The day of Yom Kippur, literally "The Day of Forgiveness" is the holiest day of the year. It is the day that the High Priest used to enter the Holy of Holies and G-d makes it easy for everyone to doT'Shuva i.e. 'Return' to Him.
Tshuva, unlike repentance which can only fix up the future, can 'return' and rectify the past, or, in the language of the Talmud; "Transforms sins into Merits."
This happens because on Yom Kippur EVERY Jew feels the 'Holy of Holies' which is pure G-dliness where past present and future are one, and can transform even a bad past to a good one.
Here are three stories that will help illustrate this concept.
1) Once there were two Jews that had a very heated argument over the boundary separating their adjoining properties. They came to Rabbi Chaimof Velozin, one of the foremost Torah experts of all time, to decide their case. The Rabbi managed to calm them down enough to hear what they were arguing about and then insisted that they continue the case at the actual site of the land in question.
A half hour later they were standing on the disputed territory and the Rabbi gave each of them permission to state his case and warned the other to maintain silence until he was finished. When each had emotionally made his claim the Rabbi thought for a minute as though he was digesting the two arguments and then removed his hat, put a kerchief on the ground, got down on his knees on the cloth and put his ear to the earth.
The two litigants looked at him in bewilderment as he listened intently for a minute to some subterranean message then rose and brushed himself off.
"Good!" The Rabbi announced and noticing the questioning look on their faces explained. "I heard both of your claims but I wanted to hear what the land had to say." Each one thought that perhaps the Rabbi was blessed with some sort of extra-sensory perception till the Rabbi interrupted their thoughts.
He turned to one and said "You say the land belongs to you" then turned to the other, "and you say the land belongs to you. But the land said also said something. It said that in another 30 or 40 years BOTH of you will belong to it! Now, are you still interested in acting like egotists?"
The Rabbi had put things in proper perspective; reminding them of a bigger reality and puncturing their egotism. They looked sheepishly at one another, shook hands and made a compromise.
2) The second story is about the sixth Rebbe of Chabad; Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak. When he was a young man his parents were looking for a suitable bride for him and it wasn't easy. Who didn't want such a gifted, holy, kind, important Jew for a son-in-law? Offers poured in from all corners of Russia and Europe.
Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak's grandmother Rabbanit Rivka (who had been the wife of the fourth Chabad Rebbe, Rebbe Shmuel) was a practical woman. She wanted that the bride, in addition to being righteous, positive, caring, etc. should also have money. She wanted a wealthy family and there were a lot of them that were offering their daughter's hand in marriage. She knew what a bad situation her son, the Fifth Rebbe; Rebbe Shalom Ber , was in financially, often on the brink of starvation, and she simply wanted her grandson to be free of such bothersome, unnecessary suffering in order to be free to help others.
But her son, Yosef Yizchak's father the Rebbe Rashab (Shalom Dov Ber) and his wife, Yosef Yitzchak's mother, favored a girl who had all the good qualities his grandmother wanted...except money.
So they all went to the prospective groom and asked his opinion and he sided with his parents over his grandmother. The match was made and he became engaged to his future wife Nechama Dina.
But Yosef Yitzchak's father, Rebbe Dovber, felt guilty that he and everyone else had gone against the wishes Rabbainit Rivka and at the first opportunity, which was a few hours before Yom Kippur that year, he asked her forgiveness.
She answered by saying she wanted to tell him a story. They sat down and she said:
'Once there was a Jew who lived in a small town and had a large family. As Yom Kippur approached he decided that rather than spending the holiest day in the year in their small town with its tiny synagogue they would all travel to the nearest large city, some four hours drive away, and spend holiday with relatives in the large synagogue with hundreds of other Jews.
The plan was that they would leave for their destination early in the morning ten hours before Yom Kippur so as to arrive well before the holiday (Jewish holidays always begin at sunset) but things didn't go as planned. He woke early and was ready to go at eight in the morning but his family got bogged down and an hour later they still were not even dressed. So he exasperatedly announced that he would set off before them with his carriage and they would catch up to him in another carriage figuring that this would speed them up.
