Yom
Kippur: "A Chance of Further
Life, Gift-Wrapped With the String of Forgiveness"
By
Joe Bobker
Yom
Kippur is the summit of the Jewish calendar, the annual apex
of spiritual consciousness, the only day in the year when Jews
spend 25 non-stop hours in search of God via abstinence. Yom
Kippur is only one day (unlike the other “2-day”
festivals) because of the danger of excess fasting. This uninterrupted
introspective, a formidable and meticulous “reckoning
of the soul,” is achieved through the Torah’s command
for self-denial,i a
directive that, according to Rav, a 3rd century rabbi, is not
intended to turn the Jew away from life’s pleasures ("In
the World to Come a person will be called to account for the
legitimate pleasures which he denied himself.")
It
is a common mistake to (mis)translate "Yom Kippur"
into "Day of Atonement." The English verb "atone" is
composed of two words, "at" and "one" that,
originally, was intended to mean reconciliation, not atonement.
The Hebrew root of "kippur" means "to
cover, or "hide," with a secondary meaning, "to
obliterate" (as in ‘sin,’ and thus to expiate).ii
Yet no matter what one calls it, no other day in the Jewish
year is as spiritually intense and as demanding, as Jews deprive
themselves (the Rambam prefers the term lishbot, “to
rest,” rather than “abstain”) of the five
fundamental physical requisites of their lives by not eating,iii
drinking, bathing (rechitza), no sex, no cosmetics
and no wearing of leather shoes (shoes and cosmetics were once
considered superficial possessions and pleasures, a "luxury,"
and thus, unbefitting). Kabbalists compare this custom to Moses
arriving at the Burning Bush and being ordered to remove his
shoes because he stood on holy ground. Yom Kippur, as a sanctuary
in Time, is also considered “holy ground.” How do
we know about these "five?" Only indirectly. The Talmud
extrapulates them from the Torah’s repetitive request (5 times)
that the Jew "deprive himself" (inuy).iv
Does
this mean Yom Kippur is a time of anxiety and despair, apprehension
and fear? It would seem so, especially when the liturgy uses
such solemn language as v’initem et nafshotaichem,
“you shall afflict your souls.”v
But it is not. Instead the rabbis of the Mishna crown Yom Kippur
one of the “more joyous days for Israel,” even suggesting
that Kippurim be read as K’Purim, "a day like
Purim,"vi
and elevating it as one of the two happiest days of the year
(the other is Tu B’Av). It is true: during the First Temple
Yom Kippur was pensive, sober and serious – but only inside
the Temple; outside it was a different ‘ball game;’
a bright and cheery holiday of matchmaking as Jewish girls,
dressed in white, danced in vineyards hoping to attract their
bashert, “marriage partner.”vii
In
that context we can now take a second look at that “ominous”
word v’initem. Its Hebrew root is anah (ayin,
nun, heh) which means to “sing out,” in discovery
that Yom Kippur is not just a day of soul affliction, but a
day of souls soaring and singing and searching; proof positive
that yirah, “fear,” has a positive side
in that it allows the Jew to focus. This word is derived from
the Hebrew root ra’ah, which means “to see, apprehend,”
as in those pop lyrics, “I can see clearly now.”
What
does this new eyesight show us?
That
Yom Kippur is a day of spiritual uplift, one that forces us
to “see” (and appreciate) what life has to offer.
This new vision makes this day one of a cathartic refocus, away
from the frivolities of existence and towards a New Year with
renewed priorities, jubilant in the knowledge that God has just
granted us the Mother of all Presents, a chance of further Life,
gift-wrapped with the string of forgiveness. As Abraham Joshua
Heschel of Apt so aptly put it: "On Tisha B’Av with its
tragic memories, who can eat; on Yom Kippur with its spiritual
elevation, who needs to eat?"
Many
Jews, no matter how indifferent they are to Judaism, still view
Yom Kippur as the primary Jewish religious experience. When
the opening day of the October 1965 World Series fell on Yom
Kippur, the Dodgers, thanks to the great pitching of Sandy Koufax,
were ready. But instead of playing he gave up his spot on the
mound for a seat in a synagogue. Why? Was Koufax orthodox? No.
But he understood that all Jews, regardless of their level of
religiosity, simply don’t work or play sports on this sacred
day, known, during the Second Temple period, as “The Great
Day,” or simply “The Day.”viii
When Sammy Davis Jnr, the most talented and mesmerizing of all
African-American entertainers and a convert to Judaism, was
told one of his London concerts in the 70s fell on Yom Kippur
he refused to perform until the fast was over and spent the
day in shul.ix
Koufax
and Davis Jnr were simply following secular tradition: the philosopher
Philo, who lived in Alexandria before the Temple’s destruction,
described how non-observant Jews suddenly became pious on this
day.x
When
God announced that “the tenth day of the seventh month
[Tishrei] shall be a sacred occasion for you,” Yom Kippur
entered Jewish history as Yom HaKodesh, "the"
Holy Day of the year, a Day of Atonement and as the
Shabbas of Absolute Rest (the “Sabbath’s Sabbath.”)xi
Unlike all the other Jewish festivals (except for Shabbas),
Yom Kippur prohibits the use of fire, carrying, cooking – and,
in the only halachic exception, it allows fasting on Shabbas
when the two days coincide.
But
Heaven’s date immediately caused a paradox: how could
the “10th” of any month be the official “beginning”
of the New Year?
Reasons
abound. Jewish mystics equated the 10th of Tishrei with the
day God gave Moses the second set of Tablets, thus forgiving
the folk for a Golden Calf fiasco and creating a “new
beginning” for Israel.xii
But there is a more pragmatic explanation that has to do with
the Jewish calendar itself.
Prior
to the incorporation of the leap year and its extra month, there
was a 10-day “discrepancy” between the lunar (365
days) and moon year (354 days) which our rabbis reconciled by
adding 10 days to the end of the previous year. The result?
The beginning of Tishrei remained the month’s “first”
day, however Yom Kippur, 10 days later, became Tishrei’s
“official first” day. We recognize these 10 days
as the aseret yemai t’shuva, Ten Days of Awe;xiii
ten “in-between” days of reprieve and penitence,xiv
infused with extra supplication as Jews engage in a flurry of
activity (and charity) to help improve their grades on Yom Kippur,
the only permissible day in the entire Jewish calendar when
God’s Name, as originally used at the burning bush, is
said out loud.xv
During the rest of the year the second line in the Shema is
only murmured….but on Yom Kippur the silence is swept
aside as the excited masses respond to Aaron’s sweeping
confession with mass-triple prostration and some spiritual scream-therapy:
the Shem ha-Meforash, the tetragrammaton Name of God,
was shouted so loud that it was heard as far away as Jericho.
God’s
initial response when Moses asked Him for a name was Ehyeh
asher ehyeh,xvi
but this is not a name as we know names to be. “I am/shall
be/become what I am/shall be/become” is an “essence
of being,” an assertion of a new religion, a refutation
of other gods-with-names, a rebuttal of idolatry. This was the
real beginning of monotheistic Judaism: the unshackling of humankind’s
enslavement to gods and their superstitions.xvii
When Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin declared that “a person’s
name is the very essence of his soul” his choice of the
word “essence” was not accidental. It is derived
from the Greek word for “being” which is directly
traced to the consonants of the four-letters in God’s
Name, traditionally voweled as Ah-Oh-Ahee (in Hebrew,
Yud Hay Vav Hay), making it grammatically close to
the verb be/become.
