HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlit"A ......Yom Kippur

 soton’s “praise”

On Yom Kippur, the soton testifies that we are like angels who do not eat or drink. We know that the soton does not have permission to speak evil of us on Yom Kippur, but it seems surprising that he actually comes to commend us. 

In truth, he is not singing our praises. He is telling Hashem that it is hardly surprising that on this day the Jews repent and find favor in His eyes, since they have reached the level of angels, but the following day when they return to their routine they will revert to their sinful ways. However, Hashem in His great mercy examines the innermost recesses of a person’s thoughts and He knows that, on the contrary, our will is to perform His will and when we return to Him wholeheartedly on Yom Kippur, that is a reflection of a Jew’s real essence, and even if he sometimes descends from his real level, that does not detract from that level, which he was privileged to attain on Yom Kippur. 

Gemach for unlocated gezel victims 

Someone who has knowingly or unknowingly stolen an object, or borrowed one, and not returned it, cannot achieve atonement on Yom Kippur, and the Chasam Sofer notes that he cannot achieve atonement even for sins bein odom lamokom. Even someone who has underpaid a worker, or a seller, by a small amount, is considered a gazlan who cannot obtain atonement on Yom Kippur. 

However, what can a person do if he does not know the identity of the person he owes money to? Several years ago some talmidei chachomim suggested that a person in such a situation should deposit the amount that they owe to their unknown creditors in a gemach, following which the managers of the gemach will effect a halachic transfer of that money to the creditors, applying the principle of zochin le’odom shelo befonof (transfer of ownership to a third party, which is for his benefit, without his knowledge), and the money is kept in the gemach fund as a deposit on behalf of the owner (i.e. the creditors) until Eliyohu comes. In the meantime, the managers of the gemach lend the money to needy people, so that those who made the deposit accrue the merit of mitzvos in the form of loans being made with the money that they deposited.

Rav Sternbuch in a letter issued at the time encouraged this idea, and noted that the unknown creditors would surely agree to such an arrangement, since they are not losing out, because when Eliyohu comes he will be able to identify the owners of these funds, and return the money to them.

opportunity

Just like a person immersing himself in a mikveh cannot be purified if there is an intervening object (chatzizo) so too, in order to merit complete purification, teshuva must be of a corresponding quality. Hence, ideally, a person should reach the stage that Hashem can testify that he will never commit the sin again, as explained by the Rambam. 

However, it would appear that even if he knows that he will sin again after Yom Kippur, but he has put in place certain precautions to make it more difficult for him to commit the sin again, that is also considered a partial teshuva removing some of the stain of the sin, because the lack of chatzizo is not a prerequisite for meriting partial purity.

Hence, even someone who feels that he cannot perform complete teshuva should still take the opportunity to remove some of the spiritual soil separating him from Hashem throughout the year, which confuses him during prayers, and prevents him from performing mitzvos properly.

prayer

The main thing is not to pray only for our private material matters but also to pray that Hashem’s Name should no longer be desecrated, and that we should finally merit the redemption.

In the well-known parable, this is compared to a minister who was imprisoned and was told that any request he would make would be granted by the king, so he asked to be allotted more bread and water than the small amounts allotted to other prisoners. Everyone made fun of him, because he could have asked to be released completely from prison. Similarly, we should ask on Yom Kippur for an end to golus and for Hashem’s honor to be increased in the world. If we do so, this gives pleasure to the holy shechino which is in our midst on this holiest day.

What Kind of Jew Am I?

Geula Movement Sep 20

What kind of Jew am I? Well, I suppose I am an ultra-Orthodox Jew, because I believe deeply in Torah, mitzvot, and the authority of our rabbinic tradition. I am also a traditional Jew, because I cherish the traditions handed down to us through countless generations. I do not see them as relics of a distant past, but as a living inheritance entrusted to us to preserve, practice, and transmit to our children.

I am also a Chasidic Jew—at least in aspiration. Not necessarily in the modern denominational sense, but in the ancient sense of the Chasidim Rishonim described by Chazal, those exceptionally pious Jews who devoted themselves completely to prayer, mitzvot, and closeness to Hashem. I certainly cannot claim to have reached their level, but I can aspire to walk in their footsteps. At the same time, I am a Mitnaged, because I oppose what I believe are foreign ideas and practices that have crept into Jewish life during our long exile and obscured some of the original national character of Torah.

