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A series of shiurim with Rav Shlomo Katz, diving into the depths of the holiest day of the year: Yom Kippur
Okay, בוקר טוב everyone. Good morning. The month of תשרי is sponsored by מיכל and יודי לעילוי נשמת יודי's grandfather, רב משה בן רב מנחם, and לעילוי נשמת our uncle, my father's brother, שמואל בן רב שלמה הכהן. Their יארצייט are on כ״ב תשרי, שמיני עצרת and שמחת תורה.
So, wow, this is the this is I guess the last time we're going to meet before יום כיפור. So, I was debating, do עשרת ימי תשובה, יום כיפור, but I'm feeling I'm feeling very drawn to to really open our hearts to what יום כיפור offers for us, to the gift of of יום הכיפורים. I was saying yesterday in the men's שיעור that growing up, I think for many of us, we grew up in a world that ראש השנה was was all happy, you know, שנה טובה, all שמחה and everything. And, oh yeah, you get a little emotional during ונתנה תוקף, but the rest is kind of like just שמחה, and family, and food, and honey, הכל טוב, הכל סבבה.
יום כיפור is שקשוקים, we're freaking out, oh my God, it's so hard, it's so long, it's so And then the moment you tune into like like פנימיות, the moment you go like deeper, and like take the תורה of the בעל שם טוב and open your heart to it, you realize ראש השנה is actually the day of more like, wow, okay, אימה ופחד, you know, wow, oh my God, you know. This year a little bit less because it was שבת, but generally, this like this פחד, this פחד, this this fear. And, yeah, moments of שמחה during דאווענען, שמחה לארצך, ויאתיו כל לעבדך. But, but ראש השנה is generally more like, oh my God, it's really, what's going to be? What's going to be? And this freaking out.
And then יום כיפור is like has become, ברוך השם, what what it really is, which is like, how good do you feel like when you see like, think about it, how good do you actually feel when your kitchen is clean? Like, how good do you feel like when you when your car is gets cleaned, right? Everyone's שמחה ערב פסח is just because the car got cleaned more than anything, right? That יום כיפור is this is this cleansing that is that is such a שמחה, but to understand, based on what we're going to see today, it's not only שמחה over cleansing. So here we I just want to say something before we see a piece here from רב שטיינזלץ that broke my heart open.
איזה מילים!
איזה מילים! I've shared with you so many times that I had the privilege of being neighbors with רב שטיינזלץ for a while, neighbors with his מכון שטיינזלץ when I was living in in the area, I don't know if it was it called נחלאות or שערי חסד, whatever, that area where מכון שטיינזלץ is, I think it's still there. And it was like I would see him you you lived there, you'd see him walking down this up and down the street with this pipe, blue shirt, just like By the way, remember the story I told you many times of רב שטיינזלץ about meeting him in the airport one time? I flew with him a few times.
And and that time that I met him at the airport and I reminded him who I was, I told him we have a a friend, a חבר, יש לי חבר, I have a close friend who's your one of your students. And he said, "Who?" I said the guy's name. And the guy is a psychologist. So he asked me, he looked at me like so seriously, he said, "אתה חבר או מטופל?" I said I said, "לא, לא, לא, חבר, חבר." And then he said, "הוא גם חושב ככה?" That was Anyway, no, I'm saying it again cuz that actually is the husband of like of my sister, my dear sister שרי, who's with us today, and that's like that that's why he was at your חופה, no? He did you did he did your חופה? Yeah, he was מסדר מסדר קידושין.
I'm curious to hear what you're going to say cuz I cuz he had a lot to say on יום כיפור.
ממש, like like יש אוצר, there really is a It's true. I had to choose between all these wonderful pieces on יום כיפור, and here there's something שלדעתי, פשוט חץ, it's just an arrow, it goes right to the פנימיות of this day. And I think that if we carry this with us into יום כיפור, our יום כיפור will be completely, completely different.
The most important thing to remember is that I want you to think right now about all the things you've worked on in life that you've accepted that it's just impossible. It's just it's not in my cards. It's just not in my cards. And some people have the זכות to figure certain things out, and there's certain things out that it's just not in the cards.
זה פשוט לא בשבילי. And I've come to a place working on my acceptance and saying, okay, I accept my מהלך in life.
זה פשוט משהו אחר. And there are places that we've gotten to where it's basically זה פשוט לא בשבילי בעולם הזה.
And there's validity to that, and sometimes in the world of mental health, people will try to force you to say this acceptance of those areas and then focusing on the good is the עבודה we have to do in this world. But there's one problem that we have is that תשובה קדמה לעולם. Which means, and I want you to listen to this with your heart, not with your mind, because you can't understand this. It's just that you have to accept this.
חזל tell us that תשובה came before, the concept of תשובה preceded the creation of the world. What does that mean למעשה? What was created within the context of this world? Time and space. Just saw last night רב Ginsburg taught, בראשית, what did השם do right in the beginning?
ברא אלוקים.
ברא אלוקים is גימטריא עולם וזמן.
Time and space were created once the world was created, but השם goes before the world, obviously. So the concept of time and space, that's within the form of creation. When we don't do תשובה over certain things that we say are too hard, it's means based on the time and the space that I have within me, אין לי את זה, I'm not going to make it happen. I can't make it happen.
But תשובה קדמה לעולם, which means those real things, the most essential things for my soul have no restrictions whatsoever, not due to time, space, any circumstance. It's soul work, it's נשמה work, it's beyond any limitation. And with with that in mind, you know, it puts some could say, well, that puts a lot more pressure on me, because now I realize certain the things I came to peace with that just have to be like this, I can't be in peace with them anymore, because I have to figure out certain things that I've already come to terms with that, ah, זה בסדר שזה ככה. But the real essential things that even though we've said a million times I've come to peace with and they keep on popping up, that's because, that's because it's waiting for one יום כיפור of connection like never before.