How
was the ‘Name’ pronounced in its original form?
No one knows. Why? Because it has been forbidden for so long.
Interestingly, after having asked and gotten an answer, Moses
never repeats it ever again, not even to the Hebrews despite
having asked God on their behalf. Why then was it OK to say
the Name of God on Yom Kippur?
The
original custom of saying Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam
va-ed, “Blessed is the Name…” in a silent
manner arose from sheer unadulterated anti-Semitism. With hostile
neighbors peeking over their shoulders in exile, Jews were simply
too terrified to openly declare allegiance to Sinai, especially
when the ruling elite, usually Catholic, considered this accolade
to a God (or leader) other than their god (or Emperor) an act
of treason. One day a year though, entire Jewish communities
openly and defiantly prostrated themselves in proclamation that
this day belonged entirely to their God; and that they
were ready, willing and able to serve Him in a communal transformation.xviii
In
ancient days, there was no spectacle as elaborate, magnificent
and impressive, and no moment as moving as the Temple’s Yom
Kippur ritual of atonement, known as the avodah, that
was adorned with all the art that olden Israel knew The colorful
ceremonial was carried out by a well-rehearsed high priest who
gingerly approached the Almighty in awesome loneliness within
the Holy of Holies, on solemn behalf of himself, the priestly
order, and the whole House of Israel. After the Temple was destroyed,
the Jewish mind adopted the declaration of Hosea, "We shall
offer, instead of bulls, the words of our mouth,"xix
a spiritual battle cry that resulted in the liturgical heights
of Yom Kippur majesty, wherein the Temple procedure was retained
as a vivid memory and meticulously reconstructed from such ancient
Mishnaic records as the tractate Yoma ("The Day"),
intricate piyyutim (religious poems), and the rich
imagery of Meshulam ben Kalonymus, a 10th century Italian rabbi,
who describes the mysterious ritual known as kapporah.
Kapporah,
which means “to wipe out,” as in to “wipe
out” Israel’s sins via sacrifice, was a ceremony
that was the focus of an entire nation. It was based on an enigmatic
Mosaic law that ordered a special offering of an unblemished
bull and two he-goats (of equal size, cost and appearance)xx
chosen via the drama of lottery plates (goral echad la-Shem).
One goat was inscribed with the words "for God" and
sacrificed; the other was used as a "confession vehicle"
and then sent (sa’ir la’azazel) “into the inaccessible
wilderness”xxi
as a symbolic courier of the iniquities of the people. This
“escaped” goat became the “scapegoat,”
a term still used in westernized society to censure or castigate
one for the sins of others.xxii
What
does sa’ir la’azazel mean? I don’t know; nor does anyone
else. We do know that la means “no” and
sa’ir means “hair” – but azazel?
It’s a mystery. Why? Because this word appears nowhere
else in the Torah and, unlike all other Hebrewisms, it has no
crystal-clear etymology. Remember: The ancient Proto-Sinaitic
letters of the Hebrew alphabet are named after objects resembling
them. For example: The second letter bet is derived
from the Hebrew word bayit, a "house," the
letter dalet comes from the Hebrew word delete,
a "door;" and so on. But there is nothing to match
the word azazel to. Rabbi Ishamel thought it was the
means by which the goat itself atoned “for the sin of
Aza and Aza’el,” two wicked angels who misled the
“sons of God” prior to the Flood. This is the source
of the contemporary Hebrew phrase lekh la’azazel, which
means “Go to hell!” – the linking of azazel
to se’irim (“devil”) which is found in
the very next chapter. Perhaps this is why so many ancient drawings
show the devil as a goat!?xxiii
‘Azazel’
falls into the category of hapax legomena, Hebrew words
that were only used once and have therefore been misunderstood
down the generations, inspiring that great yiddish saying ven
Got vil bashtrofn an am-orets, leygt er em a loshn-koydesh vort
in moyl arayn, “If God wants to punish an ignoramus,
he puts a Hebrew-Aramaic word into his mouth.” Even the
ancient midrashic anthology of Sifrei, a work which is nearly
as old as the Talmud itself, shows frustration with Jewish scholars
who mix “ayin and aluf” and confuse
“the tsadik and the gimmel." The
Mishna, the first source that describes this ceremony, uses
the expression sa’ir hamishtalei’akh, "the
goat that is sent away," causing some scholars to the maskana
(conclusion) that azazel is a combination of ez
("goat") and azal (“went"); others
suggest that az meant "strong, rugged, harsh"
and therefore azazel referred to "the harsh mountain"
over which the animal was thrown.
This
custom survived in the form of kappora shlogging when
Babylonian Jews, desperate for a symbolic non-sacrificial act
of sin-cleansing, sought to “wipe out” the past
via a transfer to another living creature. And so they used
a fowl, swinging it over ones head, whilst saying a little prayer
that asked (naturally) that the fowl be killed instead of the
Jew. In my home, at dawn on the day before Yom Kippur, my father
and mother would each shlug kapporas by swinging a
chicken three times over their head, each time saying zeh
califasi, zeh temurosi, zeh kaporosi, "This
is my substitute, this is my exchange, this is my atonement."
Why a chicken? Why not a fish or a house pet? Because of an
old Polish superstition: that when roosters crow in the early
morning to announce the first lights of day, they scare away
the evil spirits who shun daylight. Why “3” times?
In Judaism this number is representative of something permanent,
as the yiddishists would say: a triple braid is not easily undone.
That is why the obligation to ask another for forgiveness must
be done three times, after which one has fulfilled the requirement
(whether or not there was a response).
I
was too chicken to swing a live chicken around the kitchen.
So my father would let my sister and I “swing” money
tied in a handkerchief instead, whilst saying the same invocation.
How much money? Any amount as long as it was in multiples of
chai, “18” (which means Life). We then
donated the money (but not the handkerchief) to charity, because
this was one of the three mitzvas that mitigated God’s
decree.
Many
great rabbis abhorred this custom, concerned that it would undermine
the seriousness of the whole idea of vows. The 13th century
Rabbi Shlomo ben Adrath prohibited it in his Barcelona community;
the Ramban called kappora shloggers “idol-worshippers;”
Rabbi Joseph Karo of Shulchan Aruch fame called it a stupid
custom. All to no avail: it was wildly popular, especially in
eastern Europe.
Whereas
some Yom Kippur customs have survived the ages (eg; kneeling,
kappora, mikveh,xxiv
viddui), others have not, including malkut,
“flogging,” which is a classical Hebrew term for
Biblical punishment. In the shtetlach of eastern Europe this
job of lashing was given to a poor person who would then get
“tips” from his “victims.”
This
practice existed as late as the 12th century during Rashi’s
time and was a form of symbolic atonement that was executed
(pun intended) just prior to entering the synagogue for Kol
Nidrei. This is not to be confused with the Rosh Hashana tradition
wherein Jews, in groups of four, perform hatarat nedarim,
wherein three Jews act as a beth din whilst the fourth asks
for exoneration of unfulfilled vows. Places are then swapped
so each Jew gets his turn for absolution.xxv
The Yom Kippur ritual involved one Jew lying on the ground and
being struck by another Jew three times (Jewish women were excluded
for reasons of modesty). Why only three? Doesn’t the Torah
require 39 blows for malkut? The rabbis did not actually want
to hurt any Jew who had voluntarily come seeking repentance
so they devised a substitute formula: whoever was administering
the three blows had to recite Psalm 78:38. Why? Because it contained
13 words. So? Well, 13 x 13 = 39, the required number. Once
again, gematria to the rescue!
