By Sivan Rahav Meir
Yom Kippur, which is on the tenth of Tishrei, is considered the holiest and most important day in the Jewish year. In the Torah it is written: “Because on this day, there will be atonement for you, to purify you from all your sins, before G-d you will be cleansed” (Lev. 16:30). This is the day on which Moshe Rabbeinu came down from Mount Sinai with the second set of Tablets of the Covenant, having broken the first set of tablets when he saw the sin of the golden calf. Yom Kippur commemorates the day that the Children of Israel were given a second chance with the second set of Tablets, and so it became a day of atonement and forgiveness throughout the generations.
Here is something to which we do not pay sufficient attention: It’s clear that the mitzvah on Yom Kippur is to fast, but what about the mitzvah the day before Yom Kippur—the mitzvah to eat? This is a mitzvah in its own right, and not just to help us feel less hungry during the fast on Yom Kippur. Our Sages tell us that the idea of Yom Kippur is so great that it is actually deserving of a joyful feast. Of course, it is impossible to celebrate the day in that manner as it is a fast day, so we bring the feast forward to the day before, the eve of Yom Kippur. The Spanish commentator, Rabbeinu Yona of Girondi, who lived around eight hundred years ago, wrote the following: “And because of the fast on Yom Kippur, we are obliged to partake of the feast rejoicing in the mitzvah on Yom Kippur eve.”
But just a moment. Why are we rejoicing with a feast? What are we so happy about? We rejoice about the very existence of Yom Kippur, a day of appeasement and atonement. It is a day that brings with it the capacity to change, the possibility to forgive and erase, to begin anew and rebuild from crisis—a day that is a reminder that human beings have free choice. For all of these reasons, when we look deeply into the substance of this special day, it really is appropriate to wish everyone “a happy Yom Kippur!”
{The Wonder Of Teshuvah
Rabbi Jacob Edelstein, of blessed memory, was the rabbi of Ramat HaSharon. We were privileged to live there and get to know him well. Here are some of his pearls of wisdom regarding Yom Kippur:
“How is it possible to erase things that a person has done? What good is regret? Does it make sins disappear? If a person eats something that causes a stomach ache, and afterwards he’s sorry he ate it, will regret benefit his stomach now? The process of teshuvah is higher than our minds can grasp, it is beyond nature. It is one of the wonders of creation, one of the greatest gifts we have received—the possibility to start over again.”
“There is a wonderful passage that reveals a secret to us: ‘Return Israel to Hashem your G-d.’ In other words, a person must return to Hashem. If this was an ascent to a new place, or moving to somewhere different it would not say ‘return.’ From this we learn that teshuvah means going back to our true origins. The meaning of teshuvah is not to change, but to return to our proper place, to be who we are supposed to be.”
“Someone once said that in his youth he wanted to change the world. He later saw that this was difficult and decided to change only the people in his country. Then he decided to at least change the residents of his city. When he failed, he tried to just change the members of his family. Finally, he understood that he must first change himself. And then, after he worked on changing himself, he saw that he slowly began to influence his family, his city, his country, and the entire world. Improving the world starts with self-improvement. Our desire is for wholesale, widespread change, but such change begins with character refinement on the part of each and every individual.”
{The First Tefillin Of The New Year In Gaza
{IMG First tefillin of the year in Gaza with Yakir Asraf
{Caption First tefillin of the year in Gaza with Yakir Asraf
After three days of Chag and Shabbat where people didn’t put on tefillin Yakir Asraf, a soldier, sent this photo this morning from Gaza with a beautiful explanation:
“Here it was a holiday full of emergency alerts, activities, and being on call. Finally this morning was a little quieter and I had time to pray and think.
I feel that there is another war going on here: which emotion will dominate us? Will sadness, anger, despair dominate us, or will love and hope dominate us? We are fighting for that too.
So I put on my tefillin here and remind myself: we didn’t come here just to fight. We came here to live, to build, to do good for the world, to fix it. I have a collection of photos of me putting on tefillin in all kinds of faraway places in the world. Recently, a picture that I didn’t plan, of tefillin on the ruins of Sajaia, joined the collection, but I want to replace it after the victory with a picture of a beautiful and quiet landscape. Because we choose life.
Rabbi Shalom Yaniv, who lost his two sweet sons, Yagel and Hallel, in a terrorist attack a year and a half ago, said something that’s been accompanying me these days: ‘G-d, too many doors have been knocked on this year. Now it’s our turn to knock on heaven’s doors. Please open a gate for us.’
May it be a blessed year!”
{Thoughts on October 7th 2024
It has been one year since that horrific day and our feelings are still so raw. Sometimes it is still hard for us to grasp that this nightmare really occurred and we struggle to find the words to describe the enormity of the catastrophe that befell us. But how will we feel five years from now? And fifty years from now? Will we remember only the brutal attack, or will we recall how we were able to rise up from this trauma and how it became a catalyst for growth and healing?
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z’l, expressed this idea most eloquently:
“In the past Jews lived through catastrophes that would have spelled the end of most nations: the destruction of Solomon’s temple, the Babylonian exile, the Roman conquest, the Hadrianic persecutions, the massacres of the Crusades, the Spanish expulsion. They wrote elegies; they mourned; they prayed. But they did not give way to fear. They did not define themselves as victims. They did not see antisemitism written into the fabric of the universe. They knew they existed for a purpose, and it was not for themselves alone.”
“Every tragedy in Jewish history was followed by a new wave of creativity. The destruction of the First Temple led to the renewal of the Torah in the life of the nation, exemplified by the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. The destruction of the Second Temple led to the great works of the oral tradition, Midrash, Mishnah, and the two Talmuds. The massacres of Jewish communities in northern Europe during the First Crusade led to the emergence of Hassidei Ashkenaz, the German-Jewish pietists… The greatest catastrophe of all led to the greatest rebirth: a mere three years after standing eyeball to eyeball with the angel of death at Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, and Treblinka, the Jewish people responded by their greatest collective affirmation of life in two thousand years, with the proclamation of the state of Israel. … Jews [do not] give way to defeat or despair. They are the people of hope.”
“The word for crisis (in Hebrew), mashber, also means a ‘childbirth chair’. The Jewish reflex is to see difficult times as birth pangs. Something new is being born.”
“We cannot change the past, but by remembering the past we can change the future. And though we cannot bring the dead back to life, we can help ensure that they did not die in vain.”
I was privileged to curate the booklet, “To Be a Jew: Faith and Hope in Challenging Times,” that contains selected passages from the writings of Rabbi Sacks on how to maintain hope and confront evil, interwoven with inspirational stories from Israel and the Jewish world.
It is available free of charge. On this significant day, I invite you to download this booklet, read it, and share its profound wisdom with others: SivanRahavMeir.com/to-be-a-jew.
I dedicate these words in memory of the fallen, the healing of the wounded, the safe return of the hostages, for victory in war and positive news for the Jewish people in every area. May we merit, with G-d’s help, to heal our broken hearts. n
Read more by Sivan Rahav Meir at SivanRahavMeir.com.
