יום כיפור תשע”ב
The Haftorah of Yom Kippur says, “If one honors God by not desecrating the Shabbos…” and it goes on to list the great spiritual and physical benefits he will enjoy for doing this. The Gemorah in Shabbos (119) deduces that this verse is actually referring to Yom Kippur, when one must refrain from almost all worldly pleasures, so the only way to honor the day on a practical level is through clean garments and a tidy appearance.
The Chasam Sofer on Parshas Ha’azinu interprets this verse homiletically. We know that the body is comparable to a garment in that it garbs our Godly soul, which is our essence. Every time we sin with our bodies, we soil this ‘garment’ and it requires cleansing. The Navi in this verse is revealing to us that one of the primary functions of Yom Kippur is to do just that – to cleanse our bodies and restore them to their natural state, in which they are fit to store such a precious entity. The Rabenu Yonah adds that although it is always a mitzvah to repent and launder our soiled ‘garments,’ it is particularly incumbent upon us to return to God and reach a state of complete purity on Yom Kippur, as the verse says,” לפני ה’ תטהרו – and you will purify yourselves in front of Hashem.”
How does one reach the level of purity that the Torah describes? The oft quoted Baraisa of R’ Pinchas Ben Yair lists the levels that one must attain in his journey towards spirituality. The Baraisa begins, “Torah leads one to carefulness, and carefulness leads one to alacrity, which leads a person to cleanliness, which leads a person to separation from worldly pleasures, which leads a person to purity.” The Mesillas Yesharim (16), which is based entirely on expounding upon this Baraisa, explains to us what purity is. He says that purity is the state in which a person limits his worldly pleasures so that he takes only what he needs, and even that should be used with the sole intention of serving God and for the sake of enjoyment. Obviously this is an extremely lofty level, and most of us can probably pursue it for a lifetime without making much headway, but on Yom Kippur the Torah commands us to strive to reach it, even if only for that one day in the year. I believe that the Torah is telling us to try to retain, on some level, the purity we have attained on Yom Kippur, and take it with us on our journey throughout the rest of the year.
The Chasam Sofer goes on to explain that the reason for some fasts is to mourn the losses that the Jewish people have sustained throughout the ages, and to express our sorrow for what has taken place. But Yom Kippur has a completely different agenda. It is uniquely designed to enable us to reach the level of the Angels and praise God as they do, basking in His light and glory, and wanting nothing from this world other than to draw close to our Creator. During the year, we are pulled two ways, each inclination vying for its rights, neither one being able to coexist with its nemesis. Our physical drives demand to be met, and in meeting them, we are inevitably pulled away from our spiritual pursuits. Our spiritual needs also demand our attention, but if we followed them exclusively, we would perish. So it comes out that the entire year is a battle between our bodies’ needs, and our souls’. During the year, we try to fulfill the bodies requests (getting carried away sometimes), and we deal with this dichotomy, but on Yom Kippur, we allow ourselves the spiritual luxury of completely ignoring and neglecting our bodies for the sake of purification, and fully defer to the soul for that one day a year.
R’ Matisyahu Salomon, the renowned Mashgiach of the Lakewood Yeshiva, suggests that perhaps this is why we only allow ourselves to say the words “ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד” out loud one day a year – on Yom Kippur. On other days we can’t, in good conscience, state that we are bringing honor to Hashem’s kingdom, which is a completely spiritual realm, because we are so steeped in physicality. But on Yom Kippur, when we are truly worthy of being the citizens of His empire, we have the right to praise Him in this unique way.
Although fasting is a good start, as we explained, purity still seems like an incredibly difficult level to reach. How does one achieve, and hopefully maintain to some extent, true purity? I believe if we are honest with ourselves, we will realize that true purity can only be given to us as a gift by God on Yom Kippur. The Gemorah in Taanis (30) says that there were never such good days for the Jews as Yom Kippur. Hashem Himself purifies us, as the verse says, ”Hashem replaces your hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.” R’ Shlomo Zalman explains how this magnanimous gift works. He begins by quoting the verse, “God is Israel’s mikvah.” We know that water which has become impure inside a vessel can only be purified by lowering the vessel into the mikvah, and having the mikvah water touch the impure water in the vessel. As they ‘kiss,’ the water is purified. R’ Shlomo Zalman explains that similarly, when Hashem sees that we are doing everything we can to come close to Him and to purify ourselves, He meets us halfway and carries us the rest of the way, thereby ‘kissing’ us with His purity, by injecting it directly into our physical bodies.
Baruch Hashem, many of us are lucky enough to find ourselves inside the four walls of a yeshiva, and merit being involved in spiritual pursuits for a large portion of the day. Perhaps this makes the challenge of purifying ourselves even greater, because the dichotomy is far more subtle. Specifically because we are not involved with the physical world as much, it is difficult to realize how easily our hearts can be led astray, distracted by other pursuits than Torah. The struggle between the physical and the spiritual exists in the ben Torah, but the fight is over what will occupy his mind and heart. To the extent that his heart is filled with Torah, he will not pursue other distractions; but as his mind becomes occupied with foreign thoughts, such as computers or politics, he finds it more difficult to immerse himself in Torah and spiritual endeavors and find flavor in them. For the ben Torah, the message of Yom Kippur is that much more poignant. “Immerse yourselves in the mikvah of Torah and dedicate your thoughts solely to the spiritual, in order to recalibrate yourself and remind yourself what is truly important, so that you will not stray after those tantalizing quasi ‘spiritual’ pursuits of the world that are so alluring, and seemingly so innocuous, but completely lethal, as events of the past hundred and fifty years have proven.”
May Hashem help us this Yom Kippur to completely purify ourselves in every way!