the process of confession that gives verbal expression to the deep internal process of personal change and repentance. The words of the viduy help us articulate and concretize the deep feelings of regret for the past and resolve for the future. By vocalizing our misdeeds, we reinforce — and give shape and form to — the processes taking place deep beneath the surface. WE NEED TO PREPARE Ultimately, we cannot just walk into the Yom Kippur experience without preparation. When we recite the various confessions before God on Yom Kippur, we need to have done the necessary spiritual and physical work beforehand. That is why Yom Kippur does not appear in the calendar in isolation. It is part of the Ten Days of Repentance, which begin with Rosh Hashanah and culminate with Yom Kippur. The hard work of teshuvah begins, in fact, from the beginning of the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. One of the confessions we say on Yom Kippur is to acknowledge that sometimes we say a confession without meaning and intention, and this is something we have to be aware of and guard against. To merely mouth the words and assume it’s an automatic pass to forgiveness and atonement is a critical mistake. Yom Kippur is the happiest day of the year because of its powers of forgiveness, atonement and spiritual cleansing — but it is a gift which is accessed through the real work of personal transformation. Confession also catalyzes another dynamic, and that is self-transcendence. Rav Chaim Friedlander explains the source of most personality faults and wrongdoing in the world is selfishness and self-absorption. Egotism. Our sages call on us to transcend our ego, to concern
ourselves with the well-being of others. The Gemara says we will find forgiveness and compassion from God when we are able to be compassionate and forgiving toward others. On a simple level, the Gemara is saying God deals with us measure for measure. If we show understanding, forgiveness and compassion to others, then He will do the same for us in return. Rav Friedlander says it goes deeper. The capacity to show understanding, forgiveness and compassion to other people is derived from a capacity to transcend our ego. This self-transcendence imbues us with a holiness and purity and greatness, and it is this that brings about the Divine forgiveness. So, Yom Kippur is a day of achieving self-transcendence. We do so through our confessions, where we take a step back from our ego and look at ourselves objectively, acknowledging where we have made mistakes and where we can improve and how we can become better people. Doing so verbally and sincerely before God is a very powerful act of self-transcendence. The other dimension of self-transcendence on Yom Kippur is to transcend the physical world by not partaking in food and drink, not wearing leather shoes, not washing or anointing with oils or engaging in marital relations. That, too, is an act of transcendence — of transcending the pursuit of personal physical gratification that can sometimes weigh us down and can distract us from the task of self-mastery that the day of Yom Kippur is all about. Above all, Yom Kippur is a day of Divine forgiveness, a day of redemption and liberation from our mistakes and misdeeds. It is, in short, the happiest day of the year. Rabbi Warren Goldstein is the chief rabbi of South Africa.
TORAH PORTION
Facing Fear and Doubt
A
s we are about to doubts at some time in our enter the High lives, whether about our own Holiday season and health, job, other personal begin the new Jewish matters or worrying year of 5782, we are about our larger world. full of hopes and God even tells the dreams for ourselves Jewish people there will and our families; and be times when he will at the same time, due hide his face from us to the Coronavirus Rabbi David (Deuteronomy 31:17), Fain variant, we also “Then My anger will approach this year flare up against them, Parshat with some fear and and I will abandon them Vayelekh: doubt. What will this and hide My counteDeuteronomy year look like with the nance from them.” 31:1-30; new variant? When God himself acknowlHosea 14:2will young children get edges there are times 10; Micah 7:18-20; vaccinated? How will when we do not feel His Joel 2:15-27. presence, times of lonethis virus continue to (Shabbat affect our lives? When liness, fear and doubt. At Shuvah) will we return to a times, God is hiding and “normal” life? A year at times God is with us. full of excitement also And He charged begins with a year of some Joshua, son of Nun: “Be uncertainty, fear and doubt. strong and resolute; for you Reading this week’s porshall bring the Israelites into tion, we learn that doubt and the land that I promised them uncertainty are not new to the on oath, and I will be with you.” Jewish people. In the parshah, Just as Jews needed to face as the great Jewish leader their fear and doubt then, Moshe tells the Jewish people we must also face our doubts he will not cross the Jordan and fears today. We must and enter the Land of Israel, remember the message of the Jewish people feel fear this parshah: to have strength and uncertainty about their and courage. And we must future. We know this because also remember at the times of Moshe tells them, “Do not most doubt when God feels fear.” There is fear in the new far that there will be times leader, Yehoshua, as Moshe when God will also feel close. reminds him not to fear. May we begin this new Actually, three times in this year, a year full of hope, week’s reading, the Torah uses fear and doubt, also Chazak some variation of “be strong V’Amatz, Be strong and have and have courage.” courage. The Torah emphasizes Rabbi David Fain is rabbi at Hillel strength and courage because Day School of Metropolitan Detroit it knows that doubt is part of in Farmington Hills. human nature. We all have SEPTEMBER 9 • 2021
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