Yom Kippur: Once A Year

By: Rabbi Judah Mische

Widely regarded as the Posek haDor, HaGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt’l, was one of the great leaders of the last century, a definer of matters of Jewish law as well as a source of inspiration and guidance for countless Jews around the world.

For more than sixty years, Rav Elyashiv was married to Rebbetzin Sheina Chaya, a daughter of the Tzadik of Yerushalayim, Rav Aryeh Levin, zt’l. During the shivah for Rebbetzin Elyashiv, a visitor standing in the back of the crowded room seemed visibly moved, prompting a family member to ask if he’d had a personal connected to the nifteres. It turned out that he had arrived from Canada that morning to be menachem avel and pay condolences to the Gadol haDor for the loss of his wife, and also to show hakaras hatov, appreciation for the Rav and Rebbetzin’s efforts in helping his family through a painful and tragic ordeal. The visitor related a bit of his personal story.

After years of struggling to make a parnassah, he had moved his family from Eretz Yisrael to Canada to search for a new beginning and greater success. The drastic change and adjustment were very challenging, and his oldest daughter veered away from Jewish practice, abandoning almost every vestige of Yiddishkeit and Jewish identity. She even married a non-Jew and separated from her family, moving to faraway Switzerland. The Yid wept as he explained how he felt responsible for all of this, uprooting his family from Eretz Yisrael, and causing his daughter’s descent from the path of Torah and mitzvos.

Sometime after moving to Switzerland, in the beginning of Chodesh Elul, his daughter’s marriage ended in divorce, and on the day after Yom Kippur, she suddenly died, all alone. As she had intermarried and cut all ties with the Jewish community and lived as a non-Jew for years, the Rabbanim in Switzerland denied her a burial in the Jewish cemetery there.

“Brokenhearted, I called Rebbetzin Elyashiv,” said the man, wiping his tears. “And requested that she ask the Rav for a psak din, a halachic position on the matter. When the Rav heard the situation, he asked what my daughter had done on Yom Kippur, the day before she passed away. I heard from a member of the community in Switzerland that on that last Yom Kippur, right before she left this world, that she had actually come to shul and spent a few minutes standing in the back of the Ezras Nashim. When Rav Elyashiv heard this, he was noticeably moved, and paskened with absolute clarity that she must be brought to kever Yisrael and buried as a Jewess.

“After receiving the psak, the Rebbetzin returned to the phone and shared words of chizuk and consolation, imploring me to forgive myself and to believe that my daughter had done teshuvah…”

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“And he shall effect atonement upon the Holy of Holies, and he shall effect atonement upon the Tent of Meeting and upon the altar, and he shall effect atonement upon the Kohanim and upon all the people of the congregation. All this shall be as an eternal statute for you, to effect atonement upon the children of Israel, for all their sins, once each year (Vayikra 16:33-34).

Our experience on Yom Kippur parallels the entry of the Kohen Gadol into the Kodesh haKodashim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe explained that on Yom Kippur, the most exalted and holiest day of the year, part of your soul enters the holiest space in existence. We are granted access to the most hidden, sacred space, which is off limits and hidden away from all but the most intimate of Hashem’s beloved ones. In this way we enter lifnei v’lifnim, the innermost Divine chamber “once a year.” This phrase hints that the achas, the oneness of Hashem that exists within every Jew, is revealed on this day, and full expression is given to this innermost dimension of the soul, our inner Kodesh Kodashim.

This most internal space is also referred to as yechidah she-b’nefesh, the hidden part of the soul. This core of the Jewish soul can never be penetrated by outside influences: no negativity can ever corrupt its purity. And direct perception of this level is beyond reach for most of us, most of the time.

Usually, our yechidah she-b’nefesh seems to be buried beneath deep layers of complex subconscious conditioning, and we are generally unaware of the root origin of our motivations and desires or what compels us to make our choices in life. As a result, we are often unclear about what we really want and yearn for. We may wander, at least subtly, from our path and our People. Yom Kippur comes to waken the pintele yid, the small but indestructible Jewish spark of faith that lies at the core of who we really are and who we want to be. On Yom Kippur, our yechidah shines outwardly, revealing our innermost will.

Rav Baruch Oberlander, shlita, Av Beis Din of Budapest and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s shaliach to Hungary, relates that a Jew once confided to the Rebbe that he felt like a hypocrite going to shul on Yom Kippur because he did not go to shul the rest of the year. The Rebbe responded that the most natural and appropriate place for a Jew to be on the High Holidays is in shul. “You’re not a hypocrite when you go to shul on Yom Kippur,” said the Rebbe. “You’re a hypocrite perhaps when you don’t go to shul the rest of the year!”

This Yom Kippur, as we enter deep within our inner holy of holies, may we believe, even for a few minutes, that we are experiencing the life-changing revelation of our truest self, the part of us that is in complete unity with Hashem and our People. And may the recognition of this achas b’shanah encompass our whole year, our whole life—and the entire congregation of Israel. 

Excerpted from Baderech: Along the Path of the Torah, forthcoming (Mosaica Press, Elul 5786).

Rabbi Judah Mischel is Executive Director of Camp HASC, and Mashpiah of OU-NCSY.