It
is a mitzva to both fast (on Yom Kippur) and to eat (the day
before) a meal called seudah ha’mafseket, the
“Separation Meal,” which has an air of partial festivity
in expectation that our prayers will be answered on the morrow;
which is why my mother would bake the challah in the shape of
a ladder, based on the prayer "Let our entreaties climb
to You."xxvi
Every
Yom Kippur we wish each other a tzom kal, “an
easy fast,” which is easier said than done, but here’s
some tips: drink a lot, eat in moderation with plenty of carbohydrates
(pasta, rice, potatoes, etc), avoid salt, sweet foods, coffee
or coke (because caffeine is a diarrheic). “It’s
good to fast,” goes an old yiddish folk saying, “with
a chicken leg and something to drink,” a witty reference
to the fact that although eating on Yom Kippur is considered
a great sin, the order to fast is not a halachik absolute. Children
under the age of nine, sick Jews and pregnant women are not
permitted to fast, even if they want to – and may even say the
regular Blessing After Meals.
According
to Rabbi Moshe Kohn
“A
Jew who on Yom Kippur lights a fire to boil himself a portion
of pork and washes it down with a glass of milk because his
doctor has told him that otherwise he might die, does not
require God’s forgiveness, because he is not transgressing
a Divine precept. On the contrary: he would be a sinner in
need of forgiveness if he ignored the doctor’s instructions.”
When
Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, the Brisker Rav, was questioned as to
why he was taking the fast-day so lightly by allowing someone
to eat, he replied, “I am not treating Yom Kippur lightly.
I am treating lifesaving seriously.” Rav Chaim had epitomized
the essence of Yom Kippur: taking life seriously, or as the
yiddishists would say, "There are no bad mothers, and no
good death" – especially in 1848 when a severe cholera
epidemic hit Vilna where the saintly Rabbi Israel Salanterxxvii
lived. He not only ordered the entire town to eat on Yom Kippur
but, in a dramatic show of leadership, ate to set an example.
His courage is reflected in David Frishman’s classic story,
“Three Who Ate.”
“If
one were given five minutes warning before sudden death, five
minutes to say what it had all meant to us,” theorized
Christopher Morley, “every telephone booth would be occupied
by people trying to call up other people to stammer that they
loved them.” On Yom Kippur all empiricism falters before
the certainty of death, as synagogues around the world become
the “telephone booths” to God by Jews who are reminded
that when they die they leave behind all they have and take
with them all they are.
The
priest was preparing a dying man for his long day’s
journey into night. Whispering firmly, the priest said, “Denounce
the Devil! Let him know how little you think of evil!”
The dying man said nothing.
The priest repeated the order. Still the dying man said nothing.
The priest asked, “Why do you refuse to denounce the
Devil and his evil?”
The dying man said, “Until
I know where I’m headin, I ain’t gonna aggravate
nobody.”
Judaism’s
belief in Olam Haba (the World to Come) found its way
into our Hallel prayer; that "the dead praise not God,
nor do those who go down to silence," an observation that
led Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on Tehillim, to
conclude that "The purpose of God’s rule does not consist
in death and destruction, but in the advancement of life."
If this is so, how, then, can the Psalmist sing, "Precious
[yakar] in the sight of the Lord is the death of those
who love Him?" – to which our mystics point out that the
word yakar is a euphemism suggesting that God grieves
over the death of the pious. In other words: death ends a life
but it does not end a relationship.xxviii
No
subject has fascinated our rabbis more than the great certainty
and mystery of death, the great enemy of life. None are immune
from its sorrow, none is exempt ("Moses died, who shall
not die?")xxix
Death is part of God’s pattern for history; without it, says
the Midrash, one generation would never make way for another.
But is death an end, a transition? The Torah’s axiom is that
there is a life after this one, but our Sages discourage speculation
about its nature.
Dylan
Thomas’s poetic anti-death lyrics, "rage, rage against
the dying of the light" (from his famous "Do Not Go
Gentle Into That Good Night") is a frenzy against death
as being the one great adventure in life of which there are
never any surviving accounts, no eyewitness testimonies, no
reliability of facts or experiences. Death, by its very definition,
is what happens to somebody else; however Thoreau left the woods
not wanting to die feeling he hadn’t lived, Tibetan Buddhists
meditated about it over images of dancing skulls, and ancient
Egyptians had skeletons brought to their tables during their
meals to remind them of where they were heading. Rabbi Yisrael
Meir haKohen (Chofetz Chaim)xxx
describing attendees at a funeral as "live-ers" or
"die-ers," claimed that everyone present thought they
belonged only to the former, unwilling to face the reality that
all "live-ers" are die-ers who will one day be unable
to plead atheism as a defense.
There
is no reality like mortality; death’s popularity coming only
by abstraction. According to tradition, on Yom Kippur, with
the hover of mavet (death) in the air, even the Temples
themselves tremble with awe and veneration as their inhabitants
ponder the meaning of existence, tehiyat hametim, the
resurrection-of-the-dead (once a bitter controversy between
the Pharisees and Sadducees) and the abruptness of mortality
(1-in-5 Americans die without warning) that Bob Toben describes
as “a change in cosmic address.” This is why we
wear a plain white robe in shul (a kitel) and a white
yarmulke, angelic reminders of the white burial shrouds of death
itself. "When they fast on this day they become like the
angels," goes the poetic lyrics of Yehudah HaLevi, "The
fast is marked by humbling themselves, lowering their heads,
standing, bending their knees and singing hymns of praise. Their
physical powers abandon their natural functions, as if they
had no animal nature."xxxi
(White also symbolizes purity and acts as a reminder to God
of His promise that our sins shall be as white as snow.)xxxii
There
was once a distinguished non-Jewish Senator who had picked up
the practice of saying L’Chaim, “to Life!”
at Jewish events, without ever asking anybody what the term
meant. When he was asked to give a eulogy at the funeral of
Senator Jacob Javitz he found himself inside a shul surrounded
by Jews, so he instinctively began his eulogy with "L’Chaim
Jack." He was not that far off.xxxiii
Judaism
has a unique view to death and dying, one often based on humor
and wit – despite, or perhaps in spite of, the Torah view that
death is (sometimes) a punishment for sin.xxxiv
“This world is only a hotel, the World-to-Come is our
home,” was a favorite theme of the Ba’al Shem Tov
whose philosophic leaning was: “I am exiting through one
door, and am entering through another.” That is why the
Hebrew word for a funeral is levayah, or halvayat
hamet," which means, "accompanying the dead."
The Midrash Tanhuma tells the story of a peddler hawking the
elixir of Life outside the window of Rabbi Yanai’s daughter.
The agitated rabbi suddenly appears and demands to see the drug
of Life. The quick-thinking peddler opens the Book of Psalms
and reads: “Who is the man who desires life? Guard your
tongue from evil” – which left the rabbi speechless.xxxv
“There’s
only one [death] per customer so it must be a real bargain,”
cracked that famous Jewish philosopher Milton Berle, whose classic
joke recalled how an old Jewish man lay dying in his bedroom
when he suddenly smelt the aroma of freshly-baked cookies coming
from the kitchen.
“Can
I have one?” he calls out to his wife?
“No,” came the reply. “They’re for
after the leveya [funeral].”
The relationship between Man and his destiny resembles that
of Mrs. Gutle Schnapper,xxxvi
the renowned matriarch of the Rothschild dynasty who, at the
age of 96, complained to her doctor that she wasn’t feeling
well. Tests were done and nothing was found. But Gutle persisted
and persisted.