Now, this piece over here in front of us, most of the Hebrew is very simple, but don't get confused in the simplicity of its Hebrew. It's deeper beyond words. And the truth is, this is a type of piece of תורה that I דווקא say that it's an advantage for English speakers. Why? Because Hebrew speakers when they read, they think they understand because they read Hebrew, so they know what it says: אני מבין את המילים.
אבל זה מעבר למילים, it's much beyond, it's much deeper, it's much more beyond words. So this is probably the only time I'd say that it's great that none of you understand Hebrew. This is it's it's much more No, I'm kidding. Not none not none of you, but, you know, not none of you.
סליחה, סליחה. Now, I was in רעננה two nights ago, and I had a whole event there, and I started talking, you know, with my Hebrew-English, and then I I I stopped, I asked them, I said, I said, is it like אפרת here that you have to, you know, שתתרגם כל כל מילה, right? And they were like, it was like a young חברה. It was it was very interesting. It's a young חברה of Americans in the שול that I grew up in, and it was a very emotional night because it was the hall where I basically ran around as a kid.
And I'm sitting there like in a completely different experience.
רעננה in that regard with that חברה is kind of similar to here, but the other day I started giving שיעור between מנחה and מעריב and I I just decided start talking Hebrew. And it's going to be a year of a lot more Hebrew בעזרת השם in שול and the whole קהילה. There's so many Israeli חברה that are coming on שבת here, it's unbelievable.
All the youth, the kids, my children's friends, all these Israeli kids are coming every שבת. They're asking every week for another פעילות, it's so beautiful, it's so heartwarming. But for today, באמת, we're going to translate the words, but in order for us to understand the depth of what רב Steinsaltz was speaking about, I I I'm so happy everyone's here. I I think there's enough, but I don't know.
Let's let's pass these around. And even if you know if you do know Hebrew, I would advise not to read ahead. That happens a lot with us, just reading ahead.
יש פה מתנה basically, יש פה פשוט מתנה, that's how I feel.
There's a מתנה over here. Okay. I do feel I just have to say there's a big, big עת רצון. I feel like a there's a lot of shifts, there's a lot of openings happening in the world to do to do the type of תשובה that our souls are really longing to do.
How many of you saw what חנניה put out last night? Did you see what he put out last night? It's This this world of davenen, this new world of of people that are davenen without even realizing that they're davenen is מטהר את האויר. It's It's purifying the air of this whole country, and it's not coming from anywhere other than the עמך, than the people. I have a concert in in Tel Aviv. I have all this חבר'ה that are coming out of the woodwork saying, I've never imagined saying, "וואו, אנחנו באים, באים להתפלל איתך, באים פשוט." It's like there's something going on.
It's been it's been going like this for a while. What's that? You see it, so I'm דווקא saying not at the כותל. No, no, זה מדהים, but what I'm trying to point זה like it's דווקא at like, you know, concert halls and יש It's just It's a new דור, דור חדש לגמרי, the m- most beautiful דור that ever existed. Thank you מיכל.
Anyone Who else needs? All right, אחת השאלות, thank you, אחת השאלות החוזרות ונשנות, you know, very simple question, מדוע הנשמה ירדה לעולם? All of us that are sitting here, we're just, you know, all נשמות and our נשמות came down into this world. Why? La- Why Why did the soul even come down into this world?
הנשמה הרי טהורה היא גם קודם שירדה לעולם. Our souls, we all know, were very pure.
אלוקי נשמה שנתת בי טהורה היא.
Before we came into this world, לא מתקבל על הדעת שלאחר הירידה, לאחר כל ההשקעה, המאמץ, והסיכון, היא תחזור במקרה הטוב לאותה טהרה שכבר הייתה בה. We can't We can't afford to go with the notion of, "Yeah, the work we do in this world is that we stay away from as much danger as possible, stay as clean as we can, and then go back up להשיב את נשמתנו עד 120 in the hopefully to the pure state that it came down to the world with." Yeah, that that that that can't not be, the rebbe of Sanz says, the whole point. Maybe that's what we thought, like we're trying to do here, just like beware, be Make sure we stay clean, stay It It's got to be something more.
באותו עניין אמר צדיק אחד: אנשים סבורים שהאדם נברא כדי לתקן את הנשמה.
People A tzaddik once said, people are under the assumption man was created in order to fix their souls.
ולא כך.
המטרה שלשמה נברא האדם היא להרים את השמים. Our souls Don't worry, our souls are of תיקון הנשמות is a very hard concept to understand.
It's not our נשמות that need fixing. It's the world into which our souls descended into that needs fixing, להרים את השמים. There is a beautiful vort in Breslov. It says, השמים שמים לה'.
And then what is the What does it say in Tillim?
והארץ נתן לבני אדם. People say, "Okay, that was actually one of the reasons why there were halachic rulings against traveling to the to the Moon, right?
השמים שמים באמת, there is teshuvos on this.
השמים שמים לה', והארץ נתן לבני אדם. You worry about down here, right?
השמים, עזבו את עזבו את השמים.
עזבו את השמים." But in Breslov they say, "השמים שמים לה' והארץ נתן לבני אדם כדי להרים את השמים, right? What does it mean that the land, the Earth down here was given to us? It was in order to להרים את השמים. That's what this tzaddik is saying over here.
