We are, in the words of our High Holy Day liturgy, “like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud…”

As the story is told – and I love to tell it – very early in the morning of Erev Yom Kippur, still dark outside, the rabbi unlocks the door to the small synagogue in the shtetl. He makes his way to a corner in the front of the room and begins to beat his breast and pray: “Oh Lord, forgive me for my sins, I’m just a worthless soul in your vast universe, a speck of dust, an empty shell … ”

A few minutes later, the cantor enters the synagogue, sees the rabbi swaying and beating his chest, so he goes to the other corner in the front of the room, and he, too, begins to klop his chest with his fist and pray: “Holy Father, I’m not worthy but give me strength to lead the service tonight, I who am a lowly sinner, a passing shadow …”

A few minutes later, the shammos (sexton) arrives and, seeing the rabbi and cantor deep in fervent prayer, takes a similar stance.

Spotting him, the cantor, pointing to the shammos, calls out to the rabbi: “Hah, look who also thinks he’s a nothing!”

This quintessential Jewish joke captures – and satirizes – one essential element of the Ten Days of Repentance, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year: the powerful reminder that we are living on borrowed time, at the mercy of a Creator who judges our every action and thought – and that humility is the first step toward contrition.

It’s not difficult to understand why Yom Kippur instills fear in our hearts. That’s what it’s meant to do. On this day we are commanded by the Torah to fast and afflict our souls.

One reason given for the custom of wearing a white kittel (robe-like garment) on this one day is because it looks like, and reminds us, of a burial shroud. And the liturgy throughout Yom Kippur keeps coming back to our mortality. “The origin of man is dust, his end is dust,” we read at the end of the hauntingly poetic U’netaneh Tokef prayer. We are compared to “a broken shard, like dry grass, a withered flower, like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud, like a breeze that blows away and dust that scatters, like a dream that flies away.”

But for all the solemnity of the day, there is a thread of optimism that runs through our prayers.

Most dramatically, at day’s end, in the Ne’ilah service, after 24 hours of asking that God “write” us into The Book of Life, we ask that our prayers be answered and that we be “sealed” into The Book of Life. And throughout the Ten Days of Penitence, there is the awareness that we have a chance, through “repentance, prayer and tzedakah” to avert an unfavorable decree and have our slate of sins wiped clean.

This chance for a new beginning – which we are told God longs for until our dying day – is the most liberating feeling a soul can have. Whatever our level of belief, the notion that we can make a fresh start is a powerful incentive.

This gift of inner cleansing is something that we can surely appreciate in a world where, as a result of the Internet and social media, our errant behavior, hurtful language and long-ago mistakes are permanently on record for any and all to see.

That’s the difference between God and Google.

One is forgiving; the other is not. One allows us to start over each year; the other holds us to our past forever.

On the cusp of Yom Kippur, let’s think of this day as not just one of reckoning but also one offering us – from above or within – the wondrous opportunity of renewal.

G’mar chatimah tovah, may each of us be sealed in The Book of Life.

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