I am a Conservative Jew, because there is something extraordinarily precious that desperately needs conserving: our Torah, our mesorah, our language, our people, our Land, and the inheritance passed from parent to child since the days of Avraham Avinu. But I am also a Reform Jew, because I believe that some things desperately need reforming. Not the Torah—us. Jewish life must continually examine how far we have drifted from the Torah’s original vision and how we can return to it. Sometimes the greatest reform is not creating something new, but recovering something very old.

In that sense, I suppose I am even a Reconstructionist Jew, because I believe we have an enormous task of reconstruction before us. Two thousand years of exile forced Judaism to develop around the realities of a scattered, stateless people. Entire dimensions of national Torah life became theoretical, dormant, or reduced to prayers for a distant future. Now that millions of Jews have returned to Eretz Yisrael, we must begin reconstructing those dimensions of Jewish existence. We must learn how to move from an exile Judaism built for survival toward a redemption Judaism capable of national revival.

I am most certainly a Messianic Jew, because I firmly believe in the Thirteen Principles articulated by the Rambam, including the coming of Moshiach. Ani ma’amin b’emunah sheleimah b’viat HaMoshiach. I believe he will come, I await his coming, and however long it takes, I continue to await him. Belief in redemption is not some strange addition to Judaism; it is embedded in our prayers, our prophets, our Torah, and our national consciousness.

I am a straight Jew, because I believe a Jew should strive to walk the straight path before Hashem. And, if we are playing with the literal meaning of words, I am also a gay Jew, because a Jew is supposed to serve Hashem joyously. Ivdu et Hashem b’simcha—“Serve Hashem with gladness.” Judaism should not merely be endured. Serving the Creator of the universe is an extraordinary privilege, and that service should ultimately be filled with simcha.

I am an Ashkenazi Jew, because my ancestors journeyed out of Eastern Europe carrying their Torah, their traditions, their memories, and their longing for Zion with them. But I am also a Mizrachi Jew, because my heart is in the East. Rav Yehuda HaLevi expressed that longing nearly a thousand years ago in words that still capture the Jewish soul in exile: לִבִּי בְמִזְרָח וְאָנֹכִי בְּסוֹף מַעֲרָב—“My heart is in the East, while I am at the farthest West.” Wherever a Jew wandered, his spiritual compass remained pointed toward Jerusalem. After generations in which my ancestors could only turn toward Eretz Yisrael in prayer and dream of returning, I have been privileged to make that journey myself.

So I am an Eretz Yisrael Jew, because I live and breathe the Holy Land every day. I see Jewish children speaking Hebrew in the streets of Jerusalem and watch an ancient people rebuilding its homeland before my eyes. I don’t view Eretz Yisrael merely as a safe haven for persecuted Jews, but as the place in which the Jewish people can ultimately fulfill its national and spiritual destiny.

Yet strangely enough, I am still a Galut Jew, because when I look toward the Temple Mount and see that there is still no Beit HaMikdash, I know that our redemption remains incomplete. When I mourn the absence of the Shechinah from its proper place and pray for the complete restoration of Jerusalem, I know that simply returning to the Land was never the final destination. A Jew can live in Jerusalem and still yearn for Yerushalayim.

So after all these labels, what kind of Jew am I? I am just a Jew—a Jew trying, imperfectly, to serve his Creator to the best of his ability; a Jew trying to understand what Hashem wants from him and from His people; a Jew who sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails, but who continues trying. And perhaps that is something particularly important to remember as we enter Yom Kippur.

When Kol Nidrei begins, Jews throughout the world will gather together: Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Chasidim and Mitnagdim, religious and secular, Israelis and Jews of the Diaspora, Jews who enter a synagogue three times every day and Jews who may enter one only once a year. We may spend the rest of the year inventing increasingly precise labels to describe ourselves and increasingly narrow categories into which to place everyone else, but on Yom Kippur we stand before Hashem together as Klal Yisrael.

