YOUR GOD LOVES YOU

(Drasha given at Kol Nidre, Yom Kippur 2025/5786)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson once went camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Holmes nudged Watson awake. “Watson, look up at the sky — what do you see?”

Watson rubbed his eyes, looked up, and said, “I see millions and millions of stars.”

“And what do you deduce from that?” Holmes pressed.

Watson, eager to impress Holmes, replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and even a fraction of them have planets, then surely some of those planets are like Earth. And if some are like Earth, then perhaps there’s life beyond our planet.”

Holmes sighed. “Watson, you idiot. It means somebody stole our tent.”

Yes, very funny. But here’s the thing — that’s us. We’re always looking for complicated theories, clever explanations, ingenious rationalizations for what’s going on in our lives. Meanwhile, we miss the obvious that’s right in front of us. And more often than not, the simplest explanation is the one that makes the most sense.

Kol Nidre is all about the obvious. We make promises we can’t keep. We make commitments we don’t follow through on. And then we pile up a thousand excuses, a dozen reasons, and endless explanations.

But the obvious truth is so much simpler: we’re human, we’re flawed, and we need to face that honestly at least once a year. And that’s exactly what Yom Kippur is about.

We’ve made mistakes. We’ve said things we shouldn’t have said. We’ve been in denial, sometimes for years. There’s no need for brilliant theories. There’s no need for clever cover stories. We just need to admit that the tent is gone. And only then can we begin to repair.

One of our biggest faults as human beings is passing the buck. We hate owning up. We hate admitting it was us.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite jokes.

A couple are at a party, and after about an hour the wife pulls her husband aside and hisses at him: “You think I didn’t notice, but that’s the fourth time you’ve gone back for ice cream and cake. Doesn’t it embarrass you? Aren’t you embarrassed?”

He shrugs. “Not really. Why should I be embarrassed? I keep telling them it’s for you.”

That’s us, isn’t it? Always making excuses. Always finding someone else to blame, so that we can get away with it.

But Yom Kippur strips that away. On Yom Kippur we don’t pass the buck. We say, “I did it. Me. Not someone else. No excuses. And I’m going to repair it. The tent is gone — and I’m the one who lost it.”

The Rambam, in Hilchot Teshuva, says the core of repentance is vidui — confession. Not a vague admission, but a clear, verbal acknowledgment – you need to say out loud: I did it.

And the miracle is: the moment we say, “it was me,” God wipes it away. All the vows and promises and aspects of our lives that weigh us down and hold us back, once we face up to them, and totally own them – Hashem says, ok – I got you – let’s start again. Fresh.

That’s the reason Kol Nidre is very powerful. Because if you strip it down, Kol Nidre is God’s debt relief program.

We live in an age that’s obsessed with debt relief. Student loans need to be canceled. Credit card debt needs to be forgiven. Mortgages need to be refinanced.

Politicians make headlines by promising debt relief, because they know how crushing debt feels. Anyone who’s been there — who has felt the pressure of mounting interest — they know what a burden it is. And they know the joy when that burden is lifted.

The Sages of Chazal compare sin to debt. Every sin is like swiping a credit card. It’s easy in the moment, but then comes the bill.

And the bill always arrives.

And maybe guilt, the guilt you feel after sinning, that’s the interest.

And maybe the shame you feel, that’s the late fee.

But however you slice it, before long, we are buried under an crushing mountain of sin debt.

Kol Nidre in particular, and Yom Kippur in general, is God’s bankruptcy court. It doesn’t erase the past as if it never happened. It acknowledges it, and then releases us from being chained to it. So that we can go about doing stuff that makes us better and brings us closer to God.

Ramban explains that the words of the vidui are not said for God’s sake. God already knows. Those words – ashamnu, bagadnu – are for us. Because until you name the debt, you can’t get out from under it.

But here’s the catch: Rambam also teaches that real teshuva means change. It’s not enough to say sorry. You have to show it.

What we do at Kol Nidre is the spiritual equivalent of cutting up the credit card after you’ve been bailed out. Otherwise, you’ll be right back in the same mess in a second.

God wipes the slate clean — but He expects us to stop swiping the card.

And that’s why Yom Kippur is not a sad day, but a day of hope. It’s a day when God says: You are not defined by your lowest point. You can reset. You can start again. And, most important – he says: I believe in you.

But what does this debt relief actually look like in practice? What happens when someone reaches the lowest point possible and then discovers that they still have access to God’s grace?

I want to tell you about two young people who found themselves in the darkest place imaginable — not just physically, but spiritually. They were carrying debts they didn’t even know they had: years of distance from God, promises never made, prayers never said, traditions never kept. They were spiritually overextended without even realizing it.

And then, in the depths of hell, they hit rock bottom. They had nothing left to offer, no more excuses to make, no more ways to avoid the truth about what they needed to do.

In that moment of complete vulnerability, they discovered their personal Yom Kippur moment: a moment when you finally admit that everything you thought was important wasn’t so important after all, and all those things you pushed aside — prayer, faith, connection to God — that was what was real.

You were busy staring at the stars in the sky, but what really mattered was the missing tent.

First, let me tell you about Omer Shem Tov. Omer was just 20 years old on October 7th. He was a regular Israeli kid. He had just finished his army service and was doing what so many Israeli young people do — waiting tables at a restaurant, saving up money for the big post-army trip to South America.

That’s the dream: to travel, to breathe a little, to see the world after years in uniform. He wasn’t particularly religious, not Shomer Shabbat. He was definitely not the kind of person you’d expect to turn to prayer when things got rough. Just a normal, secular Israeli kid with his life ahead of him. Truthfully, he was much more Israeli then he was Jewish.

