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The Mussaf portion of any prayers; Yom Tov, Rosh Chodesh, Shabbos represent the essence, the main point of that day.
On Yom Kippur, the essence of the service, the ikar is the avodah of the Kohen Godol. So much so is this the case that the Mussaf service centers around the order of the Kohen Godol’s service in the Kodosh Kodoshim (the Holy of Holies in the Beit HaMikdash). The service includes all of the preparations which the Kohen Godol makes prior to the service, the clothing he must wear at each step of the avodah, the number of times that the Kohen must bathe himself prior to each change of clothing and before each step of his service, the drawing of lots determining which goat is for Hashem and which for The Mountain of Azazel (the goat designated by lot to bear the burden of death to rectify B’nai Yisrael’s sins) and more. And by virtue of our being Hashem’s “most favored nation”, The Kohen Godol is to the Jews a paradigm of Hashem’s blueprint of what the Jews are to represent to the other nations of Mankind.
So when now-comatose former Prime Minister Sharon dictatorially planned and plotted, with son Kojak, eh, I mean Omri over Shrimp or Pork Fried Rice, how to strong-arm through the expulsion of his fellow Jews from a parts of Divinely bestowed Jewish land, or when Olmert tried to spin last summer’s Lebanon conflict as an enabler of further expulsions: “consolidation, convergence, realignment” and now tries to wrap these acronyms of expulsion in a different package; a bogus, one-sided “declaration of principles” with Mahmoud Abbas, its little wonder that the nations, rather than loving us, must certainly look with contempt at Israel and its public hypocrisy and Chillul Hashem.
And the nations must surely equate Israel’s equivocations and lack of principles with Jewish sports personalities like Shawn Green, or perhaps a Kevin Youkilis who play baseball throughout the season — on Shabbos, on Yom Tovim, undoubtedly eat treif all year long and cohort with the gentiles. But they decide that on Yom Kippur, they’ve got to assert their Jewishness once a year. Is it any wonder that why an article appeared a few years ago on Yahoo was an expression of the gentiles seeing through the hypocrisy??
Just as the Kohen Godol will be the Kli in praying for forgiveness of sin when we will again have the Beit HaMikdash, the Kohanim are the Kli of the Avodah of Tefillah, of prayer, both for service to Hashem and for conveying Divine Brachot upon B’nai Yisrael in our times in Galut when we still lack our Beit HaMikdash. By extension, the role of B’nai Yisrael, of all of us, is to be as Kohanim, as Priestly to the gentile world, to be examples of upright morality, closeness to Hashem rather than a factionalized, equivocating, hypocritical, disunified group.
I can recall the times in my life, at age 59, when gentiles expressed to me admiration for an Israel which didn’t quake, quiver or waver before an Arab foe bent on her destruction, that she did what she had to do to defeat the foe decisively and totally. And I also still recall how, when I entered traffic court to fight a ticket on the Eve of the first Gulf War, that gentile policemen came to me to ask that we Jews pray for America in that war.
But sometime in the past few generations, particularly over the past 20 years, we forgot Torah as was prophesized by Moshe as the Jews prepared to enter Eretz Yisrael and to stand on Har Eival and Har Grizim to hear the Blessings and Curses. We forgot Torah; we forgot why there is an Eretz Yisrael, why it was given to the Jews for all times, why it is that we are living here now, why the land laid totally fallow in the years that our aveirot brought Hashem to banish us from it and how it is that Eretz Yisrael has thrived and flourished ONLY upon our return. And so, uncomfortable Jews question “…whether Hashem created us or whether we conceived of him.” (Ideas taken from “On Jews and Judiasm”, Selected articles of Rabbi Meir Kahane, “The Ultimate Axiom” January, 1978)
K’rachaim av al banim, kain Tirachem aleinu…” Like the mercy of a father on children, may You (G-d) have mercy upon us… [Liturgy] On Yom Kippur, despite our sins which may be as dark as the night, we need to remember that Hashem (G-d) loves us infinitely and is waiting to hear our prayers and give us what we need. Hashem waits for us, for Am Yehudi with open arms to lovingly receive us, just as a parent will always yearn for a child to return. (Ideas taken in part from weekly D’var Torah: Yom Kippur put out on email by Rabbi Baruch Lederman, Congregation Kehillas Torah, San Diego, CA)
May we pour our hearts out to Hashem on Yom Kippur with purity and deep sincerity and leave “nothing in the lockerroom.” May Hashem grant us a happy, healthy and sweet new year. As Moshe Ungar would always say before a fast back in Philly, back in the “old country”, “Daven hard, fast easy” — Tefillah Kasher V’Tzom Kal!
May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
L’Shana Tova — a sweet year to Kol Yehudim and Good Shabbos!
Moshe Burt is an Oleh, writer and commentator on news and events in Eretz Yisrael. He is the founder and director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network.