“Madame,”
the medic finally exploded, “I can’t make you any
younger!”
“I
don’t want you to make me younger,” she snapped
back. “I want you to make me older!”
This is exactly what all Jews want: for God to make them at
least one year older so they can return to Him the following
Yom Kippur. But how?
Judaism
tells us that there is something we can do about death,
without dwelling on it or trying to penetrate its mystery. It
was best said by Nuland: "The art of dying is the art of
living;" and the Torah’s “art of living”
requires fidelity to the Laws of Moses whilst its “art
of dying” requires rectifying character blemishes, especially
on Yom Kippur, in a powerful process called t’shuva.
To
achieve this, the Rambam advised a spiritual diet, which required
over-exaggerating a “bad” trait in the opposite
direction and then moving back to the middle. For example, if
a Jew wanted to cease being a miser the solution was to overdose
on charity and then move back to the required amount (10%).
The Chazon Ish advised that one should focus on a specific mitzva
to overcome a specific fault (eg; the Jew who displays “hate”
should begin concentrating on hospitality); while the great
ethicist Rabbi Yisroel Salanter advised that one select one
character trait in need of improvement and rectify it, slowly.
But
all rabbis agree on this: the mitzva of tzeddaka must be elevated
and spiritually magnified at this time of the year because,
goes a yiddish proverb, the heaviest burden is an empty pocket,
adding that if your outgo is greater than your income, then
your upkeep will be your downfall. This is why community charity
appeals occur at Kol Nidrei and/or Yizkor.
In
Hebrew tzeddaka means “righteousness,”
which should not be confused with zedek (which means
justice) or chessed (which means “loving kindness”),
nor “charity,” an act for which there is no Hebrew
word. Chessed is a mitzvah but it is not ipso facto
tzeddaka or charity. Nor is “compassion” technically
righteousness. It is a popular fallacy that a mitzva occurs
each time you give someone money. It doesn’t. For the mitzva
of tzeddaka to take place, there are several very specific halachik
imperatives, ranging from the resources of the giver, the needs
of the recipient, certain moral priorities (eg; placing female
orphan needs ahead of males). Thus it is possible to do an act
of chessed, motivated by compassion, and yet not have performed
the mitzvah of tzeddaka.
In
Latin the term “charity” is derived from “caritas”
whose etymology means love and endearment. In Hebrew it encompasses
compassion, good deeds and social justice – acts that fall within
the general theme of righteousness. When Rabelais, the French
satirist died, his entire will read: "I owe much. I possess
nothing. I give the rest to the poor," an attitude not
reflective in a Torah that advises: don’t give till it hurts,
give until it feels good. When the Rambam codified Jewish law
in his Mishneh Torah, he defined charity by way of eight levels.
The highest? If you want "dough" remember the word
begins with "do." In other words: help a poor person
become self-sufficient. The lowest? Giving money "with
a sad face."
Giving
charity has been built into every Jewish community since the
Biblical times of an agrarian Jewish society. A sign over a
community soup kitchen in my mother’s little Polish shtetl
read: “When you feed strangers you occasionally feed angels.”
But why was tzeddaka plucked out of the 613 mitzvas to be given
such erev Yom Kippur prominence? Because the entire thrust of
Torah is towards “the multitude of the people,”
preferring the prayers of family and tribes, society and clan.
That is why Judaism demands a minyan of ten Jews as a minimum
quorum of prayer. In a metaphysical sense, the idea of a group
of people getting together has a positive effect both on the
individual and on the general spirituality of the world; and
why all the Bible’s blessings and curses, rewards and punishments
are directed to Jews as a community. Remember: Jewish history
is collective, never personal.xxxvii
In
the past when sinners felt a longing to join their brethren
in worship the Jewish community ostracized them, yet the religious
authorities were loath to repel them, heeding the warning of
Koheles, "There is no human being in the world so righteous
who does [only] good and never sins.” When Rabbi Pinchas
of Koretz declared that "a prayer which is not said in
the name of all of Israel is not a prayer, he was bluntly reaffirming
the teshuvah betsibbur, the “collective return”
of Jews to Judaism,xxxviii
as laid out by the machzor which is designed to stop
individual spontaneity (ie; it may be “I”
who has sinned, but it is “We” who atone!)
The Hebrew word amen means “so be it” and
is derived from the root “truth.” When Jews couldn’t
read Hebrew, they would listen to a cantor and simply respond
“amen” and be considered as having participated
fully.xxxix The
earliest known form of Jewish communal worship was the saying
of the Sh’ma, which declared the Oneness of God,
and was first muttered by Jacob’s children to their dying
patriarch father as he gave them a deathbed blessing. Our rabbis
later affixed the words El Melech Ne’eman, “our
trustworthy King,” as a silent three-word introduction.
During
the year we pray for ourselves. On Yom Kippur we pray in plural,
even begging pardon for sins that most Jews have never even
experienced. Why? Because remorse may begin as a private emotion
but God wants it ended as a communal exclamation of contrition.
“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” may be a Beatles’
lyric but its yomtov-style theme is not. It comes from the Torah,
from the first words ever recorded by Biblical man: “Am
I my brother’s keeper?” The reply? “Yes,”
a one-word statement that summarized Israel’s philosophy kol
Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh, that “all Jews are guarantors
for each other.”
Although
Martin Niemoeller was not Jewish, his famous Holocaust diary
neatly summarized the universal concept of arevim zeh lazeh:
“When
the Nazis first came for the Communists, I didn’t speak up,
because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,
but I didn’t speak up, because I was not a Jew. They came
for the unionists, but I didn’t speak up because I was not
a trade unionist. They came for me…and by that time there
was no one to speak up for anyone.”
The
expressions Klal and Am Yisrael mean the “Totality
of [and the] People of” Israel, permanent reminders that
Jews are not a Nation as others understand the word to mean,
but members of one family. This Heavenly insistence on assembly-type
activity serves many purposes: it discourages isolation; it
keeps Jews together as a group; it reminds us that we are not
alone in our needs. That is why tzeddaka is such a perfect “mitzva
match” to Yom Kippur, for it is an act that bonds and
deepens the Jew’s awareness of community.
And how man acts, God reacts. "As a father is compassionate
to his children, so will God be compassionate to us," says
the Yom Kippur text in which the term “our father”
is emphasized by appearing over 150 times. The link is obvious:
God decides the character of a Jewxl
by how the Jew treats those less fortunate than he. Years before
US President J.F. Kennedy made his famous “Ask not what
your country can do for you,” the Chofetz Chaim was teaching
“Do not ask God for what you want, ask God for what he
wants from you.”
I
recall as a child that the most emotional aspect of Yom Kippur
didn’t even occur on Yom Kippur, nor in the synagogue.
It took place in our humble home just before we left for Kol
Nidrei.
“May
God bless you and guard you…
May God shine His countenance upon you and be gracious to
you…
May God turn His face toward you, and grant you peace."
It
is only a few words but when my father recited this Priestly
blessing over my sister and I, as my mother wept silently by
his side, he was blessing the “left-over” children
of Adolf Hitler’s crusade. The main difference between
the Yom Kippur of my youth and that of today is the absence
of crying, sobbing and genuine tears from the women’s
section. My sister and I responded with thanks and honor to
parents, in accordance to a Fifth Commandmentxli
that, according to Simeon ben Yohai, was “even more important
than honoring God.”