He drove slowly for about two hours and when he saw that they still hadn't caught up to him he pulled over to the side of the road under the shade of a tree to wait for them and closed his eyes to rest until they came.
But, unfortunately, his family became so involved with packing, preparing, getting arranged in the carriage and traveling that they completely forgot about their father's plans, took another road and arrived in the city without him.
Hours later he woke up to see that he had slept way to long! The sun was just over the trees and in less than an hour it would be dark! It is forbidden to travel on Yom Kippur and he had neither enough time to make to the city or to return home. He would have to spend the holy day alone in the woods! His family had abandoned him.
So he raised his hands to heaven and said, "G-d Almighty! My children have forgotten me! They've left me alone! But, you know what G-d? I forgive them completely! Now I want You to do the same thing: even though your children, the Jews, have forgotten you and even abandoned you… forgive them with a complete heart as I have forgiven my children."
Rabbanite Rivka smiled and said, "Nu? In just a few hours will be Yom Kippur. May it only be that G-d forgives His people for not listening to Him with such a complete heart as I forgive you for not listening to me!"
She transformed 'Sins' to 'merits' for all the Jews.
3) Finally a story about Rabbi Mendel Futerfass who spent some ten years of his life in exile in Siberia at hard labor for the crime of 'Jewish' activities.
He said that one freezing, snowy winter day he happened to be in the house of an old gentile. How he got there and what he was doing there he didn't explain. But what interests us is that this old fellow took care of his ten year old granddaughter while her parents were in the town working for weeks at a time and it just so happened that the day Rabbi Mendel was there the girl was late in arriving home. She had gone out on some errand and simply didn't come back when she said she would.
The old man was worried but what could he do? His age and the below-zero weather prevented him from making a thorough search for her outside and, on the other hand, he hoped that perhaps she just was occupied in something and would arrive any moment. But she didn't.
Now this old fellow had a large dog that lived in a dog house in his front yard and suddenly it scratched at the door, barked for a few seconds and then ran away. But the old peasant was occupied with worrying about his granddaughter so he did not give the animal much thought. Then the next time it happened he figured maybe it was hungry so he put out some food. But when the dog repeated the same thing three or four times; barking for a few seconds then running away, the old man decided he would put on a coat and follow it. So the next time the dog came he and Rav Mendel had their coats on and as soon as it ran away they were hot on its trail running after it. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later they almost tripped over the girl, fallen unconscious in the snow.
They brought her back to the house, warmed her up and saved her life. Suddenly they realized what the dog was doing; it barked only a few times but then, afraid the girl would freeze, ran back to her to warm her with its body. But then, afraid that its efforts weren't enough, ran back to alert the people and so it did several times till she was saved.
Rabbi Mendel learned a profound spiritual lesson from this; coldness can kill. A person must always avoid being cold to G-d and His Torah. This you can do by learning and saying words of Torah by heart wherever you are.
But if you see that someone else is spiritually freezing to death then you must go out of your nature and do everything possible to save him as well: Both to try to arouse his 'grandfather' (i.e. pray to G-d for REAL help) and also to personally try to warm him up as much as, and in any way possible.
Here we see how a near death situation transformed to a deep life-lesson.
This is the Tshuva of Yom Kippur: that first we put our lives in the proper perspective (as in the first story), second we forgive the shortcomings of others and pray for mercy not just for ourselves but for everyone (as in the second story) and third we make a resolution to not only pray but to DO everything possible to go OUT of ourselves and warm up the entire world.
Then, as the Rambam says, G-d will send Moshiach who will rebuild the Third Temple, gather all the Jews in the world to Israel and the High Priest with AGAIN enter the Holy of Holies in a higher way than ever before, and truly transform all the sins of the past to merits.
It's all in our hands!! This Yom Kippur let us pray to G-d that He give us power to do ALL WE CAN, and that HE should do all HE can to bring...
