I.
There was once a man who moved to a new city just a few days before a family wedding. Since he was new to the city he did not yet have a regular dry cleaner and so he walked about the city searching for a dry cleaner. He couldn’t find one. Until, while he was riding the bus one afternoon, he saw a shop, right down the street from his home that somehow he had never noticed before. Outside the shop was a bright yellow sign that said “We Press Suits.” As soon as he could the man brought his suit to the store, placed it on the counter and said, “please have this suit pressed as soon as possible – I need to wear it to a family wedding in three days.”
The clerk at the store, looked up at the man and then said, “oh – I’m sorry sir. We don’t press suits. We make signs.”
It isn’t always easy to tell the difference between someone who makes signs and someone who actually does something. But figuring out the difference is one important task of this day.
It is especially hard to discern whether or not the sign that we hang outside our own shops describes what we do. It is challenging to decipher whether or not the self-image we project to others is mere fantasy. And, it is a lifelong struggle to discern whether or not the internal sense of self that we each cultivate corresponds with reality.
It is hard to scrutinize ourselves. We don’t have an objective tool with which to examine our characters. It is we ourselves who must use our minds, our hearts and souls, to evaluate those same components of our personae. We work so hard and invest so much time and energy to impress others. We work so hard to show our best sides to others. We work so hard at putting our best face forward and we we can therefore lose the ability to accurately distinguish between authenticity and the facade that we present to the world. Do we press suits or do we make signs?
In an age of Facebook and social media this challenge has grown even larger. The term, “social-media” is something of an oxymoron. Media is about producing and projecting information to an audience. Socializing is meant to create society – a framework in which we can be mutually and interpersonally authentic. On social-media platforms we curate profiles for our friends and colleagues to see. All too easily that social-media identity overwhelms our private authentic identity. Do we press suits or do we make signs? That is what we are here to figure out.
II.
The Torah adds a curious detail to its description of Yom Kippur.
וְהָֽיְתָה־זֹ֨את לָכֶ֜ם לְחֻקַ֣ת עולָ֗ם לְכַפֵ֞ר עַל־בְנֵ֤י יִשְראֵל֙ מִכָל־חַטֹאתָ֔ם אַחַ֖ת בַשָנָ֑ה וַיַ֕עַש כַאֲשֶ֛ר צִוָ֥ה ה׳ אֶת־מֹשֶֽה
“And this shall be for you an everlasting law regarding atonement for the Children of Israel from all of their sins. Once each year you shall do this ritual in accordance with what the Lord commanded to Moshe.” (Lev. 16:34)
Why does the Torah explain that the Yom Kippur avodah, the special service of the high priest, the kohen gadol on Yom Kippur would take place once each year? Every annual holiday takes place once each year. The Torah does not tell us to observe Pesach once each year. The Torah does not tell us to observe Sukkot once each year. The Torah does not tell us that Shavuot or Rosh Hashanah occur once each year. But the atonement of Yom Kippur takes place, the Torah tells us, “achat ba’shanah”
The Torah singles out Yom Kippur as a singular day in the calendar because the work that we must accomplish on Yom Kippur is a singular task, one that goes against the grain of how our lives our oriented during the other days of the year. Mah Nishnanah HaLaylah HaZeh? How is this night, and this day of Yom Kippur different from all other days?
On all other days, we are allowed to engage in “aspirational hypocrisy.” On all other days we present ourselves and we think of ourselves as being somewhat better than we are. We make signs and don’t worry about pressing suits. This aspirational hypocrisy can be a gradual force for good. But on Yom Kippur we need to confront the truth. During the rest of the year, having an unrealistically positive assessment of our selves can help us to be marginally better people. But on Yom Kippur we aim for something higher.
By the end of Yom Kippur we burn off the dross and reach sincerity. That intense perspective can’t last more than one day. We then have to reconstruct our ego for the coming year – but this time, hopefully, based on truth. We don’t just make signs, we also press suits. How do we achieve this?
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the “Mussar Movement” in 19th century Europe dedicated to cultivating ethical growth wrote that:
“Fantasy can be cast off…If we only pay close attention to that which is rational and consider the truth…But what shall we do? Fantasy is a raging river, rational truth is submerged and drowns…unless we transport it in a ship that is the passion of the soul, and the storm of the spirit.”1
The key to moral and religious development for Rav Salanter, was the rule of rational thought over the passions and fantasies that sway, divert, or corrupt our actions and way of being in the world. But, truth will inevitably drown in the raging river of fantasy unless we construct a boat where truth can find solace, regroup, and prepare for another day. That boat is made out of “passion of the soul and storm of the spirit.”
How do we cultivate that passion and that positive storm? We create passion of the soul and storm of the spirit through the affirming confessions on Yom Kippur.
III.
At each prayer service on Yom Kippur we recite an elaborate acrostic confession. Including in this confession is a prayer “Elokai, Ad Shelo Notzari Eini K’dai”
“My God, before I was created I did not exist (eini k’dai) and now that I have been created, it is as if I was not created.”
