Yom Kippur

 

Rav Zev Chaim Lifshitz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “Being” and “Doing”

                   in Avodas Hashem

 

 

 Translated from Hebrew by S. Nathan

l'ilui nishmas Esther bas Mordechai

 

 


 

 

Gemara, Yuma 82:  “There was a pregnant woman who smelled [an appetizing aroma] (Rashi: And it was on Yom Kippur).  They went to ask Rabi.  He said to them: ‘Go and whisper to her.’  (Rashi: Whisper in her ear that today is Yom Kippur.  Perhaps she will be able to control herself.)  They whispered to her, and she accepted the whisper.  (Rashi: The fetus ceased its craving.)  They said of it, ‘“before I formed you in the womb, I had known you, etc.,” Rabi Yohanan concluded.

 

“There was a pregnant woman who smelled [an appetizing aroma]…  They went to ask Rabi Hanina.  He said to them: ‘Whisper to her,’ and she did not accept the whisper.  They said of it: Zoru resha’im, “Strewn are the wicked from the womb.’  (Rashi: They became zarim, strangers, and alienated themselves from their Father in heaven.)  A price gouger is what became of him.”

 

Maharsha: “The sense of smell is a force of the soul.  As it says in Brachos: ‘Every soul will praise,’ etc.  ‘What is it that the soul takes pleasure from?  We know that it is the sense of smell.’  Whereas the sense of taste is a physical force, and therefore on the spiritual day of Yom Kippur, smell is permitted, and the force of taste which is physical is forbidden, because Yom Kippur holds something of the world to come, as it says in Brachos: ‘The world to come has no eating and no drinking.’  Therefore that pregnant woman that smelled and accepted the whisper - she, and her fetus, were satisfied with a smell, which is a force of the soul, and permitted on Yom Kippur, and therefore Rabi Yohanan concluded as he did.  And that one who did not accept the whisper was not satisfied with a permitted thing, meaning with the smell which is a force of the soul.  She was craving a forbidden thing on Yom Kippur, which is the sense of taste, a physical force.”  (Maharsha)

 

By law, who is properly worthy of blowing the shofar?  (Mishna Brura, laws of Rosh Hashana, section 589.)

“One who is deaf, even if he can speak, but cannot hear, cannot be motsi. (This is the opinion of the mechaber)  See Aruch HaShulchan, who requires shofar blowing, and even with a bracha, of a deaf person who can speak but not hear, but concludes that it would be better to not say a bracha out of sahfek., out of consideration for the opinion of the mechaber who forbids it.  See also the Aruch HaShulchan’s analysis, which differentiates between the nusach, the different wording of the bracha according to circumstance: Litko’a “To sound a shofar.” Similarly with the mezuzah: Likbo’a, “To affix a mezuzah.”  However, when putting a mezuzah on the door of another person’s house, one changes the nusach to ahl kevi’as mezuzah, “On the affixing of a mezuzah.”

 

 

Let us examine the root of this differentiation as it applies to the actual doing of the mitzva.  A mitzva has two stages.  It begins with doing, with technical involvement, and then it passes into personal involvement, as in “the hearts are drawn after the actions.”  Doing a mitzva is a process that begins with external involvement, and then passes from outer to inner, from action to experience, bestowing meaningful content upon an external action, which then becomes a substantively new entity, a new reality unto itself that unites together in its embrace both the mitzva and the human being involved with the mitzva.  The human being thus enters the category of “a fulfiller of the mitzva”. He becomes a new existential creation of Godly Presence, a bearer of kedusha.

 

The mitzva and the human being share a mutual relationship in which the two merge into one.  From a “doing” connection, it becomes a “being” connection: One moves from the external mitzva to a religious experience that serves as an opportunity for dvaikus, for attaching to one’s Creator.  “To put on tefillin,” is the first stage, but the mitzva becomes “putting on tefilin” at the stage of shel rosh.  From the hand, from the action, from "doing," to the head, to the meaningful content, to “being” - the mitzva of tefillin becomes a perfect circle of experience.

 

Similarly with blowing the shofar.  We pass from the stage of merely blowing it because “the Compassionate One said, ‘blow it’”, to a higher stage, to an awareness of Uru yeshainim, “wake, sleepers, from your slumber,” and then we move even higher still, to the point where the flow of routine in life’s materialistic current comes to a halt as we ponder the universe’s reckoning of accounts. 

Here Teshuvah unfolds: A localized point of connection existing only in the present moment, as the sound of the shofar penetrates our awareness, is nevertheless capable of controlling the past and planning the future.  Charata, regret for the past and kabala lehaba, resolution for the future, both derive from a present moment point of departure, from hacaras hachait, recognition of one's sin.

 

This explains why a deaf person may blow the shofar as long as he can speak, can communicate, meaning that he possesses some capacity to control reality, for then he is capable of creating a new state of “being” through this mitzva, despite his handicap on the superficial plane of “doing”.

