By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We are in high season. In The level of community activity For that reason, since If it is AYN and it is not too I am telling you this because A few days later, I But there is something else. When I looked I recognize that my mechanism did not Pesach or Yom Kippur Thinking about this sermon in the middle There is no doubt that Ma Nishtanah It occurred to me then that With that goal in mind what The first thing that popped out at me was Google also provided me with a few more tips for The Torah reading that we do on the morning of Yom But it is not only the closeness of the date. A detailed reading And if we leave the biblical text and advance in the And we can also find interesting connections with We begin the Maguid, the story, showing the Matzah and Bechol Dor Vador, “In every generation each one should In the same way the sages structured Yom Kippur to And also on both holy days we look to the Pesach and Yom kippur have in common the look towards the past and the projection towards the future. As you can see there are more things in common than we could Pesach lasts 8 days and is based on a historical event, On Pesach the central action takes place at home seated On Kippur we rely on our Chazanit who guide us in On Pesach the question is the quintessential dynamic. The It seems that, just as they share their vision of Or perhaps more than having different perspectives, we could Pesach focuses on the family dimension, on the On the contrary, Yom Kippur brings us the communal Yom Kippur represents that extraordinary thing that is Pesach defines our belonging as individuals in the We need both. We need to enrich our family life and our The past inspires us and the future fills us with hope, From Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is high season, but let’s keep in mind <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik We are in high season. In synagogal terms, the Yamim Noraim are high season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nsynagogal terms, the Yamim Noraim are high season. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\ntypical of this time of year from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is
\nof such intensity that it is well above average, and that added to the routine
\nresults in a busy schedule.
\nmany years ago, when Tishrei holidays approach, I incorporate in my
\nhead a kind of variable: AYN<\/i> or PYN<\/i>, that is, Ante Yamim Noraim
\nor Post Yamim Noraim. Any invitation or any proposal that I receive
\nduring the previous weeks goes through that mental filter.
\nclose to Rosh Hashanah, which is when the effervescence of the movement begins,
\nI gladly accept; and if it is PYN, I jump for joy because at that time of the year, at
\nthe weeks before Rosh Hashanah, I get the feeling that after Yom
\nKippur it is like being at the beach, nothing happens. Of course that is a distorted
\nview of reality, but who can take that illusion away from me.
\nabout a month ago I received an interesting invitation. Sister Rosmery
\nCasta\u00f1eda, director of the Biblical School of the Archdiocese of Panama asked me
\nthat, in the spirit of interreligious dialogue, I would make a presentation from
\nthe Jewish sources in a virtual international congress that gathers young
\nChristian missionaries from different countries of the region. When I asked the
\ndate I saw that it was PYN (Post Yamim Noraim): Sunday, September 19. So I answered
\nthat they could count on me.
\nsuggested the theme of the paper: “The Exodus, the way of liberation of the Jewish people
\n.” Interesting, it sounded good to me. Yetziat mitzraim, the exit from Egypt, the
\nfreedom, etc., “we’re good” I thought – basically I have to talk about Pesach. “And
\nhow long should the show be?” 45 minutes (45 minutes! Imagine
\nthat my comfort zone for speaking is about 15 minutes – you can take the
\ntime of this sermon – I have to prepare 45 minutes…)
\nclosely at the agenda, I realized that Kippur ends Thursday at
\nnight, then comes Friday, which is only half a day useful to do all
\nthe things I left for after Kippur, then after Shabbat and Sunday is
\nthe day of the 45 minute exposition. What a terrible mistake!
\nwork properly, so in the midst of these Yamim Noraim I had no
\nchoice but to start preparing my presentation on Pesach for this
\nSunday, so I am truly in a paradox. I don’t know if I am
\nin a better position tonight to talk about Pesach than about Yom Kippur.
\nof this disjunctive I remembered that several years ago, my first or second year
\nas rabbi of Kol Shearith, still in the old synagogue of Cuba Avenue
\nI began my Kol Nidr\u00e9 sermon singing Ma Nishtan\u00e1, the emblematic song of
\nPesach Seder and I asked precisely why this night, the night of Kippur,
\nis different from all the others.
\nis also an appropriate question for this solemn day; the Torah scrolls
\ndressed in white in front of the entire congregation, the synagogue packed, the atmosphere
\nof solemnity, the people dressed for the occasion. It is the only day of the year that the
\npeople arrive early to the synagogue. Ma Nishtana Halaila Haze.
\nmaybe we could see if it is possible to connect Pesach with Yom Yippur; compare them,
\ndwell on the similarities and differences to try to draw some
\nvaluable conclusions.
\nwas the first thing I did? What any rabbi inspired by centuries of
\nJewish wisdom would do: I went to Google and typed in Yom Kippur and Pesach, see what came up.
\na very interesting article from 2013 that reported on a survey in
\nUS Jewry that asked which was the most
\nsignificant Jewish holiday. Yom Kippur and Pesach, in that order, topped the list. They are the
\nmost important holy days of the year. Suggestively the survey also
\nshowed that for younger people, the gap between the two celebrations was
\nsmaller than for their elders. Interesting food for thought… another day.