Our enemies have understood this frighteningly well. They rarely pause to ask what kind of Jew we are before deciding that we are Jews. Perhaps it is high time that we understood it just as clearly ourselves. We are one people—an extraordinary, argumentative, stubborn, ancient, eternal people. We can disagree passionately, as Jews always have, but beneath those disagreements lies something infinitely deeper than the labels we have accumulated.

As we stand before Hashem on Yom Kippur, asking Him to forgive us, to inscribe us for life, and to bring His people closer to complete redemption, perhaps we should also ask for the wisdom to see one another again—not first as Orthodox or secular, Chasidic or Litvish, Reform or Conservative, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, Israeli or Diaspora, right or left, but simply as Jews. We are one people, with one Torah, one Land, one destiny, and one Father in Heaven. עם ישראל חי. May this be the year when we finally remember it—and begin to live like it.

Gmar Chatima Tova!

Rebbetzen Tziporah ...... Yom Kippur

 Dear friends,

When I was taking down the machzors this year, I came across one that I hadn’t looked at for a long time. It is called Machzor HaMikdash and besides having the entire service of Yom Kippur, it has illustrated Mishnaic and Talmudic visions of what was actually going on in the holiest place on the holiest day. One of the most intriguing arguments concerns the Kohanim who officiated. 

The Gemara asks, “Are they sheluchei d’Rachamana” – are they Hashem’s agents, acting on His behalf, or “Are they sheluchei didan” our agents, acting on our behalf. In halachah, you can’t make someone your agent, someone who is acting on your behalf, to do something (even perform a mitzvah) that you yourself can’t do. This makes the opinion that they are our agents very difficult. 

Are you a kohen? Am I? I am not allowed to offer sacrifices on the mizbeach, are you? If you are an ordinary non-kohen, how can you make a kohen your agent to do what you are not allowed to do? This is treated seriously in the Talmud, but Rav Moshe Weinberger had another approach that I found resonated deeply.

You are a kohen. So am I. Not in the sense of being a descendant of Aharon, but in the sense of being a member of a nation that Hashem described as “A Kingdom of Kohanim”. Rashi asks what being a kohen can possibly mean to you, if you are not a kohen. He points out that the text in navi tells you that “Dovid’s sons were Kohanim”. Since we know that Dovid was from the tribe of Yehudah, he certainly didn’t have sons who were Kohanim! In context it means that they were leaders. You are all members of a holy nation and a nation of kohanim; you are all leaders. You have friends, family, co-workers; some of you are influencers, teachers, or have more public aspects of the visible kohen part of you there for us to see. You may think erroneously that only visible Kohanim are real Kohanim.

Rambam tells us something else about what changing the world can mean. He says that if you have more mitzvos than sins you are considered to be a tzadik. If you have more sins than mitzvos, you are considered a rasha. If the sins and mitzvos are balanced evenly, your judgment is written on Rosh Hashanah, and sealed on Yom Kippur. Tzadikim are given life, evil people death – and when Yom Kippur concludes there is no longer a book of “intermediates” – everyone is considered righteous or evil, and given life or death. 

Obviously this isn’t literal. It means that being genuinely alive or dead isn’t just a biological reality. It is a statement about how close you are to the source of life, or how distant you are. It has to do with having a bit of transcendence color your deeds, or being totally defined by the transient nature of this-worldly pleasure which can never become part of you.

This is not new to you.

The picture becomes more complex when you realize that the sins and mitzvos are not judged numerically. (For instance, if you were to say “I said 4,000 blessings, but only killed 9 people; what a tzadik I am” that equation doesn’t work….) Some deeds are heavier than others. The tricky part of this equation is that only Hashem can measure or weigh a deed. Rambam goes on and says that the same approach works for a city – if the majority of people are righteous, this city is judged as a righteous place, and if the opposite is true, then the city will be judged as evil. This form of judgment doesn’t exclude the world!

When you step back, what you see is that one deed can change everything. You are a leader, with the fate of the world in your hands whether or not you are fully aware of it, and whether or not other people regard you as a leader.

Rav Elyashiv was a leader before anyone knew of the depth and breadth of his scholarship. The girl sitting next to you on the bus may have saved an entire city when she finally decided that she won’t tolerate her outside appearance being in conflict with everything she believes in. A young soldier saying shema to the sound of gunfire may have done it.

