Yom Kippur 5770

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• September 8, 2009
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• 19 Elul 5769
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  Yom Kippur Insights

  10 Yom Kippur Insights

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • September 8, 2009

  1. Are You Real?

  Yom Kippur is a time to focus on our moral behavior, to stand up to our lower selves and see if we are, perhaps, dishonest in our behavior.

  Bernie is talking a walk in Brooklyn one cold morning when he hears an almighty crash behind him. He turns around and sees a "Brooklyn's Best Kosher Wines" truck lying on its side, with broken bottles all around it and wine running into the gutter. The driver doesn't seem to be injured, but is nevertheless weeping openly. A crowd quickly gathers.

  "What's the matter?" Bernie asks the driver, "Are you hurt?"

  "No, I'm not hurt," replies the driver, "but my boss, Mr. Epstein, is going to blame me for the loss of his wine and deduct it from my pay check."

  On hearing this, a man suddenly steps forward and says to the crowd, "Oy vay, did you hear what this poor hard working Jewish guy just said? He's going to lose a lot of money because of this accident. We can't let this happen. We have to help him."

  At that, he takes off his hat, puts it on the ground next to the driver and places a $20 bill in it. "Nu? What are you all waiting for?" he says to the crowd. "Help this man out. It will be a mitzvah."

  In no time, the hat is overflowing with money. The man then picks up the hat and money, gives it to the driver and smiling, says, "Here, this will help you. Go back to your office and give this to your boss." As the man walks away, Bernie says to the driver, "Wow! I must tell the Jewish newspapers about this. What a mensh that man is - have you ever seen him before?"

  "Of course," replies the driver. "That's my boss, Mr. Epstein."

  ***

  "Do you believe in life after death?" the boss asked one of his employees.

  "Yes, Sir," the new employee replied.

  "Well, then, that makes everything just fine," the boss went on. "After you left early yesterday – as you said -- to attend your grandmother's funeral, she stopped in to see you."

  ***

  Abe and Shlomo are strolling down the street one day when they happen to walk by a Catholic Church. They see a big sign posted that says: CONVERT TO CATHOLICISM AND GET $200.00.

  Abe stops walking and stares at the sign.

  Shlomo turns to him and says, "Abe, what's going on?"

  "Shlomo," replies Abe, "I'm thinking of doing it."

  Shlomo says, "What, are you crazy?"

  Abe thinks for a minute and says, "Shlomo, I'm going to do it."

  With that, Abe strides purposely into the church and comes out 20 minutes later with his head bowed. "So," asks Shlomo, "did you get your $200.00?"

  Abe looks up at him and says, "Is that all you people think of…”

  2. Kahn and the Cardinal

  The famous early 20th century German-born American financier Otto Kahn, it is told, was once walking in New York with his friend, the humorist Marshall P. Wilder. They must have made a strange pair, the poised, dapper Mr. Kahn and the bent-over Mr. Wilder, who suffered from a spinal deformity.

  As they passed a synagogue on Fifth Avenue, Kahn, whose ancestry was Jewish but who received no Jewish training from his parents, turned to Wilder and said, "You know, I used to be a Jew."

  "Really?" said Wilder. "And I used to be a hunchback."

  In 1934, when Otto Kahn died, Time Magazine reported that the magnate, who had been deeply dismayed at the ascension of Hitler, had, despite his secularist life, declared as his last words: "I was born a Jew, I am a Jew, and I shall die a Jew."

  Perhaps a seed planted by a humorist and nourished with the bitter waters of Nazism helped him connect to his roots.

  ***

  In 1926 a baby boy was born to Jewish parents from Poland. Aaron Lustiger was the name he was given at his birth. He was 13 years old when the German Army marched into France. Fearing for his life, his parents sent him and his sister into hiding with a Catholic family in Orleans. While in hiding, Aaron changed his name to Jean-Marie, and there, he converted to Catholicism. His parents learned about it while they were alive, and they were devastated. His mother was captured and sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in 1943.

  After the war, Jean-Marie stayed within the church. He was brilliant and he was charming and he continued to rise within the ranks. He went from chaplain to pastor, from pastor to bishop, from bishop to archbishop, and in 1983, he was made the cardinal of Paris. They used to be a joke told in Paris and it went something like this: what’s the difference between the chief rabbi, and the Cardinal of Paris? And the answer was the Cardinal speaks Yiddish.

  All throughout, his Jewish soul gave him no rest. Here is the interesting thing about Cardinal Lustiger. He continued to insist that he was Jewish. He claimed that he was fulfilling some special calling. When his actions were condemned or his identity was called into question, he would cry out, “Don’t deny me my father and my mother. Don’t deny me my zeydy and my bubby. I am as Jewish as all of the members of my family that were butchered in Auschwitz and other camps.”

  In 1999, as Cardinal of Paris, he took part in France’s Day of Remembrance for Jews who had been deported and exterminated during the Holocaust. During this highly publicized ceremony, each of the special guests was asked to read a list of names of the victims.

  And as Cardinal Lustiger was reading through the names, he suddenly stopped and became pale.

  It was the name of his mother…

  With a tear in his eye, all he said was, “My Mama, my mother.”

  As per the request he left in his will, the funeral for Cardinal Lustiger in 2008 was at Notre Dame Cathedral, but he asked that it be open with the recital of Kaddish.

