How to Turn Yom Kippur into an Experience of Love Instead of Fear

00:00 Let’s talk today about the special teshuvah of Yom Kippur. We know that Yom Kippur is the day. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos Teshuvah, Yom Kippur is a time for teshuvah; it is the day especially designated for teshuvah, a time for everyone to do teshuvah. The Rambam also writes that throughout the Ten Days of Teshuvah, teshuvah is especially effective and readily accepted. And before that, he says that throughout the year, it is always a good time to do teshuvah. Even so, we say there is a special day in the year designated as the time for teshuvah. So we have three different times. There is the whole year: whenever a Jew wants, on any day of the year, they can certainly awaken to teshuvah at any moment, and their teshuvah is accepted. This is one of the central themes: a person should spend all their days in teshuvah, as our Sages tell us. But there is also a special time, the Ten Days of Teshuvah, when, as the Rambam says, teshuvah is especially effective and readily accepted. And beyond that, there is the special time of Yom Kippur. What is special about Yom Kippur that is not present at other times? We find remarkable statements of our Sages specifically about Yom Kippur. In particular, the Gemara says about Yom Kippur: “The very essence of the day atones.” There is something very special here: “The very essence of the day atones.” In other words, the day itself, its very essence, has the power to atone, to bring atonement. And the obvious question is: How can the very essence of the day atone? If you do teshuvah, then whenever a person does teshuvah, they are granted atonement. It has nothing to do with any particular day. And if a person does not do teshuvah, what does “the very essence of the day” mean? Yom Kippur suddenly arrives without my doing anything, and the day itself brings

02:14 some kind of atonement. How can that happen without the person doing anything? In fact, the Gemara records a disagreement between the Sages and Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi over whether teshuvah is also required: Does the essence of the day atone only for those who do teshuvah, or even for those who do not? The halachah says that teshuvah is also necessary. But that, too, needs to be understood. What does it mean that the essence of the day atones? If we say it atones for those who do teshuvah, then a person receives atonement whenever they do teshuvah. What is special about teshuvah on Yom Kippur? Today we’ll discuss several very interesting details to understand the unique depth of teshuvah on Yom Kippur. We’ll also see this reflected in certain parts of the prayers. There are various things about Yom Kippur that we need to understand. We see that one of its important features—something discussed and made central—is the service of the Kohen Gadol. Yoma is an entire tractate of Mishnah and Gemara, most of which describes how Yom Kippur was observed in the Beis Hamikdash. This comes from the Torah: there is an entire Torah passage that we read on Yom Kippur morning, explaining all the details of the laws—how the Kohen Gadol entered once a year, all the preparations, and the offerings he brought. Today, too, when we do not yet have the Beis Hamikdash—may we merit the complete Geulah and the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash this year—a very large part of the Musaf prayer is devoted to recounting and describing the service of the Kohen Gadol in detail. What is it about his service that connects to this day, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and teshuvah? Another thing we need to understand about the Yom Kippur prayers concerns the beginning of the day, which is

04:23 when we all enter the holy day with awe and trembling. On Yom Kippur night, as the holy day begins, we begin with Kol Nidrei. And we see that throughout the Jewish world, Kol Nidrei is recited with great concentration and emotion. What is so special about Kol Nidrei that we open the day with it, with such a profound feeling of holiness and awe? Seemingly, when you read its words, especially if you try to put them into simple language, there is nothing particularly special there—just vows, prohibitions, bans, and requests for their annulment, and so on, from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good. What is so special about Kol Nidrei that we open the day with it? And then, at the peak of Yom Kippur’s spiritual ascent, comes the Ne’ilah prayer. What is special about Ne’ilah? What does Ne’ilah mean? And why do we see that Ne’ilah is indeed the most powerful prayer? Of course, we are at the end of the day, in its final moments. Ne’ilah is almost upon us. The simple meaning is that the gates are closing, so of course we want to seize this last opportunity. But we know that, according to Chassidus, all these things have a much deeper dimension and meaning, helping us understand the depth of the teshuvah of Yom Kippur. Let’s begin with the central point we mentioned: “The very essence of the day atones.” The maamarim of Chassidus explain that “the very essence of the day” means its innermost essence, its depth and inner dimension. There is something about Yom Kippur: it is the day on which the essential bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed. When we speak about a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it has many layers and levels. There is the bond a Jew has with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in daily life, through Torah study and the fulfillment of mitzvos. Every mitzvah creates a bond. The word mitzvah is related to tzavsa—joining, connection. When a Jew fulfills a mitzvah,