הנשמה לא ירדה לעולם הזה רק כדי לשוב כלאומת שבאה. We didn't just come down to this world to return hopefully as clean as the way we came down here, אלא כדי שתגיע לאחר הירידה למעלה גבוהה יותר ממה שהייתה קודם.
But rather to reach to a place after the descent to go even higher than we were before. To go Do you realize what he just said here? This This not simple stuff. He said here, actually, it's not just to להשיב את נשמתנו לבוראינו נקיים, it's to go back, whatever this means that, on our soul level, that we actually show ba- you know, we we we come back up to שמיים even more pristine and holy and pure than the way we came down here.
זה משהו מדהים.
It's like almost saying someone gives you a פיקדון to watch over. How do you say פיקדון? Deposit. And you're very proud that you took such good care of it and nothing bad happened to it. You feel good that you return it to its owner in good in in the state that it was in, like we had, whatever, we had we did a car swap this summer, right? And ברוך השם saved us so much money with these car swaps, a family visiting ביתר from America that lived in Toms River, Bina found online, we did a car swap.
So I felt so good that I thought that I returned it back in pristine, right, in great condition. What Rav Steinsaltz is saying over here, על דרך משל, the פנימיות עבודה is if I would have like changed his tires also, and done all this you know, inner like deep cleaning and new cushions, whatever, that that that's that's actually the עבודה. That that's what he's saying over here, על דרך משל, that's what he's saying over here. Third line from the bottom of the first paragraph: השאלה שאדם צריך לענות עליה בחייו אינה אפוא אם הוא השלים את המכסה שהיה צריך לעשות בחייו.
Did you have a tally? You had a count, you had a bunch of things on the list to do, you know?
אלא מה הוא עשה מעבר לזה. But what are you doing beyond that that you're just trying to make sure you're משלים?
מעבר למה שהוא צריך לעשות ואפילו מעבר למה שהוא יכול לעשות. Remember the commercial in the 80s, "Be all you can be. Join the Army." Remember that, I think that's what it was, join the American Army, right? "Be all you can be." It's a גויישה concept.
That's not a Jewish concept. "Be all you can be" is a non-Jewish concept. Reach your potential, מה פתאום, אנחנו מעבר לפוטנציאל. Our whole ענין is be much more than what you think you could be.
Now, we would all love to do that, right? Well, there there's there's one day a year, there's one holy day of the whole year where it's so tangible, it's so in the air. Why? Because השם decided it to be so. There's a פסוק, it says, ימים יוצרו ולא אחד בהם.
השם created all the days, but there's one day that's just השם's day, that's יום כיפור.
It's the day of way beyond just reaching our potential. You know potential is every day of the year, סלח לנו אבינו כי חטאנו, תשובה. I was saying this yesterday also, you know, all year long we have to do תשובה whatever. I remember we always said they had this one friend in high school, he was such a שובב, this guy.
Such a sweet, but the the guy that was the first one to do things that no one else dared to do, show you things you wished you never saw, that kind of guy. But he knew better and people were like, תגיד לי, אתה משוגע?
לא לא לא, עזוב אחי, אלול, אלול, יש אלול.
כאילו he's like leaving it for אלול, right? That that, right?
מה פתאום, every day is סלח לנו אבינו כי חטאנו. That's on the level of חכמה.
Every day of the year.
בינה is גימטריא, anyone remember?
אלול. בני יששכר says, בינה is the גימטריא of אלול. That means that in אלול I'm doing תשובה not just for the עבירות, I'm doing it from and from a much deeper place.
So what's עשרת ימי תשובה culminating in יום כיפור? What's after חכמה and בינה?
וידעת את השם, דעת. That I actually know what we're about to learn today, that I have דעת. In the תורה the first time דעת is mentioned is intimacy: והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו. That it means to be intimate, some intimate, a closeness that is much deeper than the תשובה that we refer to about עבירות and חטאים וכולי, משהו אחר לגמרי.
Second paragraph: להשיב את הנשמה היא עבודת התשובה בהיקף הגדול שלה. So on the bigger picture, yeah, returning my soul is the work of תשובה in its greater context.
אדם ירד והוא צריך לשוב.
אבל השאלה היא, לאן? So where am I returning?
האם למקום שהיה בו, לתקן את הטעות, תיקון ולהמשיך מאותה נקודה, או מעבר לכך? Is what I'm busy doing in this world to just fix what I did wrong and then go back up or to go beyond it?
לחזור אל העבר ולמלא גם מה שלא היה בו, to go back to the past and to fill all the things that weren't in my past, לחזור ולהרים גם את העבר בעצמו למעלה מכפי שהיה אי פעם.
תשובה means it's not just about the future, obviously it is about the past, but it's going back to my experience in this world and to lift up my past to the places that it that that that that it weren't. Now, this you need a little bit of like ממש מוחין דגדלות. And I don't mean to depress anybody right now, but for the last year of תשפ״ו I want you to go back and try to think about moments of emptiness, moments of pain and emptiness, but you came to a place of אני משלים משלים עם זה. It was what it was.
No, no, no.
תשובה is beyond time and space. That means I can travel back in time with the right כוונה of תשובה, and lift up my whole year, all those empty moments, all those places that I thought were פארפאלן, good word?
פארפאלן, and to fill it, fill the whole past year, ולהרים אותו לשמים. It's amazing.
ראש השנה, it seems like that would have been a better day to do this, right? But we're being we're going beyond time and space, יום כיפור is the real ending of this of this experience. Yeah, Mindy. Sorry, this is a שאלה of מוחין דקטנות. Is it enough for us to just be aware of this? I didn't hear what you just asked me.