  This tragic story is the story of the Jewish soul that always tries to come forth, even when it’s buried in the strangest of places. In a conversation that Cardinal Lustiger had with his biographer, Lustiger shared this fact that in the 1970’s, he went through a spiritual crisis. He started studying Hebrew and was seriously considering making aleyah to Israel and giving up the church and going back to a life as a Jew. He wanted to find his heritage. He wanted back to his people. But then just as he was about to make this move, the Pope called him personally and appointed him Bishop of Orleans, and the rest is history.

  It’s a tragedy if you think what could he have been had he followed that moment of calling, had he been willing to make that big change right there, what it would have done for him, what it would have done for others in the same position, what it would have done for his parents and his grandparents up in heaven. Yet the position of the Pope proved more powerful…

  And yet, in his last moments, he needed the Kadish to be recited at his funeral…

  The tragedy and anguish of a Jewish soul. On Yom Kippur, G-d asks us to come home, to our true selves and identity.

  3. Evolution Vs. Creation

  Yizkor thoughts.

  On a flight he once took, a Rabbi was escorted by one of his grandchildren who attended to his needs during the entire flight. Near him sat a secular Jewish professor, and the two naturally got in to a major debate over the question of evolution. The professor insisted that we have evolved from the apes while the rabbi insisted that we were created by G-d.

  In middle of the flight, upon witnessing the endless dedication and honor that the grandson showed the Rabbi, the secular Jewish professor, asked the Rabbi: “How is it that this boy treats you with such respect, while my children and grandchildren treat me with little respect?” When I ask my son to bring me a glass of water, he is always: Dad! Don’t you see I’m on the computer?!” Dad, I have a life. Now you get a life too!”

  The Rabbi smiled and said that this makes perfect sense based on their ongoing debate.

  You teach your children that we come from the monkey’s. This means that which each generation he goes back he is closer to the monkey. Dad is one generation closer the monkey, grandpa yet closer, and great great great grand pa was the monkey himself. In Judaism, we teach our children that the further they go back the closer they get to the people who stood at Sinai, the closer they get to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, closer to Adam and Eve, who were created by G-d Himself.

  You see, professor, that makes all the difference. Your grandson looks at you and sees two generations closer to the apes; my grandson looks at me and he sees two generations closer to Sinai…

  ***

  One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing him how poor the rest of the world lives. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of a very poor family. On their return home, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

  "It was great dad."

  "Did you see how poor people live?" -- "Oh yeah."

  "So, my boy, tell me what you learned from the trip?"

  The son answered, "Well, dad, I learned that we have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have installed lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night… We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, and they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.

  The boy’s father was absolutely speechless. Then his son added one more thought: Dad, thanks for showing me how poor we are."

  Our job as parents is to bestow on our children true richness. Yes, we all want to give our children money and security and comfort and a good education. But most important is to give your children those things they will not be able to buy with money: unconditional love, richness of spirit, deep values, commitment, nobility, the power of generations, the history of our people, the words spoken at Sinai.

  ***

  In his book The Conversion Of Chaplain Cohen, Author Herbert Tarr wrote this incredibly poignant moment when David says goodbye to his aunt and uncle, the couple who had raised him as an orphan.

  David says: "How can I ever begin to repay you two for what you’ve done for me?

  "Uncle Asher replies: "David, there’s a saying. The love of parents goes to their children, but the love of the children goes to their children.

  "That’s not so!" David protests. "I will always love you…"

  Aunt Devorah interrupts: "David, what your Uncle Asher means is that a parent’s love isn’t to be paid back. It can only be passed on."

  ***

  A Joke:

  Dear Mom,

  It is with great sorrow that I'm writing you.

  I had to elope with my new boyfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and Dad.

  I've been finding real passion with Ahmed, and he is so nice, even with all his piercings, tattoos, beard, and motorcycle clothes.

  But it's not only the passion, Mom.

   I'm pregnant, and Ahmed said that we will be very happy.

  He already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter.

  He wants to have many more children with me, and that's now one of my dreams, too.

  Ahmed taught me that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone, and we'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with his friends for all the cocaine and Ecstasy we want.

  In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Ahmed can get better. He sure deserves it!

  Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself.

   Someday I'm sure we'll be back so you can get to know your grandchildren.

  Your daughter,

  Judith

  PS: Mom, none of the above is true. 

  I'm over at the neighbors’ house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card, which is in the centre drawer of my desk.
  I love you.
  Please call when it is safe to come home.

  ***

  Friends, what we need to give our children are not only good report cards, but an acute awareness of their souls, of their heritage, of their spiritual DNA which spans thousands of words. That is what our children need most of us: to see us as links in the great intergenerational conversation, we must be their link to Sinai.

  We need to allow our sons and daughter to look at their father and mother and say, ah! Here is my Jewish hero. Here is my moral example of how to live a noble and meaningful life.

  4. Honesty

  Once a very heavyset woman passed a pet store and as she passed the parrot that was on display outside yelled out; "Hey fatso! Lose some weight!"

  The woman blushed but managed to pay no attention and forgot the episode.

  But the next time she happened to pass, the same thing happened "Hey lady, you're fat and ugly!"

  This time she got angry but just wrote it off as an accident; the parrot probably says the same thing to everyone.

  A few weeks later she inadvertently passed the same place with friends and the Parrot cries out "Hey Fatty!! Hey Fatso!!"

  This time she had enough. That day she went into the store, told the owner what happened and the owner went to the bird and reprimanded him strongly.

