The Greatest Gift of All¹

No words could be more comforting on the day of Yom Kippur. "I have forgiven, because of your words."[2]

Three times in rapid succession we shout this line, precisely as we usher in the holiest day of the year. The phrase seems perfectly appropriate for our needs - just the message we want to hear. But is it not a bit presumptuous? Are we perhaps jumping the gun, projecting ahead of ourselves what we hope to secure in a period of intense avodah? Shouldn't these words come at the end of Yom Kippur, after a full day of fasting, teshuvah, vidui, and davening?)

Setting aside the issue of timing, does this phrase itself really stand up to scrutiny? Consider its context. "But as I live . all the men who have seen My glory.and have tested Me these ten times and have not heeded my voice, if they will see the Land that I have sworn to give their forefathers - and all who anger Me shall not see it."[3] Hashem's forgiveness was conditional, coming at a huge price! In essence, Hashem told those who had accepted the report of the spies that they were indeed forgiven, but that they should not think that the consequences of their sin had vanished, and they were free to sport smiles of relief. It wasn't going to be that simple.

Is this the Divine answer to our prayers that we are looking for? Don't we really want to hear, "You are forgiven, and the slate has been wiped clean?" If we had one question to ask, it would be, "Will You forgive us?" We would like to hear an unequivocal, "Surely!" in response. It is curious that we take an apparent, "Yes, but with reservations," and enshrine it in our Kol Nidre davening.

Yet another familiar bit of phraseology seems to lose its luster when we ponder it. "Rabbi Akiva said, 'How fortunate are you, Israel! Before whom do you purify yourselves, and who purifies you? - your Father in Heaven!'"[4] What exactly does it tell us? Who else would we think could purify us?

We will make headway with these problems only if we break out of our usual thought patterns. We might start by recognizing that the chief function of Yom Kippur is not forgiving sin, or granting atonement, or sundry other ways of describing a slate wiped clean.

Why should Hashem announce a yearly amnesty, available to all fortunate enough to be Jewish? At all other points in the year, we deny that Hashem simply excuses wrongdoing - "Whoever claims that Hashem disregards wrongdoing, his own life shall be disregarded!"[5] Does He break His rules on Yom Kippur?

Let's go back to the first Yom Kippur. Klal Yisrael had risen to extraordinary spiritual heights at Har Sinai. The sin of the aigel dashed hopes that their prominence would be preserved. It almost dashed a good deal more than that. HKBH had been ready to abandon them, and start building a people anew from Moshe, whose tefilos succeeded in aborting that plan. Several stays atop the mountain, forty days each time, finally gave Moshe the answer he sought. "I have forgiven, because of your words." Hashem was ready to take them back in, so to speak, and to move on. There would be consequences, but not the one they feared the most - utter rejection by their Creator.

The day that was announced was the first Yom Kippur. If it was a relief for them to hear that they were no longer locked out of His presence, it is just as much so for us. Through our soul-searching in the weeks before Yom Kippur, most of us have to encounter much that we don't like. As the Yemai HaDin draw closer, our malaise increases. Discomfort morphs into real fear.

The greatest fear for many is that we have botched things so badly, that we cannot - consciously or subconsciously - bring ourselves to talk openly to G-d. From where will we find the chutzpah to stand before Him and plead for mercy once again? Sullied as we are by sin, caked in the mud of wrongdoing from head to toe, can we really walk into a Yom Kippur and function properly?

Rabbi Akiva provides the antidote to our paralysis. Before Whom do we seek forgiveness on Yom Kippur? Before our Father! Our Father will let us in the front door, even caked in mud! He will accept us with our inadequacies, just as he did after the aigel. This is what fathers do, when their children stand at the doorstep, with only their eyes indicating that they seek reconciliation. We are prepared to accept almost any fate, if He finds it necessary. One fate we cannot accept - being shut out of His Presence. This is why we make mention of Hashem's reaction to the aigel at Kol Nidre. He let us back in.

Reconciliation, then, is the magic word to describe the power of Yom Kippur. But this doesn't sound entirely accurate either. The Torah calls it a day of atonement, not a day of reconciliation. Aren't they very different? In truth, however, reconciliation and atonement are not distant relatives, but close cousins.

