We often approach Yom Kippur in a transactional way.
What I mean by that is that we think of Yom Kippur as a day when we say we are sorry so that G-d will forgive us, and therefore grant us a better year.
But I believe that not only is this not the deepest truth of Yom Kippur, but in a way, it misses the entire point of what Yom Kippur is meant to be.
To illustrate this, I think we can look at what the Kohen Gadol did when entering the Kodesh HaKodashim, the Holy of Holies.
Throughout the year, the Kohen Gadol would wear eight magnificent garments, woven with beautiful colors and adorned with gold. They were majestic, especially in a time when colorful clothing was not nearly as common as it is today.
Yet when he entered the Kodesh HaKodashim on Yom Kippur, he had to remove his golden garments and replace them with the simplest of garments: plain white linen.
This seems strange when you think about it.
It is the holiest day of the year. The holiest man is entering the holiest place on Earth. Shouldn’t this be the moment to wear his most magnificent garments?
Yet he does the exact opposite.
He removes them.
And I believe that, in a way, this represents what Yom Kippur is really about.
As we go through our lives, we wear a lot of garments.
We dress ourselves physically and emotionally. We present ourselves differently for the many roles we play in our lives.
We try to be good businessmen, good parents, good spouses, good Jews, good people.
We try to do good, and we try to present ourselves in the best way possible to accomplish the best we can in each of these areas.
These garments are necessary. Many of them are beautiful. They are the ways in which we express ourselves and fulfill our purpose in this world.
Yet beneath all of them, there is something deeper.
Yom Kippur is the only day of the year on which we have five prayers: Arvit, Shacharit, Musaf, Mincha, and finally, Neilah.
In Chassidic teaching, these five prayers are associated with the five levels of the soul: nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya, and yechidah.
Nefesh corresponds to the level of action.
Ruach to the emotional.
Neshama to the intellectual.
Chaya to the transcendent dimensions of the soul, beyond conscious thought.
And finally, yechidah.
Yechidah is the deepest, most pristine level of the soul. It is called yechidah, from the word yachid, one, because at this level, the soul’s essential oneness with G-d is revealed.
This is our true essence.
Who we are without any garments.
Just one with G-d.
And perhaps the entire process of Yom Kippur is about moving through these different levels, gradually removing the garments we wear, the roles we play, the personas we construct, and the identities we carry in order to face the world.
Not because they are necessarily false, but because none of them is the entirety of who we are.
Until, at last, we arrive at Neilah.
At the deepest level of ourselves.
Just as the Kohen Gadol removed his magnificent golden garments to enter the Kodesh HaKodashim, we too remove our garments to enter the holiest place within ourselves.
The holiest man, in the holiest place, on the holiest day.
Alone with G-d.
About that moment, the Torah tells us that no man could be in the Ohel Moed when the Kohen Gadol entered to perform the atonement.
Our Sages explain that this exclusion extends even to the angels, whose faces are described as resembling the face of man.
At that moment, no one else could enter.
There was nothing between the Jew and G-d.
No angel.
No garments.
No sins, no past, no baggage standing between them.
Just the purest essence of the soul, alone with G-d.
Perhaps the closest analogy we have for this is the intimacy between a husband and wife.
They remove their garments for a moment of pure intimacy.
And at that moment, there is just union.
There is no need to perform. No need to present themselves in a particular way. No need to dress themselves in the identities and roles they carry throughout their lives.
There is no thought of what the husband or wife did before, or what either of them is going to get out of the encounter.
There is only connection.
The pure giving of oneself to the other.
And in that moment, the revelation of a oneness that was there all along.
And it is at this point that we arrive at Neilah.
Neilah means the closing of the doors.
The doors close, and a moment of pure intimacy between the Jew and G-d takes place.
Just as the Kohen Gadol entered the Kodesh HaKodashim, alone with G-d, we too enter that innermost place within ourselves.
Nobody else is there to witness it.
Nothing else can enter.
Because at that moment, when the fifth level of the soul, the yechidah, is revealed, we reach a place that no sin and no action can ever touch.
Think of a diamond.
When it becomes covered in dirt, the diamond itself has not changed. Its essence remains just as pure and brilliant as it was before. The dirt merely conceals it.
Our souls are much the same.
Throughout our lives, we may accumulate layers of dirt. We make mistakes, we sin, and we sometimes act in ways that seem entirely disconnected from who we truly are.
But none of these things can ever reach the deepest essence of our souls.
They can conceal it, but they cannot change it.
And so, at that moment of pure intimacy, when we stand before G-d without any garments, without any barriers, and without anything separating us from Him, that essential purity is revealed.
At that level, there is no room for sin.
And in the revelation of that oneness, the dirt is washed away.
We are forgiven.
But perhaps this is the most important part of the entire idea.
Forgiveness is not the point of Yom Kippur. It is the consequence of it.
The purpose of Yom Kippur is not simply that we should say we are sorry so that G-d will forgive us.
Rather, Yom Kippur is the extraordinary gift of an opportunity to experience true intimacy with Him.
To remove everything we have accumulated throughout the year, everything we have dressed ourselves in, and to stand before Him as we truly are.
And when that essential oneness is revealed, forgiveness follows naturally.
Just as the Kohen Gadol emerges from the Kodesh HaKodashim, having entered the holiest place and stood alone before G-d, we too emerge from Neilah with our sins washed away.
Not because forgiveness was the ultimate goal of our encounter.
But because, for a moment, we were able to return to a place where there was nothing between us and Him.
And perhaps that is what Yom Kippur is really about.
Not earning our way back to G-d.
But discovering that, beneath all the garments, we were never truly separate from Him in the first place.
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Stunning. The last line is 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Revealing! Amazing way to see it, thank you!!! Chatoma tova!!!