Many people complain about a post-Yom Kippur hangover. They do well during the fast day itself but feel the aftereffects the morning after. Although the dictionary defines hangover as “severe headache and aftereffects of excessive drink ” for us it is the aftereffects of insufficient drink and food. Whatever the definition hangovers are no fun.

Still there are hangovers and there are hangovers. Some are welcome and crucial to living a good life. Yom Kippur hangovers for example.

The following thoughts flitted across my mind on the morning after Yom Kippur (hereafter referred to as “YK”).

It is easy to have kavanah when reciting “who shall live and who shall die” on YK. But what is very troubling is that the very next morning my minyan reverted back to the breakneck speed with which we recited psukei d’zimra before YK. In Ashrei we say “Poseiyach es yadecha — You open Your hands and satisfy graciously the needs of every living thing” (Psalm 145). If we mumbled it in the same way we mumbled it before YK that might suggest to an objective observer that perhaps all the pleading to G-d on YK day had little effect on us.

It is natural to cry out with deep kavanah the heartrending prayer of Ne’ilah: “Psach lanu shaar b’eis ne’ilas shaar — Keep the Heavenly gates open a bit longer at the time of the closing of the gates for the day comes to an end.” But the next day when say we recite birchas hamazon after lunch and we come to the very first brachah: “hazan es haolam kulo — Who feeds the entire world with His goodness loving-kindness and mercy ” if we race through it with the same rapidity and inattention that we had pre-YK then here too it might fairly be concluded that all the YK outcries to G-d had little effect on us.

Not to mention our tzedakah and chesed. If post-YK we have not intensified these mitzvos — if they remain at the level of pre-YK — would someone (especially Someone) be justified in wondering what all those heartrending YK tears were all about?

YK is supposed to create a new me. Am I a new me or do I remain the same old me as before? Was all the holiness and fasting wasted on us? In a word on the morning and the days and weeks after YK am I more aware of the Presence of G-d around me than I was pre-YK? Am I davening better am I studying more Torah than before? Or am I wasting the same amount of time on the same silly things?

Surely the 24 hours of afflicting our physical selves had some spiritual and emotional effect on us. Surely we now talk differently to those who tend to get under our skin. Surely we now have more understanding and more tolerance for those who ordinarily would annoy us. Surely something within us has changed because of the awesome and sacred time which is YK.

And the most difficult question of all: Yom Kippur is behind us but is that good? Should it be really behind us? Would it not be better if it were always before us?

If I had it in my power I would add one more prayer to the Yom Kippur liturgy to be recited immediately after Ne’ilah: Dear L-rd tomorrow morning when I wake up please grant Thy humble servant a real genuine unadulterated authentic legitimate bona fide Yom Kippur hangover.