By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
If you are at all like me, you enjoy good food and drink with family and friends in an enjoyable, stress-free atmosphere.
Certainly if you contrast that with fasting and refraining from food and drink.
Shabbat is called a day of ‘oneg’ - enjoyment. It’s a mitzvah on Shabbat, not just to cease from work and the daily grind of life, but to inject pleasurable behaviors into the Shabbat schedule.
As a kid, Shabbat was a very special day. Even just the routine things like breakfast. On Shabbat the breakfast menu was ‘cake and milk’. It beat the usual requisite porridge hands down. Soft drinks and fruit juice were reserved for Shabbat only. Candies were locked in a special cabinet and only distributed on Shabbat.
As an adult Shabbat has taken on a much deeper meaning but the basic premise of savoring the Shabbat even in a material sense is still there. The Code of Jewish Law advises a later start time for morning prayer to allow for a lengthier sleep time. To be honest, in our modern over-communicated world, just turning off the phone and computer is a huge mental freedom. On Shabbat it’s not just that we are allowed to unplug, it is actually a holy ‘unplugging’ and brings joy and tranquility with it. We enjoy the free time that we have on Shabbat to study Torah and enjoy family and friends.
Contrast that with Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year.
It is a day where G-d reveals His love to us. We reciprocate by baring our souls to Him. On Yom Kippur our most existential spark of Jewishness is revealed. It’s no wonder that every Jew wherever he or she may be looks to connect more wholesomely with G-d on this sacred day.
G-d’s revealed love to us on Yom Kippur is so deep and existential that He transcends and overlooks anything we may have done or transgressed during the year. We thus become purified and unsullied.
At the climax of Yom Kippur during the Neilah service, we bask in the unadulterated pleasure of being united with G-d. The Jew and G-d secluded together in oneness. Neilah means the closing of the gates. The gates are closed and we are inside with Almighty G-d united with Him as one.
In our heightened state of G-dly awareness on Yom Kippur, we do Teshuva – we ‘Return’ (Teshuva is often translated repentance but more accurately means ‘return’). We commit to making our best efforts not to do things that G-d finds displeasing. we aim for upgrading our observance of the things that G-d has asked us to do.
It’s wholesome. Cleansing. Holy. Purifying. Liberating. Uplifting. Inspiring.
All good words for Yom Kippur.
Enjoyable physically?
Perhaps you can be so engrossed in the prayer and atmosphere of Yom Kippur that you overlook and be distracted from the discomfort of fasting and refraining from the other specific Yom Kippur restrictions. But to actually have your body ENJOY the process of Yom Kippur?
Doesn’t seem so.
This Shabbat is the Shabbat preceding Yom Kippur.
It is called the Shabbat of Teshuva –Because this Shabbat is during the ‘Ten Days of Teshuva’.
It is a chance to do Teshuva in a Shabbat way, says the Rebbe. ‘A Shabbos’dike Teshuva’ to use the Yiddish vernacular.
Regret and repentance conjure up images and feelings of bitterness and contriteness. Disappointment with what we have done wrong is often coupled with tearful remorse. That is sometimes an integral part of the process of Teshuva. Granted, that doesn’t sound too enjoyable. Doing the right thing is not always pleasurable. Actually it can sometimes seem tedious and unenjoyable. Once you do it you feel much better, but the actual process may be taxing. But there is another mode that one can adopt in doing Teshuva.
When you graft Shabbat and Teshuva together, you get an ‘enjoyable Teshuva’.
A ‘joint venture’ between Shabbat and Teshuva would translate into joyfully turning away from morally reprehensible and sinful behavior. Enjoying the abstinence rather than resenting it.
Teshuva done pleasurably translates into investing time, energy and resources in doing Mitzvahs and reveling in it.
That’s the message of this Shabbat situated strategically a mere three days before Yom Kippur.
G-d gave us the Shabbat. Amidst the Ten Days of Teshuva, and just before Yom Kippur. This means that He gives us the ability to aim for doing the right thing while enjoying it and taking pleasure in it.
Enriched by this outlook, we can take this special approach with us as we engage in Yom Kippur proper.
If one is truly convinced that something is right and good, he is able to find pleasure in engaging in it. Take working-out in a gym for example. People that see their health and physique getting stronger and fitter through their efforts, can actually come to enjoy the physical exercise.
Let me make the point as clearly as I can.
Don’t walk around projecting a feeling of deprivation because you can’t have the luscious looking non-kosher sandwich. Take the Shabbat Teshuva way. Exude happiness at the opportunity to be personally instructed by G-d regarding your dietary behaviors. Rejoice that you can walk away from the negative. Simply because G-d said so.
This can be applied to Mitzvot as well. Spending money for buying a lulav and Etrog for example (or any other mitzvah expense for that matter). Rather than ‘kvetch’ about ‘how expensive it is to be a practicing Jew’ one has to try to revel and take pleasure in the fact that we are given the opportunity to do a commandment of G-d.
Ultimately there is no greater joy, pleasure and exultation in this world than being in G-d’s presence. Doing a mitzvah is immeasurably significant. It is worth more than all of paradise put together.
On Shabbat of Teshuva we aim to enjoy and luxuriate in our path of getting better at staying away from things we shouldn’t be engaged with. And enhancing our positive involvement in Mitzvot.
Happy Teshuva’ing!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS I think I owe you a story. About the main miracle (there were numerous smaller ones) that allowed our ‘giving-day’ campaign to finish with success.
Just ten minutes before the deadline we were quite far away… and then things wrapped up quite amazingly. Here is the story in brief as told by my colleague Rabbi Nechemya Wilhelm:
In the final stretch of the campaign, with quite some way to go in terms of donations, I racked my brains as to who may be able to help with a more significant donation that would ‘wrap things up’. I called Y, a young modern businessman, on his Asian phone number as he often travels to this area for business and I wasn’t sure where he was. I haven’t been successful in reaching him before but this time he answered my call. To my absolute surprise he told me ‘you caught me in a good time, I am just coming out of the Rebbe’s Ohel in New York’.
I proceeded to tell him in brief about our campaign and how we are scrambling to find a donation that would bring the campaign to a successful completion. He told me ‘ok, so you can now close the campaign’. I wasn’t sure if he had comprehended that it was more than ten thousand dollars that was still needed so I asked him if he realized how much money was missing. He repeated ‘ok, so you can now close the campaign’ and indeed contributed the last missing amount. Just minutes, literally, before the deadline.
You can imagine my feeling of amazement and thanksgiving to G-d for this open show of His Divine Providence through this miraculous occurrence.
I thought you would like to hear this story. Thank G-d we made our target. Once more THANK YOU for your participation either by contributing money, by cheering us along or by sharing your heartfelt blessings for our success. Every good thought and prayerful wish on behalf of someone else is valuable and cherished. May you all be blessed with a year of revealed goodness and sweetness.