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Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- The High Holidays
- Yom Kippur
Repentance is one aspect of personal freedom. Judaism teaches that repentance creates a new person so to speak. There is nothing more difficult in life than remaking one’s self. We are troubled by what our families or our former friends will say about this new self that we project. It is difficult to adjust to a new person, even if the new person is the person itself. Therefore Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant stated that the loudest noise heard in the universe is that of a habit being broken. Physical addictions are terribly dangerous and difficult in the extreme to overcome. Such an addiction is a brutal form of slavery, especially since most such addictions are self inflicted. But mental and spiritual addictions are just as dangerous and brutal. People are very reluctant to alter preconceived notions and their behavior patterns. The Talmud shrewdly states that after a time slaves become passive and seemingly satisfied with their role in life and comfortable in the lack of accountability and responsibility that this state of being engenders. Personal freedom always comes with a price to be paid for it. The price is the willingness of a person to remake one’s self no matter what others in society will think about it. Yom Kippur allows one to begin this process of self emancipation and to state openly to God and to ourselves that we are determined to become a new, different and better person. Yom Kippur can erase our old addictions and free us for great new accomplishments in life.
The great rebbe of Kotzk, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (Halperin) Morgenstern said: "There are really no fast days in the Jewish calendar year. On Tisha B’Av we are so overcome with mourning over the destruction of our Temples that we have no appetite for food - who can eat? On Yom Kippur we are in such an exalted state of spirituality that we have no necessity to eat!" Freed from our physical necessities for the day we are transformed into the new person that looks inside one’s self for meaning and fulfillment. Dressed in white and without jeweled adornments, we are freed from fashion and conformity. Moshe was told that on holy ground one must shed one’s shoes. It is a sign of humility and connection to the earth at one and the same time. Moshe became a new person at that encounter with the burning bush, no longer the simple shepherd tending the flocks of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, but rather the great prophet and leader that has no equal in human history and society. We also shed our expensive and comfortable leather shoes on Yom Kippur for that is part of our declaration that we also wish to become a new person, attached to the holy earth and committed to a new spirit of greatness and responsibility that we pray will permeate us. On Yom Kippur, at least for a day, we become free at last.
Rabbis in Midrash
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The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
Chukat "HOW ENTEBBE STOLE THE BICENTENNIAL
The Difference Between Historic & Eternal"
As we approach America's 250th birthday, it's worth remembering her 200th Bicentennial birthday, on Jul. 4th 1976, when Israel "stole the show" by shocking the world & miraculously saving 101 hostages in a foreign continent. As Pres. As Pres. Trump decides which countries get priority in his new Middle-East, it's worth reminding him of the difference between historic events and eternally historic ones. This obviously connects with this week's parsha, as well!
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 6 - The Parable of the King of India
The advantages of testimony over circumstantial evidence or philosophical speculation.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 5- "Proofs of G-d"
This may be the most important class of the entire book, where we finally get to the Jewish proof of the existence of G-d and truth of the Torah. We should follow His own direction where He tells us how to get to Him: through the Nation of Israel: Jewish history, Jewish prophets (and today, prophecies fulfilled), and national reward & punishment towards Am Yisrael.
Ein Aya One Humanity, One Creator, One Jerusalem
Rav Kook innovatively and beautifully explains this aggadeta where our sages say that after Jerusalem was destroyed her cinnamon fragrance is only found locked in a particular kingdom's treasury.
