Yom Kippur – Hergesh in Tefillah
We have now been through Elul, Selichos, Rosh Hashana, Shabbos Shuvah, and Aseres Yimei Teshuvah. We are at the doors of Yom Kippur and just hours away from Neilah. Every second of this day is beyond precious and grows in value as it dwindles.
There are so many perspectives and thoughts that I wish I could share with the hope that maybe one of them would be awakening, helpful, or encouraging, but I decided to follow in the ways of my Rebbe, Rabbi Grunblatt, and share with you the message that he has shared with us in the moments before Neilah.
It was during the reign of King Yoshiyahu, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and the Kohen Gadol Chilkia began to make long-overdue repairs to the Beis Hamikdash. In the course of his work, he discovered a Sefer Torah which had been hidden for generations and was shocked when he opened the scroll to the Tochacha recorded in Devarim. When the king Yoshiyahu heard this, he was shaken and tore his clothes in mourning. He understood that Hashem was furious and wanted a Prophet to daven on the behalf of Klal Yisroel and the Beis Hamikdash that neither be destroyed. Chilkiya, who was charged with the mission to find a Navi, chose to go to Chuldah Haniviyah. She davened, and her teffilos were successful.
The Mefarshim explain that the reason Chulda was chosen, even over Yirmiyahu Hanavi, who was the undoubted greatest member of Klal Yisroel, who had pristine character, who was surely complete in his mercy, and who clearly had a burning love for the Beis Mikdash, as is clear from the fact that he authored Eicha itself, is because “nashim rachmanious hein – ladies are more naturally merciful than men,” and she would therefore soak her teffios with a fraction more hergesh than he could have, and that little bit could have spelled the WHOLE difference.
I can just imagine Rabbi Grunblatt standing at the front of the Beis Medrash, donned in his kittel and talis, slightly weakened from fasting all day, repeating the simple but powerful message that every extra ounce of hergesh and kavana makes a difference, and in some cases, can be the difference that makes the WHOLE difference.
May we be zoche to appreciate the value of our teffilos and tap into the inner reservoirs of our hearts to fill our davening with every last hergesh … and just when we think we have reached our max, we should dig just a little deeper.
Good Shabbos and Gmar Chasima Tova!
Rabbi Anton
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