We are approaching another Yom Kippur. The correct translation of the day's name is Day of Atonement, not Day of Forgiveness. Our sages explain that atonement means cleansing. Yom Kippur is the day we cleanse ourselves... from what?
To understand this, we must first know that the Torah has 613 commandments, of which we can fulfill less than half due to the conditions in which we live (no Temple in Jerusalem, no King, etc.). Of the half that can be fulfilled, many commandments are prohibitive, such as not killing. In that case, the commandment is fulfilled only when the opportunity to transgress it arises and the person refrains from doing so. Of the other half, many are commandments that only specific people fulfill, such as the laws of shechita (ritual slaughter) or the laws of writing a Torah scroll, which are only observed by those specially trained to slaughter animals or write scrolls. This leaves us with fewer than one hundred commandments that all people, everywhere, must observe. Every time the opportunity arises to fulfill them (whether by doing something or by not doing something) and the person does not do it (God forbid), that person's soul is stained, spiritually speaking.
Yom Kippur is about cleansing all those stains. For this to happen, a person must do Teshuvah, which is generally translated as repentance, but from a deeper perspective means return. A return to one's very essence, an essence that is far above all stains. Yom Kippur is a time for reflection and introspection, when a person has no external occupations to distract them from analyzing their own life. This return to the essence is directly related to a return to God, the Source of that essence. That is why, from that place, the stains can be cleansed.
Now, the person might ask: why do I need to clean these "stains" if I don't even feel them or they bother me? In fact, who says I have them? The answer to this question is that the very fact of not feeling the stains indicates that they are there. It's like someone wearing sunglasses who forgot to take them off upon entering a room: everything looks darker. After a while, the person gets used to it and sees things as blurry, lacking color, but that's how it looks, that's how everyone else must see reality. It no longer even occurs to them that there might be vivid colors and flashes of bright light; everything is dark and dull. That is the feeling that stains generate regarding our connection with God: we don't feel Him, we don't perceive Him, we forget about Him, etc., and we get used to that situation, as if it were normal... The stains are like dark glasses, and Yom Kippur is the opportunity to take off those glasses and begin to live a more joyful, more connected life, that is, with greater awareness of God's presence in our lives.
May they finally be sealed for a good and sweet year,