Preparing and sharing some inspiration, messages and relevance for this particular Yom Kippur 5785/2024. For past years Yom-Kippur inspiration see our Yom Kippur Collection.
OCT 7TH IN SAME WEEK AS YOM KIPPUR
That’s how it falls this year, 2024, Yom Kippur later in the same week as the first secular-year anniversary of October 7th. We did a Torah-Tuesday class this week exploring concepts and messages to be learned from this. We tried to capture some of the “October 7th and Yom Kippur” Torah-Tuesday discussion and message at this post.
YOM KIPPUR AT START OF BREAK
This Yom Kippur of 5785/2024 falls at the start of UAlbany’s extended Fall Break weekend. In many ways Yom Kippur is a break from our past. The divine forgiveness and atonement of Yom Kippur allows us to start fresh, renewed, invigorated, with a clean slate, anew. Many students have told us it is this sense of a refreshed clean slate start that makes Yom Kippur so meaningful for them. We can all use a reboot, restart, refreshed.
YOM KIPPUR AND COLUMBUS DAY
UAlbany’s Fall Break aligns with Columbus Day weekend. Columbus and Yom Kippur? All the talk and controversy regarding Columbus aside, he was definitely an explorer and he surely discovered new lands. Indeed, Yom Kippur is intended to be a journey of exploration and discovery – see this wisdom we learned from Grover and “The Monster at the End of this Machzor”.
HURRICANE MILTON
Everyone was talking about Milton, all eyes were on Milton, in the fast lead-up and build-up of this large hurricane. No doubt, those in Florida left hurting in its devastating wake, are feeling the impacts of Milton far beyond this week. As Milton was tearing its way across Florida one day before Yom Kippur, and the lead-up was in the same week as this Yom Kippur, one message kept coming back to me:
Nowadays we have sophisticated equipment, methods and experts to predict something like this. Not just for information or curiosity sake, but in order that people can take precautions, to properly prepare to the best of their abilities. We don’t have the technology to (start or) stop hurricanes, but we have the know-how to predict and forecast much about it, and that allows people to prepare and deal with it. Yom Kippur-wise, we can’t control everything going on in our lives, but we can and must do our part, whatever is within our ability, to make the best of it on our end, best we can do under the circumstances. Today’s hurricane response teaches us that it may be beyond our control but we’re not helpless!
RE: FEELING HELPLESS!?
Some of us were at a local communal memorial on October 7th this year, just days before Rosh Hashanah. My favorite part was when the played Yigal Harush’s Lament for Beeri, so authentically Sephardic, so reminiscent of the Kinot lamentations written centuries ago, sung from the depths and played beautifully.
My least favorite part of that memorial program was the last line of a call-and-response contemporary adaptation twist to the ominous Unesana Tokef prayer said on the high holidays. And it is such a jarring departure from the last bold three words of the original prayer: “But Teshuvah, Prayer and Tzedakah will avert the negativity of the decree!” We CAN and must do something! Yet, in this adapted contemporary version said aloud at the memorial event the response to that last line is “I feel helpless”!? Yes, it’s a legit feeling, and there’s no doubt it’s so real in limited situations (as it was for too many on the original October 7th). But to end off on that line? For that to be our bottom line, our last word?… Teshuva, Tefilah, Tzedakah! There are things we can and ought to do!
THE METS, THE METS!
We have lots of excited students and alumni. Just getting into October and the playoff season was a big deal, staying in it this far is beyond anyone’s expectations! Whatever we said on Rosh Hashanah re: the Mets in October is all the more true now after winning the series against the Phillies. The message is even stronger now!
WHERE WAS JEWISH ALBANY THE NIGHT BEFORE YOM KIPPUR?
This year many local Albany Jewish families were at Thacher Park or other low-light-pollution areas to try to catch a glimpse of the colorful Northern Lights. Our children were among them and among the throngs waiting to see it found quite a number of fellow Albany Jewish families! Now, wait, its the day before Yom Kippur, out galivanting like that!? Ah, but it seems fitting, especially this Yom Kippur: We’re all seeking that glimmer and sheen of light in the darkness, that bold blast of color/s against a pitch black sky/background, an illuminating heartwarming glow!
IT’S A SERIOUS TIME
Look, every Yom Kippur is serious. Of all the holidays its one of the most serious ones. Lots of prayer, reflection, remorse, nothing to eat. Yes, Chabad is always seeking the positive, the uplifting, the closeness over the distance, and we we still strive to do so this Yom Kippur. Chabad ends Yom Kippur on a triumphant glorious note singing Napoleon’s March. Even the Talmud speaks of Yom Kippur being one of the happiest days of the year.