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Near the end of this week's double Torah portion, G-d tells Moses to write a Torah scroll and says "Now take this Torah scroll and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of G-d" (31:26).
The ark spoken of is the golden-plated box in the Holy of Holies that contained the Tablets that had the Ten Commandments carved into them.
The Talmud (Baba Batra 14a) brings an argument if this scroll was to be put IN the ark or just by its SIDE. According to all opinions this written Torah Scroll was in the Holy of Holies together with thecarved tablets.
At first glance this is not understood.
The connection between the Holy of Holies and the carved Tablets is easily understood. The Holy of Holies was a miraculous place of total UNITY; 'above' the laws and limitations of place and time. (For instance, the ark was 2 1/2 amot wide, but when put in the Holy of Holies, which was 10 amot wide, there was five amot from each of its ends to the walls; so it seemingly wasn't there).
Similarly the Tablets were miraculous. The circular letters Mem and Samech defied the law of gravity, all the letters could be read from both sides of the Tablet and, most important, because they were carved out, the letters were UNITED with the stone. So the tablets belonged in the Holy of Holies.
Not so the Torah scroll. Not only was there nothing miraculous about it, its letters were ink; separate and additional to the parchment signifying DIVISION not unity.
If so why was the scroll in the Holy of Holies?
To understand this, here are several stories.
Rabbi Pinchus ben Yair was a holy Torah scholar (Tana) that lived in Israel just after the destruction of the Second Temple some 1,900 years ago. Besides being a Tzadik, totally devoted to G-d as were all of the scholars of that time (the 'least' of which had the ability to raise the dead), he was also known as a miracle worker.
He oncearrived in a town and was besieged by the residents with a desperate request for help; they were plagued by mice. Hundreds of thousands of mice were devouring all their produce and no place was safe. They tried every trick possible; exterminators, fortified their storehouses with thick walls, set traps, put out poison but nothing worked.
Rabbi Pinchus heard the problem, walked to the center of town where there was a large open square that served as a market several times a week and called out to the mice.
Suddenly women began screaming and almost everyone began evacuating as streams of mice began appearing from every direction. In just moments Rabbi Pinchus was standing in the middle of a bubbling sea of squeaking, jumping rodents that seemed to be telling him something.
He listened intently, shook his head understandingly and turned to a few of the townspeople standing in the distance that had been brave, or curious, enough to stay and shouted. "Do you know what the mice are saying?"
"No!" They shouted back to him. "Just tell them to go away!!"
"The mice are saying that you don't give 'Maaser' (tithes for the Levites) from your produce and that is why they are devouring it. Begin giving proper tithes and they will leave you alone."
Immediately they swore to tell everyone else to give Maaser and they miraculously never again suffered from mice. (D'mai Yerushalmi 1:3)
Another time, perhaps because of this first story, he received an invitation from the king of Arabia to come quickly.
This king had acquired a large precious diamond and was sitting on his throne holding it up in the sunlight to watch it glisten and glimmer, when somehow it slipped out of his hand to the floor. But just as he bent down to pick it up, a large rat jumped out from somewhere, swallowed it and disappeared into an obscure hole in the floor.
The king was beside himself; the stone was lost! It was a disgrace and a huge loss. He called his advisors, priests and holy men but they could do nothing except recommend Rabbi Pinchus.
When Rabbi Pinchus arrived he sympathized with the king but said he had no idea why he had been invited.
The king answered, "Because I heard that you do miracles."
"Miracles?" he replied. "G-d does miracles. I'm just a regular Jew. Why call me?"
"Because I understand that G-d does miracles through you. Please…" The king pleaded. "Do what you can!"
Rabbi Pinchus told the king to empty out the throne room and when they were alone he summoned all the rats in the palace and told them to stand still for inspection.
