The Order of the Service on Yom Kippur - Rabbi Isser Springer shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 A good and sweet year. During these days, the Days of Awe, we have long prayers, often with difficult expressions, and sometimes we find it hard to pray. So let’s talk about the longest piyut in the prayers of the Days of Awe. It’s called “Atah Konanta”—“You established the world from the beginning.” It describes the order of the Kohen Gadol’s service on Yom Kippur. We’ll learn what he does and in what order. We’ll try to follow the piyut closely, so it will be easier to pray properly in shul on Yom Kippur. If you have a machzor and can open it to follow along, even better. But even if you don’t, with Hashem’s help we’ll try to make things clear and understand the order of the Kohen Gadol’s service. Incidentally, “Atah Konanta” is the only piyut included in the Alter Rebbe’s siddur. He included one long piyut for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, “Atah Konanta,” but did not include the other piyutim. Our custom is to say them, and perhaps they were said then too. But if you open the Torah Or siddur, you’ll find only one piyut for the Days of Awe: “Atah Konanta.” The piyut begins with sections arranged in alphabetical order, describing the creation of the world. The sequence runs from creation to Aharon the Kohen. We won’t go into the details it gives about creation; we’ll move to the second section. That section reverses the alphabet, starting with tav and going back to alef. The first section starts alef, beis, gimmel, daled; then the piyut follows the reverse order: tav, shin, reish, kuf. The third section again goes alef, beis, gimmel, daled. So the sections of this piyut go through the entire alphabet three times, from beginning

02:27 Speaker 2 to end, apart from the quoted passages. The passages containing the Kohen Gadol’s confessions and the words accompanying his sprinkling of the blood are not written as poetry. They are said plainly, in a more understandable form, without following the alphabetical order. Let’s look at the numbers. We’ll start with the numbers for Yom Kippur, then turn straight to the piyut and see where they appear. How many times does the Kohen Gadol immerse on Yom Kippur? Five times, as he changes from golden garments to white garments and from white back to gold, and so on. He washes his hands and feet from the kiyor ten times. How many times does he enter the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur? Once a year—there is one day a year when he enters. But how many times does he enter on that day? Four times, as we’ll see when we look at what he does each time. The Kohen Gadol confesses three times. One of his services is sprinkling the blood: “one,” “one and one,” as we customarily sing. In all, he sprinkles blood forty-three times on Yom Kippur. He pronounces the explicit Name ten times, and fifteen animals are offered as korbanos that day. There is one more animal, the goat sent to Azazel, making it the sixteenth animal of the day. Now let’s go through the piyut and see how all these numbers fit into the Kohen Gadol’s service throughout the day. The Kohen Gadol begins even before Yom Kippur: he starts learning in advance. In the piyut, this begins at the letter tav in the third section: “The teachings of the day’s service he will study for seven days in Our dwelling.” This reminds us of the first Mishnah in tractate Yoma: seven days before Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol is separated from his home and brought to the Chamber of Parhedrin in the Beis Hamikdash. There, the Kohen Gadol

04:49 Speaker 2 prepares for Yom Kippur. They instruct him, train him, and so on. They caution him, and then we arrive at Yom Kippur, at the letter pei. In the piyut, we say, “They spread a linen sheet for him when the time came to slaughter the daily lamb.” The principal service of the day is performed in linen—the white garments, which are made of linen. On Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol performs all the services, even those an ordinary kohen can perform on an ordinary day. On Yom Kippur, it is specifically the Kohen Gadol who does them. “They spread a linen sheet for him when the time came to slaughter the daily lamb.” The Kohen Gadol goes down and immerses behind the sheet so no one will see him immersing. This is his first immersion. Afterward, he washes his hands and feet for the first time. Over the course of the day, he must wash his hands and feet ten times and immerse five times. He begins before putting on his garments; then he puts on the golden garments, the Kohen Gadol’s regular garments for his service. Wearing them, he performs the services that are not part of the special Yom Kippur service. The golden garments are for services performed on Shabbos and weekdays too, and at other times. In the white garments, he performs the services unique to Yom Kippur, such as entering the Holy of Holies. We begin with the golden garments. What does he do in them? He takes the daily lamb and must do two things: slaughter it and receive its blood. As we said, the Kohen Gadol performs all the services on this day. It’s a little complicated to slaughter the lamb and receive its blood at the same time. So he slaughters it to the minimum extent required by halachah, without finishing the slaughter. That is,