The days of teshuvah are days when you might do it!

You may find yourself asking, “Who am I fooling – can 10 days of teshuvah and genuine effort to be the person you want to be change anything?” The reality is that you are like an athlete in training. If your coach can convince you even once that you will be the one who will break the three-minute mile, you may end up being the one who actually does it. Every Jew is that empowered.

I want to thank all of you who have been davening for my husband, Dovid ben Sara. Baruch Hashem, the first day of Rosh HaShanah he was called to the Torah and said HaGomel, the prayer of thanksgiving said when recovering from a dangerous illness. It may have been the prayers of you Kohanim who are not Kohanim that did it.

Learning to give yourself kavod is an essential aspect of kehunah – everything about their social status, clothing and more demanded kavod. Kavod is a hard word to define. It is a combination of appreciation, acknowledgment, and validation. If you need other people to give you kavod, you end up enslaved to everyone you will ever meet. If conversely your kavod comes from recognizing that you have a unique mission, one that no one else can do, it can be your lifeline when the outside world fails to affirm your intrinsic worth. You can escape by choosing to stop playing the game. 

YOU will never feel fully acknowledged by anyone human. Only Hashem knows your inner world. Only He can give you a day with the sanctity of Yom Kippur to release you from all of the guilt, heaviness, and false picture of yourself that may have taken years to develop.

Have a wonderful, joyous Yom Kippur

Love,

Tziporah

אין לי מילים: רה"י הגר"י איכנשטיין נשנק מהתרגשות בביקורו בחפ"ק קרן עולם התורה

 

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HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlit"A .......Haazinu

 mishpetei hashem emess

We are judged for thoughts, speech and actions of every moment, because Hashem does not forget anything. The A-mighty’s judgments are just. Sometimes we receive rewards or punishments within a short period, and sometimes after a long time. Sometimes we do not comprehend Hashem’s conduct at all, so that we may have free choice to believe in Him and His just ways, despite the lack of our understanding. 

Here in Eretz Yisroel they are persecuting lomdei Torah. Their entire goal is for us to slacken our devotion to Hashem and His Torah. However, without Torah, there are no Jews, and without Jews there is no world, and without the world there is nothing. We are required to display mesirus nefesh for the honor of Heaven. And if Hashem expects this from us, that means that we are capable of such self-dedication.

Lack of gratitude

“O foolish people [“novol”] and unwise” (32:6). Rashi says that “foolish” refers to someone lacking gratitude. As the Ramban points out, this character trait makes someone so corrupt that he is no longer considered to be a person, but only a neveilo (carcass). Therefore, such a person is necessarily also “unwise”, since it is an iron rule that the Torah only resides in the heart of someone who has amended his faulty character traits, as Rabeinu Yonah says, “First a person has to amend his character traits. That way will the Torah will dwell within him, for it never dwells in a body which does not possess good character traits”.

pupil of His eye 

“He protected them as the pupil of His eye” (32:10). Rashi: This refers to the black part of the eye, from which the light is reflected outward

The greater the darkness, and the black surrounding it, the more prominent the light that illuminates it. Hence, nowadays when darkness is to be found everywhere, with the very atmosphere permeated with trials unknown to previous generations, how great must be the reward of those keeping mitzvos who illuminate their actions in the midst of the darkness, and with a small quantity of light much darkness can be eradicated.

This applies, in particular, to those who find themselves amongst people who are devoid of any spark of faith. With each mitzvah and zikuy horabim we accumulate more merits than our forefathers in bygone generations, since our actions are more conspicuous amongst the prevalent darkness, and Hashem guards our good deeds like the Pupil of His Eye.

new heresies

“Deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear” (32:17). 

The early generations of idol worshippers believed in a Creator, but the last generations prior to the coming of Moshiach are full of philosophies containing new atheistic heresies without any religion or faith at all. Their followers worship their own desires and the evil inclination, and attribute all their successes to their own handiwork. Unfortunately, many of our coreligionists participated in these movements and philosophies, which our forefathers did not know, and they constitute a difficult test for the Jews, which has been decreed upon the last generations prior to the coming of Moshiach.

hester ponim 

“And He said, "I will hide My face from them. I will see what their end will be” (32:20). 

