Yom Kippur 9 October 2019 10 Tishrei 5780 Ha’azinu 12 October 2019 13 Tishrei 5780 Yom Kippur ends London 7.07pm Jerusalem 6.51pm Shabbat ends London 7.01pm Jerusalem 6.47pm Volume 32 No. 3 Yom Kippur & Ha’azinu Ha’azinu: Artscroll p.1100 | Haftarah p.1205 Hertz p.896 | Haftarah p.904 Soncino p.1159 | Haftarah p.1170 In loving memory of Bayla Bat Gershon “For on this day he shall provide atonement for you to purify you; from all your sins before God shall you be purified” (Vayikra 16:30). 1 Sidrah Summary: Yom Kippur & Ha’azinu Yom Kippur Morning another’s spouse. Adhering to the laws about From the first Sefer Torah, we read the beginning of forbidden relationships is a critical factor in the parashat Acharei Mot. This details the Yom Kippur nation’s well-being in its Land. service of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), including Haftarah (Mincha) his once-a-year entry into the Holy of Holies and the Yonah (Jonah), a Jewish prophet, is told to go to the offerings he brought for himself, his family and the non-Jewish city of Nineveh to encourage its citizens nation. to repent. Yonah refuses, instead boarding a ship This service included taking two goats on behalf of bound for Tarshish. Yet, in a violent storm, the ship the nation. Lots were drawn on the goats, to seems about to break up. Realising that his own determine which one would be offered as a sin- rebellion has caused this danger, Yonah asks the offering and which one would be sent away into the sailors to throw him overboard. A big fish swallows desert hills outside Jerusalem, where it plunged to him. After three days of suffering inside the fish, its death. The Mishnah (Yoma 6:8) states that a strip Yonah prays to God, Who instructs the fish to spit of crimson cloth would be tied to the gate of the Yonah onto dry land. God reinstructs Yonah to go Temple. When the goat had reached the desert, if to Nineveh. Yonah goes, warning the people of the nation's sins had been forgiven, the strip would Nineveh of the need to repent. They fast and repent, turn white. yet when God forgives them, Yonah is distressed. Another feature of the Kohen Gadol’s special Yom God responds to Yonah’s reaction by teaching him Kippur service was that he did not wear any of the a lesson in compassion. golden garments that he wore during his normal service. Question: What did the sailors do immediately Maftir is read from the second Sefer Torah, from the after throwing Yonah overboard? (1:15) Answer on section of parashat Pinchas which details the extra bottom of page 10. offerings brought on Yom Kippur. Ha’azinu is read on the Shabbat after Yom Kippur The first six are the Song of Ha’azinu, which Point to Consider: Why does the Torah stress that aliyot the laws of the Yom Kippur service were given “after starts with Moshe calling on heaven and earth to the death of two of Aharon’s sons”? (see Rashi to witness the warning that the nation will rebel after 17:1) entering the Land of Israel, forsaking devotion to Haftarah God for the pursuit of material possessions. This will The prophet Yeshaya (Isaiah ch. 57) states that lead to terrible consequences. Ha’azinu would then whilst God never ignores wrongdoing, the door to be read to the people, to remind them of the cause (repentance) always remains open. of their woes. The Song ends with God’s promise to Hteoswhuevva er, has to be sincere; fasting and avenge those nations who would attack the Jews. In affliction caterrsyh luitvtlae merit if one continues to mistreat the seventh , God tells Moshe to view the aliyah other people. Land from the mountains of Moab and reminds him Yeshaya encourages not just keeping the laws of that he will not enter the Land because he hit the Shabbat, but also experiencing its joyous rock (see Bemidbar 20:12-13). atmosphere, which can allow us to reach our Haftarah greatest spiritual potential. The Book of Shmuel records the beautiful Song of Yom Kippur Afternoon (Mincha) King David, who poetically relates the various We read the last part of parashat Acharei Mot, struggles he faced, and how God always protected concentrating on the laws of forbidden and saved him. God’s kindness allowed David to relationships, such as with close relatives, or with rise from peril to a position of respect and power. Unit ed S ynag ogue Daf Hashavua Pr oduc ed by US Living & Learning toge ther with the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue Edito r: Rabbi Chaim Gr oss Edito r- in-Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Edito