Open Up

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas Hatorah (www.bircas.org)

In Maseches Taanis 26b, Yom Kippur is referred to as the greatest day for Klal Yisrael, and Tanna D’Bei Eliyahu Rabba 1 goes further in calling it Klal Yisrael’s greatest gift. Now, we know that Yom Kippur is unique in that it is a day to do teshuva, but teshuva can be done throughout the year as well. What makes Yom Kippur so unique that it is our nation’s “greatest day” and “greatest gift?”

From the following verse we see that Yom Kippur is unique in that it can provide tahara (purity):

“For on this day He shall provide atonement for you to purify you; from all your sins before Hashem … purify yourselves” (Vayikra 16:30).

Only, we should ask: isn’t Yom Kippur a day of repenting and gaining Hashem’s forgiveness? How did tahara enter the picture? Throughout the Torah, whenever teshuva is mentioned, it is in the context of receiving Hashem’s forgiveness. The word “purity” is never mentioned. Why here on Yom Kippur is tahara not only mentioned but stressed?

And even if we’ll take the term tahara as an approximate synonym for “forgiveness,” a new question arises: Why does the verse first declare that Hashem will purify us and only afterwards gives us the command: “purify yourselves!” Shouldn’t the order be reversed, with our first taking the steps to do teshuva and only afterwards Hashem granting us atonement? It’s only logical that the first step in teshuva has to come from the person doing teshuva himself.

Answers to these questions can be inferred from the Ramchal (in Derech Hashem 4:5) and Maharal, who state that the order is seemingly reversed because the very day of Yom Kippur possesses an exceptionally great measure of kedusha that draws people toward Hashem. This added pull toward ruchnius makes it easier to accomplish teshuva, and also makes one’s teshuva more accepted.

As for why teshuva is more accepted on Yom Kippur, the Gemara explains (Yoma 86a) that while teshuva for a mitzvas asseh can indeed be done the whole year, in order for teshuva for a mitzvas lo sa’aseh to be accepted, one needs Yom Kippur as well. The reasoning behind this, explains the Maharal, is that strictly speaking, for a mitzvas asseh the transgressor didn’t do anything bad, he just failed to do something good. Therefore, no tumah clings to him and teshuva alone can correct his failing. For violations of mitzvos lo sa’aseh, however, in addition to the transgression, filth of tumah has now become stuck to the sinner and teshuva alone will not remove this. Teshuva can wipe out the transgression but as for the filth, he needs Yom Kippur, because on this day he is drawn toward Hashem and clings to Him, and through this act of clinging to Hashem his spiritual filth is purged from him. This is the unique, once-a-year taharah that only Yom Kippur can provide.

An additional aspect of this purification process is noted by the Beis Halevi (Derash 15), that besides the spiritual filth and darkness left behind by sin, the act of sinning also gives rise to a desire to repeat one’s sin. Even after doing teshuva, a person may still have the desire to sin and will have to fight with mesirus nefesh to restrain himself from returning to it. But on Yom Kippur, however, the act of clinging to Hashem and the intense radiance of Hashem’s kedusha has the remarkable effect of removing even one’s taava to sin again. What an awesome opportunity we have on Yom Kippur! Instead of struggling throughout the entire year to overcome a taava that we want so much to get rid of, we can literally free ourselves of it in one day, through the purification process that exists only on Yom Kippur.

With this in mind, we can try to understand Rav Yisrael Salanter’s well-known advice to people who’ve been unable to stick to their kabalos (resolutions to change themselves). He would advise them to take on just one very small kabala, but with full intent to stick to it permanently (as without that one’s teshuva is not genuine). “Even if it seems a miniscule act as compared with one’s heavy load of sin, if this small kabala is the best one can do then it is nevertheless a madreiga in teshuva, one that helps a person and rescues him from difficulties and suffering,” Rav Yisrael would say.

Still, one could ask: what sort of teshuva is this? After all, the vast majority of one’s sins remain in place! But as we have explained, the tahara of Yom Kippur comes in fact from Hashem; we just have to make sure that our sins do not act as a mechitza to shut this radiance of tahara out. If we can manage to make even the most miniscule hole in our thick wall of sin, once it penetrates through-and-through the awesome radiance of tahara can then burst forth and inspire a Jew to continue and ultimately reach teshuva sheleimah.

Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein once noted that every year, a certain avreich used to make well-intended kabalos but they led nowhere. He could not maintain them and inevitably reverted to his old ways. One year, though, he thought to himself, “I must make some sort of kabala that I’ll be able to stick to.” Playing it as safe as he could, he resolved to take on the admittedly modest kabala of saying ‘modeh ani’ in the morning with kavana.

Lo and behold, this minute kabala not only proved to be something he could maintain, it began changing his whole day. From a positive start early in the morning this talmid chacham went on to change himself in many ways. Slowly, prudently, he took on more ambitious challenges in ruchnius and ended up building himself spiritually in ways he had never dreamed were possible. You never know what one kabala can do.

May we be zoche to purify ourselves this Yom Kippur!