By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik
We are in high season. In
synagogal terms, the Yamim Noraim are high season.
The level of community activity
typical of this time of year from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is
of such intensity that it is well above average, and that added to the routine
results in a busy schedule.
For that reason, since
many years ago, when Tishrei holidays approach, I incorporate in my
head a kind of variable: AYN or PYN, that is, Ante Yamim Noraim
or Post Yamim Noraim. Any invitation or any proposal that I receive
during the previous weeks goes through that mental filter.
If it is AYN and it is not too
close to Rosh Hashanah, which is when the effervescence of the movement begins,
I gladly accept; and if it is PYN, I jump for joy because at that time of the year, at
the weeks before Rosh Hashanah, I get the feeling that after Yom
Kippur it is like being at the beach, nothing happens. Of course that is a distorted
view of reality, but who can take that illusion away from me.
I am telling you this because
about a month ago I received an interesting invitation. Sister Rosmery
Castañeda, director of the Biblical School of the Archdiocese of Panama asked me
that, in the spirit of interreligious dialogue, I would make a presentation from
the Jewish sources in a virtual international congress that gathers young
Christian missionaries from different countries of the region. When I asked the
date I saw that it was PYN (Post Yamim Noraim): Sunday, September 19. So I answered
that they could count on me.
A few days later, I
suggested the theme of the paper: “The Exodus, the way of liberation of the Jewish people
.” Interesting, it sounded good to me. Yetziat mitzraim, the exit from Egypt, the
freedom, etc., “we’re good” I thought – basically I have to talk about Pesach. “And
how long should the show be?” 45 minutes (45 minutes! Imagine
that my comfort zone for speaking is about 15 minutes – you can take the
time of this sermon – I have to prepare 45 minutes…)
But there is something else. When I looked
closely at the agenda, I realized that Kippur ends Thursday at
night, then comes Friday, which is only half a day useful to do all
the things I left for after Kippur, then after Shabbat and Sunday is
the day of the 45 minute exposition. What a terrible mistake!
I recognize that my mechanism did not
work properly, so in the midst of these Yamim Noraim I had no
choice but to start preparing my presentation on Pesach for this
Sunday, so I am truly in a paradox. I don’t know if I am
in a better position tonight to talk about Pesach than about Yom Kippur.
Pesach or Yom Kippur
Thinking about this sermon in the middle
of this disjunctive I remembered that several years ago, my first or second year
as rabbi of Kol Shearith, still in the old synagogue of Cuba Avenue
I began my Kol Nidré sermon singing Ma Nishtaná, the emblematic song of
Pesach Seder and I asked precisely why this night, the night of Kippur,
is different from all the others.
There is no doubt that Ma Nishtanah
is also an appropriate question for this solemn day; the Torah scrolls
dressed in white in front of the entire congregation, the synagogue packed, the atmosphere
of solemnity, the people dressed for the occasion. It is the only day of the year that the
people arrive early to the synagogue. Ma Nishtana Halaila Haze.
It occurred to me then that
maybe we could see if it is possible to connect Pesach with Yom Yippur; compare them,
dwell on the similarities and differences to try to draw some
valuable conclusions.
With that goal in mind what
was the first thing I did? What any rabbi inspired by centuries of
Jewish wisdom would do: I went to Google and typed in Yom Kippur and Pesach, see what came up.
The first thing that popped out at me was
a very interesting article from 2013 that reported on a survey in
US Jewry that asked which was the most
significant Jewish holiday. Yom Kippur and Pesach, in that order, topped the list. They are the
most important holy days of the year. Suggestively the survey also
showed that for younger people, the gap between the two celebrations was
smaller than for their elders. Interesting food for thought… another day.
Google also provided me with a few more tips for
to connect the two holidays.
The Torah reading that we do on the morning of Yom
Kippur, which describes the ritual of atonement (Vayikra, Leviticus ch. 16) is
also the beginning of Parashat Acharei-mot which is usually read the week
before or the week after Pesach.
But it is not only the closeness of the date. A detailed reading
of the described protocol brings us some interesting links.
The central place of the scapegoat, the one in which the faults of the people are symbolically
deposited, in the ritual of Yom Kippur and the animal that
was presented as a Pesach offering. The use of blood as an expiatory
element in the sacrifice offered to God on Yom Kippur and the
use of the blood of the offered animal as an element of protection of
the Israelite houses in the last plague in that first Pesach in Egypt.