  "One more insult from you!" he threatened, "and ... you'll be our dinner!" surprisingly the bird nodded in agreement and remorsefully hung his head in shame.

  A few weeks later the lady happened to pass the same place, again with a bunch of important friends some had been there the last time and sure enough .... the Parrot cried out for all to hear.. 'Hey Lady! Hey Lady!"

  Everyone turned... After a moment of silence the parrot said... 'You know.’

  We can hide from everybody, or at least from most people. But we can’t hide from our souls, from our G-d, from reality, from the truth, from the essence of all. And if we do not confront that, we can never truly experience peace.  

  Truth can be buried for a while, but ultimately it sprouts forth. Emes Meretz Tizmach. It may take 5, 10, or 30 years, but you can’t lie forever, not even to yourself.

  ***

  A magician worked on a cruise ship.

  The audience was different each week so the magician did the same tricks over and over again.

  There was only one problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick.

  Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show, "Look, it's not the same hat!" or, "Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table!" or "Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?"

  The magician was furious but couldn't do anything. It was, after all, the captain's parrot.

  Then one stormy night on the Pacific, the ship unfortunately sank, drowning almost all who were on board.

  The magician luckily found himself on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the sea, as fate would have it ... with the parrot. They stared at each other with hatred, but did not utter a word.

  This went on for a day... and then 2 days ... and then 3 days.

  Finally on the 4th day, the parrot could not hold back any longer and said ..... "OK, I give up. Where's the ship?

  5. The Scratch

  The famed Polish preacher Jacob Krantz, known as the Dubner Maggid, wrote many wonderful stories and parables.

  One is about a king who had a precious diamond that he guarded carefully. Despite all his efforts, he awoke one morning to see a scratch on one of the facets of the gem.

  The King was beside himself. He sent word around the world offering a great reward to any jeweler who could remove the scratch from the diamond and restore its beauty. The world’s most famous jewelers flocked to the palace, but none of them could remove the scratch from the diamond.

  At last, a humble lapidary, whose shop was not far from the king’s palace, sent word that he would like to try. The king’s courtiers laughed: “You! What can you do when the world’s greatest jewelers have been unsuccessful?”

  “Certainly,” he replied, “I cannot do any worse than they, can I?”

  So they gave him a chance. But instead of trying to remove the scratch from the diamond, the jeweler used it as a stem around which he etched a most beautiful flower. And, when he had finished, the king and all of his courtiers had to agree that the jewel was more beautiful, more precious, and more valuable than it had been before.

  This is the story of our lives. We all get scratched. Yet we are empowered to use them as a stem for the most beautiful flowers.

  ***

  There is a story about a man who found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.

  Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

  So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

  The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

  The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

  Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

  In his kindness and haste, the man did not realize that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were G-d's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

  ***
  Each of our souls leaves the bosom of G-d and come down to this world where it encounters many a challenge and struggles to get through “tiny holes,” to maintain its serenity, clarity, majesty, purity and nobility. We sometimes just want to take “scissors” and just make it easier. We fail to realize that it is precisely through working through the concealments of our body and our external layers of brute-ness and selfishness that the soul can truly fly.

  6. Two Goats

  One of the day's most remarkable elements in ancient times, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, was the ritual of "the two goats," articulated in the Torah reading and the Avodah service of Yom Kippur. The High Priest would place a lot on the head of each goat; one read "to G-d" and the other "to Azazel" --- the name of a mountain with a steep cliff in a barren desert.

  As the Torah prescribes, the first goat was to be offered to G-d in the Temple; its blood brought into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled before the Holy Ark. The second goat, carrying all the sins of Israel so to speak, was taken through the barren desert to the cliff and cast off. The English term “Scapegoat” comes from this biblical law.

  There is something strange about this law. The Mishnah derives from the biblical verses (Yuma 1:1) that both goats needed to be identical -- in height, look, and monetary value. Why?

  There is a profound lesson here. Sometimes we see two people, maybe even two children from the same family, one ends up in the Holy of Holies, the other one ends up on the cliff of Azazal… One of them just does the right thing, gets good grades in school, goes through the system well, lives an ordinary life style, does everything “right” and establishes himself as a “normal” member of society.

  The other child’s journeys take him or her to more complex places, they go through various struggles, they stumble, fail, fall and get hurt. They sometimes live on the cutting edge of a cliff…

  We always tend to look for the “Scapegoat:” who can we blame for this person’s ill fated destiny: the abusive family, the crazy teacher, the meshugene mother, the angry father, the dysfunctional community, the alcoholic grandmother, the co-dependent sister, the aggressive older brother, the “system,” Obama, Bush, chemical issues, etc.

  Sometimes, that is of course true. But the Torah tells us that it is not always as simple as “if he would have been given this, we could have avoided that”: Here are two goats, identical in every which way, same background, same height, same money invested in their education, both of them got exactly the same things in life, yet they end up in such different places.

  We all know wonderful parents and yet who have a child who gets into trouble. No, you can’t always blame father and mother. Sometimes, they did everything as best they can, and still one of their children is on the Azazel.

  Why? It’s a “goral,” a lot. A “goral” is not logical. It is beyond rational explanations. The journey of each person is mysterious. What G-d has in mind for each soul is beyond anybody’s comprehension. We have to honor it, respect it, and remember that some people are destined to end up in different places in order to ultimately transform those places, those situations, to confront those challenges and to fulfill a mission which may elude most of us.

