Haazinu / Erev Yom Kippur
Rabbi Label Lam
Found Innocent
Rabbi Akiva says, “Happy are you Israel! Before Whom do you purify
yourselves and Who purifies you? Your- Father in Heaven! As it says, “The
Mikvah of Israel is HASHEM!” (Jeremiah 17) Just as a Mikvah purifies from
sins so The Holy One Blessed Be He purifies Israel.” (Talmud Yuma 85 B)
For on this day (Yom Kippur) He will make atonement for you to cleanse you
from all your sins, before HASHEM you will be cleansed. (Vayikra 16:30)
How do we gain atonement through Yom Kippur? Does it work magically by
itself? Is there something we have to do?
Many moons ago when I was about to start commuting daily to the “big city”
a close rebbe and mentor suggested I do something I never thought I would
be able to keep up. He advised that for the purpose of spiritual
maintenance that I immerse myself in a Mikvah every day. I agreed to give
it a try. I felt a difference almost immediately for some seemingly
mystical reason in the quality of my performance. “How does it work?” I
wondered. Only later I met these ultra poetic words of the Rambam at the
end of the laws of Mikva where he explains the dynamics of a Mikva.
“The immersion to remove oneself from contamination is included in the
category of laws known as chukim-statutes because there is no physical dirt
that the water removes. It is strictly a decree of the verse and depends
upon the intent of the heart. Therefore if the person immerses but decides
to remain the same, it is as if he did not immerse himself. The one who
focuses his heart is purified even though nothing bodily is renewed because
he directed his heart to purify his soul from spiritual contaminants which
are wicked thoughts and bad attitudes since he agreed in his heart to
separate from these counselors and enter his soul into “the waters of pure
knowledge”.
That year on Yom Kippur, right near the end of the fast, before the final
prayer service “Neilah” we took a short break. I approached this teacher of
mine and expressed to him how much I missed the Mikva on Yom Kippur. Of all
the days not to be able to go, I felt deprived somehow of that feeling I
was getting used to daily. He looked at me with eyes that shouted but he
whispered softly, “If you think that you need to go to the Mikva today,
then you don’t understand what this day is about!” He then said
emphatically, “You’re in the Mikva, right now! The Mikva of Israel is HASHEM!”
His words changed my experience for the rest of that Yom Kippur and many
others to follow. I realized that on this special day we are immersing
ourselves in YUD / HEY / VUV / HEY. What activates the cleaning process is
the simple thought that we are soaking in the most powerful truly universal
solvent and that we wish to remove the all the stains of stupidity that
cloud our system. Then the dirt begins to fall away and we only we remain.
Similarly, it has been said that Michelangelo was asked how he carved that
statue of David out of a solid singular slab of stone. He is reputed to
have answered, “I cut away everything that was not David and there he was!”
So it is when we are rid of all extraneous impurities on Yom Kippur, we are
once again please G-d- found innocent.
Good Shabbos!
Text Copyright © 2003 Rabbi Label Lam and
Project Genesis, Inc.