06:47 whatever mitzvah it may be, from the easiest to the most demanding, a bond is formed. A connection is created between the Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And within that, too, there are many levels and degrees. How does the Jew fulfill the mitzvah? How deeply can one fulfill mitzvos? One can do so simply out of kabbolas ol of the Kingdom of Heaven: this is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. One can fulfill mitzvos out of awe, out of love, or with delight. There are many levels. And of course, the deeper one’s way of fulfilling a mitzvah, the deeper and higher the bond. There is a bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu that is even higher than the one formed through fulfilling mitzvos: the bond of teshuvah. As we have discussed before, the literal meaning of teshuvah, as the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya and other maamarim, is to return, to come back. That means a deeper renewal of the bond between the Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Although this Jew behaved badly, although I know that I behaved badly and have sinned, done wrong, and transgressed, the moment a Jew awakens to teshuvah, they return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and say: I want to be with You again. I want to connect and bond with You, and I regret what I did. A Jew thus reveals a deeper bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Although until now there was some separation, some disconnection, the Jew nevertheless returns to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives and pardons them. This reveals something more essential in a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is the bond between a child and a father. A Jew is not only a servant to a master; a Jew is a child to a father. The difference between a servant

08:55 And the servant, too, is devoted to his master. If the master is the king, he is devoted to the king. He will do what the king wants. He will accept the yoke of the kingdom. But sometimes the servant may rebel against the kingdom and throw off its yoke, and then the bond between servant and master is, so to speak, severed. But if the servant is also a son, there is something far more essential here. The bond between a son and the king is one that cannot be broken. It is an intrinsic, essential bond. This bond is revealed especially at the moment of teshuvah. Because if our bond is only an external one, then once I have rebelled and thrown off the yoke, that may be the end of it. The king can cast you out, send you away; you are no longer connected to him. That is it. But when there is an essential bond, the bond of a son, the bond between father and son is intrinsic and can never be erased. It is not a bond that can be severed. There may sometimes be a kind of distance. The son’s improper behavior, his failure to act as his father wishes, can cause a separation, a distance. But the father will always remain the father, and the son will remain the son. And the moment the son is moved to do teshuvah and says, “I want to come back and be with my father,” the bond is renewed. That, essentially, is the bond of teshuvah: a Jew returns and binds himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, returns to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And here it becomes clear that Hakadosh Boruch Hu can also forgive us, as Chassidus explains when discussing the depth of teshuvah. What does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives us? The mitzvos are the Supernal Will, the will of the King, the will of Hashem. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is called the Master of the Will, is beyond the will. Because He is beyond the will, He is the One who determined what that will would be. He is also

11:04 not bound by that will. He can say that although His will was not fulfilled, although a person did not behave properly, the moment that person returns, reconnects, and reveals this love between father and son, there is pardon and forgiveness. The Master of the Will reveals, so to speak, a new will. He chooses to desire His son and connect with him again, to restore that bond and connection. Then everything, the entire past, is cleansed and transformed, and a new period begins. The bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu that is revealed on Yom Kippur is the most essential and deepest bond. This is what is called “the day itself”—its very essence, the deepest bond. As is well known, Chassidus explains, based on the Midrash, that the soul is called by five names. Each name expresses a level, a kind of bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There are the levels of nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah. The bond at the level of nefesh is a Jew’s bond through action. Nefesh is the power of the soul that is invested in the body and gives life to its limbs. From it comes the actual performance of mitzvos: doing Hashem’s will because that is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu asked, doing it in practice. Ruach is connected to the world of emotion. It is a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu on an emotional level. He loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he stands in awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and therefore he fulfills the mitzvos. That is a deeper bond. Neshamah is connected to the mind, to the intellect. A Jew contemplates, delves deeply, learns Torah, and reflects on the greatness of Hashem. His bond is then one of intellectual love, a love built on depth and contemplation. That is a higher level, the level of neshamah. Then there is the fourth level, called chayah, which is the bond of the will. The will is above intellect, above emotion. I want to be connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu beyond reason