No. I mean, great, it's not שירת דוד. I mean, you could go to plenty of שיעורים that it'd be plenty. This is not what's going on over here.
You know that, come on. You know that.
אני מסרב להאמין שאת לא יודעת את זה. You know that.
I'm looking for an excuse. Exactly, and it's not ain't happening in here, no. Now, Rav Steinsaltz says like this: This verse, this this phrase, להרים את השמים, האמירה להרים את השמים קשורה איפה?
לדרגה הגבוהה ביותר של התשובה. You know what, Mindy? You'll go to גן עדן even with what you just said.
But you wouldn't be lifting up the שמים. You wouldn't be lifting up the שמים.
שאדם מתקן Now look what he says here, Rav Steinsaltz, so מדויק: שאדם מתקן לא רק את העבירות שעשה, אלא גם את המצוות שעשה, ומעבר לכך, אף את המצוות שהוא לא עשה. What did he just So, Daniella, we're we're okay so far, yeah?
יפה, תודה.
אני, אני מאוד Ah, I know. You'll tell me later. I know, I know, I know. We'll set up an appointment later.
But this נקודה that Rav Steinsaltz is saying is that תשובה בהיקף הגדול שלה, it means two things. It means that all the מצוות I did, all the learning that I did, can I ever walk out of doing a מצוה and say עשיתי את זה ממש כהלכתה? I could say that הלכתית, 100%. But on the level of נשמה, of soul, it could have always been more. More.
So Rav Steinsaltz says that is where we're heading towards with יום כיפורים, we'll see in a second. To go back to all the times I came to shul and I davened, and to be like: No, no, no, I want to take those things, they had wings, but they weren't flying, and I want to take those תפילות. And all the moments Now go back to all the tears you shed this last year over the insanity we've been through, all the moments of of such connection, ולחשוב that it could have been even higher and deeper and more מכוון. That's what תשובה is doing.
It's going back not just to say עבירות. That was אלול. That was אלול.
עשרת ימי תשובה, we were learning yesterday from the Rebbe, עשרת ימי תשובה זה לא קשור לזה בכלל.
And especially יום כיפור is not about the עבירות, so you should be asking me a question right now. If יום כיפור is not about עבירות, then what's the obvious question? Then why am I talking about עבירות all יום כיפור? Reb Shlomo had the best explanation for this. He said that whenever I say ועל חטא שחטאנו לפניך בטפשות פה, for instance, for the for like stupidity that came out of my mouth, I say I say like this, I say even with the ניגון: Last year so much שטויות came out of my mouth, you're not going to believe the new mouth that I'm now offering to you. That's why we say these things, because it's acknowledging and saying you're not going to believe the new mouth that's coming into the world.
That's the reason why we say these things. But Rav Steinsaltz is saying, I do I lift up the moments that I thought I did good, and also, and this is a a dagger, אף את המצוות שהוא לא עשה, and all those opportunities I had to do something, and I didn't. So I didn't do an עבירה, but I didn't have the opportunity to do a מצוה. I'm actually taking those moments and lifting them up as well.
אני, אני משלים את כל הבריאה שלי. I'm completing my whole experience of being in this world. The stuff I did good that could have been better, and the moments I didn't jump on opportunities because I thought to myself fear of fear of failure, fear of disappointment, I'm too busy, whatever the reasons are, whatever the reasons are, זה לא משנה. With this type of a headspace, אנחנו, אנחנו מרימים את השמים.
This is how you lift up the heavens.
אותה שאלה נשאלת גם באופן אחר. Been asked the same thing differently. What's the highest level of like that feeling of כפרה? Like, I remember one year after יום כיפור, my old neighbor, he doesn't live here anymore, where the אבינרs live now, so the the previous owners was אריאל אפרת, אריאל and חנה גילי אפרת.
And אריאל, I saw him walking home one time after after נעילה, and he was walking home very slowly. Like very, looked very כאילו בפלא. I said to him, "מה מה קורה?" He's like, "שמפו, אחי. Conditioner.
I feel like it's just שמפו, condition- like" He kept on saying that, "שמפו." Like I'll never I'll never forget it. Like the shamp- it's like they're dripping off already. What's the highest הדרגה העליונה של הכפרה? Like what what would you say, if I told you, what would make you feel most forgiven? What would make you feel most forgiven? So each person has their own imagery of what that is, לא יודע מה זה. What? Someone say something? Red to white.
Red to That's pretty deep. Yes, red to white, נכון. But but now go מוחין דקטנות. That's מוחין דגדלות.
Go מוחין דקטנות for a second. Like what would make you feel באמת? What kind of, don't you don't have to answer me, like the saying that the imagery that you have where you could say about this imagery, "זה כפרה. This this makes me feel forgiven." And if you've ever experienced it with people that you hurt, and you ask them for מחילה, so they do the proper thing, and they ignore you all year long, but then you ask them again עשרת ימי תשובה, and they do the proper thing, so they say, "I forgive you." Do you feel How good do you actually feel? You feel frum good. You don't feel you know, you feel frum good.
You don't you don't you don't really feel good, because what are you dying to reach? Like what would you what would you be חלשing to reach? Two things: one, that it never happened; but ב, which the רמב״ם says happens with תשובה מאהבה, שזדונות נעשו לו כזכויות; but ב, you want the person to know that in your heart of hearts you are broken that you made them feel bad on whatever the whatever the reason was. That's what you really, really want. That's what that's your desire. So what's this ענין over here? What's the כפרה?
אותה שאלה נשאלה גם באופן אחר.
