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From Rabbi Dr Harvey Belovski, rabbi of Golders Green Synagogue and CEO of University Jewish Chaplaincy:

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Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – is the holiest day of the Jewish year.Ìý We don’t eat or drink for 25 hours, we dress in white and we spend much of the day together thinking about where we’ve gone wrong in life and how we plan to do better in the year ahead.

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It begins as the sun sets with a haunting, ageless melody and ends with a thunderous blast on a horn as darkness falls.Ìý It’s a day out of time, almost out of life, a celebration of God’s absolute conviction that all of us deserve a second chance, no matter who we are or what we’ve done.

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Before the day starts, it seems impossibly long, but every year, once it starts, it passes, as my great-grandfather used to say, as a dream.Ìý Just like life itself, quoting a Yom Kippur prayer.

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I’m thinking about Yom Kippur because it was just yesterday. As the rabbi, I have to find the resources to get through the fast, face my own demons and inspire the hundreds of people relying on me to find the right words to help them think about mortality, their relationships with their family, community and God and their responsibility to heal our broken world. Oh and I need to strength to blow that horn at the end of the day and to dance and sing the day out.

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Yesterday, in my final Yom Kippur address, I spoke about the invisible bridge scene in the third Indiana Jones movie, where Indy needs to cross a canyon with no bridge.Ìý But Indy’s map assures him that the bridge is there and eventually he steps into the void.Ìý The bridge materialises beneath him and he crosses.

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But the bridge was actually always there – he just couldn’t see it.Ìý And although Indy calls it a leap of faith, Jewish tradition suggests that the map of Jewish history and God’s track record of encouraging us to take courageous steps persuade us that we can step into the unknown and succeed as human beings.Ìý This is the message of Yom Kippur – we can become better versions of ourselves.Ìý We just need to take the first step.