One
year Rabbi Israel Salanter hadn’t arrived for the Kol
Nidrei services. After waiting until the last possible moment
his congregants started services without him. Rabbi Salanter
showed up as they finished davening. His hair was disheveled,
his clothes creased.
“What happened?”
asked his astonished congregants.
“Nothing,” replied
the rabbi. “On my way to shul, I heard a baby crying.
Its mother had gone to Kol Nidrei services and the baby was
all alone. I stayed by the cradle and rocked it until the
mother returned.”
What
was so magnetic about Kol Nidrei to cause Jewish mothers to
leave their babies unattended?
Kol
Nidrei, originally penned in Aramaic, stands for the “absolution
of all vows” and is the best known liturgy amongst all
Jews, whether affiliated or unaffiliated. Its popularity hides
the fact that it is a late-comer to Jewish history, entering
our tradition sometime between the 2nd and 6th centuries, during
the time of the Geonim.xlii
Believe-it-or-not: many rabbis were against it. Some called
it a foolish custom, others said it was halachikally problematic.
The great Yeshiva Academies of Babylon and Spain simply ignored
it, which explains why it doesn’t appear in any of the
writings of the Rambam or the Alfasi.
But
all their objections came to naught.
Kol
Nidrei took on a religious life of its own, destined to become
Yom Kippur’s singular, most extraordinary moment of drama.
With the poet’s refrain, Hass kategor v’kach sanegor m’komo
– Accuser, silence! Defender, take his place!", all Jews
silently rise, all sefer Torahs are solemnly taken out of the
ark, an eerie nigun begins with a whisper and a whimper, and
then rises to a crescendo of near-shouting as Jews remind God
of His promise to forgive. God’s reply? “I have
forgiven – as you asked.”xliii
This
melody first appeared in Southern Germany around the 15th and
16th centuries. In 1825, after Beethoven was asked by the Viennese
Hebrew Community to write a cantata on the occasion of the opening
of their synagogue, his composition, in C-sharp Minor Quartet,
no. XIV, op. 131, movement 6 (Adagio quast un poco andante,
measures 1-5) bears a remarkable resemblance to the Kol Nidre
melody and suggests that Beethoven was acquainted with Jewish
music.xliv
In his memoirs, Leo Tolstoy recalls hearing this tune for the
first time in a Russian shul and being both “sad”
and “uplifted” by its haunting, yet rousing rhythm.
This is not surprising. The poetry of Kol Nidrei is majestic,
its imagery powerful, its scripture intense and penetrating.
Kol
Nidre is not a prayer per se but a dry confession which
must begin before sundown because Jewish courts are prohibited
from making decisions at night. It is a legal proceeding, an
earthly session of the Bes Din Shel Mala, the Court
on High, where God adjudicates between angels pleading on our
behalf and a prosecutorial satan who is agitating for the death
penalty. This is why two Jews flank the chazan,xlv
to symbolically represent the three Jews that are needed for
a traditional beis din, court of justice. I was once
in Jerusalem with my wife visiting one of my sons studying at
the Mir Yeshiva. As an architect, I wanted to see the new High
Court of Justice building so the three of us hopped into a cab.
I figured my son knew better Hebrew than I and asked him to
tell the cab driver (who spoke no English) where to go. Unfortunately
my son only knew yeshivish-Hebrew (a dialect picked
up from studying Torah-Scriptures and not from the street).
After struggling to find the right words he instructed the driver
to take us to the Bes Din Shel Mala (the Heavenly High
Court). The cab driver thought we were making fun of him, stopped
his cab, and kicked all three of us out onto the street.
To
begin Yom Kippur with Kol Nidre seems to be a contradiction
in terms. Why? Because Yom Kippur is supposedly a day of asking
forgiveness for the previous year, whereas Kol Nidrei
begs for “absolution and retraction” for the upcoming
year, from “this Yom Kippur till the next.” What’s
going on? Is this an attempt to cancel the “future?”
The answer lies in the halachik difference between an oath (a
shevuah) and a vow (a neder), with the former
being limited to statements made within the Jewish judiciary;
the latter to words made in the open, amongst nonJews.xlvi
A
vow was so sternly discouraged by our rabbis, because of its
potentially broad and negative impact on all Jews, that the
Jews of eastern Europe would pepper their conversations with
the expression beli neder, “this is not a vow.”
The past-future tension in Kol Nidrei’s absolutions is
a reflection of the brutality of Jewish history. From year to
year Jews never knew what their hostile political and spiritual
adversaries would demand of them: conversion, expulsion, suicide?
Anything was possible. If you were a Jew, for example, in medieval
Spain, Italy or Turkey the odds were that you would be asked
to deny Torah and pledge allegiance to the Cross – or meet your
Maker via the stake; and if you were a Jew in Eastern Europe,
during the abominable Holocaust, safety sometimes came via the
local monastery.
The
Jews who accepted baptism openly and Judaism privately fell
into the halachik category of being “unwilling sinners,”
sometimes called Marranos, a contemptuous term meaning
“pig.” King Manuel of Portugal simply kidnapped
Jewish children, baptized them and waited to see if their parents
would follow suit. Those that did were called anusim,
the “forced ones;” yet, although “forced,”
many of these 15th century Jews covertly clung to Judaism, as
did thousands in the Byzantine Empire, who survived horrible
massacres by pretending to convert. Entire Jewish families led
desperately troubled lives trying to cling to shreds of their
heritage as full-time spies of a hungry Inquisition lurked around
every corner. To abstain from pork or keep Shabbas was a death
sentence. Jewish women would light candles on Friday nights
in pitch-black cellars and spend the following holy day at their
spinning-wheels pretending to work.
The
Kol Nidre terminology was devised for these unfortunate Jews,
acting as an annual halachik exit strategy; a mechanism that
provided a release, in advance, to annul any future
vows of apostasy that Jews were forced to declare just to “stay
alive.” Because their court oaths were not to be trusted,
Jews in the Middle Ages were expelled from legal proceedings.
In 1240, King Louis IX summoned French rabbis to explain the
Kol Nidre procedure which resulted in the degrading act of the
rabbinate being forced to make another blessing (more judaico)
designed to “annul” the previously annulled vows.
In 1655, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam was summoned
by London’s Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and told that
England could not let Jews reenter if the Anglican Church was
unable to trust the promise of any Jew who kept Kol Nidre.
Kol
Nidrei is a poignant moment in honor of those thousands who
suffered terribly as they clung bravely to their faith; and
since we do not know who they are, we symbolically cling to
this night on their behalf, those invisible scapegoats of history.
Unlike
many synagogues today that take “breaks” in-between,
our Yom Kippur services seemed like an open-ended meditation,
going all-day, non-stop, on the belief that when pleading for
one’s life and family’s well-being, not a perpetual
moment was to be wasted. Even when we went home after Kol Nidrei
and returned the next morning, it felt like the prayers we left
behind were still hovering in mid-air awaiting our return, like
an immediate continuation rather than “starting again.”
As
such, Yom Kippur blurred into one long prayer day.
I
remember admiring those men who slept overnight in shul so as
not to “break” the atmosphere of reconciliation,
not necessarily for themselves but as agents of the kehilla
to show God that His mini-Temple never formally closed. (I noticed
that those who did go home always left quietly.) The primary
ritual for Yom Kippur, after all, is simply to be there; and
participate in five separate amidah services (the largest number
of any day in the Jewish calendar): in the evening (Kol
Nidrei-Maariv), morning (Shacharit) additional
morning (Musaf), afternoon (Minchah) and late afternoon
(Neilah).