Tanna D'vei Eliyahu[6] tells us that Hashem's cleansing of Jewish sins gives Him great simchah. Think of a king who becomes embroiled in a bitter dispute with his son. There is pain on both sides, although that of the son does not compare to that of the father. If father and son make up, their former bitterness helps propel their love to something stronger than what it was before their pained separation.

It is good for both of them to be together again. It is even better for the father than for the son. That is just part of what it is to bear children, to be a parent. Hashem reacts the same way, as it were. He savors the reconstituted bond between Himself and His people. He acts to bolster and support it. To make it work well, He throws in the ultimate deal-sweetener. He generously offers an amnesty to His beloved children, complete with atonement and taharah. Atonement is not the essence of the day, but its byproduct. Reconciliation remains the central theme; atonement follows in its wake.

Only a parent acts with such unstinting generosity. This is precisely Rabbi Akiva's point. Before whom do we purify ourselves? Before our Father! A father who forgives is not the same as a friend or neighbor who forgives. In the case of our Heavenly Father, the welcome-back of reconciliation brings with it the bonus of taharah.

But how do we get ourselves to show up at the door? Is simply living through the day of Yom Kippur sufficient? To some degree, it is. If we understand what it should mean, though, we can take far more away from the day.

Here, too, the words of Rabbi Akiva allude to the fuller answer. Before Whom do we purify ourselves? Before our Heavenly Father. Let us recall Who our Father is. Our puny minds are capable of grasping nothing of His essence. The smallness we feel can be painful. We might think of shrinking away, of drawing back from the Power of His Presence.

A better strategy would be to seek refuge, to find a place of safety. For believing Jews, not only is there such a place, but we are all familiar with its address. We escape not by running away, but by rushing headlong directly into Him. We submerge our smallness into His greatness. We negate our own importance, and reach out to cling to Him. By negating ourselves, by being mevatel our sense of self, He moves within range. Bitul is the key to achieving devekus. (The Torah alludes to this in its description of the avodah in the kodesh kodashim. "No person shall be in the Tent of Meeting when he comes to provide atonement in the Sanctuary."[7] This phrase includes the Kohen Gadol himself! At this moment of encounter with the Divine, he must cease to be a person. He must translate his inadequacy and smallness into a self-negation that leads directly to deveikus with Hashem. He must leave the limitations of his humanity behind, and

The thought is not a new one. Maharal[8] uses it to explain how Yom Kippur works. It is a day that the souls of Jews find their way back to their Source. Through bitul, the soul merges back into Hashem.[9] Within Hashem, sin has no place. It is not that sin is left at the door. Rather, the neshamah is cleansed of the sin that adheres to it by now clinging to Something that simply does not allow sin to exist.

Interestingly, there is a parallel to this in an activity far more common than the once-yearly avodah of Yom Kippur.Rabbi Akiva goes on to add another image. "Just as a mikveh purifies the impure, so does HKBH purify Yisrael." Think of what we are doing and saying when we immerse in a mikveh. We submerge ourselves - completely and absolutely - in the water, becoming part of it. No small part of ourselves remains outside. Before we enter, we remove any substances that interpose between our bodies and the water. Through the Maharal, we understand this identity. A mikveh purifies those submerged in it. On Yom Kippur, Hashem helps us submerge ourselves, lose our egos, nullify our sense of self through complete union with Him.

A jewel from the past: Great rebbes used to speak on erev Yom Kippur about mesiras nefesh, about giving our lives for Hashem. Why? What does dying for Kiddush Hashem have to do with Yom Kippur? They would plead with the tzibbur: "Why should we have to live though all sorts of consequences and punishment for our misdeeds? Visualize yourself in your heart of hearts as if you were giving your life for Hashem, and that will substitute for all sorts of unpleasantness!"

Mesiras nefesh is nothing more than a demonstration of bitul. It is a statement that one's own needs, interests, goals, desires - none of them matter, relative to what Hashem wants. It is the submerging of the most powerful instinct - survival - into the reality of Hashem. When a person achieves such bitul, there is no further purpose in punishing the sinner for his sins. By becoming one with Hashem, the sinner has disappeared completely and naturally - at that point, he ceases to be a man. His face shines with the radiance of the angels, but mortal man he is no longer.

What an outstanding opportunity Yom Kippur offers us - the ability to become nothing! Arriving there, we find not absence, but the ultimate Presence. We return to G-d in the mutual joy of reconciliation. Of the myriad Divine gifts of which we are conscious, it may be the greatest gift of all.

Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Torah.org