On that terrible Saturday, October 7th, he went to the Nova music festival along with thousands of others. He wasn’t looking for trouble — he was looking for music, he was looking for friendship, he was looking for joy.

But instead, he was caught in the nightmare we all know too well.

Omer was captured and dragged into Gaza by Hamas terrorists. They shoved him underground — 130 feet underground — into a dark, suffocating tunnel.

Imagine that. You’re 20 years old, cut off from the world, no sunlight, no family, no friends, barely any food or water. You don’t know if you’ll live another day, another week, another month. You don’t know if anyone even knows where you are. You have every reason in the world to despair.

But Omer didn’t give up. Something remarkable happened. A few days into captivity, Omer began speaking to God. Quietly at first. Tentatively. But it grew stronger.

He began to recite Tehillim, Psalms. He started to make a bracha even for the meager scraps of food they gave him. He made a promise. He said: If I ever make it home, I will pray every day with tefillin.

And here’s the incredible part of the story — this is the part that gives me chills — Omer remembered one particular psalm by heart: Psalm 20 — “La’menatzeach Mizmor LeDavid – Ya’ancha Hashem b’yom tzarah” — “May God answer you in your time of trouble.” That’s the one he said every day, sometimes multiple times a day.

Meanwhile, his mother, Shelly, she’s also not too religious – she was going nuts with worry for her son Omer, understandably, and she decided to say Tehillim every day. And guess which Tehillim she said. She said Psalm 20 — “Lamenatzeach Mizmor LeDavid – Ya’ancha Hashem b’yom tzarah” — “May God answer you in your time of trouble.”

Can you imagine that? As Omer said the tehillim in a tunnel under Gaza, at exactly the same time, Shelly was saying that very same psalm in Omer’s empty bedroom in Herzliya.

Shelly didn’t know that Omer had taken it on. Omer didn’t know that Shelly was saying it. But somehow, across an impossible distance, they were praying the same words, to the same God, at the same time.

When Omer was finally released, he described what had kept him alive: “Faith kept me going. I always believed I would get home, though I didn’t know how or when.”

And after 505 days — almost a year and a half — he did come home. He was alive. And now, he was a changed person. He was closer to God.

Ever since Omer walked free – every single day! – Omer puts tefillin on in his bedroom — and he says shema – and he says Psalm 20 — “Lamenatzeach Mizmor LeDavid – Ya’ancha Hashem b’yom tzarah” — “May God answer you in your time of trouble.”

And here’s the truth: before October 7th, Omer wasn’t perfect as a Jew. He wasn’t religious. He wasn’t keeping every mitzvah. He wasn’t living a saintly life. But when it mattered most, suddenly he realized the tent was missing, and he had been too focused on the stars.

So, he rose to the occasion. He reached for God, and found the strength to carry on. And God was there for him. For a not-completely-perfect Omer.

That is how God’s debt relief works. God doesn’t expect perfection — He expects honesty. He expects us to simply say: “The tent is gone. I didn’t do enough for God until now. But I want to try again.”

And when we do that, something extraordinary happens — God draws out the very best in us.

Here’s the second story. It’s even more incredible. It’s about Agam Berger. Agam was also 20 years old when she was taken hostage on October 7th. She was a soldier in the IDF, a completely secular young woman, the kind of Israeli kid who grew up in a Jewish state but not with God, or tradition, or mitzvot. Faith wasn’t really part of her life.

Agam spent 482 days in Hamas captivity. Think about what that means. Every day, as a vulnerable young girl, waking up in a cage of fear and uncertainty. No control, no freedom, no idea if you will live or die.

But something extraordinary happened in the darkness. Agam began keeping Shabbat. At some point early on, she even asked the Hamas terrorists who were holding her captive for a siddur. Crazy!

At first, they mocked her — “Why would you want a prayer book? What good will it do you?” But eventually, they brought her one. And when they handed it to her, they said something unforgettable. They said: “Your God loves you.”

Imagine that. Hamas terrorists — telling a captive Jew: Your God loves you.

Agam has written about her experience. She says, “I chose the path of faith, and by the path of faith, I returned.”

And that’s exactly what Yom Kippur is about. Not a story of perfection, but a story of transformation. Here was a young woman who hadn’t kept Shabbat, who hadn’t prayed, who had never thought she would be the kind of person to reach for God. But when the world caved in, she found the strength to choose faith.

Yom Kippur isn’t about people who have never failed. It’s about people like Omer. It’s about people like Agam. And it’s about people like you and me — people who stumble, people who break promises, people who drift away. But, at the same time, people who – when they are given a second chance – grab it with both hands.

So what does God’s debt relief mean for us? It means recognizing that beneath all our broken promises and failed commitments lies a deeper truth: that we are searching for connection to something greater than ourselves.

Yom Kippur strips away the noise, it strips away the distractions, it strips away the endless rationalizations, and it brings us back to the essential question: Where is God in my life?

Tonight, we can answer that question. Because tonight we reach upward, even from our lowest point, and discover that God has been reaching back all along.

Tonight, we look at ourselves in the mirror and see the true reflection. We stop looking for complicated explanations and clever rationalizations. The tent is gone. It’s as simple as that. But tomorrow — the day after Yom Kippur – we start fresh.

Sherlock Holmes was right. In fact, he was always right. Sometimes the simplest truth is the one we miss. Tonight, don’t stare at the stars, searching for complex theories about why our lives aren’t what we hoped they’d be. Tonight, just notice the missing tent – and everything is going to be okay.