\nto connect the two holidays.
\nKippur, which describes the ritual of atonement (Vayikra, Leviticus ch. 16) is
\nalso the beginning of Parashat Acharei-mot which is usually read the week
\nbefore or the week after Pesach.
\nof the described protocol brings us some interesting links.
\nThe central place of the scapegoat, the one in which the faults of the people are symbolically
\ndeposited, in the ritual of Yom Kippur and the animal that
\nwas presented as a Pesach offering. The use of blood as an expiatory
\nelement in the sacrifice offered to God on Yom Kippur and the
\nuse of the blood of the offered animal as an element of protection of
\nthe Israelite houses in the last plague in that first Pesach in Egypt.
\nhistory, we find the description made by the Talmud of the preparations
\nof the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) for the expiatory ritual of Yom Kippur, when
\nfor the only time in the year he entered the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies and
\npronounced the ineffable name of God. Such is the level of meticulousness of this
\npreparation that it resembles the complexity of the arrangements of the
\npreparation of our homes for the celebration of Pesach.
\nthe Seder.
\nsaying: “This is the bread of poverty… let everyone who is
\nhungry come and eat”, and on Yom kippur in the reading of the Haftarah that we will do tomorrow in the
\nmorning the prophet Isaiah reminds us that the fast that God wants from us
\nis the one in which we share our bread with the hungry.
\nsee himself as if he himself had been freed from Egypt”, so says the Mishnah in
\nthe tractate of Pesachim and we repeat it every year when we read the Haggadah.
\nTo go through the experience again. Not only tell the story, but also
\nrelive it.
\nmake us travel back in time. As we said before, we read in the Torah the ritual
\nof atonement, in the Haftarah we listen to the prophet Isaiah speaking to his
\ncontemporaries on a Yom Kippur some 2500 years ago and then almost at the end of the
\nMusaf we move to Jerusalem to attend the ceremonial that I mentioned
\njust now, which was performed on this day in the Beit Hamikdash. We traveled to the past to
\nunderstand the present.
\nfuture. We end the Seder with the same words with which tomorrow
\nwe will close our day of fasting and prayer: “Leshanah Haba’ah Birushalaim, the year
\nnext in Jerusalem.” Redemptive hope becomes present.
\n.
\nsuppose a priori between Pesach and Yom Kippur, but of course, there are also
\nsignificant differences. On Pesach food is a very important point and on Yom
\nKippur we are fasting.
\nthe departure from Egypt, while Yom Kippur lasts only one day (thank God) and
\nfrom its origins was focused on the connection of the human being with the transcendent
\nwithout being associated with a particular event.
\naround the table, in the intimacy of the family celebrating the Seder, while
\nthat on Yom Kippur the transcendent takes place in the synagogue. The Kol Nidr\u00e9, the
\nprayers, the Izkor, the Neil\u00e1…
\nprayer in the hope that our prayers will reach heaven, perhaps
\nis reminiscent of the role of the Cohen Gadol during Temple times,
\nwhile on Pesach everyone has to take charge of their own Seder, every
\nfather and every mother becomes a Cohen Gadol.
\ninteraction that includes everyone from the youngest asking Ma Nishtana Ha
\nLaila Haze to the elders relating the details of the Haggadah. Yom Kippur
\nfinds us united, but not in dialogue, praying together, with our words
\nand our thoughts directed to heaven.
\npast and future, Pesach and Yom Kippur radically disagree in the present.
\nthink that they are complementary. What if we contemplate both festivities,
\nwith all their differences as two loose pieces of a puzzle that only
\nwhen we manage to assemble them together let us see the whole picture?
\ntransmission of tradition (both words are etymologically connected both
\nin Spanish and Hebrew), on forging the identity of the new generations at
\nfrom an intimate, personal ritual. Pesach is the intergenerational encounter
\nwithin the home. Just as we learn the basics of life in
\nour home, how to walk, eat, go to the bathroom, we must also learn the
\nfundamental aspects of Jewish life at home.
\ndimension of Jewish life. Being part of something broader. The sharing of the
\nlife in its totality, in the synagogal experience of the liturgy that demands a
\nminian, a minimum quorum because only as a collective we can achieve a full
\nprayer.
\nto be together. And as it always happens we appreciate things when we don’t have them and
\nif we have learned anything in this last year and a half (I hope we have learned it)
\nis how necessary it is precisely this: to be together. To be together for the
\ncelebrations and for the everyday, for the moments of joy and also for
\nthe others. Gathering together, praying, sharing?
\nfamily framework, Yom Kippur does the same in the collective dimension. A life without
\nPesach is empty of content and a life without Yom Kippur does not reach
\ndevelop.
\ncommunity life.
\nbut to connect the two, Judaically speaking, we must live a full life,
\nin our homes and in community.
\nthat the important task, where we really make the difference, not
\njust me but also each one of us, the really important task here and in our
\nhomes is the one we do, is the one we have to do, from Yom Kippur to Rosh
\nHashanah.