It is a mitzvah to eat and drink on the day before Yom Kippur
in preparation for the fast.[1] Chazal also teach us that we are required to
begin fasting while it is still daytime.[2] In the language of Chazal מוֹסִיפִין מֵחוֹל עַל הַקוֹדֶשׁ/We
add to the holy from the profane. The
Torah and Chazal impart significance to the day before Yom Kippur. It is important, on the one hand to eat on
Erev Yom Kippur. It is so important, in
fact, that Chazal consider one who eats on Erev Yom Kippur, as if he fasted on
that day as well. On the other hand, it
is also important to actually begin fasting on Erev Yom Kippur. What is the relationship between Erev Yom
Kippur and Yom Kippur?
Yom Kippur is a day which enables us to come as close to God
as a physical being can. The laws of Yom
Kippur, which require us to abstain from physical pleasure, are designed so
that we may enact a next-world spiritual experience. The less physical and the more spiritual we
are, the closer we can come to God. The
reason for this is that closeness to God entails breaking any barriers that
separate us from Him. Our physical
bodies and needs are major barriers that keep us from coming close to God.
This is why the ultimate coming close to God occurs after our
soul leaves the physical body. Then,
there is a complete nullification of the self to God. God, as it were, completely engulfs us. The prophet Yirmiyahu hinted at this concept
when he said, “מִקְוֵה
יִשְׂרָאֵל ה'/God is the hope of Israel .”
(Yirmiyahu 17:13) The word for
hope – מִקְוֵה,
also means a mikveh – a purifying bath.
According to Chazal, the prophet is teaching us that just as a mikveh
purifies, so too, God purifies.[3] And just as a mikveh purifies only when a
person immerses his entire body in the waters, so too, God purifies only when a
person nullifies himself completely to God.
This happens when a person’s soul is no longer bound by his physical
body. Minimizing bodily pleasures on Yom
Kippur, therefore, enables us to come close to God.
Since the greatest bliss we can experience is coming close to
God, Yom Kippur is a day of joy. Our
physical needs, though, prevent us from properly experiencing the joy of
connecting with God. In order to enter
Yom Kippur in a state of joy, therefore, the Torah commands us to eat and drink
on Erev Yom Kippur. Rabbeinu Yonah in
Sha’arei Teshuvah, in fact, makes this very point.[4] He says that since we cannot experience the
joy that comes from the holiday meal on Yom Kippur, we have a mitzvah to be
joyful on Erev Yom Kippur through eating and drinking.
Even from a state of joy, though, we do not enter Yom Kippur
directly. Our state of joy allows us to
first experience the aura of Yom Kippur which “spills over,” so to speak, onto
the moments directly preceding and following the day itself. We therefore abstain from food and drink and
other physical pleasures during the moments preceding Yom Kippur. From the experience of connecting with the
aura of the moments preceding Yom Kippur from within the state of joy we are
in, we can connect with the enlightenment of Yom Kippur itself. The moments preceding Yom Kippur are a
necessary segue into the holiness of Yom Kippur itself.
In order to properly experience Yom Kippur, therefore, it is
important, to eat and drink on Erev Yom Kippur with the intent of reaching a
state of joy. From within this state,
when our physical needs are no longer an issue, we can nullify ourselves to God
and experience in some sense a glimpse of the next world.
2 comments:
is there not a third time-zone on the ninth of the month, that precedes the eating & drinking of the daytime (Chiya, 81b), & the fasting added prior to the tenth
(mosifin)? if Moshe returned with the second luchos on Yom Kippur, does not the ninth then correspond to the date of confusion* as to Moshe's first return, to the date of the request for gods & the construction of an eigel? we should thus afflict ourselves as soon as that date arrives (ba'erev, the ninth) with pangs of regret for that incident, & this time with our calendars clear
*any confusion about the ninth as it appears in Vayikra 23:32, would allude to that very confusion of the Klal as to Moshe's exact itinerary
may you be well-sealed R. Moshe!
AMEN! Thank you and you too.
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