I
remember how my father would stand all day and I wondered where
he got the energy. The truth is he didn’t have it physically,
but spiritually. Why stand? Because angels don’t sit.
“Just
as angels (so to speak) stand upright, so too we spend most
of Yom Kippur standing in the synagogue. And just as angels
(so to speak) wear white, so too we are accustomed to wear
white on Yom Kippur. Just as angels do not eat or drink, so
too we do not eat or drink.xlvii
Yom
Kippur is also unique in two other ways: Unlike most other Jewish
festivals, there are two full Torah services. The morning service
describes the High Priest’s special Yom Kippur sacrifices, followed
by the haftora reciting Isaiah’s confrontation and challenge
to examine the inner meaning of the day.xlviii
And this is the only time of the year (musaf on Rosh
Hashana and alenu on Yom Kippur) when Jews kneel as
a dramatic re-enactment of a time, both Biblical and in the
Temple, when Priests and common folk prostrated themselves on
hearing the name of God. In our shul we place a newspaper (some
place sand) on the floor to kneel on so as to emphasize the
Leviticus 26:1 order that Jews not bow down to stone.
It
is no coincidence that the number of days in the aseret
yemai t’shuva (10) equals the number of times on Yom Kippur
that we recite the confessional viduy, a lengthy admission
of past wrongs that is a primary halachik obligation of atonement.
To admit human weakness takes courage; to do something about
it takes even more. Most of the time we rationalize our shortcomings
and stay in blissful denial.
Full
atonement on Yom Kippur consists of two parts: between man and
God (bein adam la-Makom), and the much more difficult
task known as bein adam la-havero, which is between
man and man; neighbors, friends, acquaintances and family members.
Even
the rabbis of the Talmud were traumatized by this requirement.
After
Rav had baleidicked (insulted) R. Hanina it took him
13 Yom Kippurs before he could seek forgiveness. What exactly
did Rav do? One day he was teaching Torah when R. Hanina entered,
and instead of showing derech eretz by starting again, Rav continued
his teaching which Hanina took as a sign of disrespect. On another
occasion R. Yirmiya went to R. Abba’s house to apologize
but didn’t have the courage.xlix
As he hesitated at the front door a maid accidentally poured
her dirty dishwater over him which the rabbi interpreted as
a penalty from God for his weakness.
Does
t’shuva atone for all sins? No. The one exception is chillul
Hashem, the desecration of God’s name, an act of gross
disrespect that can potentially cause a negative chain reaction
among Jews.l According to
Rabbeinu Bachya, a 14th century Torah commentary, the only way
to (partially) reverse a chillul Hashem is with a kiddush
Hashem, publicly sanctifying God’s name. Rabbenu Yonah
attaches "the choiciest repentance to that of one’s youth,
when one subdues his evil inclination while he is yet in possession
of his energies;"li
yet death-bed repentance is acceptable ("Even if one is
a complete evildoer all his days"),lii
summed up succinctly in the service, Ad yom moto t’chakkeh
lo lit’shuvah, "To the day of one’s death God waits
for a person to repent."
Judaism
considers t’shuva not a right but a privilege, an act
of mercy which defies natural law. But why allow t’shuvah
in the first place? Why not be punished for harm caused? Because
God’s “all-mercifulness” is based on logic.
The Torah recognizes that it would be unfair to judge a Jew
on one bad act here, one mistake there. The Heavens thus view
the entire gestalt of a person with the focus on the whole and
not on the parts. And so Judaism does not “count”
the first two sinsliii
but requires a pattern of behavior (called a chazakah),
which comes into play if any bad act is repeated three or more
times, an indication of the person as a whole.
This
explains the Torah’s emphasis on remorse and regret; human
emotions that reveal that “evil” is not inherent;
that whatever bad was done does not manifest the person.
Giving
another Jew “the benefit of the doubt” eliminated
enmity, and was explicitly mandated by the Torah b’tzedek
tishpot amitecha, "Judge your fellow righteously"liv
that even went a step further dan le-kaf Zechut, that
Jews act as defense attorneys ("sanegoria")
for other Jews who act improperly. Why? Because by praising
someone else, you uplift yourself as well. This resembles Avraham’s
pleading on behalf of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.lv
This
belief constitutes an enormous leap in the theology of forgiveness;
that full repentance can be achieved by mitigating the offender’s
transgressions in our own mind. This does not mean
that “everything is good” but that we must see “good
in everything.” Yet it is a common mistake to assume that
forgiveness (s’licha), atonement (kippur)
and repentance (t’shuva) are all the same. They
are not. Each has its own specific and separate halachik function.
During the days of the Second Temple the entire Yom Kippur service
focused on repentance; today, its focus has shifted to atonement,
an act which is not absolute but conditional.
Heinrich
Heine’s smug attitude of certainty (“Naturally,
God will forgive me, that’s his business”) is exactly
the type of conceit that the rabbis of the Mishnah repeatedly
warn against.
“If
someone said, "I will sin and repent, and sin again and
repent," he will be given no chance to repent. If he
said, "I will sin and Yom Kippur will effect atonement,"
then the Day of Atonement effects no atonement.”lvi
These
are unacceptable thought processes that make a mockery of moral
realism and the Divine compassion for forgiveness. Trickery,
deceit and the exploitation of the repentance mechanism, described
by our Sages as nothing less than “a fierce fight with
the heart,”lvii
was not tolerated. What was tolerated was the approach of Rabbi
Eliezer in Pirkei Avos, to “repent one day before you
die!” You may ask the obvious: “But I do not know
when I am going to die” and get the answer, “Exactly,
that is why we are enjoined to repent every day of our lives.”
The
Psalmist was not the only Jew ignored by God when he begged,
“let me know mine end and the measure of my days.”
Mankind has always wanted to know but is denied the knowledge.
Which
leads us to another obvious question: If we follow Rav Eliezer
and repent each day as though it’s the last, who needs a Yom
Kippur? The answer lies in the structure of the prayers.
The
Hebrew verb for prayer is hitpallel,lviii
and its stem phl means “to judge, intercede,
hope.” This signifies intercession, a religio-bridge between
the Heavens and Earth; and, most importantly, the conviction
that God not only exists, but also listens and answers.
There
is a story about the two people who came to heaven at the
same time: One was a cantor the other an Israeli bus driver.
After a short session, both were allowed into heaven. However,
the cantor was given the second floor suite while the bus
driver got the penthouse.
"Why?" complained
the cantor; "Why should he have a better place than I?"
"Simple," replied
God. "When you prayed, everyone went to sleep. When he
drove, everyone prayed!"
All
prayers are answered, sometimes even with a brutal “no!”
A father in Israel once cried at his sons funeral who was murdered
by a terrorist, "God, I asked you to save my son and you
answered me, and your answer was no."
But
our rabbis understood that prayer, which Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Hassid
defined as, "the rejoicing of the human heart with God,
was a complex one that needed moods and patterns. And so, during
the normal weekday the Jew seeks forgiveness via the “softer”
scrutiny of the daily amida prayer. This is why we
need a Yom Kippur, a day when the liturgy suddenly turns serious
and solemn; when forgiveness is sought via the “harder”
scrutiny of the dramatic vidui, al heit’s, and ashamnu’s;
which contain the powerfully poetic ki anu amecha, v’atah
eloheynu, “we have sinned,” which assumes collective
responsibility for the individual within.