הדרגה העליונה של הכפרה, הוא כמו שכתוב, it's brought down in ישעיה הנביא, in פרק מ״ד, "מחיתי כעב פשעיך וכענן חטאותיך," השם says. What does that, "מחיתי כעב פשעיך"? I I erased your פשעים כעב. What's עב? Thick thickness of a cloud.
"וכענן חטאותיך," and your sins like a cloud.
Thick cloud, עב and ענן. I I erased them, and the imagery the נביא uses here is all about clouds.
הדימוי הוא, the imagery is, היו עננים בשמים, there were clouds in the sky. Like מאיר עליו השלום screams, "גשם כי צריך לשטוף את הכל," right? Cuz you have to We need we need rain cuz צריכים לשטוף את הכל.
We spent so much time this last summer upstate New York with with, I never experienced this before, as a kid that grew up in LA and in רעננה, with July and August downpours. I never Everyone else was like, "Ah." I'm like, "Oh, my god, this is so crazy. This is nuts." And everyone's like, "Man, it's whatever. Like where's your rain gear?", you know.
Honestly, it didn't feel like anything was being cleansed with through that kind of water at all. But there's an imagery we have of like גשם כי כי צריך לשטוף את הכל. So he says here, היו עננים בשמים, there was there were there were clouds in the sky, עברה רוח ופיזרה את העננים. Then a wind comes, and suddenly מפזרת, it spreads away, it sends away, there's no more עננים, ולא נשאר סימן שהיה שם משהו.
And there's not even a remnant that there was something there. They say when I was I remember this because of this זמן, when we used to go to Melbourne for ראש השנה and יום כיפור, there's four seasons there every single day.
ממש, there's you could have you could go through all four seasons every day. That was the experience there.
Maybe it was the time that I was there, I don't know. But but the רב שטיינזלץ is saying that's the דימוי. There were clouds, and you knew with all your heart and soul there were cloud there were there are clouds here. Now something happens: רוח.
A new רוח comes, and that thing which you could have sworn was right there is just as clear to you that it's actually not here right now.
זה כבר לא שמה. With our תשובה, let's face it. How often do we have that relationship with תשובה? We do תשובה, we feel better about ourselves, and good, and יאללה.
But האמת היא הרי אנחנו קצת כמו זנב יותר מראש. We're a bit more like a tail than a head. So this is what he's saying over here, that's the דימוי. There is nothing there anymore.
לא נשאר סימן שהיה שם משהו. Rav Steinsaltz says זו היא הכפרה השלמה. This is This is the complete כפרה, that there's nothing there. Between people, there was hurt.
Now, we we've said many times, husband and wife everyone should have שלום בית בעזרת השם, but husband and wife, I'm told it happens that there's arguments and difficulties and all these, right? So then there's the forgiveness, and it feels געוואלד when there's enough courage to really be, if you know, forgiven. And it really You really are forgiven, and you're back to like You're back to like where you were before פחות או יותר, right? But it it it can't be that the point of the of the friction between you was just to be able to get back to the same place that you were before, because the place you were before wasn't strong enough to prevent what you went through. So what does it have to be?
יש כאן יותר מזה. It has to be more.
It has to now be more than what it was before. What was before wasn't enough, because it led to whatever בלאגן took place. Now it has to be much deeper. It has to be something higher.
We're We're addressing obviously how he started this piece over here.
כאשר, in the middle of the third paragraph, כאשר זו היא הכפרה השלמה.
כאשר הדבר מסתלק מתוך המציאות באופן שלא נשאר אפילו רושם שהיה שם. So that's the one level, that there's nothing anymore in the air from what was before.
ואולם מעבר לניקיון החטאים והפשעים שאדם עשה, נותרו המעשים שהוא לא עשה, הקטעים, הרגעים שלא היו במציאות. But what about all those moments that weren't taken advantage of when something beautiful could have come to the world? When some, you know, I I was listening to the podcast of a my my favorite singer-songwriter, this guy, a living guy that I've I I whatever, I don't have to mention his name, but he he thinks he's not a ייד, and he has an earring with a cross. Like, he really does think he's not a ייד. But when I contacted him once to tell him, "Man, you are doing wild things to me." So he's he saw my name, he's like, "Oh, wow!" This guy's from from from Louisiana, or Louisville, Kentucky.
Like total, total like, you know, I'm not going to say the word, like, you know, southerner, right? Like that thick, heavy Southern accent, he sounds like Neil Young, the whole thing, right? So he said, "Oh, wow! My grandpa was כהנים." That's what he said to me, I'm not kidding. Did I tell you this? He said to me, "My grandpa was כהנים." And now I'm like on this journey with him, I'm like, you know, let's I'm trying to like tread very slowly. "Okay, from what side?" You know, from this געוואלד. So I was listening to a podcast from one of these long drives on Route 17 over the summer.
Is that what it's called? Route 17 back down, Route 17. And he said that what got him to really get into his groove is that his mentor told him, "Never let a day pass where a song couldn't have been written." משהו כזה. Never Never let a day pass without that that where where a song could have been written. What a deep line, you know? Stuck with me.
That's what להבדיל, but not להבדיל, everything's אלוקות. This is I think what Rav Steinsaltz is saying, the next level of תשובה after, "Hey, that bad stuff, those עננים, מחיתי כעב פשעיך וכענן חטאותיך." By the way, what does how does the פסוק continue, does anyone know?
מחיתי כענן פשעיך מחיתי כעב פשעיך וכענן חטאותיך, שובה אלי כי גאלתיך. Now. Now שובה אלי.
Like, מה שובה אלי? I did תשובה! No, no, no, no. Now it's when it starts. Why?