  Honor your journey and honor the journey of others.

  7. Holding Hands

  I watched two children who had been building an elaborate sandcastle by the sea. The castle had gates and towers and moats. What a huge and utterly neat creation. But, just when the children had nearly finished their project, a wave came and washed away all their work.

  I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead of lifting up cries of protest, they ran up the shoreline, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another sand castle.

  This is the story of life:

  All things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy building, are built on sand. Our present recession has proven just that.

  Only our relationships to people endure. Sooner or later, the waves will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When this happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh and endure.

  Do you have real relationships? Real friends? Someone whose hand you can hold?

  Harry Chapin’s song, The Cats in the Cradle, never fails to move me when I hear it. It speaks about a child being born to a father was too busy to give him what he needed and craved most – himself. The song goes, “But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away.And he was talking 'fore I knew it, and as he grew, He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad. You know I'm gonna be like you."

  And the refrain, "When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when, But we'll get together then. You know we'll have a good time then." 

  But the “then” sometimes never comes…

  8. General Eisenhower and the Klausenberger Rebbe

  Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam (1905-1994, he passed away a few days after Gimmel Tamuz, on 9 Tamuz that year) the founding Rebbe of the Sanz-Klausenberg Hasidic dynasty lost his wife and ten of his children in the flames of the living hell called Auschwitz. Throughout those years of terror and horror, Rabbi Halberstam continued to try to spiritually uplift and encourage his fellow prisoners despite his own personal losses. In the fall of 1945, after the liberation of the camps , the Rebbe moved to the new DP camp of Föhrenwald, On Yom Kippur of that year, General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the camps in an attempt to "asses the state of the Jewish DP's". On that same day the Rebbe was speaking to the tattered remnants of his people.
  
  The Klausenberger Rebbe dressed in a white kittel, the white linen robe traditionally worn on Yom Kippur, and wrapped in a large tallit, looked angelic and pure
  
  With tears in his eyes he began by thanking God for saving the lives of those standing before him from the Nazi hell. He then pointed to his kittel – and began to speak slowly, deliberately, tearfully:
  
  "One of the reasons we wear this kittel is because it is the traditional burial garment, in which we wrap a body before laying it to rest in the ground, as we do when we bury our parents and those that came before us. Wearing a kittel on Yom Kippur thus reminds us of our final day of judgment when we will be laid to rest. It therefore humbles and breaks our hearts, stirring us to do complete Teshuvah (return). The white, linen kittel is a symbol of purity that we achieve through our introspection and efforts to repair all our wrongs.
  
  "Since the kittel reminds us of the burial shroud of those that passed on before us," continued the Klausenberger Rebbe , "why are we wearing a kittel today? Our parents and loved ones were just slaughtered without tachrichim (burial shrouds). They were buried, with or without clothes, in mass graves, or in no graves at all…"
  
  Suddenly, the Klausenberger Rebbe began removing off his own kittel . "No kittel!" he cried out in an anguished voice. "Let us be like our parents. Let us remove our kittels, so that they can recognize us. They won’t recognize us in kittels, because they are not wrapped in kittels…"
  
  He continued expounding on the following words from the traditional Yom Kippur prayerbook.
  
  "Ashamnu - Did we sin? Bagadnu - Were we unfaithful?… Were we, God forbid, unfaithful to God and fail to remain loyal to him? Gazalnu - did we steal? From whom did we steal in Auschwitz and Mühldorf? … Maradnu - We rebelled.. Against whom? …we are guilty of sins that are not written in the machzor… How many times did many of us pray, Master of the Universe, I have no more strength, take my soul "?… We must ask the Almighty to restore our faith and trust in Him. ‘Trust in God forever.’… Pour your hearts out to Him."
  
  The Jews, young and old, religious and those that had lost faith all broke down in tears. The utter sadness, the excruciating pain and the humiliation of the past years came pouring out in wailing and sobbing.
  
  General Eisenhower, visibly moved by the words he heard from the translator, approached the Rebbe later. He asked him if there was something he could do for him. The Rebbe simply asked that he help them find lulavim and etrogim for the upcoming festival. The general was taken aback by the simple request and immediately instructed his lieutenant Berl Smith to arrange for the items to be flown in from Italy.
  
  The general of the mighty victorious army confronted with a simple request of faith. Even after the horrors of turmoil of the valley of Death the Klausenberger Rebbe simply wanted to continue with a simple Mitzva .In that simple request lay the spiritual fortitude that bespoke of a power that was greater than the mightier armies.

  ***

  Here is another rendition written by my brother Simon Jacobson:

  The account below was related to me personally by Reb Leibel Zisman, a living witness to these unforgettable events. Leibel was 14 years old at the time, and his birthday is on Yom Kippur.

  Yom Kippur Eve 1945/5706, Foehrenwald DP Camp, Germany.

  The sun was about to set on Yom Kippur eve, the holiest day of the year.

  But for us… For us it felt like Tisha B’av. Just a few months earlier we were living, if you can call that living, it was actually dying, in the unspeakable horror that was called the Gunskirchen Lager (concentration camp) in Northern Austria. It is impossible to describe the hundreds of dead bodies strewn about everywhere you turned throughout the camp. The hunger, the stench, the death, the insanity was everywhere. The Nazis, may their names and memories be forever erased, dehumanized us, turning us into ravenous sub-humans, desperate for a drop of water. Days would go by between a morsel of bread and paltry sip.  

