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Yom Kipur With Simchah
Good Yom Tov! Yom Kippur is a Yom Tov! “There were no more joyous days for Israel than Yom Kippur and the Fifteenth Day of Av.” (Mishna of the Tractate Ta’anit) Yom Kippur --like all the other festivals of the Jewish calendar-- has the power to cut short and even entirely cancel the mourning period of a mourner. In the words of the Talmud: “The rejoicing of the nation pushes aside the mourning of the individual—Yom Kippur must be seen as a day of joy.
Yet how many of us feel Yom Tovdik? How many people are excited about the fast? The Torah says in two places, “ [v’inisem] and you shall afflict your souls...” [Lev. 23:32] [Num. 29:7] So let’s decide now if we are in a joyous mood or are we feeling afflicted.
The joy of Yom Kippur is the joy of being given a second chance.
A chassid once asked his rebbe on the the day after Rosh HaShana, “why pray on Yom Kippur, after all we’ll inevitably sin again?” “Look out the window,” the rebbe said--"I’ve been watching this child for days now.” The chasid joined the Rebbe at the window and watched a child learning how to walk. He kept standing, walking and falling. “Just keep watching.” Day after day the chasid returned to witness the same scene. At the week’s end the child stood without falling. “So with us,” said the rebbe, “we may fall again and again, but in the end, God gives us the opportunity we need to succeed.”
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the great white fast of the Jewish Year. It is the day that we stand before Hashem and we say, “here we are again!” We are beating our breasts over the fact that we have not yet perfected ourselves and at the same time we are smiling because the Av HaRachamim is still there encouraging us to stand up once again and try to walk once again.
Let’s take a closer look at the word ‘v’inisem’.
When my wife and I first married in Jerusalem we moved to a neighborhood that was predominantly Sfardi. Soon after we arrived we made a bris for our oldest son Sender and we invited the neighborhood. Amongst the participants was a group of older Sefardic women. As the baby entered I heard up close the shrieking sound of the traditional Sefardic joy cry. A couple of months later one of these women, Aliza was her name, passed away. The whole neighborhood came together once again for the funeral Again these same women – minus Aliza, were there. To my amazement I heard the very same Sefardic shriek that I heard at my son’s bris! Was this a cry of joy or was this a cry of pain?
At the time I considered the episode of the Golden Calf.
When Moshe Rabeinu is returning to the Israeli encampment after having received the Torah from G-d, he is walking together with his faithful disciple Joshua - who has waited for him beneath the stars during the entire forty -day period. The Torah records how Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted. He asked Moshe if he knew what everyone was shouting about. Moshe gave him a very cryptic response. “It is not the sound of victory, neither is it the sound of defeat, but it is the sound (anos) which I hear.”
“Kol Anos!” It was a sound that could be defined as celebration or it may be a sound of affliction. Yehoshua wanted to know what the sound was. Moshe answered “Kol Anos anochi Shomea!” It’s a cry-sob as a result of affliction and a laugh-song as a result of celebration.
At Aliza’s funeral I realized that the sound is the same! The sounds of hysterical laughter and hysterical weeping are virtually inter-changeable. And the sound is called “inui”! Inui means affliction, Inui means a sound of laughter (Veaniso Veomarto)
This contradictory emotion may be what the Israelites experienced around the golden calf. The Israelites found themselves leaderless - bereft of their link to G-d - when they need their leader most. They are alone in a strange and hostile desert without their philosopher , their king and their shepherd to provide. They become anxious and disoriented.
They can only think back to Egypt and the way the Egyptians would dance around their idolatrous calve as gods and directors. But they realize that the calf is not powerful, that it was G d who took them out of Egypt, that it was G-d who proved the impotence of all other deities. Nevertheless, without Moses they have nowhere else to turn. And so they dance around the calf, and they push themselves into a frenzy of song and dance and laughter -but deep down they’re crying and weeping. It is precisely that hysterical frenzy which Joshua hears, the contradictory anos,
Therefore in the context of Yom Kippur, the ‘v’initem et nafshotaichem’ is a combination word. On the one hand it’s the Tenth Day of Repentance, and we can’t mask over the fact that we have looked deeply into our souls over these last few days, we have exposed our weaknesses and shortcomings, and that causes us to weep with anxiety and dread lest I be found wanting on the Day of Judgment. But Yom Kippur is also the Day of Atonement, when all sincere penitents are guaranteed a second chance.
As we begin our day of Yom Kippur let us all be b’simcha as we stand up once again with a clean slate and a pure soul. Let’s be sure to give everyone around us a second chance.
May Hashem grant us all a new kind of year – where the sounds of our souls will be a sound of unmistakable joy. Az Yemalei Schok Pinu uleshoneinu Rina!
“Dedicated in Honor of Klal Yisroel, May Hashem Hear our prayers grant us a year of selicha and mechilah, refuos and yeshuos, bracha and haztlocha and shalom.
Dedicated in Memory of our loving parents:
Yakov ben Yitzchak Hacohen Bacall
Chafula Kayla bas Yechiel Kalman Scharf Bacall
Mordechai Ben Yitzchok Eizik Eizikovitz
May their Neshamos have an Aliyah and may they be melitz yosher for their families and Klal Yisroel.
Kitivah V’chatimah tovah,”
Barry and Ann Eizik and family
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