Yom Kippur is the decisive refutation of the impression that
outsiders often have of Torah observance: that it is a regime
dominated by limitations and restrictions, suppressing and
repressing important parts of the human being to an extent
that is liable to cause depression and worse.
Yom Kippur is in fact a day of the most extreme restrictions.
Every seventh day is a Sabbath. The word comes from a Hebrew
root that means "to refrain," and refers to the fact that
Hashem — and we in following His example — did no
creative work on the Sabbath, even during the initial period
of the world when He was actively creating the whole
thing.
While on the weekly Sabbath we thus refrain from all creative
physical achievement, Yom Kippur carries the restrictions
several steps further. It is called, "Shabbos Shabboson
— a Sabbath among Sabbaths" (Vayikra 23:32),
indicating a greatly expanded restriction that rules out not
only creative work but also forms of basic pleasure and even
the very sustenance that we need to stay alive.
If an example of extreme restriction is wanted, it seems that
Yom Kippur is clearly it. If the limits of every Shabbos can
appear to an outsider as inconveniencing, the rules of Yom
Kippur which rule out pleasure and even food, are positively
life-threatening if extended. (Of course, they are not
allowed to be carried to a point where they actually threaten
life.)
Does anyone think that Yom Kippur is the acme of repression
and stultifying restrictions?
Certainly no one who has ever seriously observed it as it is
meant to be observed, even today. Setting aside the wants and
even the needs of our physical side, and spending an entire
day in a setting that strongly focuses our selves on our
spiritual side, is an experience that leaves us elevated and
much more alive than we were previously, even when we return
to our regular pursuits. We discover — anew every year
and, if we are successful, at levels that spiral higher
— how our physical side can obscure our spiritual
potential, but also how it need not if we are fully aware of
both sides of our being.
We do not mean to suggest that this is readily available to
anyone who simply agrees to give it a try. It requires
considerable preparation, including knowledge and
understanding of what prayer is in general, and of the ways
in which the Yom Kippur service is unique. The more that is
invested prior to the day, the greater the payback. But those
on the outside have many thousands of happy investors whom
they can ask for personal information about the huge returns
that observing the day brings.
In days past, and again some day soon in the future, when Yom
Kippur was focused on the service of the Kohen Godol and his
entry to the Holy of Holies, the effects of the experience
even on those who merely saw it as observers is impossible
for us to imagine. We are so deeply in exile and so far
removed from service through korbonos that we cannot
even begin to guess at the spiritual elevation that they
achieved. Even the descriptions given of the appearance of
the Kohen Godol at the successful conclusion of his service
on Yom Kippur are unimaginable: "As a tent stretched across
the Heavenly realms . . . As a bolt that comes out of the
glow of the Divine Chayos . . . His generation saw and
rejoiced."
Human beings then scaled heights that nobody can imagine
today. But even today, those who seriously observe Yom Kippur
become intimately familiar with a realm that those on the
outside cannot understand. By liberating us from the demands
of our bodies for one day, our entire lives are informed by a
spiritual perspective which remains with us.
When we ask to be to be written and inscribed for life, we
know whereof we speak.
"Inscribe us for life, . . . because You are a living G-
d."
