An expanded Elevate in honor of Yom Kippur

From Tears to Light

Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner

The tefillos on Yom Kippur teach us what true joy is and how to achieve it

IT will be exactly three months from when, after a long day of mourning, you sat down and drank that first cup of rejuvenating orange juice to the night when you walk into shul, dressed in white for Kol Nidrei.

In his sefer, Darash Moshe, Rav Moshe Feinstein ztz”l connects the parallel calendar dates of Motzaei Tishah B’Av and the night of Kol Nidrei. It’s to show us that the tears of the ninth of Av aren’t meant to leave us in despair. We’re meant to draw motivation from the pain we felt when mourning the absence of the Beis Hamikdash to fix, l’saken, by reaching toward HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And it’s by doing this that we’ll merit to rejoice.

True Happiness

Yom Kippur opens with the words, “Or zarua latzaddik ul’yishrei lev simchah — light is sewn for the righteous one, and joy for those with an upright heart.” After something is planted, it may not look like any growth is happening for quite a while. But a tzaddik is always growing. And that is what brings true happiness — accomplishment. Thus those with an upright heart experience simchah!

Rav Moshe Feinstein explains that if halev lo yashar, if the heart isn’t upright, and your goal is just to party and enjoy, then your life will become miserable because it has no purpose. I often think of the reality that there isn’t one physical pleasure that lasts, while all of our mitzvos and ma’asim tovim give us merits that last forever.

As rav of a big shul and manager of the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund, my husband has had the opportunity to meet many inspiring and holy Yidden who are raising money for Torah learning or who are in need of financial help. Always one to enjoy a good vort, my husband turns each interaction with those fundraisers into a joyous one by sharing words of Torah.

One of his favorite fundraisers is Rav Lipa Yisraelson, a grandson of Rav Elyashiv, and nephew of Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who also merited to be the neighbor of Rav Aharon Leib Steinman. His stories abound.

Let me share one of his most quoted, which really illustrates the point that true happiness is only experienced as a result of achievement in avodas Hashem and not as a product of having a lot. Shortly before he was scheduled to go on another fundraising trip to America, Rav Lipa was climbing the stairs to his apartment, when Rav Aharon Leib grabbed him by the hand. Dragging him into his apartment, Rav Aharon Leib began to give him a tour of it. Going from one room to the next, the Rosh Yeshivah pointed out, “Look, Lipa, I have a bed. A chair. A seforim shrank, a refrigerator, a table….”

As he walked him to the door, Rav Aharon Leib challenged Rav Lipa and said, “You’re now going to America. I’ll pay you one million dollars if you find one Yid who is happier than me there!”

It’s Up to Us

We begin Yom Kippur with the words “or zarua latzaddik” because we all have the opportunity to feel the joy of being tzaddikim and yishrei lev.

Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein, quoting Rav Yerucham Levovitz in his Vavei Ha’amudim, describes the lowest place the yetzer hara can take us. What does he call that place? — “I can’t.” Please do believe, he tells us, that “HaKadosh Baruch Hu will (and does) give you miraculous strength — siyata d’Shmaya — to be successful. Do the work. We say in our Yom Kippur davening, “v’ad Yom moso yechakeh lo, im yashuv miyad tekablo — until the day of his death He waits for him, if he does teshuvah, He will take him back immediately.”

Hashem will give us siyata d’Shmaya, but we need to put in the work.

The heilige Chofetz Chaim had many a mashal to help us better understand his precious lessons. I just shared the following one with my students today, which really shows how much spiritual responsibility we have.

Imagine, said the Chofetz Chaim, walking into a restaurant on a Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. and finding a father of seven sitting at a table and enjoying a relaxed multicourse meal. While ordinally we’d be minding our own business, the Chofetz Chaim, in this mashal, asks us to judge him by posing the following question: “Why is the gentlemen not at work right now? Why is he absconding from his responsibility to support his family?”

The Chofetz Chaim offers a few possibilities: Maybe he’s taking a work break and will head back soon. Maybe he works at night and is off during the day. Maybe his job is seasonal and right now he has more time. Maybe he’s independently wealthy and merely needs a few hours to manage his many assets.

You may be asking — why bother with all these musings?

The punch line: While we might be able to justify this man’s lack of productivity, when it comes to your avodas Hashem, there are no excuses for why we’re not doing our job. Im ein ani li, mi li? No one else is standing before Hashem instead of us, no one is waiting on our behalf for your judgment to be sealed. It’s up to us.

Are you doing the work?

Well, the fact you’ve shown up on Yom Kippur, whether we’re in shul for Kol Nidrei, or elsewhere with our machzor, means you’re already tackling the job!

In Our Times

In his Sichos Chochmah Umussar, Rav Dovid Kronglass describes the immense joy that there was in the Beis Hamikdash when the Kohein Gadol returned and Am Yisrael immediately knew they’d been forgiven.

What about us today, when we don’t have a Beis Hamikdash? How do we feel the joy of Yom Kippur?