In his commentary to the annual cycle of tefilot, Rav Avraham Kook writes2 the following explanation of this prayer:
Elokay Ad Shelo Notzarti, eini kidai – . My God, in the countless generations that preceded me You did not see fit to create me because You knew that I would not be needed at those junctures in history. “Eini Kidai’ means I wasn’t relevant, and my unique talents and gifts were not relevant to the generations that preceded mine. My particular abilities, talents, and qualities were not necessary. But V’achshav Shenotzarti – now that you have created me, now that the world needs my voice, my abilities, k’eilu lo notzarti – it is as if you have not created me – because I have not accomplished my mission.
To answer the question posed by Rabbi Ysirael Salanter: How do we arouse passion and how do we call up a storm of the spirit? By recognizing our awesome potential and acknowledging that sin, diversion from our real purpose, is a loss on a tragic scale, not just for ourselves, but for he world at large.
On Yom Kippur I say that I was put here at this place and this time to fulfill a vital task. And, I confess:…. I blew it. I might as well not have been here; I have been too busy curating an image of myself to show to others that I have failed to use my own voice. I allowed myself to become diverted by distractions and pettiness and I missed out on opportunities to contribute in ways that only I can contribute. Our confession on Yom Kippur is not meant to be a depressing litany of how worthless we feel. Our guilt and our remorse are bound up in a recognition of our unique potential to accomplish something good.
One day in the year we need to clarify if we press suits or if we only make signs. One day in the year, we need to evaluate our actions with honesty and clarity. In this way, the year that follows a successful Yom Kippur will be a year with a smaller gap between our aspirations, our public image, and our own self-perception on the one side, and an honest objective appraisal of the underlying reality on the other.
IV.
We are about to recite Yizkor memorial prayers and those prayers loom large in our experience of the day. Yizkor is not a coincidental element of Yom Kippur. It fits in coherently with the themes of the day and helps us accomplish the tasks of the day. Reciting Yizkor creates the passion of the soul and the storm of the spirit that is so necessary on this day.
The first chapters of Sefer Bereishit the Book of Genesis, present a paradox. The opening verses of Genesis teach that we are each created in the image of God with infinite potential and with dreams and aspirations without end. Yet, the opening verses of Genesis also teach us that we are mere creations, and therefore limited.
The opening verses of Genesis teach that humanity was created for lives of dignity:
וַיֹ֣אמֶר א-ֱלהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶ֥ה אָד֛ם בְצַלְמֵ֖נו כִדמותֵ֑נו וְיִרדו֩ בִדגַ֨ת הַיָ֜ם ובְע֣וף הַשָמַ֗יִם ובַבְהֵמָה֙ ובְכָל־הָאָ֔רץ ובְכָל־הָר֖מֶש הָֽרמֵ֥ש עַל־הָאָֽרץ׃
“And God said let us make humanity in our image and form and humanity shall rule over the fishes of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over the animals and over all earth and everything that crawls upon the earth.”
And yet the opening chapters of Genesis teach that all people will die:
כִ֗י בְי֛ום אֲכָלְָ֥ מִמֶ֖נו מ֥ות תָמֽות׃
“…For on the day that you eat of it you shall certainly die.”
Even as we affirm that human beings were created in the Image of God and intended for lives of dignity, we inhabit a universe which is indifferent to our dignity. Famine and infirmity do not care that human beings were created to exercise dominion over the earth. None of the diseases that frighten us so much care that human beings are created in God’s very image. Death is the ultimate limit and the ultimate challenge to our God-given dignity.
Therefore, at first glance, Yizkor on Yom Kippur is problematic. This day is about our potential as human beings to improve ourselves and to make a unique contribution to the world. Yet death undermines our faith in our potential as humans because death’s randomness is indifferent to our goals and aspirations, and death’s finality suggests that our accomplishments are insignificant.
Things become clearer with deeper analysis. There are two reasons why Yizkor is important on Yom Kippur. We recite yizkor, and enter into a dialogue with those who are no longer alive, not to, God forbid, end up in despair at the futility of life, but to find inspiration for the hard task of self-improvement. The lives that our loved ones lived were models in so many ways of the types of people that we want to become. We recall parents who provided unconditional love. We mourn for siblings who offered sage counsel and loving criticism. And we grieve for children who brought light and joy to their surroundings. When contemplating the legacy of those no loner alive, we see all too well the difference between those who pressed suits and those who just made signs. There is no more pretending after death. Our deeds alone remain, without the pretense and without the promotion.
And, secondly, Yizkor, by reminding us of our own mortality, arouses the passion of the soul and the storm of the spirit and reminds us that we need to honor their memory today by becoming better people today. We may not have the time to live another year in illusion or in fantasy. We may not not have the time to live another year in self-deception.
We each have something unique to accomplish. We each have a contribution that the world needs. We each were put here on earth to complete a mission that no other person can fulfill. The stakes couldn’t be higher. On this day, the memories of our loved ones, our parents, siblings, friends, and children remind us to take advantage of the time that we have to transform our lives, and those memories inspire us, by the legacies that our loved ones left behind; legacies of accomplishment, integrity, and love.
May you and your family, this congregation, and all of Klal Yisrael, be sealed in the Book of Life – l’alter l’haim b’sifran shel tzadikim.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 