06:50 Speaker 2 he cuts the greater part of both simanim—the windpipe and the esophagus—which fulfills the requirement of shechitah. He immediately hands it over to someone else to finish, while he receives the blood and casts it on the altar, since that is one of the services the Kohen Gadol must perform on Yom Kippur. He then goes in to prepare five lamps. According to the author of this piyut—we won’t discuss all the opinions—the lamps are not lit in the morning. They are only tended and made ready to be lit later in the day. He tends five lamps, offers the morning ketores, and then tends the other two lamps. There is a break in the tending of the lamps; it is not all done at once. The morning ketores is offered between the two parts. Incidentally, every day, on Yom Kippur as well as on a weekday, we recite Abba Shaul’s order of the service. There, tending the five lamps precedes the blood of the daily offering, and the blood of the daily offering precedes tending the other two lamps. In that order, it is the blood of the daily offering—not the ketores, as in “Atah Konanta”—that comes between the five lamps and the two. The halachah follows our piyut: the ketores separates the tending of the five from the tending of the two. There is a particular reason why we recite something each morning that was not accepted as halachah; it is discussed in sichos and elsewhere, but we won’t go into it now. Let’s continue. The Kohen Gadol is still wearing the golden garments. As on every day, he offers the minchas chavitin and pours the wine libation. At that time the Levi’im play all kinds of musical instruments. After the daily offering, he offers the musaf, still wearing the golden garments. Although this is the Yom Kippur musaf, every festival has a musaf—not only Yom Kippur, but Rosh Hashanah, Sukkos, and all the festivals. The Kohen Gadol offers the musaf. What does he offer now? A bull

08:54 Speaker 2 The burnt offering and seven lambs—the seven lambs of the day’s musaf offering. So we have now reached nine animals. There is the daily offering, which he has already brought, and now the kohen brings another eight animals: a bull and seven lambs. That brings us to nine animals. Remember, we need to reach a total of fifteen animals offered on this day. Now the kohen goes to immerse again. He sanctifies his hands and feet before immersing, immerses for the second time that day, sanctifies his hands and feet afterward, and puts on the white garments. Now we are entering the atmosphere of Yom Kippur. This is something special—the garments particular to this day. What does the kohen do? First, he comes to his bull. Not Pharaoh, the wicked king of Egypt who oppressed the Jewish people, but his bull. The kohen approaches his bull and recites a confession over it. We mentioned that the kohen makes three confessions on this day: one for himself, one for himself and his fellow kohanim, and a third that includes the entire Jewish people. This is the first confession, which he recites over the bull he has brought. In this confession, the Divine Name is pronounced three times. It is pronounced three times in each confession, and this bull is the tenth animal we are discussing. When the Kohen Gadol confesses and pronounces the Divine Name, the kohanim and the people standing in the Temple courtyard bow, fall on their faces, and say, “Blessed be the Name.” He responds to them, saying, “You shall be purified,” and so on. This is the first thing the Kohen Gadol does in the white garments, the first act particular to Yom Kippur: the confession over his bull. He then goes to conduct the great lottery: which goat will be for Hashem, and which will be for Azazel? The poet says that the lot in his right hand comes up for Hashem, because it is a good sign

11:02 Speaker 2 for the Jewish people when the lot for Hashem comes up in his right hand. And he says, “A sin offering for Hashem.” When he says “for Hashem, a sin offering,” he pronounces the Divine Name. This is the fourth time—three times during the confession, and now a fourth time. This animal, the goat designated for Hashem, is the eleventh animal we are discussing. We have spoken about the daily offering, the eight animals of the musaf offering, and the bull the Kohen Gadol brought and confessed over. Now we have the eleventh animal, the goat designated for Hashem. There is also the goat sent away, but it is not counted among the animals offered on this day. Now he makes another confession over the bull, saying, “Please, Hashem, I and the sons of Aharon, Your holy people, have sinned”—that is, he confesses for himself and his fellow kohanim. This is the second confession, and by now he has pronounced the Divine Name seven times: three times in the first confession, once when he said “a sin offering for Hashem” at the lottery, and another three times in this confession. Again the people bow, and again the chazzan chants, “And the kohanim would bow and fall on their faces,” and so on. Now he slaughters the bull. Which bull? The same bull over which he confessed for himself and his household. He leaves its blood with someone who stirs it so it will not congeal or harden and can later be sprinkled. Someone has to keep stirring it. He leaves the blood with that person and takes a golden fire pan. Now we reach the climactic moment. We begin to approach the Holy of Holies. Once a year, the holiest time, the Kohen Gadol—the holiest person—and the holiest place come together. The most extraordinary combination of world, year, and soul reaches the Holy