כי גאלתיך, I redeemed you from this exile type of thinking that תשובה is only about עבירות. You're done with that.
You're done with that גלות mindset.
תשובה is so much deeper, קדמה לעולם. Now, let's go back to all the moments where I could have written the best ניגון, and for whatever reason, that day I didn't pick up the guitar. That's, let's say, in my case, but in every other person's situation, you have it in your world.
Everyone has it in their world. Instead of getting depressed about it, get excited about the fact that you could lift up all the days from the past. That's called להרים את השנים.
האם ניתן למלא את החלל הריק של העבר? Can you actually fill the empty space of the past?
האם באמת ניתן להוסיף יותר ממה שהיה? Can you actually add on to what was, which he calls לעשות נגד חוקי הפיזיקה, it's going against physics, ולהוציא יותר ממה שנמצא בתוך המערכת, and to extract more than actually existed in the— I don't know I don't know how to translate מערכת in this context.
מערכת means, basically, in your your bag, you know? System. System. Yeah.
לא יודע בדיוק.
I'm I'm hesitant to say system. In your world. In In your world. In your world.
בתוך המערכת, in your world. Is that— 'cause 'cause he's saying physics, according to the laws of physics, it it is what it is, it wasn't what it wasn't. Now, let's hopefully there'll be something, לא יודע, משהו אחר. So, what did we say about תשובה? When was תשובה created? Before the world.
Before the world. When were physics created?
אחר כך. Within the creation of the world. That physics, laws of physics, were created in the words ברא אלקים.
The גימטריא, remember?
זמן ועולם. Physics and laws of nature, the way that we understand them, that's already after creation. Based on the laws of physics, you can't go back to what was and extract something that didn't exist.
אבל תשובה קדמה לעולם.
תשובה came before the world and the confines of time were created.
אכן, and this is how רב שטיינזלץ explains this, אכן, בתוך עולם סופי ומוגדר, in a very finite world, a definitive world, a world that has גבולות, כמו העולם הטבעי שלנו, like our natural world, אין לזה תשובה. It's true, you can't.
ואולם, you know, there's one moment I should I I'd have to say this, there's one time in the אלטער רבי, in the תניא, that whenever we learn it every year, it really It can get men very, very depressed.
Very depressed. Not women. Why? 'Cause women are not חייבות במצוות עשה שהזמן גרמא. Women are not obligated in time-bound מצוות.
Men are. The אלטער רבי kind of says that when you miss a קריאת שמע בזמן or davening בזמן, you basically bastardize the moment. Why? 'Cause that time is never going to You lost that time. And you're חייב in a time-bound מצוה.
It's like you created a חלל that is, you know, like a— and he says that, like a like a bastard when it's born. Like that מציאות is like it It is what It's here. Imagine a parent wants to do תשובה over bringing a bastard into the world. Sorry for talking so vulgar, but just think about it.
How do you do תשובה over creating a ממזר? Right? That מציאות is a מציאות in the world, right? A physical מציאות. I'm not going to answer that question, but the question that I said I told you can depress a lot of men is here is that you can go back in time with the שובה אלי כי גאלתיך, this type of תשובה, and lift up everything you did from the past. Let's say I davened later. Okay, you davened later, but what about what happened to that זמן that was missed? That's on a very like, you know, halachic level, but it it's about everything.
And in our world, אין לזה תשובה. Like he says, אכן בתוך עולם סופי ומוגדר, כמו העולם הטבעי שלנו, אין לזה תשובה. By the way, this is very important for in parenting. One time, a woman came and and and and she said, well, she she used a word generally not used in the, you know, nice four-letter word, and she said that, "I basically fucked my children every day since they're like two." And I'm I've just come to accept that that's that's what they needed, and I'm I I just wanted a ברכה that it's okay and to go to go on, to go forward, right? "I ממש messed up my kids from a young age." So, how does תשובה work in that department? This type of תשובה, of lifting up the past, right?
זה לא העניין שלה.
Your עניין is your own thing. In the world, your children, us as children, had to go through whatever we had to go through to figure out our own געשעפט, our own thing. Remember אלול, the ראשי תיבות that we started off the year with were: אמול את עצמך ולא לאחרים. You you work on you.
Don't try to fix possibly things you did to other like long-term things you did to other people, that's that's that's not what we're speaking about. In your own world, you could להרים את השמים. You know what happens when you lift up the שמים in your own world? There are other people in your world, too. They get they feel it.
They feel it. It's contagious. It's absolutely contagious.
ואולם בתוך התקשרות מסוימת עם האינסוף, when we are now we have some kind of a connection to the אינסוף, which means not finite, infinite, to the non not boundaries, right?
היכן שהגבולות של הזמן והמקום והנשמה אינם רלוונטיים יותר, where time and space and the soul figuring out in the context of time and space, they're not relevant anymore, משם ניתן לשוב לא רק על מה שהאדם עשה, אלא גם על מה שלא עשה.
It's in that place that I could actually return to השם.
שובה אלי כי גאלתיך. How many of us walk around not necessarily with guilt over עבירות, but feel horrible about the opportunities we didn't take in life?
שטיינזלץ says you got to do תשובה over that. So, some would say, "Okay, so what does that mean to do תשובה over lost opportunities?" So, you're already thinking about the future, "Okay, the next time something comes my way, I'm going to grab on to it and I'm going to do it." "No," he's saying.
Real תשובה is beyond time and space. Who knows what the future will be holding?
תשובה lifting lifts up everything in the ארץ that was.
והארץ נתן לבני אדם לעשות מהארץ שמים, to lift it up. You know, it's what we're speaking about is the tension between a Western society and that mindset, and an Eastern one.
