High Holidays · Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

What are the Ten Days of Repentance?

The ten days, and what they ask of you

These are not ordinary days on the calendar. The tradition understands the whole stretch from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur as one continuous invitation to return: ten days when the door stands a little more open than usual. The classical trio is teshuvah (return), tefillah (prayer), and tzedakah (righteous giving) — not three heavy demands, but three real handholds. Teshuvah is the honest look backward; tefillah is turning toward Hashem in words; tzedakah is letting the change reach someone else's life, not only your own.

Where this comes from

The prophet Isaiah gives these days their spirit: דִּרְשׁוּ ה' בְּהִמָּצְאוֹ — "Seek Hashem while He is near" (Isaiah 55:6). The Rambam, in his laws of teshuvah, reads that verse as pointing precisely to these ten days, when return is nearest to hand and most readily accepted (Hilchot Teshuvah 2:6). The nearness is real, and so is the reach: it asks you to actually turn.

What to do

You need not remake your whole life by Yom Kippur. Choose one thing. During these days it is customary to add passages to the Amidah, the standing prayer — small insertions that shift the theme toward the King who is judging and the mercy that is asked. Say them slowly. Beyond the siddur, mend one relationship that has frayed, and give one act of tzedakah you were putting off. Hashem counts the steps, not the distance still ahead.

Source: Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:6, reading Isaiah 55:6 ("Seek Hashem while He is near")..