You’re not alone. I have a feeling that virtually everyone would appreciate some inspiration in these “Ten Days of Repentance” from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur.
Here’s a story I heard that I found inspiring for myself and hope you like it as well.
In the town of Radin there was a man in his fifties who never married and Yom Kippur was a very lonely time for him. On Shabbat and Yom Tov he had lack no of meal invitations, but on Yom Kippur evening there was no meal to which he could be invited. For this person it was the loneliest night of the year.
One year on Yom Kippur evening, he was sitting in the synagogue alone, long after everyone had gone home. He gently started to weep. After a short time he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and found himself looking into the eyes of the Chafetz Chaim, one of the greatest and most righteous scholars of the generation. The Chafetz Chaim asked if he could sit with him, and the man agreed of course. The Chafetz Chaim began to speak with this man about virtually everything under the sun, including the weather. He spoke with the man about anything in order to improve his mood. No subject was too trivial. And this is how the Chafetz Chaim spent the entire night of Yom Kippur!
I personally picture the Chafetz Chaim as spending every Yom Kippur night (as well as every night!) immersed in Torah study and teshuva. But that night he spent speaking with the heartbroken man about the weather and mundane matters that helped cheer the man up.
The barometer of the way we feel about God is mirrored in the way we treat people. A lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others shows a lacking — not just in our mitzvot between ourselves and other people, but also in our mitzvot between ourselves and God. Sometimes talking about the weather can be a very great mitzvah indeed.
