2025 Yom Kippur Morning: Live Every Day Like It’s Your Last?

There is a famous story from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) in which Rabbi Eliezer taught: Repent one day before your death. His disciples asked him, But Rabbi, how does a person know which day will be their last?

Rabbi Eliezer replied, All the more reason to repent today, for perhaps tomorrow you will die; hence, a person should be in a state of repentance all their days.

This brief story from the Talmud¹ captures the essence of living each day with intention and purpose, recognizing the preciousness and uncertainty of life.

It sounds a lot like an oft-repeated line of folk wisdom: Live every day like it’s your last.

And it seems like a poignantly appropriate message for this holiday of Yom Kippur, a day in which each of us embraces our mortality and, to a certain extent, engages in a dress rehearsal for our death.

Live every day like it’s your last. Savor your relationships. Apologize to those you have wronged. Think about all of the various bricks that make up the edifice that makes you … you. Engage in contemplation and emotional soul-searching. Live every day like it’s your last.

This is bad advice.

If I lived every day like it was my last, I wouldn’t go to my doctor’s appointment, save for retirement, or buy groceries. And sorry, Emily, but I probably wouldn’t be doing the dishes.

Today, however, we do live like it might be our last day. We refrain from food and drink, and we confront our mortality with a rare intensity. Later this afternoon and into the evening, we pray fervently so that the prayers can reach God up until the final moment when the gates close, so that we can, God willing, be written and sealed into the Book of Life.

Yom Kippur presents a paradox: We engage in today’s intense observance of Yom Kippur so that the other days of the year are not Yom Kippur! In other words, once a year we do need to live like it’s our last day, so that during the other 364 days, we can actually live.

Some of you may know that observant Jews recite the Sh’ma every morning. But even before the Sh’ma, there is another prayer we are supposed to say upon waking up: Modeh Ani Lefanecha, Melech Chai V’kayam, Shehechezarta Bi Nishmati — I give thanks to You, God, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion — abundant is Your faithfulness.

This short prayer accomplishes four things:

1. It acknowledges that each morning is a significant and very real renewal — suggesting each day is a fresh start.

2. The prayer begins with gratitude (“I give thanks”), setting a tone of appreciation for the gift of a new day. It does not begin with a petitionary prayer for what we lack or what we want.

3. It recognizes that waking up each morning is not to be taken for granted.

4. The words of the prayer are simple and direct, making it accessible for daily practice.

This is how we should live our lives. We should not live every day like it’s our last. No — we should live every day like it’s our first.

I don’t mean that we should live our lives in a state of naïveté or innocence. As I suggested during Rosh Hashanah, we’re not meant to have a childish view of the world that doesn’t take seriously the challenges and difficulties that we face.

When my three-year-old son, David, wakes up in the morning, he often says to Emily and me: This is the best day ever! We should approach our lives with an outlook that is not childish but childlike; living our lives with an acknowledgment of the wonder and beauty of the world.

David doesn’t know Hebrew yet (he’ll start Hebrew School next year), but this is the meaning of Modeh Ani L’fanecha. The prayer doesn’t suggest that the day will be perfect or without sadness or pain, but it does mean that the day is vibrant and exciting and full of possibility. The new day is greeted as if it is entirely new, because it is. It is unburdened by yesterday’s disappointments or tomorrow’s worries.

This is Yom Kippur’s invitation: Our mortality is combined with the acute awareness that each day is a gift and a renewal. Each day is our first.

Every year, once the High Holy Days end, I struggle. It’s difficult for the radical awareness of these intense days to stay with me. I feel it a little bit during Elul, and I certainly feel it while I am with all of you during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

But after the holidays are over, the opening book of life’s patterns and routines comes back. The alarm goes off, the emails pile up, frustrations return. And it’s FAR too easy to forget, especially after Sukkot and Simchat Torah are over and the intensity of this sacred season moves further into the distance.

The liturgy, the fasting, the melodies, the shofar — all of these shake us awake. But what about an ordinary Tuesday in November? What about February when it’s gray and cold outside and we just want to get through the week?

Our goal is to greet each day with the same sense of wonder and sacredness as we do today.

With that in mind, I have a challenge for all of us. I’m calling it the Live Every Day Like it’s Your First Challenge.

When you walk out of CCI today, whether it be after this service or after our delicious meal, please take one of these prayer cards. (show card)

This is the Modeh Ani prayer I spoke about earlier. The challenge is for each of us to say it every morning after we wake up. You can say it in Hebrew or in English, but I do encourage you to say it out loud.

Practically speaking, you can use an app or a pen and paper to keep track of your progress and your daily streak. I’m challenging myself to do this from now until next Rosh Hashanah. Throughout the year, I will be asking some of you to share your experiences with this challenge so that we can motivate each other to live every day like it’s our first.

If we take this challenge seriously, the gift and challenge of our High Holidays won’t be locked inside this sanctuary. It will spill out into our homes, our workplaces, and our relationships. We will be more alive to the wonder and possibility of each day.

Later today, we will hear the last piercing cry of the shofar, closing this holiest of days. You may know that the commandment to hear the shofar is not only to hear the shofar, but also to hear the sound of its echo.

May the echo of the shofar remain in our ears tomorrow morning, and the next morning, and the Tuesday in November, and the cold days of February. May we live every day like it’s our first.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

Footnotes

1. Shabbat 153a ↩