13:15 Speaker 2 of Holies. The kohen fills the fire pan with glowing coals, and at the same time receives a vessel full of incense. It contains three kav of the incense ingredients, which, in today’s measurements, is about four kilograms according to Rabbi Chaim Naeh’s reckoning. He enters the Holy of Holies carrying the two vessels, the incense in one hand and the coals in the other. He takes the incense, and this is a difficult service in the Beis Hamikdash. The Gemara calls it “a difficult service in the Beis Hamikdash.” It then asks: There are other complicated services, so why call this the difficult service in the Beis Hamikdash? The Gemara answers that it is one of the difficult services in the Beis Hamikdash. But when the Rambam quotes this in the laws of the Yom Kippur service, he writes of this service, “This is the difficult service in the Beis Hamikdash.” He has to hold the spoon, gripping it with his mouth or something like that, and transfer the incense. He placed a double handful of incense in the spoon, and now he has to transfer all the incense from the spoon into his hands. The quantity is meant to fill both his cupped hands. He has to grip the spoon with his mouth and use his thumbs to draw out the incense, while catching it in his hands without letting any of it fall to the sides. The Rambam says, “This is a difficult service in the Beis Hamikdash.” Presumably, when the Kohen Gadol practiced in the days before Yom Kippur, he practiced this part too: managing to hold even a full spoon in his mouth and use his thumbs to transfer its contents into his hands without spilling anything. It is a difficult, complicated task. Then the kohen burns the incense and places the fire pan

15:17 Speaker 2 of coals by the Aron in the Holy of Holies, puts the incense on the coals, says a short prayer, and goes out. Now he returns to the fellow who has been stirring the bull’s blood to keep it from congealing, and enters the Holy of Holies a second time. During this service in the white garments, he enters the Holy of Holies three times: the first time to burn the incense, and the second time to sprinkle the bull’s blood. He enters, and here too we describe how “he did not intend to sprinkle upward or downward, but as one lashes.” In other words, he did not sprinkle on the upper or lower part of the Aron; he made the sprinklings toward the floor before the Aron. Eight sprinklings. He comes out, and they bring him the sin-offering goat—the goat we discussed earlier, whose lot came up for Hashem. He slaughters it and again sprinkles blood in the Holy of Holies. This is his third entry into the Holy of Holies on this Yom Kippur: the first for the incense, the second to sprinkle the bull’s blood, and the third to sprinkle the goat’s blood. We have reached sixteen sprinklings, because each time he sprinkles eight times. The kohen returns, takes the bull’s blood, and sprinkles it toward the curtain opposite the Aron, from outside. Now the kohen is standing outside the Holy of Holies, before the curtain, and again makes eight sprinklings toward the floor before the curtain. He makes eight sprinklings with the bull’s blood and then eight with the goat’s blood. That brings us to thirty-two sprinklings, because we have added another eight and eight. Now he continues sprinkling, but this time with both kinds of blood together. He combines the bull’s blood with the goat’s blood, pouring the bull’s blood into the vessel containing the goat’s blood. He stands beside the golden altar, also called the inner altar or the incense altar, as distinct from the outer altar.

