Yom Kippur and other things

[theyellowhobbit]

tobeginagain was right. I was expecting some spiritual high from Yom Kippur this year, and I didn't get it. I didn't even get the feeling of relief that you usually get after neilah when you feel as if your prayers went up to G-d and you've been forgiven for all of your sins.

Part of it had to do with the fact that I wasn't so serious this Yom Kippur. The whole 2 hour break after mussaf was spent talking with Liz, Adam, Ari Gilder, and Avidan [with occasional other people walking in and out] about randomness. I also sat next to Liz during services, which might not have been such a good idea, given that the artscroll machzor just lends itself to being made fun of.

But then even during shmoneh esrei, I couldn't feel kavanah. I could feel Liz's kavanah as she was doing the vidui (confession of sins, which is somewhat long and in Hebrew). She really had it there. It didn't work for me. Part of it was that a lot of the sins on there are ones I didn't commit, and the ones I did commit weren't really listed. Well, some were under a bigger heading (like not being careful to perform all the positive mitzvot). And I still might have been sinning as I was doing the vidui. I was still doubting G-d, and G-d's justice.

We pray that G-d isn't forgiving us because of our own merit, but for His sake, and for the merit of our righteous ancestors. I don't know what forgiveness entails here. We ask G-d to get rid of his harsh decree. But was his harsh decree for me because of my sins, or because it's a test? If the latter, which I highly suspect, then no amount of davening, with or without kavanah, will do anything to change my fate. Or what if what I perceive as a "harsh decree" is really just my depression making me think that my future is bleak, but in reality everything will be fine, and I just can't believe it? In that case, I could have been falsely accusing G-d all along, which also is probably a sin, too.

I did feel some relief, I guess. Maybe it was just that last year I felt it more. Or I remembered it as more than it really is.

In any case, I still have until Hoshana Rabba to be forgiven.

It led to a good D'var Torah which I gave on Friday night, about the purpose of sukkot, and then the purpose of sukkot and simchat Torah in relation to Yom Kippur, and perhaps why I didn't feel the relief I wanted after Yom Kippur.


I started out with my tale of not feeling relief this year after neilah.

So the main purpose of sukkot that I outlined was the reliance on G-d, and how being in a sukkah could be like feeling G-d's presence, and that the sukkah is supposed to symbolize G-d's annanei kavod (clouds of Glory, really G-d's presence on earth that sheltered the Jews while they lived in the wilderness for 40 years.)

Then about Teshuva- 2 things:
1. Teshuva isn't complete until you go back into the real world and resist temptation
(e.g. I could repent for not studying, and then lock myself in Van Pelt forever, but the teshuva wouldn't be complete until I go to the highrise, and someone asks "rachel, do you want to make deli roll?" and I say "nope, I'm studying" and study successfullly,)
2. Teshuva requires a diminishing of the will.
After you rependt of doing something bad, you want to do less in general, and the ability to do good is also lessened. I cited the gemara where the rabbis got rid of the yeitzer hara for avodah zara, and then tried to do the same to the yeitzer hara for sex, but then there were no eggs in all of Israel, so they could only blind the yeitzer hara.

So therefore, the days of joy follow Yom Kippur, to help people get back to normal, and be ready to do good again.