Weekly Reading Insights:
Yom Kippur 5774

 

Overview of the Weekly Reading

To be read on Yom Kippur-Shabbat of 10 Tishrei 5774 /Sept. 14

Torah: Lev. Chapter 16; Num. 29:7-11
Haftorah: Isaiah 57:14-58:14


An essay from
Rabbi Shaul Yosef Leiter, director of Ascent

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Yom Kippur, one of the Jewish people's holiest days, completes the "Ten Days of Repentance" which begin on Rosh Hashanah. The verse that the Rabbis use to describe these days is "Search for G-d while He can be found, call upon Him when he is near" (Isaiah 55:6, cited in Tractate Rosh Hashanah 18a). They explain that G-d is close to every Jew during these days. This knowledge and innate feeling helps each person make a greater effort to come even closer to G-d. During each of the Ten Days, this energy grows until it reaches its height on Yom Kippur, bringing us to the level of "face to face" with G-d, a level of connection that lasts an entire year. This lofty level is akin to the level that Moses reached on Mt. Sinai, when he received the second tablets of the covenant.

The Ten Days of Repentance give us the ability to reach the deepest depths of our soul….
It is a custom of the Ari, the great Kabbalalist of Safed, to add Psalm 130 to the liturgy each day immediately before the Shma and its blessings in the morning service. This Psalm begins with the words, "A song of ascents, out of the depths have I called you, G-d. My Master, listen to my voice, may Your ears hear my calls for grace". The simple meaning of the verse is that a person calls out to G-d from the depth of his pain and difficulties. The inner dimension of the verse requires from us something more: "Out of the depths" refers to a level of consciousness attainable by every Jew, that through our concentration and effort, we call to G-d from our innermost place, the depths of our soul.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Chabad explains that the word for "depths" should be "me'amukim" - literally "from the depths". The Psalmist's use of the word "ma'amakim" - literally "from those who make depth" - infers action, like someone digging even deeper into his soul, past all of the facades, to a place of inner eternal truth. If you want to guarantee that your call is going to be heard, it must come from this place. The Ten Days of Repentance give us the ability to reach the deepest depths of our soul.

The Baal Shem is quoted as having once asked, "How can we have the audacity to imagine that if we pray, G-d is going to change the order of Creation and accede to our requests?" He answered that each person gets a stream of blessings from heaven; a person's negative actions can cause those blessings to be reduced or blocked. When a person prays from the depth of his soul, digging deep, opening himself up, something changes in the person himself (!), altering him entirely. The Heavenly Court can then remove those blockages. The decrees that caused the blessings to be cut off no longer apply because, through prayer, that person has been transformed into someone else.

Do not let the Ten Days of Repentance pass without taking advantage of this closeness to
G-d.

May you and yours be sealed for a good and sweet new year.
Shaul

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For last year's essay by Rabbi Leiter on this week's Reading, see the archive.

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This week's story from Yerachmiel Tilles, managing editor of ascentofsafed.com and kabbalaonline.org


From the Kabbalah Commentaries on the Chumash ("5 Books of Moses")

13th century - "RambaN" - Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman

14th century - "Bachya" - Rabbi Bachya ben Asher

16th century - "Alsheich" - Rabbi Moshe Alshech of Tsfat

17th century - "Shelah" - Rabbi Yeshaiya Horowitz

18th century - "Ohr HaChayim" - Rabbi Chaim Ben Attar

a sample for this week:

Rabbeinu Bachya

Uttering the Holy Name

From the teachings of Rabbi Bachya ben Asher

"For on this day he (the High Priest) will provide atonement for you to purify you." (Lev. 16:30)

This verse is an assurance for Jews throughout the generations that the Day of Atonement is a day set aside especially for forgiveness and pardon. When the High Priest used to recite his confessional on Yom Kippur, he would recite this verse in his prayer.

The name of G-d referred to in this verse is the one comprised of 42 letters. However, some of our sages believe that Aaron mentioned the name Havayah (during his prayer and not the 42-lettered name of G-d). Rabbi Saadyah Gaon belongs to that group of scholars. We feel that the first opinion, that the 42-lettered name of G-d was used by the High Priest, is likely the correct one.

This is why in our liturgy of Yom Kippur the wording is: "When the people outside the Temple heard the High Priest utter the holy name of G-d etc., they would prostrate themselves and proclaim G-d's majesty using the words we use daily after the first line of the Shema Prayer, i.e., "Blessed be the name of His glorious Majesty forever and ever". When the composer of this piece of liturgy wrote "in holiness and purity" he did not mean that the people would pronounce the name Havayah as the High Priest had done. He meant that the thoughts of reverence filling the minds of the people at that moment were holy and reverent, but they had not heard the name Havayah pronounced.

This is also the meaning of the Kabbalists when they said that "the names of G-d are not actually uttered in holiness, but the person thinking about them is filled with holy thoughts when he does so." The idea seems to be that the very air into which such words would be exhaled when someone utters them by mouth will contaminate the holiness of that name. If that were to happen the Holy Name of the L-rd would have been desecrated. This is why even the High Priest when he started to form the letters of the name Havayah with his lips, he immediately "swallowed" it, not allowing the fully formed word to escape into the air around him.

[Selected with permission from the seven-volume English edition of "The Torah Commentary of Rebbeinu Bachya" by Eliyahu Munk.]

For the rest of "The Masters of Kabbala and Chumash" on this Weekly Reading; and on all the other Readings.


FROM THE SAGES OF TSFAT AND GALILEE ON KabbalaOnline.org

Specifically, for an overview of the recommended articles in the columns:
Holy Zohar, Holy Ari, Mystic Classics, Chasidic Masters, Contemporary Kabbalists, and more,
click to Yom Kippur

one sample:
Chasidic Masters

Purifying the Holy of Holies?

Adapted from the works of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi

The teshuva we do throughout the year is suspended until Yom Kippur, when the light from the level of Holy of Holies cleanses the blemishes in the soul. Since each of the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur corresponds to another aspect of the soul, if one devotes oneself thoroughly to teshuva in these days, the purification one experiences on Yom Kippur is complete and all judgments are sweetened.

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