Digital Maggid
This teaching comes to me by way of Melamed Garry. Thanks Garry.
YOM KIPPUR
A Day of Intimacy?
A Teaching from Gershon Winkler
The deeper we delve into the meaning of Yom Kippur, the more it becomes about love and intimacy, not guilt and repentance. It is a sacred day of connecting to the root of roots, to the essence of our soul self, as is asked of us in the Torah’s instruction regarding Yom Kippur: “And you should respond to your souls ועניתם את נפשתיכם” (Leviticus 16:31) – often translated as “And you shall afflict your souls.” Which of the two renditions we choose is up to us, they are both grammatically and etymologically correct, which leaves us simply with the question: What kind of Yom Kippur do we want? Or better yet, what kind of relationship do we want with God, with Self, with Other? Affliction, or Response? Guilt, or Intimacy? Love, or Fear?
More than 3,300 years ago, Moses channeled the famous “Thirteen Attributes of Divine Compassion” – or Shalosh Es’ray Mee’dot שלש עשרה מדות– while traversing the great Mountain of Elo’heem in the desert of Sinai(Exodus 34:6-7). And they are, as follows:
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