for the cantor, he should be scrupulous to pay immediately with good coins. The same applies if he owes money to the treasury for the honor of performing a commandment that he bought, or the tax for selling wine, which is called um gelt.