13:16 and understanding, because that is what I want. A Jew has an inner, essential will that is above intellect. Then the Jew’s will is connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and this arouses Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s will toward the Jew. It is a will beyond reason and understanding. But that is still not the fifth level. There is the fifth level, yechidah. Yechidah is related to the word yachid, “one”: the bond of yachid and yechidah. A Jew is connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in such a way that, just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu is yachid—so singular that nothing else exists apart from Him, which is why He is called one and unique—the Jew’s soul, a part of G-d above, is yechidah, in the feminine form. It receives, as in the relationship between man and woman, male and female, giver and receiver. So a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are yachid and yechidah. The soul receives its bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu at the level of yechidah, in a way that cannot be otherwise. A Jew is connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu so essentially that separation is impossible. This bond is like the bond between father and son that we spoke about, but it is not only that. As explained in Chassidus, it is the bond between father and son even before the son becomes a separate being in this physical world. As is well known, the son’s source, the way he begins within the father, is in the father’s very essence, before the child is conceived, before he comes into being as a child with 248 limbs and 365 sinews. There is the son as he is rooted in his father’s mind. So to speak, the bond between the Jewish people and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is that essential and intrinsic. In the words of the Zohar, “Yisroel and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” A Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are one thing, truly one. This essential bond is what the Gemara means when it says, “The day itself atones.” On Yom Kippur, every

15:25 Jew’s yechidah, the fifth level of the soul, is awakened. It reveals within us this essential bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and a Jew. At that level, sin has no place; a blemish has no place. When it is awakened, the truth is revealed: a Jew never wants to sin, and even when he sinned, that was not who he was. The yetzer hara had enveloped him and overcome him, as the Rambam says. The Rambam says that, in his essence, a Jew never wants to sin. In his very essence, a Jew wants to fulfill the will of Hashem. Certainly, at the level of yechidah, separation is impossible. What happens is what the Gemara calls a “spirit of folly”: “A person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly enters him.” It envelops and overcomes him, drawing him into places where his soul does not want to be. But even at the time of the sin, the Alter Rebbe says, the soul “remained faithful to Him, blessed be He.” The soul never wanted to be separate. On Yom Kippur, this bond is awakened. Once that happens, it is as though there had never been any severance, any separation, anything dividing a Jew from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the source of forgiveness and atonement. And this is what the Alter Rebbe tells us: the word kapparah, “atonement,” is also related to the phrase “and he shall cleanse the house”—it means cleansing, washing. In other words, the bond awakened on Yom Kippur washes away the things that caused distance and separation throughout the year, as though they had never existed. A person then emerges clean and strong. The “actual part of G-d above” is awakened and revealed again—the Jew’s essential, intrinsic bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This explains the five prayers of Yom Kippur. That is why there are five prayers on Yom Kippur, a day on which we are obligated to recite five prayers. The number five is