  I was 14 years old when we were finally liberated on May 5, 1945. Orphaned, widowed, homeless – completely alone with no place to go – we wandered in what now appears a complete fog. But it all comes back to me as I tell the story.  

  We – some 5000 of us survivors – ended up in the Foehrenwald DP (displaced persons) Camp in Germany (southwest of Munich), where we spent Yom Kippur, together with the Klausenburger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam, who tragically lost his wife and 11 children to the German beasts.  

  As night was falling that Yom Kippur eve all 5000 of us gathered in a makeshift shul for Kol Nidrei. As is the custom in many communities, the Klausenburger Rebbe stood up on the bimah (the platform in the center of the congregation) to share a few pre-Kol Nidrei words to awaken our hearts and prepare us for the awesome day ahead of us.  

  I will never forget what the Klausenberger Rebbe said that Yom Kippur eve 64 years ago. The moment was overwhelming.  

  With tears in his eyes he began by thanking G-d for saving our lives from the Nazi hell.  

  He then pointed to his kittel – the white linen robe that we traditionally wear on Yom Kippur – and began to speak (in Yiddish), slowly, deliberately, tearfully:  

  “One of the reasons we wear this kittel is because it is the traditional burial garment, in which we wrap a body before laying it to rest in the ground, as we do when we bury our parents and those that came before us. Wearing a kittel on Yom Kippur thus reminds us of our final day of judgment when we will be laid to rest. It therefore humbles and breaks our hearts, stirring us to do complete Teshuvah (return). The white, linen kittel is a symbol of purity that we achieve through our introspection and efforts to repair all our wrongs.  

  “Since the kittel reminds us of the burial shroud of those that passed on before us,” continued the Klausenberger, “why are we wearing a kittel today? Our parents and loved ones were just slaughtered without tachrichim (burial shrouds). They were buried, with or without clothes, in mass graves, or in no graves at all…”  

  Suddenly, the Klausenberger Rebbe began tearing off his own kittel, literally. “No kittel!” he cried out in an anguished voice. “Let us be like our parents. Let us remove our kittels, so that can recognize us. They won’t recognize us in kittels, because they are not wrapped in kittels…”  

  I have no words to capture the emotions pouring out of the grand Rebbe that first Yom Kippur after the horror. 

  Everyone gathered in the shul began to weep uncontrollably – men, women, old, young, every single person in the large hall. All our anguish, all our unbearable losses, all the humiliation and senseless dehumanization came spilling out of our guts.  

  It was an unforgettable sight: 5000 people sobbing. Nit geveint. M’hot ge’chlipet. Not sobbing; bawling. The floor was wet with the tears gushing from all our eyes.  

  What a stirring hisorerus (awakening) we experienced that Yom Kippur eve, what a remarkable hisorerus – it was unbelievable.  

  The Rebbe’s words rang in our ears, in every fiber of our broken beings – every one of us had just lost our closest relatives: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. We were indelibly scarred. The words rang out: “What do we need tachrichim for?! Your father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, zeide, bobbe – they are all lying mangled in mass graves. Or in no graves at all – burned to ashes… What tachrichim? What clothes? What kittel?!...  

  Picture the scene: The holiest night of the year. The awesome moment just before Kol Nidrei. All the Torah scrolls lifted out of the ark. 5000 broken Jews, left shattered, orphaned without families. The saintly Klausenberger Rav standing on the bimah, ripping off his kittel – “We don’t need it…”  

  *   *   *  

  What more can be said? Yet, as another Rebbe once expressed himself: “It difficult to speak, but it’s more difficult to remain silent.”  

  Today, 64 years later, we are blessed to enter Yom Kippur without the misery that haunted Yom Kippur in 1945, immediately after the liberation from the camps. Yom Kippur today comes amidst many blessings and comforts. We live in freedom and have achieved many levels of success. It’s almost impossible to imagine that in just six decades the Jewish people have gone through such a renaissance: With the growth of Israel, advancements in Jewish education and overall prosperity Jewish life today is nothing less than a modern miracle.  

  In stark contrast to 1945, we now enjoy a sumptuous meal before the holiday together with our intact families. We dress up, don our well-pressed kittels and enter our synagogues in calm and peace.  

  But we must never forget, never lose sight of the get caught in the trap so succinctly captured in this week’s Torah portion: “Vayishmen Yeshurun Va’Yivat. Shomanto, oviso, koshiso” – He became fat and kicked. You became fat, thick and gross” from comfort and prosperity. Such is the nature of an easy and content life: It creates complacency.  

  On Yom Kippur we dedicate an entire section of prayer to “aleh ezkiro” – these I will remember. We recount the troubles that have befallen us since the destruction of the Temple, ending with the heart-rending story of the “ten martyrs” who were barbarically put to death by the cruel Roman Emperor.  

  Ten great men – the greatest of their time – are never forgotten, and live on in immortality despite (or perhaps because of) their premature, brutal deaths.  

  A little over 60 years ago not ten but… six million martyrs were massacred for no other reason than their being Jewish, with no tachrichim, no kittels, no dignity – with nothing at all.  

  But we remember. And we don’t only remember. We recreate. We channel all our anger, pain and loss into a revolution, doubly and triply reinforced by the fact that we now have the responsibility to fill the void left by those six million and all that they and their offspring would have accomplished.  

