Yom Kippur: The soul’s mikveh of purification

Yom Kippur, that starts with dusk Tuesday and ends a following night, is a special day in a Jewish calendar, a holy day when Jewish group and women rally in a synagogues and urge to God in a wish that on this day – a Day of Atonement – God will atone and pardon them for all their sins.

The routine of personal heshbon nefesh (introspection) for any one is famous in Jewish tradition as teshuvah. When a chairman faces adult opposite himself and unequivocally asks a critical questions: For what reason am we living? Does my lifestyle relate with my values? Do we trust that we have a ability to swell spiritually? How can we be a improved person? These questions direct that a chairman gives himself answers that move him closer to a dignified goals that he has set for himself.

When articulate about a specific inapt act that a chairman committed, a impiety between male and God, male and himself or male and another man, a routine of teshuvah involves vidui (confession). This is how Maimonides describes this in his Mishneh Torah:

“If a chairman transgresses any of a mitzvot of a Torah, either a certain authority or a disastrous authority – either frankly or inadvertently – when he repents, and earnings from his sin, he contingency confess before God, sanctified be He” (Hilchot Teshuvah, 1:1).

Recognition of a impiety in loyal frankness is a first, and vital, theatre of a teshuvah process. This is an facile stage, since anyone who does not commend his actions and their significance, can't correct them. But vidui is not a inner approval only. We are compulsory to demonstrate in difference a actions for that we wish to perform teshuvah, as described by Maimonides serve in his essay:

“How does one confess? He states: ‘I petition You, God, we sinned, we transgressed, we committed impiety before You by doing a following. Behold, we bewail and am broke for my deeds. we guarantee never to repeat this act again.’ These are a essential elements of a confessional prayer. Whoever confesses openly and elaborates on these matters is estimable of praise” (ibid).

Why are we compulsory to demonstrate a sins verbally? Is it not sufficient that we know that we sinned and we are woeful a sin?

We will try to know a element of vidui according to one of a biggest Mishnaic sages, Rabbi Akiva, who is quoted during a finish of Tractate Yoma – a territory of a Mishna traffic with Yom Kippur:

“RABBI AKIVA pronounced that a Jews should glory that they are cleansed by God Himself, as per Ezekiel (36:25), ‘I will shower freshen H2O on we and we will be cleansed.’ Also, Jeremiah (17:12) calls God ‘Mikvehi Yisrael’ – ‘the Hope of Israel’ – though that can also be review as ‘Mikveh Yisrael’ – ‘the Mikveh of Israel.’ Just as a mikveh [ritual bath] purifies a ritually unclean, so too does God freshen a Jews” (Tractate Yoma, Chapter 8, Mishna 9).

Rabbi Akiva presents dual questions: “Before whom are we purifying yourself?” and “Who is purifying you?” He gives one answer to both questions: “Your Father in a Heavens.” Further on he compares God to a mikveh – a pool of H2O that purifies a polluted – “Even Hakadosh Baruch Hu purifies Israel.”

If we review his comments clearly, we will find a many engaging thought that can means a cords of man’s essence to tremble. The supposed notice claims that male is compulsory to perform teshuvah and to freshen his essence in sequence to successfully do God’s final and commandments. Rabbi Akiva does not repudiate this, though he adds another fact that changes a whole picture: Who is a one purifying? What is a mikveh in that man’s essence is being purified? God is a purifier, He is a mikveh!

Every Jew who has enthralled himself in a mikveh knows that a physique has to enter a H2O but any inserted object. What are these inserted objects that meddle with a catharsis in a Divine mikveh? These are a sins, a bad deeds, pain that we caused another, mitzvot that we did not keep. How will we strew these inserted objects from on us? How will we freshen a souls from a disastrous practice we amassed during a year, that censor God’s light from us and agonize a soul?

This is a Vidui prayer. When we demonstrate a sins verbally and commend them clearly, we mislay a inserted objects. In these special moments of alliance to God, we dump all facades, a pride, a try to tell ourselves stories that miss honesty. We mount before God and confess: “True, we sinned with this action, and sinned with another action, we avoided a certain action. True, God, we commend my impiety and am not meddlesome in it anymore.”

Through a Vidui, we mislay all inserted objects and are means to douse ourselves in a smashing Divine mikveh, that is betrothed to us usually when we demonstrate a loyal enterprise to lapse and adhere to a values of eternity.

The author is rabbi of a Western Wall and a Holy Sites.

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