Contrary to popular belief, hester ponim does not mean that Hashem removes His Providence abandoning us to the mercies of others. G-d forbid to entertain such an idea, since Hashem promised that He will never remove His kindness from us. When He is in pain, we are in pain. However, based on our deeds and situation, the ways of Providence may change so that instead of a revealed Divine providence Hashem puts in place a concealed Providence in which His love for us is less obvious.

Rav Shmuel Bornstein of Sochotchov compares Hashem’s conduct with the Jews to a father teaching his son to walk on his own. The father hides from the son in order to get him to run after him and take steps on his own, without any assistance. He watches his son’s steps from a distance, and as soon as he senses that his son is going to fall, he immediately runs to him to support him. Similarly, Hashem says that He will hide His face from us, so that we will have to look after ourselves without Divine assistance, so to speak, but Hashem will “see what their end will be”: He watches us in order to straighten our ways and guide our actions.

“National Judaism” 

“They have moved me to jealousy with a no-god; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with a no-people” (32:21). 

This possuk may be taken as an allusion to current times in which those who uproot the Torah have invented a “Judaism” without a G-d, stripped of religion, with only the symbols of a nation, a state and language, their goal being to turn the Jewish nation into a nation like any other. In doing so, they have provoked Hashem’s anger with their vanities. Hashem will be moved to jealousy for His sake in order to prove that “national Judaism” without a G-d is a recipe for a “no-people”, since the nation cannot continue to exist just by possessing national symbols without the observance of Torah and cleaving to Hashem.

Olom Habo 

“I kill and I make alive” (32:39). 

The Ibn Ezra writes that many people interpreted this possuk as a biblical source for the eternal soul and the afterlife. He notes that Rav Hai Gaon suggested that the Torah does not explicitly talk about Olom Habo because these matters were handed down by oral tradition. The Ibn Ezra himself suggests that since the Torah was given to the entire nation and meant to be universally understood it does not talk about such a topic, which is very profound and understood only by “one in a thousand” people. Our reward in Olom Habo depends on the state of the neshomo, the quality of which is the result of “working on our hearts”. This avodas halev is achieved by contemplating the handiwork of Hashem, which is the ladder one has to climb in order to acquire the fundamental quality of knowing Hashem.

 A person’s avodas halev consists in performing mitzvos with joy and enthusiasm, thereby molding and refining his neshomo and making it an appropriate vessel for receiving the spiritual pleasure of closeness to the Creator in the afterlife. Just like the form of the face differs from person to person, so does the form of the neshomo, and the person himself shapes it. It takes on a new form on a daily basis, based on the person’s avodo. Each person, based on his level of avodas halev, and the extent to which he has contemplated the ways of Hashem, is able to cleave to the Creator, which is the preparation for the afterlife.

This difference between people’s neshomos cannot be understood easily intellectually using terminology stemming from Olom Hazeh, and therefore the whole topic of Olom Habo was not set out explicitly in the Torah, because the Torah was handed down to people with physical bodies who are meant to observe it with mitzvos pertaining to physical matters such as eating and speaking. Hence, Olom Habo is only hinted at in the Torah sheba’al pe.

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LIVING RAV AVIGDOR The Best Day of the Year RAV AVIGDOR MILLER · LECTURE 933 From Chapter One of Yom Kippur Lessons

Lecture 933 in 42 quotes — the Rav’s exact words, in the order he said them, taken from different points in the lecture. Each one stands on its own, so there is no need to read them all at once. Take them slowly — he is building one argument across the ninety minutes, and by the last of them it is made:

