The most frantic day of the week in many Jewish homes is Friday. Cleaning, cooking, shaving, showering, it seems that getting ready for Shabbos always comes down to the final minute. Multiply that frenzy a hundredfold and we can imagine the stress if a family was forced to prepare for Sukkot- buying daled minim, building a sukkah- in just a matter of hours. Multiply that by another hundred and imagine the nightmare of preparing for Pesach- the cleaning, the sedarim- in just a few hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Truth be told the day of the year prepared for most in advance is not Sukkot or Pesach, but Yom Kippur. We Shulchan Aruch tells us to prepare for each holiday shloshim yom kodem hachag, 30 days in advance of the holiday, but 40 days ago, on Rosh Chodesh Elul, we began blowing the shofar daily and speaking about repentance in anticipation of Yom Kippur. Two and a half weeks ago we started losing sleep over Selichot. For ten days of teshuva we insert additions into shmone esray and davening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one would dream of preparing for Pesach, Sukkot or perhaps even Shabbos in an hour; but with an hour left of Yom Kippur, I stand here like Rabbis around the world with the encouraging message \u201cIt\u2019s not too late! The doors are closing; there is still a chance!\u201d Doesn\u2019t it seem delusional and insincere to suggest that a 40-day preparation can be crammed into an hour?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps a model for this last-minute effort can be found in the service of Yom Kippur. Masechet Yuma begins with a description of the Kohen Gadol\u2019s typical preparation for Yom Kippur. He leaves his home a week before Yom Kippur and lives in isolation in the Beit Hamikdash. He stays up all night Yom Kippur evening reviewing the laws of the most intricate and orchestrated service of the year in the Beit Hamikdash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gemara 12a discusses the doomsday scenario: Finally, the day of Yom Kippur arrives, and despite all the preparation, somehow the Kohen Gadol becomes disqualified; he becomes ritually impure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who will perform the service in the Kodesh Kodashim? No other person spent the week in isolation. No one stayed up all night reviewing the laws. To make matters worse, there is one and only one Kohen Gadol. There is a formal procedure to appoint a Kohen Gadol, and there is no time or means for another person to formally be appointed in the Kohen Gadol\u2019s stead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gemara scrambles but explains how a replacement can become eligible:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Says Rav Pappa- Avodaso Michanchaso- the service itself serves as the process which transforms this ordinary kohen into the Kohen Gadol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a perfect world, the Kohen Gadol puts in the hours and days of preparation. This parallels our preparation which began over a month ago. But when push comes to shove, the sincere avodah of an ordinary kohen can take the place of the intense preparation, transforming him into the Kohen Gadol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is what neilah is about. At the end of Mussaf, we lamented not having the Kohen Gadol to represent us and perform today\u2019s service. Yes, we wear white and refrain from pleasure, but we all know that we cannot compare our last 40 days to the preparation actually necessary for Yom Kippur. The image of the holiest man representing us after meditating and learning all night following a week living in the house of G-d is unrelatable. But we can all relate to that backup kohen, who rolls out of bed unprepared Yom Kippur morning like the rest of us only to find himself thrown into the Kodesh Kodashim. That service metamorphizes him, transforming him from an ordinary kohen into the Kohen Gadol. Every other day of the year requires a process for this transformation. The Yom Kippur service has the unique ability to expedite the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neilah has the potential to serve as that transformation for each of us. If we can find the strength during this neilah to push ourselves, if we are willing to release our inhibitions and step into the Kodesh Kodashim, we too can undergo this transformation. Neilah symbolizes the closing of the gates, and perhaps we can view neilah as the closing of the doors of the Kodesh Kodashim. It\u2019s our final chance to take advantage of Yom Kippur\u2019s transformative power. I encourage each of you to take that step and wish you all a ksiva vchasima tova.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The most frantic day of the week in many Jewish homes is Friday. Cleaning, cooking, shaving, showering, it seems that getting ready for Shabbos always comes down to the final minute. Multiply that frenzy a hundredfold and we can imagine the stress if a family was forced to prepare for Sukkot- buying daled minim, building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,74,76],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}