Un’shalmah parim sefaseinu. In place of the avodah in the Beis Hamikdash is us and our machzor.

So open your machzor before Yom Kippur. Review what you will be saying. Maybe even put in some Post-it notes with reminders about what you should be paying attention to or thinking about when you get to that place. “Rabbi” ArtScroll’s commentary enriches the machzor and is well worth your taking the time to read before you’re in shul, struggling with the words and keeping up with the chazzan.

With every word that bursts from your heart, every tear you shed for the pain that you feel when you long to get closer to Hashem, but aren’t sure how to achieve this, know that you’re planting a light, and that light will be bright.

Pesichah, the Keys to Eternity

Rabbi Menachem Nissel

The power of the open aron kodesh

IF

you find yourself in Rome for Shabbos and want an alternative davening experience, try the Tempio dei Giovani (“Youth Shul”) on the Tiber Island facing the magnificent Great Synagogue.

It’s hard to find, so look for the security guards who will point you to a tiny entrance that leads to a winding staircase. You’ll be rewarded with a small shul, tastefully decorated and filled with history. You’ll see a plaque honoring the American soldiers who davened there after the liberation of Rome in 1945. The atmosphere is warm and friendly, and if you stand in the right place you can actually feel the air-conditioning units.

The davening follows the Italian nusach, complete with its dignified minhagim and formalities. Before leining, the gabbai may honor you with a bronze card on which your aliyah is engraved.

What caught my attention was how he gave out pesichah, the honor of opening the aron kodesh. You receive a ceremonial box containing a golden key resting in velvet. This key opens the aron kodesh. This was pesichah on a whole new dimension.

I fondly recall the pomp and circumstance surrounding pesichah in London’s Hendon Adass, the shul of my youth. On Yamim Noraim, Chazan Pesach Segal accompanied it with a majestic choir piece. In the Ahavat Sion Bet Knesset in Panama, I marveled at the grandeur and solemnity given to pesichah, where the whole community takes steps toward the sefer Torah as it is brought out. My friend Alberto Bassan shared that the “pesichah of parnassah,” a unique pesichah of Yamim Noraim, can sell for six figures, with the proceeds going to poor Torah scholars in Eretz Yisrael.

The Power of Pesichah

These beautiful minhagim beg the question, what’s so special about pesichah? If you want to lein, you need to take a sefer Torah out of its aron kodesh. Isn’t it just a technical necessity?

The universal custom is to read brich shmei, a piece of Zohar (Vayakhel 206a), during pesichah. The words in the Zohar that precede it are:

Rabi Shimon taught, when you take a sefer Torah out of an aron kodesh for congregational leining, the Shaarei Rachamim, Gates of Mercy, are opened in Heaven. It arouses the special love between HaKadosh Baruch Hu and Knesses Yisrael.

The Arizal (Shaar Hakavanos 48d) reveals that pesichah unleashes a powerful (spiritual) light. He extols the importance of choosing only G-d fearing-Torah scholars for this mitzvah. These precious moments are an eis ratzon, a powerful opportunity for tefillah.

Today, a trending minhag is Ashkenazi men doing pesichah when their wives are in their ninth month of pregnancy (Chida, Avodas Hakodesh 1:90). In general, my rebbi Rav Moshe Shapira was aghast at the culture of our generation where every few months a new segulah becomes fashionable. The two exceptions were segulos that are your ancestral mesorah or those firmly rooted in Chazal. Rav Moshe argued that once the Zohar revealed the power of pesichah, anyone with proper kavanah can tap into the moment.

Practical Takeaway

I’d would like to give two practical suggestions for ladies who are present at pesichah. Firstly, you should study the simple meaning of brich shmei, which is written in Aramaic. The relevance of these poignant words will immediately hit home. You should say them, in the words of the Yesod V’Shoresh Ha’avodah (Gate 5:8) with kavanah atzumah.

Secondly, our seforim kedoshim reveal that pesichah is a propitious moment to daven for issues pertaining to birth. You can daven for your loved ones who are expecting, or for those who are having difficulty with pregnancy. You can say your tefillos in your own words and language, but be concise, pesichah doesn’t last long so you only have a few moments. Furthermore, you want to start saying brich shmei before the aron kodesh is closed. However, you can take advantage of the ruling of the Mishnah Berurah (134:13) that technically brich shmei can be said until the sefer Torah is brought to the bimah and opened.

One more idea. Before the gabbai calls the Kohein to the Torah he says a special tefillah that ends with the pasuk, v’atem hadveikim ba’Hashem Elokeichem, chayim kulchem hayom. The congregation recited these words before the gabbai. Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita shared that a powerful segulah for childbirth, especially for those who have experienced miscarriages, is to have kavanah on the word chayim, which means life.

Rav Yochanan taught us that Hashem has three keys that He never delegates to angels, one of them is the key to life (Taanis 2a). The golden key in Rome, mirrored in our people’s reverence to pesichah, unlocks a portal to that eternal world of chayim.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 962)