17:20 The five names of the soul that we spoke about. Each prayer is connected with another level of the soul, because on Yom Kippur we repair and restore each of the five levels to its place. The fifth prayer is Ne’ilah. But first let’s talk about the first prayer, as we said. What is there in the Kol Nidrei prayer? The Alter Rebbe tells us that when we speak here about vows, prohibitions, bans, and everything mentioned in Kol Nidrei, we mean not only ordinary vows. We also mean all kinds of bonds. “Asarei,” prohibitions, is related to the word for “releasing the bound”: all kinds of ropes, chains, and ties in which the G-dly soul is bound, held captive by the body and the animal soul. All kinds of negative thoughts cause us to be attached to the material world, to the body, to physicality, to desires, and sometimes also to negative tendencies or weaknesses—all kinds of thoughts and voices that make us feel weaker. The Alter Rebbe explains that one of the names for a person is enosh. There is adam, ish, gever, and enosh. Adam expresses the virtue of intellect, the mind. Ish expresses the world of emotion, the wonderful, rich inner worlds that each of us has. The world of intellect, the world of emotion. Gever means overcoming, strength—the ability to prevail in each of these areas. But enosh is related to being gravely ill, to weakness: “My strength fails because of my iniquity.” Sometimes, because a person is drawn to material things, to the body and the animal soul, the body pulls him downward and gives him a feeling of weakness. Who are you? Who am I, and what am I? I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength. I can’t overcome this. Thoughts that bring us down, thoughts that make us feel lesser. These, in fact, are the bonds, prohibitions, vows, and words that leave us gripped, trapped, and bound in the hands of kelipah and the sitra achra. Yom Kippur night arrives, and a Jew comes to shul

19:46 and the first thing he does is begin the familiar melody of “Kol Nidrei Ve’esarei.” He says all the words: all these vows, all these bonds, dissolve today. They no longer exist. There is only “And all this people shall be forgiven,” and, as it says later, “I have forgiven, as you have spoken.” Today is a day of connection. Today is a day of tremendous strength. It is a day of power. It is a day when the yechidah awakens—the essential, innermost bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In that place there are no sins, no transgressions, no negative thoughts. There is only the extraordinary strength and power of a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu at its deepest point. Once we reach that place, a Jew’s complete self-nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu becomes the source of strength and power to overcome everything and to resolve that this year really will be different, an entirely different year in every detail. And that, in fact, is what runs through the whole prayer. Throughout Yom Kippur, through his prayers, a Jew binds himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the deepest way. All the prayers of Yom Kippur, as we explained, are about transforming deliberate sins into merits. This is not just an ordinary request for forgiveness. The teshuvah of Yom Kippur is the highest level of teshuvah, what Chassidus calls teshuvah ila’ah—higher teshuvah, in its deepest sense. Teshuvah ila’ah is not only repentance for sins. Teshuvah ila’ah, as we discussed, is “and the spirit shall return to G-d Who gave it”: restoring the soul’s connection with the source of its life, as it were, before the soul descended into the world. The soul remains in a body in this physical world—a healthy soul in a healthy body. But the connection returns to its most essential, innermost place, as it were, before—as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya—before the breath of His mouth was breathed into the soul. After all, it says, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

21:57 Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed, as it were, from the deepest place. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, using the language of the Zohar, “He breathed” means that it comes from the inwardness and essence of the soul. But in practice it descends below: “You breathed it into me.” As we say in prayer every morning, “The soul You have given me is pure. You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me.” That is the soul as it becomes clothed in a vessel, in the physical body. But on Yom Kippur, the connection returns to its source, before “He breathed.” That is the power of the teshuvah of Yom Kippur. Then all the external, earthly ties that seek to weaken us are nullified and dissolve as though they had never existed. And that is the power of Yom Kippur. This is also why, in the Yom Kippur service, the Kohen Gadol enters the Holy of Holies. When the Kohen Gadol enters, he does not enter as a private individual; he is the representative of the entire Jewish people. The Kohen Gadol’s entry into the Holy of Holies is every Jew’s entry into the holy of holies of the soul, its innermost, most central, deepest place. There, in that place, there is only a Jew with Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “Yisroel and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” In the Holy of Holies, the cherubim faced one another. Yes, that is the bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu at its deepest point. That is what we have on Yom Kippur. And this is why our Sages tell us, regarding the verse “No person shall be in the Tent of Meeting when he enters to atone”: when the Kohen Gadol entered the Holy of Holies, “no person shall be there.” No one else could be there. The Midrash says that this means not only a person, but even “the face of a person”—that is, even the angels, of whom it is said, “their faces had the likeness of a human face.” In Yechezkel’s vision of the Divine Chariot, even the angels were not there—only the souls of Israel, joined with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the deepest bond of love and closeness. That is what we have on Yom Kippur, and that is, in fact,

