Israel Koschitzky VBM Yom Kippur Digest 5781
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1111u lil n11w1 Yeshivat Har Etzion - Israel Koschitzky VBM Parsha Digest, Year Ill, Yom Kippur Digest 5781 Selected and Adapted by Rabbi Dov Karoll Quote from the Rosh Yeshiva Yorn Kippur... focuses on the Jewish people, as its historical origin is within the context of the recovery from the sin of the golden calf, and it is centered, in terms of our awareness, on the unique service performed in the Temple, wh ich is, of course, all very particularistic ... So on Yorn Kippur. .. consciousness ... of our status and stature vis-a-vis God ... can have an impact on the nature of the teshuva. But the awareness and reality of our election is a two-edged sword. It can feed arrogance, chauvinism, and condescension. This sharpens the possible conflict between humility and teshuva on Yorn Kippur, because humility is more difficult to come by when you are told you're the salt of the earth. On the other hand, of course, if one has been properly educated and nurtured, and properly prepared himself for "the great and awesome day of God" (Malakhi 3:23), then the very experience of the sanctity of the day can intensify one's awareness that it is the Lord your God "Who gives you the power to gain wealth." The deeper exposure to and experience of God that we aim to have on Yorn Kippur intensifies our sense of where our power and might are coming from .. .. So, indeed there is teshuva on Yorn Kippur and there is humility, not only the humility... of attributing our own accomplishments to God, that He is the One who gave us "the power to gain wealth (chayil)," but also specifically the humility that is stimulated by, and emerges from, our exposure to and our experience of "the great and awesome day of God." And while it is a day in which we seek to experience the sanctity of the day as narrated and described in the unique service of the day, we should strive to experience chayil in another sense as well: looking to achieve, however incrementally, our longer range eschatological vision embodied in the verse, "They proceed from strength to strength (me-chayil el chayil); every one of them appears before God in Zion" (Tehillim 84:8). -Harav Aharon Lichtenstein zt"I, "Humility and Pride in Teshuva," Return and Renewal: Reflections on Teshuva and Spiritual Growth Yorn Kippur: Ne'ila "Open for Me the Gates of Righteousness" Based on a Sicha by Harav Yehuda Arnita I zt"I Based on: https://www.etzion.org.il/en/open-gates-righteousness I sleep, but my heart wakes: hark, my beloved is knocking, saying, "Open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night."... My beloved put in his hand by the latchet of the door, and my heart was thrilled for him . I rose up to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with flowing myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. (Shir HaShirim 5:2-5) This is as it is written in the Midrash. '"I rose up to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with flowing myrrh, upon the handles of the lock' (5 :5) . 'I rose up to open for my beloved' - This alludes to Shacharit [of Yorn Kippur]. 'And my hands dripped with myrrh' - This alludes to Musaf. 'And my fingers with flowing myrrh' - This alludes to Mincha. 'Upon the handles of the lock' - This alludes to the Ne'ila prayer." (Rabbenu Bachya, Kad HaKemach, Kippurim 2) The Ne'ila service adds an additional dimension to the prayers of Yorn Kippur. Here we try to respond to God's "knocking," to open our hearts to the "Beloved" who has "put in His hand by the latchet of the door." The feelings of uplift experienced throughout the day are the sound of the Beloved knocking at the door. Our feelings are not a response to the voice of the Beloved, but rather the voice itself. This is how the Holy One, blessed be He, asks us, "Open for Me, My sister, My love." The disciples of both the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov taught that the heavenly voice declaring, "Return, return, 0 wayward children" (Chagiga 15b), finds its way to the consciousness of every Jew who entertains thoughts of repentance. In the words of the psalm, "Of You my heart has said, 'Seek My face.' Your face, 0 Lord, I seek" (Tehillim 27:8) . In our hearts we hear a voice that says, "Seek My face." Rashi explains that this voice issues at God's bequest: "Of You" - From You, in Your service, my heart says, "Seek" - all of you, all of Israel - "My face." We are called to respond to that inner voice, and to reply, "Your face, 0 Lord, I seek." Of course, in order to hear the voice that issues from God, we have to peel away all of the outer layers and open our hearts. Happy is the person who hears the voice of the Beloved declaring, "Return, return, 0 wayward children." But there are some who, like Elisha b. Avuya, also hear the closing words of that call : "Return, return, 0 wayward children - except for Acher'' (Chagiga 15b). Elisha b. Avuya did not understand that this call was directed at him, challenging him to exert himself and repent; he gave up. One who feels that his heart is deaf to that heavenly call, that he has no way of repenting, someone who is told, "Everyone should repent - but not you," must understand that this feeling is itself a call to exert special efforts, to lift himself to the point where he can repent. *** Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will go in to them, and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter. (Tehillim 118:19-20) It is taught in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that a righteous person stands before the gate and pleads, "Open for me the gates of righteousness." The response that comes from heaven is, "This is the gate of the Lord" - you are standing before a locked gate, and this sense of gates being locked is itself "the gate of the Lord." This teaching discusses the righteous, but is also relevant to each and every one of us who stands at the climax of this holy day and pleads, "Open us a gate at the time of the locking of the gate." In order to merit the opening of the gates of heaven, we have to open the gates of our heart. With the words of the prayer "Open us a gate" (at Ne'ila), we request divine assistance that will allow us to open our hearts - even just the tiniest opening: "My Beloved is knocking, saying, 'Open for me"' - R. Yissa said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, says to Israel, 'My children, open for Me just one opening of repentance, be it as tiny as the point of a needle, and I will open for you openings [so wide] that wagons and carriages could pass through."' (Shir HaShirim Rabba 5:2) We must open our hearts to our true identity, our true calling and destiny, instead of trying to run away from it as Jonah tried to run away from God. It is said in the name of the Shel ah (Kitzur Shel ah 101) that there is special merit in reciting a verse at the end of one's daily prayers that begins and ends with the same letters as one's own name, in order to remember one's name on the Day of Judgment. This teaches us the danger that a person may forget his name on the Day of Judgment; he may deny his true identity. Throughout the year, throughout one's life, a person can conceal his real "I," and present an artificial self, while the real "I" is in exile, in the sense of "I was in the midst of the exile" (Yechezkel 1:1, as explained by Rav Kook in Orot HaKodesh 111 :97). But on the Day of Judgment and the Day of Atonement, we try to identify our true nature, our inner essence. On Rosh Ha-shana and on Yorn Kippur a person stands with his real name. Our efforts during Ne'ila need to express that true inner self. King David declares: "Hear the right, 0 Lord; attend to my cry, give ear to my prayer, from lips without deceit. Let my sentence come forth from Your Presence, let Your eyes behold the right" (Tehillim 17:1-2) The Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni 1:670) explains: Why does David mention these 5 things in this verse, and then conclude, "Let my sentence come forth from Your Presence"? David said, "Master of the world, if my judgment is concluded on Yorn Kippur in the morning, I will not be able to stand [in prayer for the rest of the day]. Rather, after I say Shern a and pray 4 prayers - then 'let my sentence come forth from Your Presence."' Let us pray from the depths of our hearts and the inner chambers of our souls, and plead, "Purify our hearts to serve You in truth." [Translated by Kaeren Fish. From When God Is Near: On the High Holidays (11~1 mi)] Tefillat Yorn Kippur The Secret of Selichot: The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy By Rav Ezra Bick Based on: https://www.etzion.org.il/en/secret-selichot-thirteen-attributes-mercy 2 A.