Maximize Yom Kippur For Eternity {Norfolk Teshuva Drasha}

Okay, good good evening everyone. It's a honor to share some very short thoughts before the kadesh. Do we call this the Norfk Virginia benet Israel Norfac Chuva uh that's open to the sea at large and I want to thank uh my dear friend Dr. Schwarz for once again uh arranging just uh to get together before. The Gumar tells us was literally one of the happiest days of the year. And the reason it's one of the happiest days of the year is because it is literally one of the greatest days of the year. There's nothing in this world greater than Yam Kipper. There's nothing that should give us more joy than yum kipper. We should be looking forward to yam kipper. Many people perhaps are apprehensive or anxious how they're going to get through the day. No, one should literally be looking forward to yum kipper like you would to one of the happiest occasions in your life. Every moment of yum kipper is literally a salvation for each individual. Hashem is my light. Hashem is my salvation first. Hashem is our light. He wakes us up on rashashana. You see, we need to begin with rashashana. If we wouldn't have a rashash shana, we would never be able to take advantage of yum kipper because yum kipper would be too far away from our senses, from our emotions. You tell somebody you know on yum kipper you have the ability to erase an ao which means that you're enhancing your whole eternity. People don't know what that means. What is an ara what why is a vera bad? What does it do to me? How does it affect me? It is so distant from our mind and our heart. We can't begin with the yum kipper. Sir famously asked why do we first have rashashana and then yum kipper? It's counterintuitive. Wouldn't it make more sense to first have yum kipper, get our aos forgiven, but get our veros atoned for and then have a rash sha and we should be judged. It's really counterintuitive. I mean, why does Hashem judge us while we still have our a and then after he judges us then he forgives our sin? Wouldn't it be more logical to forgive our sin and then judge us? And Rabi Salanter said, "No, if Hashem would first give us, we would come to sh. We wouldn't even know what to do. We would go like this. What am I doing? I'm clapping al what's an what's the afterlife? How does this affect me? It would be too distant from our senses." So, Hashem needs to wake us up. Hashem says, "Okay, your life is on the line. You know what life is? Your parnos is on the line. You know what parnosa is? Your family. You know what your family is?" And it wakes us up. It's a wakeup call to start thinking about our actions, to start thinking about life in general. And then once we begin to wake up, then we realize that rashashana is secondary because yeah, life is important, family is important, livelihoods is important, but it's only a speck of dust compared to eternity. Yum kipper affects your entire forever. And therefore, there is nothing greater in this world than yum kipa. The only thing is if you fast for 24 hours, you know what it does to your aos? It does nothing to your aos. Yum kipper does not have an effect without chuva. Yum kipper must be accompanied by chuva. We paskin. If you fast and you don't do chuva, then yum kipra was ineffective. Maybe you lost a pound or two, which is always a good thing. But in terms of your soul, ykeeper won't do anything for your soul if you don't do chuva. And the most important thing to do chuva for are to do chuva for a when it's easy not to do the aa. Every aa could be broken up into different components. We sometimes violate it when it was hard. It was hard. It was hard to resist. And sometimes we succumb even when it was easy to resist. And what we're most accountable for is when we succumbed, when it was easy. The Gar tells us more severe is the punishment for not having the white strings of the titus than not having the blue strings because the blue strings it cost a lot of money back in the day. But the white strings don't doesn't cost any money. It's pretty inexpensive. Therefore, you're more accountable for not having the white strings than not having the blue strings. Therefore, the first order of duty in preparation for yam kiper and yum kipper is to try to identify those ace that we do when it's easy not to do it because let's eliminate that. If we're able to eliminate a that we do when it's easy to resist, yum kipra will be the greatest day of our entire existence. If I could share with you first of all there's a mitzvah to eat on every yum kipra. [cough] One of the reasons says there's a mitzvah to eat is cuz yum kiper is a great mitzvah and all mitzvah we try to do. So really we should make a big kdesh on yum kipper to show how happy we are that we have yum kipper. The only thing is you know kdush and yum kipper are not really compatible. So we can't make a suda on yum kipper. At the very least we make the suda of yum kiper to show that we're doing the whole mitzvah of yum kipra and the whole procedure of yum kiper with great simka if I could just mention we know mitzvah is mitzvah require specific intent to fulfill the mitzvah formal intent to fulfill the mitzvah in order to get credit for the mitzvah. So here are a few mitzvah we're going to be doing on yum kipper or kipper that it's worthwhile to take a moment to supply a formal kabana to be able to maximize your performance of the mitzvah. Number one eating on aravium kipper that's that's not one of the harder mitzvah. Many people find that that's not one of the more challenging mitzvah. Okay, that may be true, but just have the wherewithal to be when you eat on you're having to the mitzvah of that's the mitzvah to afflict yourself on the ninth by eating. Next chuva is a mitzvah. Chuva is the mitzvah have when you do chuva oner the mitzvah thea of chuva voy yes voy is part of chuva voy is also a mitzvah by itself when before you recite the vidy have the mitzvah of says that's why we sing it because it's a mitzvah we want to do a not eating on yum kipper. There are many Jews that don't they don't eat on yum kiper. You may have heard of that mitzvah. Fasting on yum kipper. You're fasting anyway. You might as well get the mitzvah. Have I have to the mitzvah of I believe in the zaka. There is a phrase that I accept upon myself the mitzvah. Maybe that counts for kabana. I'm not sure. if they'll see again the exact text. Here's another mitzvah we do besides the regular mitzvah obviously you have it's a mitzvah even for the is to participate in here are a few that are worthwhile to take extra advantage of the truth is many of them are available daily but especially on yum kipper you really want to take advantage of them the garra says in shabas kufotess that anyone who answers with all their strength which means all their so you have some say strength some say they tear up your gazard says even if you have an element of a your a verit are forgiven. Therefore the writes answering is a great sigula. So presumably it should be accompanied by chuva a thought of chuva because