23:57 also what happens at its peak, during the Ne’ilah prayer. It is the fifth prayer, when, as we discussed, the yechidah of the soul awakens in every Jew—the deepest part of a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is the truly deep, inner meaning of Ne’ilah. Ne’ilah means that the door and the gate are locked to all created beings and all worlds, even the angels, and only Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel remain inside. The Zohar says, in connection with Shemini Atzeres—the Zohar says that on Shemini Atzeres, Simchas Torah, this is the day to which it applies the verse about Yosef Hatzaddik. Yosef told everyone in Pharaoh’s household to leave. He sent them all out, and then there was only Yosef with his brothers: “No one was with him when Yosef made himself known to his brothers.” The Zohar says this refers to Shemini Atzeres, when Yisroel and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are alone together. Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people are alone. No one else enters. Chassidus explains that Shemini Atzeres is really the culmination. It begins on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the day when this bond is formed. That is the Ne’ilah prayer. All the gates are locked, and inside there are only Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel. Then, at the end of the day, we proclaim the prayers, the verses of oneness: “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”; “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever”; and “Hashem is G-d.” A Jew proclaims all these verses of oneness aloud, with full intent, and says: This is the truth. This is my truth, and I am going to live with this truth all year long. We say “Hear, O Israel” once, because it is the power of faith of the yechidah in the soul. It is one—yechidah. Three times we say, “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever,” because there are three worlds. In the soul, too, there are thought, speech, and action, and each of the garments of thought, speech, and action

26:06 May they be imbued with true faith in the oneness of Hashem, and with the sevenfold declaration, “Hashem is G-d.” We say it seven times to instill that faith throughout all seven days of Creation, throughout all seven days of the week. Chassidus explains that the word Elokim has the same numerical value as hateva, “nature.” Nature is made up of seven—the seven days of Creation—and there is the whole concept of the seven middos. So “Hashem is G-d” means that on every day of my life in this natural world, I should feel the truth that nature is, in fact, beyond nature. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me in every detail, guiding me and leading me. That is also why we conclude, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Chassidus explains what these words mean: We do not mean that we will wait until next year, until next Yom Kippur—G-d forbid. Rather, “the coming year,” says the Frierdiker Rebbe, means the year coming right now. You can read the phrase as “next year,” but you can also say, “the year that is coming now,” as we enter it. This year that is coming now, the year we are receiving right now, 5786—that is the year we mean when we say, “The coming year,” right now, “in Jerusalem.” Complete awe, complete awe of Hashem: that we have complete awe of Hashem and connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu completely. And that also brings us to the complete Geulah—to a rebuilt Jerusalem with the Beis Hamikdash. On Yom Kippur, we pray to Hakadosh Boruch Hu that we merit to see the service of the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur in the Beis Hamikdash. This is what we truly ask and pray for: that through the power of teshuvah during these days, every Jew’s essential, inner bond will be awakened, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s great love for Knesses Yisroel will be aroused. Then surely, as the verse says, “Hashem your G-d refused to listen to Bilam, and Hashem your G-d turned the curse into a blessing for you, because Hashem your G-d loved you,” that the essential

28:15 and innermost love of Hakadosh Boruch Hu for Knesses Yisroel, and the essential and innermost love of Knesses Yisroel for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, will be revealed. Then we will surely merit that this year be a year of light, a year of blessing and a year of Geulah—the true and complete Geulah with our righteous Moshiach. May each and every one of you, and each and every one of us, have a gmar chasimah tovah, a good and sweet year materially and spiritually, a year of Geulah and deliverance, a year of our redemption and Geulah. Amen.