{"id":172,"date":"2013-10-29T01:07:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T01:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=172"},"modified":"2013-10-29T01:11:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T01:11:21","slug":"yom-kippur-5772-2011","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=172","title":{"rendered":"Yom Kippur 5772 (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Drash for Yom Kippur 5772<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n

Today, we get a taste of the world to come \u2013 we ignore food and drink, we dress like the angels,\u00a0 and think and talk about spiritual things.\u00a0 But tomorrow we have to live in the material world.\u00a0 The great challenge is to negotiate the two.<\/p>\n

About the world to come, Isaiah said\u00a0 (30:26) \u201cthe light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun\u201d \u2013 meaning that the moon will have its own, internal source of light.<\/p>\n

From this, the last Rebbe taught that there are three types of light connected to Judaism<\/p>\n

Receiving light from elsewhere\u2013 the Toah<\/p>\n

Reflecting light \u2013 the Mitzvot<\/p>\n

Generating light from within –\u00a0 Teshuvah<\/p>\n

Torah is always the giver of light and we are always the recipients since we add nothing to it, although we strive to understand, in each generation, what is in the Torah that is meaningful for us.<\/p>\n

Through mitzvot we both receive and give light\u00a0 — we turn simple material things like parchment, wool, and wax into holy objects.\u00a0\u00a0 The mitzvot only function if there is a partnership between people and God.\u00a0 The mitzvoth are God\u2019s way to search for us. The\u00a0 mitzvot are like the light of a lamp in which wick and oil are turned into flame and light (well, maybe tungsten and electrons that are turned into heat and light).<\/p>\n

Today is special, because today God answers when we call.<\/p>\n

But the mitzvot are still reflected light.\u00a0 However, when we do true teshuvah, we return to God because of a flame within ourselves.\u00a0 By teshuvah we can make holy our entire past life \u2013 even that part lived in sin.\u00a0 This is the power of teshuvah \u2013 it sanctifies not only a part, but the entire human experience.<\/p>\n

Today is the peak opportunity for embarking on teshuvah, which is a path of return as much as a state of being returned.\u00a0 The warm up was Elul \u00a0and although any day is a good day to start, the entire period from Rosh HaShannah to Simchat Torah is a reminder to embark on the return.<\/p>\n

And what kind of return should it be?\u00a0 Clearly, none of us know what is Tesuvah for somebody else, any more than we know that is a legitimate spiritual experience for somebody else.\u00a0 But the Al Chait gives us a sense of where to look.\u00a0 We can do<\/p>\n

Internal tesuvah<\/p>\n

External tesuvah<\/p>\n

For internal tesuvah, we can look inside ourselves to our thoughts and to the way that we treat our bodies and our souls and see how we missed the mark in the past. Recognizing that we cannot change everything at once, we should focus on that which distresses us the most and use the remaining time of this season to begin to make the past holy through teshuvah.<\/p>\n

For external tesuvah, we can think about how we have interacted with other individuals poorly (and the Al Chait gives plenty of suggestions for that too).\u00a0 Again, recognizing that we cannot change everything at once, we should focus on that in our behavior with other people that distresses us the most and aim to change it and to return to a godly path.<\/p>\n

As we go through the rest of today, I encourage you to think hard about your internal and external teshuvah, so that all of us will glow with the light of redemption<\/p>\n

And to jump start both internal and external teshuvah, I suggest giving some tzedaka tomorrow.<\/p>\n

An easy fast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Drash for Yom Kippur 5772 by Marc Mangel Today, we get a taste of the world to come \u2013 we ignore food and drink, we dress like the angels,\u00a0 and think and talk about spiritual things.\u00a0 But tomorrow we have to live in the material world.\u00a0 The great challenge is to negotiate the two. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-172","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/172\/revisions\/175"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}