Posted on 10/11/24
Over the course of the holiday of Yom Kippur (including Erev Yom Kippur Mincha), we recite viduy 10 times, and we end up hitting our hearts with our fists literally hundreds of times in total, either 660 or 674 depending on different minhagim . Most people view this act of hitting as exactly that, hitting. We view the procedure as a process of hitting and striking ourselves, albeit not too hard, to show that we did aveiros and regret our misdoings.
As we begin our entrance into the Holy of Holies, the holiest day of the Jewish year, it is imperative that we reframe what’s really going on. We are not hitting ourselves in the sense of beating ourselves up over past deeds; rather, we are knocking on a door, the doorway of our pnimiyus , our inner sanctum, our true essence.
When you go to a door to knock, there is a reason for the knock. It’s not because you want to massage your knuckles, and it’s not because you are trying to break the door down. The function and sole purpose of knocking on a door is to arouse that which is on the inside to come and open up.
On Yom Kippur, we are finally by the door, and our holy avoda of the day is to knock. We knock hundreds of times throughout the day with the simple but lofty goal of answering the call, of connecting with our inner goodness, our חלק אלוק ממעל, our heiliga נשמה.
Yom Kippur is called “Yom Kippurim” – a day that is like Purim . On Purim, there is a long-standing minhag to dress up. Some people look like pirates, some like chefs, and others like fishermen. But we all know, they are merely in costumes, they are dressed up in a silly external garb. When we put the external on display and highlight it in a somewhat silly way, it actually leads to a deep level of appreciation and recognition of a person’s core greatness and goodness. The costumes remind us that too often we focus on the petty external things. The avoda of costumes on Purim, ironically, helps us see the inner holiness of other yidden . Hence, we end up giving more charity and more shaloch manos , since the “silly” externals fade away.
Yom Kippur is very much like Purim in this sense. We realize that the aveiros that we did over the past year are “silly” external parts of who we really are, as Chazal teach us that a person can only sin when a ruach shtus – a silly spirit, enters him.
When we go through the על חטא’s hundreds of times, we are highlighting the externals which enables us to focus on our internals, on who we really are, similar to the Purim-costume effect! The aveiros that we got caught up and stuck in were merely costumes of something and someone else. That’s not our true essence. Our inner pnimiyus is pure, holy, and unadulterated.
Teshuva is not changing, inasmuch as it is returning; returning to our true essence. You can only return to something where you’ve been before and belong!
This Yom Kippur, take off and remove the costume you’ve been wearing for too long. You are not bad. You are not a Lashon Hara speaker, a Shemiras Einayim breacher, a Good Middos faker, a Hilchos Shabbos ignorer, a Brochos-on-food non-sayer.
You are not those things. It’s true, you may have erred and traveled down the wrong path, and of course, you must own up and take responsibility. But remember, those things are not you. They are the Yetzer Hara dressing you up in a silly costume.
Knock on the door of your true self, and answer.
Knock Knock. Who's there? Answer with: I'm here!
Gmar Chasima Tova