just to answer it's hard to say that just answering it alone you'll get for all your aas. It means it firepowers the chuva. By the way there's an amazing I like to say over. Do you need to say it with all your strength or do you need to say it with all your kavana? So the says you should prepare yourself and be as if you're going to say it with all your kayak. You're going to scream it on the top of your lungs and when it comes down to it, you could say it with your all your kavana. Prepare, you know, like wind up like you're going to throw the ball 100 miles an hour and then you could throw it 20 miles an hour. wind up as if you're going to answer with all your and then you could say it regular. Number two, the brings down in a few and brings it down that if you say and you envision as if you're on the they atone for your sins. Now it's something you could do any day. You could do it tomorrow morning also. But yum kipper is the day of what better day a year should you have special for than yum kipper. You're there I think you're in shaw anyway for for some time. I I would imagine you spend you spend some time in the sh on yipper. So take advantage of here's a third one the says and brings it down if your and your when they read about the death of that's a convenient one because the is about it's brought in the and the brings it in. So try to prepare yourself for the beginning of the hatra. That's a seinal moment in the day where we're reading about the Petira of Nadav and Au. If you're on their patira, these were two great all-time great sadikim people who were capable of being mala mo and a had had they not passed away then then it would have changed the trajectory of Jewish history and and one should try to engender a certain degree of tsar when reading about their misa. Here's one more. The Gomorrah tells us in Yuma that there are certain there's certain avenuer is not going to work. Even there certain you need extra power to the chuva and one is not inapp until the and that's very frightening for this our heart aches. We're worried how do you get kapar for kalashem there's a safer d hatesa of a student of raman pano rabi alazar nakman pua we know that one of the we we know we're supposed to say besessas vaz with fear and awe and trembling and shaking. Why the Rajba says that when you say you should accept upon yourself the yoke of heaven that if ever put to the ultimate test you be willing to give up your life ales you should envision yourself passing the ultimate test giving up your life the writes if you indeed envision this and have this so that means you're on yourself to be hashem treats it like you did. Oh, treats it like you did. Did it's because okay we did it say that even say that the Jewish people give up their life every day. It's referring to so especially on yum kipper where yum kipper alone can atone for everything. It can only atone for a lavim or an assay but not for for other severe a but can you imagine how powerful it would be to be kipper. So that would really enhance our yum kipper. If I could tell you a story about my grandfather when he spent Yam Kipper in Da and just to get a glimpse of what Yum Kipper meant for a Jew when when you were in the concentration camp, the biggest treasure was a piece of bread or what somebody would do for a little piece of bread. Even great sadikim because they were starving to death they were unfortunately reduced to having to steal bread from other Jews. What could you do? They had no choice. That's what was happening there. That's the reality. If you didn't have bread, you had to steal it from somebody else. Can you imagine? Even great sadikim were reduced to that. And it's yum kipper. And my grandfather was deathly ill. He had typhus. He was delirious. And he had one piece of bread. Was he allowed to eat the bread? Of course, maybe he was even to eat the bread. It was sak. But of course, he had to eat the bread. But how could he eat the bread? So now my grandfather didn't know what to do. Should he keep the bread for himself? How is he going to overcome the urge of his hunger stricken, emaciated, tormented body? He was afraid and delirium. He would he would eat the bread. On the other hand, who could he trust it with? Who you which you can't even give it to a sadic? Who could you trust a piece of bread with? My grandfather had a best friend, the nephew of Zamba of Shaza. And he gave it to his best friend to guard it so that nobody else eats it and to guard it that my grandfather wouldn't eat it. And then after the bread, his loyal friend handed it back to my grandfather. He said, "Here's the bread." But my grandfather saw that his dear friend had nothing to eat after the tinus. So my grandfather took half the bread and he gave it to Abram Chazmba. My grandfather wrote, "Since David and Ya's son, there was never such a sign of friendship. Then when a chose guarded the bread from my grandfather and then when my grandfather split the bread with a chose there was a man by the name of Sperber was driving in Israel and he heard an interview on the radio about an old man speaking about Kinder transport. This man and his friend when they were children their lives were saved. They were put on kinder transport and they were taken to England. One day in school, the principal says, "Tomorrow, everyone needs to dress in their best because they're going to meet King George. Everyone's going to align the streets and everyone is going to be given a little flag." So, the motorcade came down. Everyone's cheering. Everyone's waving their flag. And the man on the radio says that his friend sitting next to him was very distraught and disappointed because he thought he was going to speak to King George. He didn't think he's going to stand on the street and just wave a flag like a goum. So he took matters into his own hand. He ran out onto the road and he banged on the car door. George, King, King. Unbelievably, the car stopped. King George opened the window and he had a conversation with the boy. Everyone was stunned by the boy's. Two weeks later, the boys called into the principal's office. The principal says, "I want to talk to you about what you did the other day. What did you ask George?" The boy said, "I asked him. I told him, "Thank you for saving my life on the King Kinder transport." But I said, "My parents were still trapped in Nazi Germany." So the king asked me, "Really? What's their name and address?" And I gave it to him. The principal says, "I cannot believe it because the king has a present for you." And the principal opened the door. And his parents were standing there. The old man said on the radio at the time we thought he was mad. The kid was mad for banging on the door, but he took advantage of the opportunity that I never took advantage of. He was reunited with his parents and I wasn't. Dear friends, Hashem is in the room. Hashem is with us. The gates are closing. You have one opportunity to ask the king for what you need. Don't lose the opportunity. Thank you very much. >> Recording stopped.