 

What is interesting - indeed gripping - in this distinction between “doing” and “being” is the case of the pregnant woman attacked by ravenous cravings.  According to the basic rule that “the fetus is its mother’s body,” the fetus and its mother constitute one perfect unit; a single state of “being”.  Eating, on the other hand, would seem to belong to the domain of “doing.” 

 

The fascinating distinction made by the Maharsha – who is supposedly the pashtan, oriented toward the plain and basic meanings of the text – differentiates between the domain of “doing” and the domain of “being”.  This is a distinction between the pnimius, what is inner, and the chitzonius, what is outer.  The sense of taste pertains to “doing”, to physical matter.  The prohibition against eating on the sacred day is addressed only to this "doing" that is related to physical matter.  The Maharsha opens our eyes to the essential substance of this day, which partakes of the world to come, in which there is no need for eating and drinking, being that it is the world of souls, which is not bound by the limitations of physical matter.

 

Yom Kippur is not a day of fear or sadness, God forbid. Chazal point this out to the convert woman: It is the difference between standing before a flesh and blood judge who is controlled by moods and caprices that cannot be predicted in advance – which make him incapable of judging by objective criteria – as opposed to how we stand on the sacred day before the King of Kings of Kings, Who is granting us the privilege of sanctifying ourselves and purifying ourselves of all our ruinous falls, slips, and errors.

 

It is a day of great happiness for us.  It is the privilege of starting over.  Everything is newly beginning.  One is newly born.  One is granted the opportunity to form oneself, to effect one’s own birth according to one’s own free choice, to leave behind external reality, to leave behind one’s material/biological birth, to newly grow from the depths of one's qualitative, soul-related pnimius.

 

The realization that everything is in His hands transforms reality from an existence that only takes up surface space to an experience of substance containing the value of quality – of spiritual sanctity. 

 

Yom Kippur is a classic case of "enjoying both tables,” the ideal extolled byChazal: The best of this world – one is privileged to be able to materially repair worldly damage that one has caused on the objective plane, and the best of the next world – one is liberated from the limitations of eating and drinking and exempt from the toil of survival.

 

Pnimius, inner spiritual quality is represented by a fetus, specifically, for it metamorphoses from a passive part, as in “a fetus is the body of its mother” to a representative of quality who connects and identifies with kedushas hayom, the sacredness of the day.  Rashi comments, with the simplicity of the obvious and self-evident, that “the fetus ceased its craving” on the sacred day. 

For the person for whom this day has become internalized as an experience of kedusha, her fetus too, which dwells within her pnimius, is given the privilege of expressing and participating in the experience of kedusha. Therefore, a mere whisper is enough, because that person is not limited by time and space, not dependent on the sound volume of the voice reminding her of the sacred day.

 

Being that “a fetus is its mother’s body”, a perfect identification exists between them.  Both the righteous mother, and the fetus that dwells within her, that possesses a great soul, both suffice with a reminder pointed directly to the root of their soul-related quality, in order to coronate “being”, and to impose its rule over “doing”, as fits the Torah ideal, which defines qualitative and whole behavior as action that expresses and carries out the orders of the inner unfolding self, as opposed to non-legitimate behavior: Action that responds to the stimulations of the outside.  This behavior is characteristic of a slave, enslaved to the survival mechanism just like all the other creatures who are supposedly inferior to him, as in the example of the pregnant woman who did not suffice with the whisper, and brought an inferior fetus into the world.

 

Vehayricho beyiras Hashem: “And he will smell of awe of God,” says the prophet of the Redeemer.  The sense of smell is the most personal and the most spiritual of all the five senses, therefore its root is in the soul.  Whispering, and smelling fragrances on Yom Kippur address the soul and strengthen it.  Possessing a soul, one has no need of the sense of taste.  A whisper suffices to settle and stabilize one within a standard of truth. 

 

The Maharsha reminds us: “Yom Kippur is reminiscent of the world to come as they have said in Brachos: ‘Olam HaBa has no eating and drinking." We find here an important principle that determines the substance of Yom Kippur:  We avoid eating and drinking not only as an aspect of affliction. 

 

As is known, the specific aspects of halacha have a spiritual root that is not visible in the obvious fact of the prohibition.  The Maharsha alludes to this spiritual root in the prohibition against eating and drinking:

 

“Yom Kippur k’ayn olam haba.”  Olam Haba meaning liberation from the shackles of physical matter and from the laws of creation altogether.  One has no need for eating and drinking.  The newly born connection between oneself and one’s Creator, brought about in merit of Teshuvah, frees one from dependency upon the world’s laws.  The stronger grows the connection with the Creator, the weaker grows the dependency upon the world’s laws.  Dvaikus, attachment to the Creator has another side to it: Freedom from dependency upon the world.  This is the kernel of the character of the sacred day. 

 

Teshuvah thus means a return to the main issue, to the Godly law, and liberation from “the fool who jumps first,” the law of this world.