17:27 Speaker 2 on which the offerings are brought, not the incense. He sprinkles blood four times on its four corners, on the four points of the altar. The Kohen Gadol sprinkles the blood, and afterward he clears a space on the altar and sprinkles another seven times on the surface of the altar itself, the inner altar. So altogether we have forty-three sprinklings, which he performs in fairly close succession: sixteen from the blood of the bull and the goat inside, another sixteen toward the curtain, then four and another seven on the inner altar. That comes to a total of forty-three sprinklings by the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur. The Kohen Gadol now goes to the scapegoat and makes the third confession—not just for himself, and not just for his fellow Kohanim, but for the entire congregation of Israel. Again, the Kohen Gadol pronounces the explicit Divine Name three times. That completes the ten times he pronounces the explicit Divine Name on Yom Kippur, and also the three confessions he makes on Yom Kippur. Now he sends this goat to Azazel. Off you go to Azazel. It doesn’t understand; it doesn’t go on its own. They take it there, push it off, and it is torn limb from limb. He returns to the bull and the goat we spoke about earlier—the bull the Kohen Gadol brought and confessed over, and the goat associated with the confession for him and his fellow Kohanim—and attends to what needs to be done with them. He then goes to the Women’s Courtyard, where he reads from the Torah, and makes his way to the place of immersion. In fact, this stage, when the Kohen Gadol wore white garments, is the main part of his service on Yom Kippur. These stages are the main part of the Kohen Gadol’s Yom Kippur service. This is when he enters the Holy of Holies three times, makes the three confessions, pronounces the explicit Divine Name ten times, and performs forty

19:43 Speaker 2 -three sprinklings of blood. The lottery he conducts and all these things take place during this part of the service. This is the central service of Yom Kippur. The Kohen Gadol goes and again sanctifies his hands and feet, immerses for the third time that day, and again sanctifies his hands and feet, for the fifth time. He then offers the goat. Now he is wearing gold garments, and he slaughters the goat—another goat, the twelfth animal. He offers the ram he is required to bring and the ram the Jewish people are required to bring, the thirteenth and fourteenth animals. He also offers the afternoon daily offering according to its laws. That is the fifteenth animal, completing the number of animals offered that day: fifteen. From this point on, no more animals are offered on the altar. The next time the Kohen Gadol wears white garments, and the next time he wears gold garments, no animals are involved. We have completed the count of animals the Kohen Gadol offers on this day. What is still missing from the list of numbers we mentioned at the beginning is the full count of immersions. The Kohen Gadol has immersed three times so far; he needs to immerse twice more. He has sanctified his hands and feet five times so far; he needs to do so another five times. That will complete the list of Yom Kippur numbers we discussed at the beginning. Having done all this, having offered the animals, including the goat offered outside—no, the goat for the people—he returns to the place of immersion. He again sanctifies his hands and feet before immersing and afterward. That brings us to seven sanctifications of hands and feet. He immerses again, his fourth immersion, and puts on white garments. Why is he putting on white garments now? To enter the Holy of Holies. Why does he enter the Holy of Holies now? To take out the firepan, the firepan containing the coals

21:36 Speaker 2 on which the incense was burned. The incense has already been offered, risen, and accomplished its purpose; now the firepan must be brought out. So the Kohen Gadol performs the immersion and the sanctifications and puts on white garments—for what? To enter the Holy of Holies and bring out the firepan. This is the fourth time the Kohen Gadol enters the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. This is, in fact, the only thing he does in white garments this time. The Kohen Gadol now immerses for the fifth time, sanctifying his hands and feet before and after. We have reached the fourth immersion and nine sanctifications of hands and feet. The Kohen Gadol puts on gold garments, because a few tasks remain that belong to the regular daily service, not specifically to Yom Kippur. That is why he wears gold garments again. What does the Kohen Gadol do after changing his garments for the last time? He offers the afternoon incense. There is the morning incense, and there is the afternoon incense. He lights the lamps. In the morning, he only cleaned and prepared the lamps for this lighting; now he lights them. Then he sanctifies his hands and feet and takes off the gold garments. They bring him his own clothes, and he puts them on. The Kohen Gadol has now completed the great service of Yom Kippur. He wore white garments and gold garments; now he finishes everything, puts on his own clothes—what we would call civilian clothes—and leaves. He would hold a Yom Tov celebration when he emerged safely from the Sanctuary. He celebrated having succeeded in entering the Holy of Holies without any disqualification, so there was no need to pull him out by a chain. And as it says in the siddur after this liturgical poem, “Just as You heard the Kohen Gadol’s prayer in the Sanctuary, so too hear us and save us.” We pray to Hashem

23:36 Speaker 2 that He will hear our prayers too, as we pray for the complete Geulah immediately, with Hashem’s help, even before this Yom Kippur. May it be a good and sweet year, a year of Geulah, a year in which we merit to return to the Kohen Gadol’s service in the Beis Hamikdash.