If someone would ask you what is your idea of a holy person, chances are you would respond with the stereotypical image of the white-robed guru on the remote Asian mountaintop, tuning in to the ultimate oneness of creation as he renounces the pleasures of the physical world. For most of us this is what we think of when we think of spirituality.

It is an image far removed from the familiar and unromantic one that we have of the rabbi in suit-and-tie standing at the not-so-remote synagogue pulpit, tuning into the ultimate oneness of congregational apathy. But the truth is that the transcendental experience is an integral part of Jewish tradition, as well. Nor has it been limited to the prophets and holy men of the past.

For there is one day in the year when every Jew dons his pure white robes and climbs his own holy mountain. There he abstains from food and drink for an entire night and day in order to divorce himself from the distractions of the physical world. There, on the holy mountain, removed from the pressures of the mundane world, he devotes himself to contemplation of ultimate reality: of G-d and Man, Life and Death, Sin and Repentence. That day is Yom Kippur, and the holy mountain it represents is accessible to every Jew wherever he may be.

But the holiness on Judaism’s holiest day does not in fact begin on Yom Kippur itself. It begins the day before. For on that day we sit down to partake of a meal which is, in itself, the fulfillment of a mitzvah in the Torah. That large and filling affair, on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, is meant to give us the strength to get through the fasting of the following night and day, not only without fainting from hunger, but with a clear head to think about the meaning of things.

But this pre-fast filling-up is more than just a wise strategem. The Talmud teaches that one who eats on the day before Yom Kippur is credited with fasting not just one but two days! (This is derived from a verse in the Torah which refers to a second day of fasting, even though it is known that Yom Kippur is only one day.) Contained herein is the bold idea that if the purpose of eating is fasting, then the eating itself is a form of fasting. And just as the fasting is an act sanctified by the Torah on Yom Kippur, so too the pre-Yom Kippur meal is permeated by the same sancitity. The act is defined by its underlying intention, in spite of its outward appearance.

This concept is found in many aspects of Jewish life. Drinking a cup of wine is, in and of itself, the mere indulgence in an intoxicant. Worse, throughout the ages wine has often been associated with debauchery of all kinds, idolatrous and otherwise. In Jewish tradition, however, it is used to mark the entrance and departure of the Shabbos, a day devoted to testifying that G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Moreover, the Shabbos itself is highlighted by three festive meals, in which we use the physical bounty of this world for other-worldly purposes. What would otherwise be nothing more than a weekly triple shmorgasboard with an option for drunkenness is elevated to the status of a holy act by the intention underlying it.

Let us hope that this Yom Kippur and the preparations of the day before it be filled with the holy thoughts and deeds of repentance and forgiveness. Let it be the beginning of a sweet new year.