Yom Kippur was one of the two most joyous days in the year. It was a happy day, a day when the mind was at its best. And when the mind is at its best, that’s the happiest day. Hakadosh Baruch Hu made this world in such a manner that people should not see Him. And He put up barriers, walls, between us and Him in this world. And our purpose in our lives is to break through these barriers, one after the other. That’s our purpose in life, to break through all the barriers. During the year, one of the ways of breaking through the barrier is keep your mouth closed. Working for a living helps you smash the mechitzos. Whenever you have any difficulty in life, you should know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is helping you out. It breaks down the mechitzos because when everything is going smoothly, you forget about Hashem. Of course, if somebody prefers a more comfortable way of coming close to Hashem, we say, כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה, יִסּוּרִין בְּדֵילִין הֵימֶנּוּ — “If you engage in Torah,” which causes your mind to be united to Hashem, and you’re thinking of Hashem in Torah, then “yissurim, suffering, goes away from you” (Berachos 5a). You don’t need suffering. That’s an easier way. So you have your choice. Eating in luxury, unless you’re capable of appreciating it, constitutes a barrier between you and Hashem. We approach the subject of Yom Kippur. In the Torah it states, קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ — “You should be holy” (Vayikra 19:2). קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ is a commandment in itself. How do you do it? So our chachamim tell us, פְּרוּשִׁים תִּהְיוּ — you have to be abstainers (Sifri, Kedoshim, parashah 1). You have to abstain. You want to become a kadosh? You have to learn how to say no to yourself. He writes (Iggeres HaGra) that the best prishus is when you don’t talk. מָה אֻמָּנוּתוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה — “What’s a man’s profession in this world?” His profession is, יָשִׂים עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלֵּם — “He should make himself as a mute” (Chullin 89a) He has to make himself as though he cannot talk. To keep quiet. Among the studies of [different forms of] prishus, we have to know that one of the most important is to keep away from goyim. Yom Kippur is a wonderful opportunity, when we sit all day only among Jews. What a berachah that is. The mechitzos are down today. You feel a closeness to klal Yisrael. And Yom Kippur becomes for you the day of the greatest success. We’re coming to the theme of today, to understand that this day is the happiest day of the year. Of course, for some people, it isn’t. You want to get home, you’re looking at the clock, counting how many hours until Ne’ilah, and thinking what will be for supper tonight — it’s human nature; but you have to start training yourself now so that when you get a little older you might even start to enjoy Yom Kippur. Start now, start persuading yourself that Yom Kippur is a happy day. The Mesilas Yesharim tells us there are three causes why men forget their purpose in life. And one is haschok v’halatzon, all the joking around, making fun, amusement, all kinds of things, entertainment. The second is chevra raah, wrong company, which most people are. Most people are wrong company. And the third reason he said is the most prevalent one, hatipul v’hatirda, being too busy. On Yom Tov, on Sukkos, you can cook, but not on Yom Kippur, because Yom Kippur is the day of prishus, it’s a day of abstinence, not to have any business with anything. Your mind should be available for the greatest purpose in life, and that is to think about Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The commandment of קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ is completely fulfilled by us on this one day in the year. Our forefathers practiced it, and therefore, it was one of the two most joyous days in the year. Another very great achievement on Yom Kippur is the subject of bitachon, trust in Hashem. On Yom Kippur, what are you doing? You’re declaring all day long who is going to be the author of your happiness, only Hashem. The purpose is that you should hear what you’re saying; that everything comes only from Hashem. When Yom Kippur is over, you’re not the same man. You have changed fundamentally. You have learned the very great lesson of bitachon. There are smaller benefits. You ever think what a benefit it is to talk lashon hakodesh all day long? Every letter of the alef-beis is made for the purpose of changing our souls, the neshamos of those who talk that language. Saying the words alone, even if you’re an am ha’aretz and don’t know the meaning of the words, just saying them — the words transforms your neshamah. We come to one of the most obvious achievements of Yom Kippur: כִּי בַיּוֹם הַזֶּה יְכַפֵּר עֲלֵיכֶם — “On this day Hashem will atone for you” (Vayikra 16:30). When people hear that, they feel it means Hashem will forgive us for the wrong things we did and give us a good year. That’s not the purpose of lichaper. Lichaper means Hashem wipes you clean. We come to the most fundamental of all the things that happen on Yom Kippur. Who are you? You are the neshamah. That’s all you are, and that’s forever and ever and ever, until techiyas hameisim when you will be clothed again. Sin is a stain on the neshamah. The purpose of Gehinnom is to remove the stains. Yom Kippur is an opportunity to get rid of your stains in this life. Hashem says, “Offer your face to Me. Do teshuvah a little bit and cooperate. Don’t miss this opportunity. It’s a glorious day, Yom Kippur. And that’s why it’s a day of happiness.

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