The Western concept of of success is not really the way that we we understand the concepts of success. The deepest success a person can have in this world is to live moments of שלמות, moments of completion, moments of of like we said, when did we say this?
כלום חסר בבית המלך. We said it last week, right? Before ראש השנה.
כלום חסר בבית המלך, nothing's lacking in the house of the king.
Nothing means nothing. And nothing also means that I don't want to keep on living a life where I feel that I'm reminded all the time about lost opportunities that I didn't embark on, for whatever the reasons were, because that's a horrible, horrible way to go about my life. Horrible. Ah, man, when I was 21, when I was 18, when I was 30, when I was 60, I could have done that, right? And we're like, "Okay, בסדר, it wasn't meant to be." But sometimes we can't ignore it.
It's like it eats at us all the time. "Man, I could have done that, I could have done that." So, you're still thinking in terms of career when I say words like this. I'm speaking about soul. I could have done that spiritually, I could have engaged in that at that moment, I could have grown in that area.
That's what it means to lift up the past and come to a day of שלמות, I've lifted up everything.
שובה אלי כי גאלתיך.
השם just says all the doors are open to the ארמון.
המלך is not in the שדה anymore, He's in the palace, and the doors are wide open, but they are about to be locked again.
When?
נעילה, the locking! And that the whole יום כיפור is a growth towards that moment of yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, now I'm I'm I'm I'm actually שובה אלי כי גאלתיך. Now, שובה אלי כי גאלתיך.
השם גאלתיך means I redeemed you already from these thoughts.
גאלתיך! כבר גאלתי אותך! I I already took you out of that מוחין דקטנות in your life.
You've you've you've already reached a place where you did all the תשובה of אלול to the best of your ability, you you you brought in the new year with התחדשות, with אומץ הלב, like we said, ספרם של צדיקים אמיצים. You're already in all that already. Now, שובה אלי כי גאלתיך. Let's go and fly to the heavens.
Don't worry. I know many of you are thinking, "But how am I going to come back down into the world? How could I relate to people afterwards?" רב קוק, רב קוק helps us figure out how to descend the ladder. through the פנימיות of the days between יום כיפור and סוכות, especially when there's a שבת in it this year, but not like this year. But רב קוק will help us.
If we have the opportunity to learn, he'll help us figure it out, how to then come back down this this this very, very high world. This very high place. But I don't think you realize that if you daven here, and you daven the amount of hours, and with the amount of kishkas that you're davening here, you are already in the ring, whether you like it or not. You're there already.
You may not understand what's going on; your soul does. It's already there.
ככה אנחנו צריכים לכבוש את כל הארץ הזאת. We have to conquer the whole world.
We have to conquer the whole land with this elevated state of consciousness. It's not just for certain people. If everyone's a soul, it's for everyone. To actually release people from the shackles they think that they're off of them, but they schlep with them for years.
There are people in their 70s that schlep on them the lost opportunity shackle onto their experience of today for 40, 50, 60 years.
ממש. ממש. Of course, people that are younger are in it right now, בסדר.
But this could this happens all the time.
יום כיפור is such a gift cuz it's giving you the invitation to really, really let go of those things. And to feel that it's going to be okay. Not only is it going to be okay, if I keep on holding onto it, פספסתי את כל הנקודה.
I lost I I I completely missed the point of what it's about. Bottom. We're going to end now.
וזו המשמעות, third from bottom line, לפני השם תטהרו.
Which is what we say over and over again. Right before Standing before השם, תטהרו. That is when the, like the shampoo really goes into effect.
תטהרו.
You're pure, you're cleansed. You all know better than any man will know about דיני חציצה regarding טבילה in a מקוה. This is you have to have that that concept with יום כיפור. It's like you're either if if you want it to be טהור, the all of you has to be in it.
אין חציצות. There's no If it's If there's חציצה, you may feel good about yourself, you engaged in a מצוה, but it really wasn't fulfilled properly. Now we're talking about the מצוה of תשובה. The מצוה of תשובה has to be completely all in.
But the way that we're saying it is not like a demanding מוסר דרשה: you have to decide that you are going to stop doing the עבירות this coming year to be all in. That's not what we're talking about. I have shocking news. By י״ג תשרי By י״א תשרי this year, you will do an עבירה.
Maybe even מוצאי י׳, you'll be doing an עבירה. I'm I'm willing to put money on it. And I all think you're נשים צדקניות, you understand?
השם knows what he did, what he השם understands and knows that he put us in עולם הזה, but he gave us one day to not be in עולם הזה. That's the point I'm trying to say.
He gave us one day to just go for it and to not be in this world. The way השם designed it is that our נשמות in a body still have to deal with this world, besides one day. That's why there's no eating, that's why there's no drinking, that's why there's no things that are really have to do with the way that that that normal humanity functions. It's so hard, parenting.
Hm? I'm trying to understand how we're supposed to engross in this state fully, and half of us are at home with our kids. You have to find, you have to find a few hours that you're not parenting on יום כיפור. I'd say 15 minutes is more realistic.
אחותי, whatever you need, okay?
באמת אני אומר עכשיו.
A minute, an hour, I don't care. You have to take advantage of מגיע לך, and your צדיק of a husband will be more than happy to give you more than a minute. We all know, my rebbe.
את יודעת את זה.
Yes. You have to take advantage of it. No תירוצים. To the extent that you're able to, even if it's for one hour.
Because it's beyond time and space. The time You know what it is?
חז״ל say that יום כיפור, עיצומו של יום מכפר. The actual existence of the day is what brings the כפרה. For our עולם הזה experience, we need time and more time.