  We don’t just remember; we know that regardless of the mystery of life and death, despite the historical extremes from destruction to rebirth – we are all part of one mysterious cycle.  

  We may never know why six million martyrs suffered such cruel deaths and millions of others endured unspeakable degradation. We will never know why their bodies were never shrouded in white.  

  But we always know that we – all generations – are bound in one inextricable chain, and we do recognize each other despite our different, even diametric opposite, garments, cultures, backgrounds and levels of commitment. Because beneath it all lies a unifying force that connects us all.  

  And on Yom Kippur – today, in 1945, two thousand years ago, and 3278 years ago – we celebrate this inherent unity.  

  This week we read in the Torah how Moses, 3278 years ago, just a few days before he ascended on high not to return, designated heaven and earth as eternal witnesses to his final words for the Jewish people.  

  Look up at the sky. Look down at the earth. The same clear sky and pure earth that Moses looked at 3278 years ago. The same smoke filled sky and blood drenched earth the Jews suffered in Gunskirchen 64 years ago. The same sky and earth we gaze upon today.  

  The same heaven and earth heard and absorbed Moses’ words over three millennia ago. And they have stood ever since bearing silent witness to G-d’s promises.

  Yom Kippur is upon us. And heaven and earth are our witness that we are linked today to all generations past – both a gift and a responsibility.

  As the sun sets this coming Sunday evening and we put on our kittels, we have much to cry and sing about – for ourselves, our families, generations past, future generations, from the beginning of time into eternity itself.

  9. New Clothes

  The High Priest had a special set of garments he donned on Yom Kippur. It was unlike the garments he wore all year around.

  Yet there is an intriguing law: You could not wear garments used last Yom Kippur. For each Yom Kippur they had to make for him a new set of garments.

  This is strange: The garments he put on all year, can be used for many many years till they whither. Yet the Yom Kippur garments which are used one day a year must be put away for eternity?

  The answer captures the essence of Yom Kippur: renewal. We often become addicted to our limitations. We get stuck in the quagmire of resentment, grudges, hate, misery, insecurity, envy, bad habits, addictions, fear, guilt, shame and the belief that we are worthless.

  We must discover the power of our soul, a fragment of Divinity, an infinite source of light, inspiration, confidence, hope and goodness. The soul, just like its source, is capable of self transformation and true renewal. I have the power to recreate myself.

  Yom Kippur I can become a new person. Even my garments are totally new.

  ***

  In his book of memoirs “All the Rivers Run to the Sea,” Noble Prize Laurite and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel tells the following episode:

  "At my first visit to the the Rebbe's] court [at 770 Eastern Parkway] ... I had informed him at the outset that I was a Chasid of Vishnitz, not Lubavitch, and that I had no intention of switching allegiance.

  “The important thing is to be a chasid,” he replied. “It matters little whose.”

  "One year, during Simchas Torah, I visited Lubavitch, as was my custom... “Welcome,” he said. “It's nice of a chasid of Vishnitz to come and greet us in Lubavitch. But is this how they celebrate Simchas Torah in Vishnitz?”

  “Rebbe,” I said faintly, “we are not in Vishnitz, but in Lubavitch.”

  “Then do as we do in Lubavitch,” he said.

  “And what do you do in Lubavitch?"

  "In Lubavitch we say lechayim.”

  “In Vishnitz, too.”

  “Very well. Then say lechayim.”

  “He handed me a glass filled to the brim with vodka.

  'Rebbe,' I said, 'in Vishnitz a hasid does not drink alone.'

  'Nor in Lubavitch,' the Rebbe replied.

  He emptied his glass in one gulp. I followed suit.

  'Is one enough in Vishnitz?' the Rebbe asked.

  'In Vishnitz,' I said bravely, 'one is but a drop in the sea.'

  'In Lubavitch as well.'

  He handed me a second glass and refilled his own. He said lechaim, I replied lechaim, and we emptied our glasses.

  'You deserve a brocha,' he said, his face beaming with happiness. 'Name it.'

  I wasn't sure what to say.

  Let me bless you so you can begin again' 'Yes, Rebbe,' I said.

  'Give me your brocha.'

  And the Rebbe blessed Eli Wiesel to begin his life again… the man who was still etched in the horrors of “Night” (the name of his first book), where he saw the most horrific sights of what the human eye can endure, the individual who refused to marry and have children feeling that it is unfair to bring Jewish children into the world lest they suffer as he did; -- this person rebuilt his life from the ashes creating not only a family, but becoming a spokesman for hope and conscience the world over.

   On the day of his son’s bris, friends sent gifts. “But the most moving gift came from an unexpected place,” he told. It was a beautiful bokay of flowers sent from the Rebbe. I guess it represented his blessings for a life started over again, blossoming like a beautiful, fresh flower.

  Believe in your soul. It is more powerful than you will ever imagine.

  10. Fasting

  Why do we fast? What’s the point? I understand that fasting on Yom Kippur is supposed to make me focus on my soul rather than my body. But by around lunch time I am so starving that for the rest of the day all I can think about is food. Doesn't this defeat the purpose?

  A Religious School Teacher asked the following questions and these are the answers that she got...

  "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the temple, would that get me into Heaven?" I asked the children in my Sunday School class.

  "NO!" the children all answered.

  "If I cleaned the temple every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"

  Again, the answer was, "NO!"