Sure enough one rat had a pointed bump on its back! The diamond defied the rodent's digestive process and made a protrusion that was noticeable from the outside. He commanded the rat to spit it out, which the rat promptly did, and the King of Arabia became a friend of the Jews and a believer in the G-d of Israel. (ibid 1:13)
The last story happened much more recently. A married Israeli couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Sandroi, although not Chabad Chassidim, had a very close connection with Chabad and with the Rebbe.
They married only after writing to the Rebbe and receiving his blessing and every time they had a problem they wrote. After several years without children Mrs. Sandroi finally became pregnant. Her joy and gratitude to G-d were unlimited, but so was her pain.
She had unbearable headaches and nausea to the point that she had to be hospitalized on and off from almost the beginning of the pregnancy. Her husband wrote letter after letter to the Rebbe and always received the same answer 'Blessings for an easy successful birth, check Tefillin and Mezuzot'. Which Sandroi faithfully did but each time everything he handed in to be checked was found to be 'Kosher'.
Then came the Lebanon war in 1982. Sandroi was drafted into the air force and stuck in a base with no possibility of receiving or making calls. But surprisingly a week or two later his wife's pains suddenly disappeared.
Sandroi told his superiors that his wife was expected to give birth in a few weeks and was granted a few hours' leave to visit her. His first words as he entered the door were "The pains went away, right?"
"Yes!" She answered "How did you know? They disappeared over a week ago!"
He hadn't exactly been doing what the Rebbe said. He did give the Mezuzot to be checked but he never gave in his Tefillin; he figured that because they were almost brand new they MUST be kosher.
But after he got drafted he had this intuition that maybe he should have them checked also and, lo and behold, when he did he discovered that they were totally posul (unfit)! The word Bincha (your son) was written improperly in two different places!
He had the parchments replaced; his wife's pains stopped and the birth went as smoothly as the Rebbe said it would. It was a boy! Mazal Tov!
But their problems weren't over.
The baby had serious digestive problems. At the age of five he began vomiting accompanied by such severe stomach pains that he could not function. His parents took him the best doctors in Israel and spared no money or time, but all the tests, x-rays and CTs showed nothing.
Again Mr. Sandroi wrote to the Rebbe and in a very short time he received a reply via fax; "Be more careful with the level of Kashrut in food."
Although they were observant Jews they took the Rebbe's advice and immediately called Rabbi Mendel Glukowski, the Chabad Rabbi of Rechovot and asked him to instruct them and promised to do everything he ordered.
As soon as they began changing the diet their son began feeling much better and before long his gastronomic problems totally disappeared.
In fact even today, after the boy has grown and is married with children of his own, whenever he is a bit lax in the kashrut of what he eats, he is immediately beset with the same terrible stomach pains that he had as a child.
This answers our question; why was the scroll in the Holy of Holies.
G-d does not want to be revealed only in the Holy of Holies; rather He wants every detail of creation, even the most seemingly meaningless, to 'announce' that there is a Creator.
And that is why Pinchus ben Yair used mice and the Rebbe used food to reveal the greatness, closeness and goodness of HaShem in EVERY detail of creation.
That is why the written scroll was in the Holy of Holies.
Because, unlike the holy Tablets that HAD to be in a holy place, the written scroll which bordered on the mundane could serve as a medium to bring G-dliness in everything mundane; the entire world.
This is a lesson to us for the upcoming 'High' Holidays. Namely, that we must bring this 'High'; the closeness of G-d we experience on Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, into every day of the year and every moment of our lives.
This, explains Maimonides in his Laws of Kings (Chap. 12), will be accomplished by Moshiach. But meanwhile we have the writings of Chassidut to inspire us to do everything possible to bring a happy, healthy, successful, joyous, sweet holy new year in EVERY detail with...
Moshiach NOW!
Listen to this week's shiur on Parshat Ki Tavo.
This week's shiur was graciously hosted at the Bar-Levav's and is Leiluy nishmas Reb Moshe Tzvi ben Yisrael.
Ketiva vechatima tova leshana tova umetukah.
Hear all shiurim at www.shiur.us.