And if we leave the biblical text and advance in the
history, we find the description made by the Talmud of the preparations
of the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) for the expiatory ritual of Yom Kippur, when
for the only time in the year he entered the Kodesh Hakodashim, the Holy of Holies and
pronounced the ineffable name of God. Such is the level of meticulousness of this
preparation that it resembles the complexity of the arrangements of the
preparation of our homes for the celebration of Pesach.
And we can also find interesting connections with
the Seder.
We begin the Maguid, the story, showing the Matzah and
saying: “This is the bread of poverty… let everyone who is
hungry come and eat”, and on Yom kippur in the reading of the Haftarah that we will do tomorrow in the
morning the prophet Isaiah reminds us that the fast that God wants from us
is the one in which we share our bread with the hungry.
Bechol Dor Vador, “In every generation each one should
see himself as if he himself had been freed from Egypt”, so says the Mishnah in
the tractate of Pesachim and we repeat it every year when we read the Haggadah.
To go through the experience again. Not only tell the story, but also
relive it.
In the same way the sages structured Yom Kippur to
make us travel back in time. As we said before, we read in the Torah the ritual
of atonement, in the Haftarah we listen to the prophet Isaiah speaking to his
contemporaries on a Yom Kippur some 2500 years ago and then almost at the end of the
Musaf we move to Jerusalem to attend the ceremonial that I mentioned
just now, which was performed on this day in the Beit Hamikdash. We traveled to the past to
understand the present.
And also on both holy days we look to the
future. We end the Seder with the same words with which tomorrow
we will close our day of fasting and prayer: “Leshanah Haba’ah Birushalaim, the year
next in Jerusalem.” Redemptive hope becomes present.
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
suppose a priori between Pesach and Yom Kippur, but of course, there are also
significant differences. On Pesach food is a very important point and on Yom
Kippur we are fasting.
Pesach lasts 8 days and is based on a historical event,
the departure from Egypt, while Yom Kippur lasts only one day (thank God) and
from its origins was focused on the connection of the human being with the transcendent
without being associated with a particular event.
On Pesach the central action takes place at home seated
around the table, in the intimacy of the family celebrating the Seder, while
that on Yom Kippur the transcendent takes place in the synagogue. The Kol Nidré, the
prayers, the Izkor, the Neilá…
On Kippur we rely on our Chazanit who guide us in
prayer in the hope that our prayers will reach heaven, perhaps
is reminiscent of the role of the Cohen Gadol during Temple times,
while on Pesach everyone has to take charge of their own Seder, every
father and every mother becomes a Cohen Gadol.
On Pesach the question is the quintessential dynamic. The
interaction that includes everyone from the youngest asking Ma Nishtana Ha
Laila Haze to the elders relating the details of the Haggadah. Yom Kippur
finds us united, but not in dialogue, praying together, with our words
and our thoughts directed to heaven.
It seems that, just as they share their vision of
past and future, Pesach and Yom Kippur radically disagree in the present.
Or perhaps more than having different perspectives, we could
think that they are complementary. What if we contemplate both festivities,
with all their differences as two loose pieces of a puzzle that only
when we manage to assemble them together let us see the whole picture?
Pesach focuses on the family dimension, on the
transmission of tradition (both words are etymologically connected both
in Spanish and Hebrew), on forging the identity of the new generations at
from an intimate, personal ritual. Pesach is the intergenerational encounter
within the home. Just as we learn the basics of life in
our home, how to walk, eat, go to the bathroom, we must also learn the
fundamental aspects of Jewish life at home.
On the contrary, Yom Kippur brings us the communal
dimension of Jewish life. Being part of something broader. The sharing of the
life in its totality, in the synagogal experience of the liturgy that demands a
minian, a minimum quorum because only as a collective we can achieve a full
prayer.
Yom Kippur represents that extraordinary thing that is
to be together. And as it always happens we appreciate things when we don’t have them and
if we have learned anything in this last year and a half (I hope we have learned it)
is how necessary it is precisely this: to be together. To be together for the
celebrations and for the everyday, for the moments of joy and also for
the others. Gathering together, praying, sharing?
Pesach defines our belonging as individuals in the
family framework, Yom Kippur does the same in the collective dimension. A life without
Pesach is empty of content and a life without Yom Kippur does not reach
develop.
We need both.
We need to enrich our family life and our
community life.
The past inspires us and the future fills us with hope,
but to connect the two, Judaically speaking, we must live a full life,
in our homes and in community.
From Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is high season, but let’s keep in mind
that the important task, where we really make the difference, not
just me but also each one of us, the really important task here and in our
homes is the one we do, is the one we have to do, from Yom Kippur to Rosh
Hashanah.