  "Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my wife, would that get me into Heaven?" I asked them again.

  Again, they all answered, "NO!"

  "Well," I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"

  A five-year-old boy shouted out, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!"

  Is that what we are trying to do? Have us starving, feeling numb and exhausted and almost dead, to get into heaven?

  ***

  A disappointed Coca Cola salesman returns from his assignment to Israel. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Israeli’s?"

  The salesman explained, "When I got posted, I was very confident that I would make it. But, I had a problem. I didn't know Hebrew. So, I planned to convey the message via three posters.

  The first poster was a man lying in the hot desert sand, totally exhausted.

  The second poster was the man drinking the Coca Cola.

  The third poster was the man now totally refreshed. These posters were pasted all over the place.

  “That should have worked!" said the friend.

  "For sure it should have," said the salesman. "I just didn't realize that Israelis read from right to left!"

  [You see, the Israeli’s understood the posters to say that you are fresh and invigorated; then you drink Coke Cola; so you get tired and drained…]

  That is what happens to me on Yom Kippur: I just get exhausted and drained from my energy. What’s the point rabbi?

  ***

  The answer is that rather than trying to ignore the body's hunger, you can actually use it to bring you closer to your soul. But it takes some contemplation.

  On Yom Kippur afternoon, when the sounds from your stomach start to drown out the Yom Kippur prayers and you begin to see mirages of food in front of your eyes, try this meditation (by Aaron Moss):

  Look at me! I am a mature and reasonable human being, who usually functions pretty well. But today, just because I missed my morning coffee and toast, I can't think straight! Here I am sitting in synagogue on the holiest day of the year, and all I can do is hallucinate about paprika chicken and mashed potatoes, sushi and pasta, rib steak or a cold glass of water, tofu or soy beans. An empty stomach has turned a grown man into a ravenous beast.  And what's even more ridiculous is that in a couple of hours, it will only take a few mouthfuls of cake and a cup of Coke to make me forget the whole ordeal!

  Ha!

  Is a plate of food all that I amount to? Am I no more than a composite of my dietary intake? If you take away my tuna sandwich, is that the end of me? Wow, I never realized how small I am. How brute I am. When I don’t have food, that’s the end of me! All my creativity, my imagination, my interests, are naught. Is that really all I am? I’m just one big piece of kishke?

  The answer is: if your body is all there is, then yes, you are what you eat, and no more. But in truth, your body is not all there is to you. You are much more than a sum of your carbohydrates and proteins. You are not just a body. You are a soul. The body is merely a frail, needy and temporary home for the soul, your true identity.

  We take our body and its needs very seriously. We can live our lives pursuing our body's cravings and urges, forgetting that there is more to life than our creature comforts. Fasting is a powerful reminder of the fragility and dependence of the body. The hungrier you get, the more you realize how delicate and unsubstantial the body really is. There must be more to your life than breakfast.

  The body is no more than an outer shell, a thin surface level of who you are. Your true identity is the part of you that can see beyond your own hunger and feel the hunger of others; can divert itself away from your own needs and focus on the needs of those around you. That is your soul.

  All year we work, shop, cook, eat and exercise to feed our body. One day a year we step back from our bodily self and step into the world of the soul. On Yom Kippur, become an observer of the body from the point of view of your soul. Watch your body hunger, pity it for its weakness and frailty, and resolve that in the year to come, you will not make your body and its temporal pleasures the be-all-and-end-all of your life. Rather you will care for your body so it can serve as a vehicle of goodness, to achieve the mission that your soul was sent to this world to fulfill.

  11. Go Home!

  “Seven days before Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol (“High Priest”) is removed from his home to his chamber in the Holy Temple.” -- Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Yom Kippur Service, 1:3

  Upon concluding the Yom Kippur service, the Kohen Gadol] washed his hands and feet, removed the golden vestments, dressed himself in his own clothes, and set off for his home…” -- Ibid., 4:2

  Why does the law state that he set off for his home? Obviously he went home following Yom Kippur. Where should he go? To a movie? To a bar? To Opera? To the gym?

  The truth is that there is a very profound message here.

  Holiness is transcendence, holiness is withdrawal. Holiness is disengagement from the physical, disavowal of the mundane, departure from the familiar and the everyday.

  But holiness is not an end in itself. Holiness has an aim: to return to the very arena it has escaped and remake it in its image. To sanctify the material, to rarefy the mundane, to sublimate the everyday.

  On the holiest day of the year, the holiest human being entered the holiest place on earth. To prepare for this confluence of the most sacred points of time, space and spirit, the Kohen Gadol underwent a process of sanctification. He withdrew from his home, from his marriage and family life, from his everyday self. For seven days he secluded himself in the Holy Temple, divorced from the cares and wants of physical life. Only then could he enter the innermost and most sacred chamber in the Holy Temple, the “Holy of Holies,” to draw forth the spiritual essence of life for the year, world and humanity.

  When he concluded the Yom Kippur service, he went home. This is not just a fact but a halachah, a law, an integral part of the observance of Yom Kippur. The Kohen Gadol’s return to home life was the ultimate test and validation of the sacredness of the day. It emphasized the fact that not only had he entered into the holy, but he had also succeeded in making his post-Yom Kippur a continuum of the day’s holiness.

  There are people who are holy in the synagogue, in the temple, but when they come home they holler, they insult, they denigrate. They become narcissistic and selfish.