It
is customary to gently beat one’s chest during the viduy,
as if to say that your heart may have led you astray in the
past but hopefully, this will not happen in the future. Ashamnu
lists, in an alphabetic acrostic, general sins; whereas al
heit is longer and more specific. Meanwhile, the 44 sections
of al heit are not, technically, a list of mistakes,
but an attempt to identify the causes of mistakes; remember,
the word "heit" does not mean "sin"
but to "make a mistake." But who compiled these Yom
Kippur confessions? No one person: they simply evolved. Originally,
the confessional viddui had no set liturgical format.
It began loosely with Cain ("My punishment is heavier that
I can bear"), Jacob ("I am not worthy of all Thy true
and steadfast love") and David ("I have been wicked,
very foolish") setting the general tone, leading to such
standard phrases as Tehillim’s "We have sinned, acted perversely,
wickedly."lix When
the High Priest confessed he used three verbs in his expression
chatati aviti pashati ("I have sinned, I have
committed iniquity, I have transgressed"), which encompassed,
respectively, careless sins, conscious iniquities and rebellious
transgressions.lx
Todays terminology is based on this precedent, with viddui comprising
six main elements: An introductory paragraph leading up to the
essential words, aval anachnu chatanu ("indeed,
we have sinned");lxi
the brief Ashamnu which goes back at least to the 8th
century and lists sins alphabetically; the viddui of
Rav; the long alphabetical Al Chet which can be traced
back to time of Jose ben Jose;lxii
the 8-line Ve’al Chata’im passage which dates back
to the 8th or 9th century and links which sacrifices were imposed
to certain sins; and finally, the viddui of R. Hamnuna.
“There
is a time for long services and long sermons,” advise
our rabbis, “and a time for short ones.”lxiii
Neilah, the fifth and final afternoon service with its stirring
tone of desperation is such a time, and is unique to Yom Kippur.
The term means the “closing of the gates,” a spiritual
acceptance that “the day is done, the sun is setting,
soon to be gone.” This open-doorway theme runs through
this entire yomtov liturgy. The word neilah was first
used in the ancient context when the gates of the Temple were
kept open during daylight so all could enter; but at nightfall,
the gates were locked. It was later applied to the last service
of Yom Kippur, a symbolic tribute that this day was an entrance
through a spiritual gate to new relationships; with God, with
each other. These "Gates of Repentance" were listed
in an alphabetical acrostic prayer, with each gate given a specific
Judaic value: beginning with Sha’arei Orah, "Gate
of Light" (because orah begins with the first
Hebrew letter aleph) and ends with Sha’arei T’shuvah,
"Gate of Repentance" (because t’shuvah begins
with the last Hebrew letter tav).lxiv
Neilah’s
special melody, designed to prick the emotions and bring the
congregation to greater devotion, concludes the long day and
shifts the mood into a different consciousness. The gates of
Heaven are about to shut, God’s final plea about to be
admitted. We replace the word ketiva (inscribed) with
chatima (sealed), leave the Ark open as everyone stands,
symbolically awaiting entry, say Avinu Malkenu for
the last time, and then the relieved masses jointly shout
Sh’ma
Israel Adonai Eloheynu adonai echad!
Baruch shem k’vod malchuto l’olam va-ed!
Adonai hu ha-elohim!
The
day ends with a long blast of the shofar accompanied to the
rousing hopes for L’shana ha-ba-ah b’Yirushalayim!,
“Next year in Jerusalem!”lxv
And
then….it’s all over.
Or
maybe it’s just begun?
Footnotes:
i
Leviticus 23:32; Mishnah Yoma 8:1 (back)
ii
Is there a link between "kippur" and "kapporet"
which means either "mercy seat" or "ark covering?"
It has nothing to do with the former phrase ("mercy seat")
which comes to us courtesy of the Martin Luther-influenced Tyndale’s
translation of the Bible (who uses the word "Gnadenstuhl");
and according to Ibn Ezra the word "kapporet"
(which shares a common origin with ‘Yom Kippur’), was not just
the term to describe the shape of the Ark’s physical lid but
an indication of the holy task of the Ark cover, a symbol of
propitiation because the sprinkled blood of Yom Kippur sacrifices
went in its direction (Leviticus 16). This is why the kodesh
Kadoshin, the Holy of Holies, was called bet haKapporet,
"the place of propitiation" (I Chronicles 1). (back)
iii
At what age should children begin to fast? Maimonides: "A
child that is fully 10 years old and even 9 years old may be
trained to fast for a couple of hours. In what way? If a child
was used to eating at a certain time, he or she should be fed
an hour later. They should be made to fast according to their
strength" – based on the Mishnah’s, "Small children
should not be made to fast on Yom Kippur, but ought to be trained
a year or two before they reach the age of maturity – 12 for
girls, 13 for boys – to become used to keeping the commandments"
(Yoma 8:4). (back)
iv From the Hebrew root
anah, which means "to answer," or "respond;"
a recognition that these five "innuyim" require a
spiritiual response of self-improvement (Exodus 3; Yoma 74b).
(back)
v Leviticus 23:32. (back)
vi Ta’anit. (back)
vii Was this custom practiced on
Yom Kippur during the Second Temple? I don’t know (Mishnah
Taanis 4: 8). (back)
viii Hank Greenberg
did the same during the 1934 stretch drive with the Detroit
Tigers; as did Shawn Green, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder,
who sat out a pivotal pennant-race game against the San Francisco
Giants in September 2001 because it fell on Yom Kippur. (back)
ix Jane and Burt Boyar, Sammy
Davis Jnr, a biography; Farrar Straus and Giroux. (back)
x Die Werke Philos,
ed. Cohn, II, pp. 161-163; Elbogen, Studien zur Geschichte
des juedischen Gottesdienstes. (back)
xi
Leviticus 16:29, 23:27, 32; Numbers 29:7. (back)
xii
Taanith 30b; Pirke de Rabbi Elezar 46; Rashi on Deut 9:18; Maimoinides,
Guide III, 43. (back)
xiii
The number 10 appears often in Judaism: there are 10 plagues,
10 Commandments; 10 trials for Abraham, 10 generations from
Adam to Noah, and 10 from Noah to Abraham, 10 vidui’s on Yom
Kippur, 10 martyrs murdered by Rome, and 10 is the minimum number
required to form a minyan (which means "a count, or quorum"
of males of thirteen and over), and is traced back to the story
of Sodom where God agrees with Abraham to save the city if there
are ten righteous men there. Talmudic sources (Sofrim
10:7) refer to a minyan of six or seven Jews, but this is not
the normative law. Twelve spies are sent to investigate Canaan
yet ten, called a congregation, influenced the course of the
entire people. Not that other numbers were not important, such
as shivah tuvei ha’ir, the "seven good men of
the city," or the "m’zumman", the group
of three who combine for a communal grace after meals. (back)
xiv
The Shabbas within the ten days is called Shabbat Shuvah,
after the Prophetic reading for that day: "Return, O Israel,
for you have stumbled…" (back)
xv
Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein ruled that the word "God”
may be erased from a computer screen or a disk, because pixels
do not constitute real letters. According to Jewish law, God’s
manifestations in print, must be treated with respect (i.e.;
