{"id":205,"date":"2013-11-05T02:39:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T02:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=205"},"modified":"2013-11-05T02:39:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T02:39:11","slug":"yom-kippur-5771-2010","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=205","title":{"rendered":"Yom Kippur 5771 (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n

Yom Kippur 5771<\/p>\n

We have already said, and will say again, confessionals of sin \u2013 both silently and aloud.\u00a0 Surely, none of us has done all of these.\u00a0 But also surely,\u00a0 all of us have done some of these.<\/p>\n

Meil Shumel writes that \u201ca confession without the heart\u2019s agreeing not to sin again is a waste\u201d.\u00a0 But, how can we move ourselves in the direction of not missing the mark in the coming year?<\/p>\n

The Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, in a drash given 102 \u00a0years ago, provided an answer.<\/p>\n

Repentance is about guilt.\u00a0 But guilt about our errors last year often does not move us forward because guilt \u00a0is as much about the shame of possibly getting caught as it is about the act of wrong doing.\u00a0 That is, we are less upset about having done something wrong than about the chance of being caught at it.<\/p>\n

Rather, Reb Shalom DovBaer\u00a0 says, \u00a0teshuvah \u2013 returning to God \u2013 is about distress and discomfort.\u00a0 We should feel a sense of distress \u2013 a discomfort, a painful feeling of self-reproach because we know of our errors and our abilities to prevent them. \u00a0It is this discomfort which will help move us forward.<\/p>\n

King David wrote in Psalm 118 :\u201cFrom out of distress I called to God; God answered me with abounding relief\u201d.<\/p>\n

From that sea of distress David called and God answered him.\u00a0 What about us?<\/p>\n

It is out of distress \u00a0— not guilt \u2013 that we call for help.<\/p>\n

And today there is particularly good news: today \u00a0it is a two way call. When we bring our spiritual distress to the shofar blasts of Tekiah Gedolah it excites a return answer from God, who provides the energy we need for relief of our distress.<\/p>\n

Thus, as we go through the rest of our prayers today, let us bring a sense of personal distress to them and at Neilah when the shofar is sounded, we will be given the energy needed for great improvement over the next year.<\/p>\n

Our discomfort must be private, but even our silent recitation uses the plural. About that the Ari-Zal said that we say \u201cWe have sinned\u201d rather than \u201cI have sinned\u201d because all Israel is one body and we are all responsible for one another.<\/p>\n

Harold Kushner puts it in a slightly different way:\u00a0 If the \u201cHelp Others\u201d section of book stores were bigger, the \u201cSelf help\u201d sections would surely be smaller and the world a better place.<\/p>\n

By looking back on our failures last year with a sense of distress about the errors we made and a resolve to avoid those errors and help others, we can leave here today improved\u00a0 and make the next year much better<\/p>\n

An easy fast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

A Drash for Yom Kippur by Marc Mangel Yom Kippur 5771 We have already said, and will say again, confessionals of sin \u2013 both silently and aloud.\u00a0 Surely, none of us has done all of these.\u00a0 But also surely,\u00a0 all of us have done some of these. Meil Shumel writes that \u201ca confession without the … 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-205","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205","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=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205\/revisions\/206"}],"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=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}