September 27, 2023|י"ב תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ד Kol Nidrei: Remembering Yom Kippur for the rest of the year By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky and Rav Elchanan Wasserman were two of the gedolei ha-dor, the rabbinic leaders of the generation, in the years preceding the Holocaust. They were also brothers-in-law. One year Rav Elchonon Wasserman asked Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky how his Yom Kippur fast had gone. Rev Chaim Ozer answered him that the fast was bearable, but confessing his sins was too hard for him. Yon Kippur can be very painful. Yes, the fasting is painful, but if we do Yom Kippur right and truly take advantage of the opportunity on Yom Kippur to reflect on all of our mistakes in the past, this process can be quite painful. But I understand why we do that. I understand how our Jewish tradition has crafted a time for us to confront our past in a meaningful way.

 

But I want to understand the point of this unnatural state that we will experience in the next twenty-five hours, from the fasting to all the bodily restrictions to which we are subject. It’s not a long term restriction – only for this day. And I wonder why we do this? Do we need to subject ourselves to these restrictions in order to reflect and repent? I understand the “al chet’s,” but why all the unnatural restrictions for 25 hours and then we return to normal?

 

Rav Simchas Zissel Ziv, known as the Sabba from Kelm and one of the great disciples of Rav Yisrael Salanter, made a kabbalah, or a commitment every Hoshana Rabba, that all year he will remember Yom Kippur of that year. Perhaps his commitment was that he would simply remember all of the resolutions that he made on Yom Kippur throughout the year, which is obviously a wonderful thing to do. 

 

But maybe what we must remember about Yom Kippur all year long is not simply our resolutions, but maybe we must remember the entire Yom Kippur experience. We could characterize Yom Kippur as an otherworldly, unnatural experience, but maybe there’s another way to characterize the day. My Rebbe, Rav Rosensweig, has asserted that Yom Kippur is a day of extremes. We have two goats. We take the blood of one and bring it to the kodesh ha-kodoshim, the holiest place on earth that only the holiest person on earth is permitted to enter one day a year. We take the other goat and we throw it off a cliff in the desert, in an apparent offering to Azazel, the devil. Two extremes. Yom Kippur is not merely a Shabbat, but it is a super Shabbat, a Shabbat Shabbaton. There is a positive mitzvah to engage in “inui,” in afflicting ourself to the extreme, with no allowance for normal earthly pleasures. This day is entirely a day of “kulo la-Hashem,” of being completely dedicated to God focused on the spiritual, as opposed to a regular holiday which is characterized as chatzi la-Hashem chatzi lachem – partially dedicated to God and spiritual concerns and partially dedicated to earthly pleasures like eating and drinking. Our Sages characterize us as angels during this day. We wear a kittel on Yom Kippur and it either reflects the fact that we are like an angel, or just the opposite – we are like a corpse and these are our shrouds. One extreme or the other extreme. Life or death. Inside the kodesh kodoshim or thrown off a cliff. Extreme rejection of this physical world. Complete association with the spiritual world. This is Yom Kippur and maybe it is this experience that must stay with us for the entire year. But why?

 

Because the goal of this day is that it should create clarity in our lives. Throughout the year we make compromises. We balance different values. We live in a world of grey and that’s just life. But as we are compromising and trying to strike the perfect balance between different values, we must never forget where our primary loyalty lies. Let’s say we believe in Torah u’madda, the value of both Torah and the value of secular studies, but where does our primary loyalty lie, with Torah or madda? Let’s say we believe in Torah im derech eretz, the value of pursuing a livelihood with the study of Torah, but where does our primary loyalty lie? What are our core values and what are our supporting values? Yes, we need to earn a living. Yes, we need to eat, drink and relax. But what are we really here for on this earth? For the next 25 hours this is the question that should consume us: where does our primary loyalty lie? Yom Kippur is about fasting, but much more than fasting. Yom Kippur is about al chet’s, but much more than al chet’s. Yom Kippur is about answering this one question emphatically in such a way that it will hopefully carry us for an entire year.

 

Because 25 hours from now, another Yom Kippur will be over, you will be able to eat, you will be able to go back to work and the question is how, if at all, will you relate to Yom Kippur for the rest of the year? Probably the first Yom Kippur moment in Jewish history was the akedah, when Avraham Avinu was commanded to offer Yitzchak up as a sacrifice. This command, like Yom Kippur, was in the realm of the extreme, because we do not believe in human sacrifice, and, in fact, God did not allow Avraham to follow through with this seemingly inhumane act. But the akedah was the one event in Avraham’s life that evoked a Divine response of “ata yadati ki yrei Elokim ata” – now I know that you are God-fearing. Even though Avraham passed many other tests, this particular test required the ultimate surrender to the Divine will and an extreme commitment to God. Nobody could doubt Avraham’s commitment to God after the akedah.

 

But the question remains. What happens after the akedah, after the Yom Kippur moment? There are three possibilities. It can remain an isolated event with no future impact. It’s a great accomplishment, but Avraham internalizes nothing from his Yom Kippur moment. Alternatively, it can radically transform ourselves into what Rav Rosensweig called a “Yitzchak response,” when we recede from the world and live an ascetic and completely spiritual existence. This is a very difficult feat to accomplish and it is something that perhaps only a select few in every generation can achieve, but it is not the path for the masses. The path that we should all strive for is an “Avraham response” who utilized the clarity of the akedah to inform the rest of his life on a regular everyday basis.

 

Our Jewish tradition provides us with so many opportunities for religious growth, and tonight and tomorrow are no exception. Yom Kippur is an opportunity to define our priorities, to create an akeda moment, that we can look back upon during the rest of the year when we sometimes struggle as to what we should do. At that moment, when we live in the grey and are certain what to do, we will behave like the Sabba from Kelm, we will emember our Yom Kippur experience, and we will know what the answer is. 

 

And maybe Yom Kippur can do even more for us. Maybe Yom Kippur can give us confidence that we can do better and that we can be better. Maybe when we are struggling with our davening, with our emunah, with the proper way to behave, we will visualize our Yom Kippur experience. We will remember that for one day, we didn’t speak lashon hara. We will remember that for one day, we didn’t just mouth the words of tefilla mechanically, but we sat in shul and poured our hearts out to God. We will remember that for one day, we were constantly thinking about how can I take advantage of mitzvah opportunities to constantly grow as an eved Hashem. Yes, many of us are praying that the fast of Yom Kippur will be bearable, and many of us are praying that we will be able to confess our sins effectively and achieve atonement. But let us all strive for something even greater. May God help us clearly define our priorities and values over the next 25 hours so that our uplifting Yom Kippur can help shape for each one of us and for our entire community a year of much blessing, good health and unprecedented spiritual growth.