stored or ritually buried when no longer needed). (back)
xvi
Exodus 3:14-15 (back)
xvii
Torah commentators never refer to "gods" themselves
but to "the gods of others", "what others call
gods", "gods made by others", etc. Why? They
are viewed as gods only by those who believe in them. Roman
philosophers once challenged our Sages as to why would God,
being one and ominpotent, allow other "gods" to exist
at all. Their reply: "Why should God destroy the essential
things like sun, moon and stars merely because there are fools
who believe in them?" (Yalkut Shim’oni 288). Does
the Talmud advocate killing idolaters? Yes, and no. Over the
years the verse "tov sheba’akum harog," usually
translated as "Kill the best of the idolaters," has
been edited by censors so that "idolaters" reads mitzrim
(Egyptians), k’na’anim (Canaanites), or just goyim
(gentiles) which is why the original reading is not easy to
ascertain. Yes, the statement in its usual translation seems
ethically offensive, but perhaps the Hebrew word harog
may not mean "kill!" but may be a verbal noun meaning
"a killer" (making the verse read, "The best
of the idolaters is a killer," a bitter truth considering
the Jewish experience with outsiders. (back)
xviii
Isn’t kneeling a "Christian" activity?" No. The
practice of kneeling was common in Biblical times, a defiant
spiritual battlecry that, "No-one will prevent us from
acclaiming the true God". This was especially true on Yom
Kippur when it represented the dramatic response by the Priests
and the people at the sound of God’s Name. Our contemporary
kneeling and prostrating (during the Musaf’s aleynu
on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur) is a re-enactment of that Temple
ritual. It was customary to place sand (or some paper) on the
floor to kneel upon in order to avert any suspicion that we
are bowing down to stone (Leviticus 26:1). (back)
xix
14:2 (back)
xx
The Torah demands that goats be separated from sheep. This separation
has to do with the Judaic law of shatnes, which declares
it forbidden to mix wool and linen. Very few Jews comprehend
its serious significance. It is in fact a Biblical ordinance
carrying the same weight as such other Biblical ordinances as
"Thou Shalt Not Kill." (back)
xxi
Yoma 4:1; Leviticus 16:1-32; Ramban in Acharei Mot (back)
xxii
The Testament expression "scapegoat" is incorrect,
a mistranslation brought to us courtesy of the 16th century
scholar William Tyndale (a disciple of Martin Luther) whose
English version of the King James Bible is still the most accepted
one. (back)
xxiii
Book of Enoch 1; Leviticus 17:7 (back)
xxiv Yoma, the Talmud
tractate that covers Yom Kippur, ends with the uniqueness of
mikvah. (back)
xxv Rabbi Avigdor HaLevi
Nebenzahl, Thoughts For Rosh Hashana, Feldheim, 263
pp (back)
xxvi Yoma 81b; Isaiah
6:2. (back)
xxvii
1810-1883 (back)
xxviii
Psalm 115:17; 116:1; Commentary to Psalms, Eng. trans., p. 307.
(back)
xxix
A Simchat Torah piyyut (back)
xxx
1839-1933 (back)
xxxi
Kuzari (3:5). (back)
xxxii
Isaiah 1:18 (back)
xxxiii
How is the yiddish/Hebrew word khai associated
with the lucky number "18?" By reversing two Hebrew
letters yod (the numerical value of which is 10) and
het (8) we get the combined yod-het (18) which
yields the word hai (meaning "alive"). The
"luck" associated with this number, or any variations
of it (180, 1,800, etc) is why it is widely used in giving tzedakka,
as in multiples of, say, "two times chai" (36), "three
times chai" (54), and so on. It is not uncommon to see
the het-yod symbol worn as charm bracelets, necklaces,
etc as emblems of Jewish identity (competing with the Star of
David). (back)
xxxiv
Genesis 3:22-24. (back)
xxxv
34:13-14 (back)
xxxvi
Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild: Money’s Prophets,
1798-1848, Viking. (back)
xxxvii Leviticus 19:9-10, 23:22;
23:29; Deut 24:19; Berachot 28a. (back)
xxxviii Ecclesiastes
7:20; Kerithuth 6b; Shemot Rabbah. (back)
xxxix Berakoth 47a (back)
xl
A clue to character is the presence of dignity, kevod ha-beriyot,
that tzeddaka be given in a way not to injure the self-respect
of any Jew already humiliated and humbled by poverty. Embarrassment,
halbanat panim, was considered akin to murder whilst
rachmanut, empathy, was what the Heavens expected –
unlike that gemach (free-loan society) that sent the
following letter to one of its delinquent accounts: "Dear
Yitzhack, after checking our records, we note that we have done
more for you than our own mother did. We carried you for fifteen
months." (back)
xli
Exodus 20:12. (back)
xlii
Geonim (plural for Gaon) means “eminence, excellency”
and refers to the powerful rabbinic leaders of Babylon (589-1038).
(back)
xliii Numbers 14:19-20; 15:26.
(back)
xliv
Macy Nulman, Concepts of Jewish Music and Prayer (back)
xlv
Rabbi
Nachman of Breslov claimed that the reason a Jewish singer-cantor
is called a chazan is because the word means "vision
and prophecy," implying that music is derived from the
same place as prophecy. (back)
xlvi
Oaths and vows are of such importance that two entire Talmudic
tractates (Shevuot, Nedarim) are devoted to them. (back)
xlvii
Maharal
of Prague. (back)
xlviii
Isaiah
57:14-58:16. (back)
xlix
Yoma 87a. (back)
l Orchos Tzaddikim (back)
li Sha’arei T’shuvah
1:9 (back)
lii Kiddushin
40b (back)
liii Rambam, Hilchot
Teshuvah 3:5. (back)
liv Leviticus 19:15;
Pirkei Avot 1:6. (back)
lv The entire Book of
Jonah the Prophet is read at the mincha-haftarah service, recounted
God’s command to Jonah to go to the (nonJewish) sinful people
of Ninveh, the large city of Asseryia, and exhort them to do
tshuva. Jonah refuses and flees (milifney Hashem) to
Tarshish from the Divine Presence. The message of Jonah? That
the vehicle of tshuva is available to anyone with sincerity
and can reverse Heaven’s punishment. (back)
lvi Yoma 85b. (back)
lvii Orhot Tzaddikim
(back)
lviii 1 Kings 8:42.
(back)
lix
Genesis 4:13; Genesis 32:9; II Samuel
24:10; I Kings 8:47; Psalm 106.6; Daniels
9:5. (back)
lx
Yoma 3:8 (back)
lxi
Yoma 87b (back)
lxii
About 600 C.E. (back)
lxiii
Mekilta Beshallah (back)
lxiv
The
"Gates of Repentance" contain an alphabet
acrostic of values: atonement, blessing, compassion, dignity,
excellence, faith, generosity, hope, insight, joy, kindness,
love, melody, nobility, openness, purity, quietude, renewal,
simplicity, truth, understanding, virtue, wonder and zest. (back)
lxiv
Levush
552:2; Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, Ch. 35; Levush, 552:5. (back)
lxv
“Next
Year in Jerusalem” entered Jewish liturgy as a protest
song. As Babylonian Jewry went into exile one of the captors
ordered the Temple musicians to take out their harps and sing
a special song of Zion, a religious hymn that was part of the
traditional repertoire from the Temple. Instead the musician,
knowing this was his last chance to “remember,”
cursed his hands and voice that they defiantly remember not
Zion, but Jerusalem (Psalm 137). “L’Shana Haba B’Yerushalayim”
is a battle call of song for both spiritual and physical redemption.
It is also said on Pesach at the end of the Haggada. Why both
times? In order to satisfy both sides in a dispute between Rabbi
Eleazer and Rabbi Joshua as to when our ancestors experienced
redemption – in Spring or Fall (Rosh Hashanah 11a). (back)