  Comes the Torah and tells us – how do I know you entered into the Holy of holies on Yom Kippur? If afterward you go home! If you take it all with you back into your home. If you don’t know the art of integration, if holiness does not change the way you treat your wife and children, the way you eat, the way you deal with business matters, the way you treat other people – it is not the Jewish version of holiness.

  ***

  A story which captures this theme:

  Those who arrived early at the village synagogue on Yom Kippur eve could not but notice the man sleeping in a corner. His soiled clothes, and the strong scent of alcohol that hovered about him, attested to the cause of his slumber at this early hour. A Jew drunk on the eve of the Holy Day? Several of the congregants even suggested that the man be expelled from the synagogue.

  Soon the room filled to overflowing, mercifully concealing the sleeping drunk from all but those who stood in his immediate vicinity. As the sun made to dip below the horizon, a hush descended upon the crowd: the Rebbe entered the room and made his way to his place at the eastern wall. At a signal from the Rebbe, the ark was opened, and the gabbai began taking out the Torah scrolls in preparation for the Kol Nidrei service.

  This was the moment that the drunk chose to rise from his slumber, climb the steps to the raised reading platform in the center of the room, pound on the reading table, and announce: “Ne’um attah horeissa!” The scene—the crowded room, Torah scrolls being carried out of the open ark—seen through a drunken haze, appeared to the man as the beginning of hakkafot on Simchat Torah! The drunk was confusing the most solemn and awesome moment of the year with its most joyous and high-spirited occasion.

  The scandalized crowd was about to eject the man from the room when the Rebbe turned from the wall and said: “Let him be. For him, it’s already time for hakkafot. He’s there already.”

  ***

  On the following evening, as the Rebbe sat with his chassidim at the festive meal that follows the fast, he related to them the story of Reb Shmuel, the Kol Nidrei drunk.

  On the morning of the eve of the Holy Day, Reb Shmuel had heard of a Jew who, together with his wife and six small children, had been imprisoned for failing to pay the rent on the establishment he held on lease from the local nobleman. Reb Shmuel went to the nobleman to plead for their release, but the nobleman was adamant in his refusal. “Until I see every penny that is owed to me,” he swore, “the Jew and his family stay where they are. Now get out of here before I unleash my dogs on you.”

  “I cannot allow a Jewish family to languish in a dungeon on Yom Kippur,” resolved Reb Shmuel and set out to raise the required sum, determined to achieve their release before sunset.

  All day, he went from door to door. People gave generously to a fellow Jew in need, but by late afternoon Reb Shmuel was still 300 rubles short of the required sum. Where would he find such a large sum of money at this late hour? Then he passed a tavern and saw a group of well-dressed young men sitting and drinking. A card-game was underway, and a sizable pile of banknotes and gold and silver coins had already accumulated on the table.

  At first he hesitated to approach them at all: what could one expect from Jews who spend the eve of the Holy Day drinking and gambling in a tavern? But realizing that they were his only hope, he approached their table and told them of the plight of the imprisoned family.

  They were about to send him off empty-handed, when one of them had a jolly idea: wouldn’t it be great fun to get a pious Jew drunk on Yom Kippur? Signaling to a waiter, the man ordered a large glass of vodka. “Drink this down in one gulp,” he said to the Reb Shmuel, “and I’ll give you 100 rubles.”

  Reb Shmuel looked from the glass that had been set before him to the sheaf of banknotes that the man held under his nose. Other than a sip of l’chayim on Shabbat and at weddings, Reb Shmuel drank only twice a year—on Purim and Simchat Torah, when every chassid fuels the holy joy of these days with generous helpings of inebriating drink so that the body should rejoice along with the soul. And the amount of vodka in this glass—actually, it more resembled a pitcher than a glass—was more than he would consume on both those occasions combined. Reb Shmuel lifted the glass and drank down its contents.

  “Bravo!” cried the man, and handed him the 100 rubles. “But this is not enough,” said Reb Shmuel, his head already reeling from the strong drink. “I need another 200 rubles to get the poor family out of prison!”

  “A deal’s a deal!” cried the merrymakers. “One hundred rubles per glass! Waiter! Please refill this glass for our drinking buddy!”

  Two liters and two hundred rubles later, Reb Shmuel staggered out of the tavern. His alcohol-fogged mind was oblivious to all—the stares of his fellow villagers rushing about in their final preparations for the Holy Day, the ferocious barking of the nobleman’s dogs, the joyous tears and profusions of gratitude of the ransomed family—except to the task of handing over the money to the nobleman and finding his way to the synagogue. For he knew that if he first went home for something to eat before the fast, he would never make it to shul for Kol Nidrei.

  “On Rosh HaShanah,” the Rebbe concluded his story, “we submitted to the sovereignty of Heaven and proclaimed G-d king of the universe. Today, we fasted, prayed and repented, laboring to translate our commitment to G-d into a refined past and an improved future. Now we are heading towards Sukkot, in which we actualize and rejoice over the attainments of the ‘Days of Awe’ through the special mitzvot of the festival—a joy that reaches its climax in the hakkafot of Simchat Torah. But Reb Shmuel is already there. When he announced the beginning of hakkafot at Kol Nidrei last night, this was no ‘mistake.’ For us, Yom Kippur was just beginning; for him, it was already Simchat Torah....”

  Because what is the essence of holiness if not burning love toward a fellow Jew in pain?

  ~~~~
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