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Atonement on Yom Kippur is facilitated by communal fasting. In Temple times, the high point of the day was the High Priest's service. Throughout the year, priests did not enter the Holy of Holies, which housed the Ark of the Covenant (19:2 above). Only on the holiest day of the year, at the height of the Yom Kippur service, would the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies to atone for the entire Jewish people. Nowadays, when the Temple is in ruins, the prayers we recite in synagogues take the place of the offerings. For example, the Musaf service we recite on Yom Kippur includes a description of the High Priest’s service.
Following the High Priest's example, the prayers and confessions we offer on Yom Kippur are formulated in the plural to cover the entire people. Each and every individual can draw upon the holiness and atonement the Jewish people attain on Yom Kippur. This allows each of us to hold on more firmly to God and Torah, to free ourselves from the impurity of our sins, and to repent and improve ourselves without suffering.
What if the Jews do not repent? Yom Kippur still reveals their internal goodness and cleanses their souls. Atonement is fundamentally a gift from God and what He wants, so it takes effect even without repentance. Nevertheless, since the sins are still present, people must undergo suffering – in this world and the next – to negate the influence of the transgressions.