rial and Production Team: Ra bbi Daniel Sturgess, Rabbi Michael Laitner, J oanna Rose Available also via email US website www.theus.org.uk ©United Synagogue To sponsor Daf Hashavua ple ase contact Danielle Fox on 020 8343 6261 , o r [email protected] .uk If you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavua please email [email protected] .uk 2 The Evil Within by Rabbi David Lister, Edgware United Synagogue "I thus drew steadily nearer Thus, says the Ramban, the goat for Azazel to the truth, by whose symbolised Eisav carrying off Yaakov’s sins. discovery I have been How could this be? doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not Perhaps the point is that on Yom Kippur we truly one, but truly two" receive the gift of spiritual clarity. We see that our (Robert Louis Stevenson, self-indulgence, our lust for power and our unruly neglect of God’s will are just ‘the Eisav The Strange Case of ). within us’. Robert Louis Stevenson was partially Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde correct that “man is truly two”: we have Eisav One of the most dramatic elements of the Yom within us all. But we can cast Eisav out, and we Kippur service in Temple times was the can cast out all our sins through this resolve to ceremony of the scapegoat. The High Priest repent and start a new life. would designate one goat for God and another for Azazel. The goat for God would be The Ramban explains further that Eisav’s blood slaughtered and its blood would be sprinkled lust is symbolised by the desolation of the towards the Holy of Holies. The goat for Azazel desert, because the greed and violence of Eisav was then taken out to the top of a high desert wreak desolation on civilisation. Azazel means mountain, whence it would be pushed to its the ‘hard, strong place’, because the world of death. Eisav admits no kindness and no reconciliation. The goat’s shocking and sudden destruction in The Torah tells us that the scapegoat carried the the desert teaches that Eisav and all he people’s sins off into the desert (Vayikra 16:22). represents will not triumph. So who or what was Azazel and how could sending a goat to its death make everything Nowadays we have no Temple and no goat for better? Azazel. But the Azazel lesson endures for all time, and the freedom to cleanse ourselves of The Ramban (Nachmanides 1194-1270) explains our inner Eisav and face down the ruin of our this cryptic ritual with reference to the twin own sin is something everyone can access every sons of Yitzchak: Eisav the bloodthirsty hunter year for twenty five blessed hours, the holy and and Yaakov, who is referred to in the Torah as an mighty day of Yom Kippur. “ ”, meaning an ‘innocent man’ (Bereishit 2i5s:h 27ta).m Yaakov said of Eisav, “Surely my brother is an ” (ibid. 27:11). The simple meaning of the wisho rsdas’i r “ ” is ‘a hairy man’. Yet they can also be itsrha nssal’air ted as ‘a man like a goat’. The goat for Azazel, says the Ramban, symbolises Eisav. There is also a hint to Yaakov in this Yom Kippur ritual. The goat for Azazel had to carry off “all their sins” (Vayikra 16:22). The Hebrew term used is “ ”, which can be translated to mean ‘thea vsoinso toafm [Yaakov] the innocent’. In memory of Shmuel Nissim ben Yaacov 3 A Real Apology by Rabbi Pinchas Hackenbroch, Senior Rabbi, Woodside Park United Synagogue In his book , Simon noted that in the well-known Bible story, Yosef’s Wiesenthal Surnefcloawlles r being brothers sold him into slavery, a crime which summoned from his work should have been punishable by death. This did detail in a concentration not happen and the Prefect decided to execute camp to the bedside of a the rabbis in their place. dying Nazi, Karl Seidl. Tormented by the crimes he Yet we know that Yosef, towards the end of had committed, Seidl told his life, reconciled with his brothers in Egypt. Wiesenthal that he was seeking "a Jew's The great 14th century Spanish commentator forgiveness” for his past. In particular, Seidl Rabenu Bachye (1255-1340) offers a critical remained harrowed by his involvement in insight. He notes that the text does say that setting fire to a house full of 300 Jews. He told Yosef reassured the brothers, but it does not Wiesenthal how he watched as the Jews say that he actually forgave them (Bereishit leapt out of windows to escape the burning 50:19-21). Indeed, the brothers did not seek building, whereupon he and his fellow Nazis forgiveness. Rather, they wanted to draw a line gunned them down.