But there’s no denying that right now this is a much more serious time, it’s an uneasy situation, there’s a lot of grief and stress and worry. Many have endured a lot, some a lot more than most. So while we shouldn’t wallow in this stuff, and stay stuck in the narrows forever, it’s OK to take the time and emotional space and the aura and atmosphere of Yom Kippur to work some of this through.
THE COMPOSTER ARRIVED
For years we had a trusty turning composter out back, and being that we peel lots of vegetables we turned and churned a lot of that (over long periods of time) into good solid dirt. It’s one of the only forms of recycling where you can actually see the results, and it feels good to be able to do something positive with waste. Then our composter gave way, it just wore out. For the new year we thought we should get a new one. We ordered it and it arrived on the day before Yom Kippur. We already have the many many apple peels of Rosh Hashanah (which we saved for this composter’s arrival) loaded up inside. It is meaningful that it came in time for Yom Kippur! It teaches us the power of positive transformation, even taking that which is considered useless trash and turning it back into something with so much growth potential!
A YOM KIPPUR ON A SHABBOS
The verse calls Yom Kippur a “Shabbat Shabbaton” or a Sabbath of Sabbaths. That’s why Yom Kippur overrides Shabbat. So no Challah, no wine, no Shabbat meal. Yom Kippur is a Sabbath’s Sabbath and takes precedence. But Rebbe says that when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat, the spiritual gifts of Shabbat are incorporated and emphasized within Yom Kippur itself. Those aspects became all the more pronounced in such a Yom Kippur.
Here are a few expressions of this: (1) The root Hebrew words for Shabbat and Teshuvah actually share the same letters: Shin, Bet, Taf; only scrambled. Shabbat is a scrambled form of Teshuvah, not the repentance-type, which focuses on wrongdoing and misdeeds but a higher form of return. So on a Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat, the higher/upper form of Teshuvah=return/reconnect is emphasized even further. (2) Shabbos actually has a mitzvah of Oneg-pleasure, to enjoy it. How does that jive with Yom Kippur which has a mitzvah to afflict ourselves (with fasting and such)? When on Shabbos there has to be an increased dimension of enjoying and appreciating Yom Kippur. (3) When Yom Kippur falls on a weekday we say and sing Avinu Malkeinu at the end of all the prayers. But when Yom Kippur falls on a Shabbos, as much as we love that familiar haunting song, it’s a prayer people really like, we skip it, we omit Avinu Malkeinu for all of the day’s prayers aside for the last one, near the close, at the end of Neilah.. Now that makes that lone Avinu Malkeinu extra special!
THE INDIAN MAN: 6 STORES, 40 APARTMENTS
I met this man in Restaurant Depot, two days before Yom Kippur. The cashier line was long and we got to talking. He came to this area about 15 years ago. Today he owns convenience stores and delis, six of them, stretching from Manchester and Bennington Vermont to a few dotted around this area. Along the way he accumulated a house theme and a multi-apartment there, and now has 40 apartment units for rent. It all started with one shop, he borrowed from friends and family to buy it, worked and hustled and saved and then bought another, and built it up, leveraging, stretching, investing. Some of his stores he got partners on so he’s not responsible and tied down with everything. And he came here with nothing and now has all this going on.
Why am I telling you this immigrant economic story on Yom Kippur, when we’re not even supposed to do any business? I think there’s a message here about Jewish growth and the wealth of our heritage. Some people treat their Judaism like a job. They go in, do what they have to, and go home. It stays the same year after year, consistent, dependable, but same old. There’s value in that. But we can also learn a lesson from the Indian man I met. Build on what you got, stretch to take it to the next level, keep growing the investment, make it work harder and do more. Our Judaism can grow, it can blossom, we can make our investment go further. The single mitzvah we do today can be doubled next month, and maybe quadrupled after that.
STEPPING UP TO KOL NIDREI
Just before Yom Kippur I saw this beautiful powerful story written in a Twitter thread by “Etti H” (@Etti_di-farina) and thought it would be especially meaningful to use that story to introduce Kol Nidrei this year in honor and tribute to all who stepped up this challenging year, and how in the merit of their stepping up may all of their and our prayers be answered and fulfilled beyond our wildest dreams and expectations!