But בעזרת השם, what you need to taste this is granted to you already. You'll figure it out. You'll figure it out.
לפני השם תטהרו.
להגיע לפני ולמעלה, להגיע לפני ולמעלה מכל הגדרות העולם, להשיק להווית האין סוף. You know, these words are so poetic.
להשיק להווית האין סוף. Miriam, how would you say that in English? Come on, להשיק להווית האין סוף.
I know that you I know that you you could probably figure it out. It's it's beyond words, you're saying? Well, obviously להשיק, you know, can mean, it's interesting, להשיק, like מישהו משיק, you could use it very עולם הזה-y, like a השקת אלבום בכורה, you know, like a like more like a presenting, you know, ah? It's not, it doesn't mean that. You know, in a מקווה, in a מקווה, did you ever notice, every מקווה there's two בורות. You know that, right? And what's it called, the other בור? It's called בור השקה.
That the that כאילו the Yeah, but it's מלשון נשיקה. That's what it really is, ah? Much deeper. It's a What did you say? Did you say something? Ah? It's it's like ממש like, but kissing what?
הווית האין סוף. You're kissing the experience of touching infinity.
These are his words, להשיק להווית האין סוף. You ever feel that at a concert? You ever feel at a concert sometimes?
להשיק I have to tell you something very strange. I never went to this concert, I didn't even know the song that I was watching. But a few nights ago, there was a concert, I assume it was in בנייני האומה.
Ah?
עקיבא. Yeah, I only We're friends, מחילה, I only know like one of one of his songs, one or two of his songs. It's not on the playlist of the house yet, although his sister became one of my daughter's rebbes, she went to her concert this week, רוחמה בן יוסף. But עקיבא did a concert with one of my childhood like one of the big dudes when I was a kid, שלומי שבת.
Okay, שלומי שבת, how many of you have heard of שלומי שבת in the room? Yeah, a bunch of you. Old school.
שלומי שבת, his sister is a big rebbe too, לאה שבת. Her I'm friendly with a little bit.
שלומי שבת, actually, a few months ago, on a late, late Thursday night, it was like 1:00 in the morning, חנן schlepped me to this basement in בית שמש. I walk, he's like, בוא, בוא, יש פה חבר'ה, יש פה יש פה משהו מיוחד מאוד. So like, you know what, if he says so, I'll trust him. I've schlepped him to places too.
More like meeting רב ויינברגר and רב גינזבורג and stuff like that, but like, okay, אני אלך איתו. I walk into this room, and it's the coolest, I don't even know how to describe it, I have some footage of it. And איתן was my brother was in the country then, he had a concert in מודיעין area, and I told him, דבר איתי אחרי ההופעה, maybe we'll get together, and I schlepped him to there too when I walk after I walked into this room. I walk into this room, and I'm like, oh my God, that's שלומי שבת! He's sitting right over here! It was like 10 people! And then I turned to my left, I'm like, oh my God, my daughters are going to go crazy, was בנצי was sitting here.
It was this חבורה of like like who like the coolest dudes in the תעשייה today, right? And יעקב אסרף is there, a bunch of this חבר'ה, and the most beautiful בעל הבית! Wow, this guy was Breslover, him and his brother, they פשוט פתחו שולחן. I guess they do it often, this בית שמש חבר'ה. I started realizing I've met a lot of the people over the years, and שלומי שבת was sitting there, and I איך התרגשתי, because I'm still thinking about like Eurovision 1990, I have שלומי שבת in front of me, the imagery. So these are people that are this ממש inside deep נשמת עם ישראל right now.
This footage that I saw was a moment of them singing a song that I didn't I don't even realize it was שלומי שבת's, but the chorus, you get to the end of it, and the crowd is getting more and more into it, and suddenly they get to the place אין עוד מלבדו is the chorus. I don't I don't know how it goes even. But basically, you reach a place, it's like it grow then, and then you like אין עוד מלבדו. And you see שלומי שבת, he stopped singing, he was biting his his lip.
Just holding back, you saw his face turn like Started crying. Like to me, להשיק להוויית האינסוף, we have moments like that throughout the year, but here, he's saying, is what יום כיפור is all about. It's like up, up, up there, and then אין עוד מלבדו.
כי משם אפשר להשלים את הכל.
It's from that place of tasting, of touching, of kissing the experience of אינסוף, אין עוד מלבדו. From there, אפשר להשלים את הכל, כל מה שחסר ויותר מזאת. All that's lacking, and even more than that. So I want to give us a ברכה מעומק עומק הלב to go over this piece before יום כיפור so we have a chance of understanding what on earth Rav Steinsaltz just did to us.
I don't If any of you walk out of here thinking you understand what what we just learned, sorry, you're משוגענר.
זה לא It doesn't work like this. You have to do חזרה over this. You have to go over it again.
You have to listen to even if it's on 1.5, it doesn't matter. You have to take this this piece of תורה with you, take it with you into your מחזור. Maybe this maybe this is your מחזור for יום כיפור, I don't know. Many people are totally done with them, but they can't they can't find their way in it, and yet they're חלשינג for a new מחזור.
הלוואי we should be we should have a חלק in in all the new light that's coming down and not look back, and באמת continue the ברכה of ראש השנה, שנהיה לראש ולא לזנב, to be on the head of places and and hear the words and believe them: מחיתי כעב פשעיך וכענן חטאותיך. It's true. I did תשובה, all the עבירות, they were removed. But now, שובה אלי כי גאלתיך, now I'm going to lift up to the heavens, בעזרת השם.