Post by Akiva on Sept 17, 2010 11:34:24 GMT -5
Just a thought, without any source, but I like it. I've always wondered what the purpose of the Chamisha Inuyim were on Yom Kippur. Why is it, on a day where we are trying to do tshuva, to remake ourselves into better people, that we refrain from eating, from drinking, from wearing leather shoes, from sex, from bathing for pleasure, and from anointing ourselves with oils? (OK, lets be honest, that last one is no big loss). How is that supposed to make us better? To make us focus on our job on Yom Kippur, on the tfilah, on the Yom?
In fact, I don't know about you, but for me, fasting can be a real distraction from tshuva, from tfila. By Mincha, my body is screaming at me like the plant from Little Shop of Horrors - feed me, feed me. My throat is parched, my stomach is rumbling, and it's hard to stay on my feet. By Ne'ilah, I have to fight with myself to avoid looking at my watch, reminding myself that Yom Kippur is a yom tshuva, that it's an opportunity I should be taking advantage of, that it's wrong to spend the last moments of the day counting down the time until I can eat and drink again.
And today I was thinking - maybe that's part of the point. After all, what are we doing by the end of the day, with our bodies screaming at us to eat, to drink, to sit down rather than standing through Ne'lah (as I and others have the minhag to do)? We're saying "no." No to our bodies, no to our physical needs and desires. We're saying "yes, I'd love to eat, I'd love to drink, I'd love to sit down. But it's Yom Kippur. And Hashem instructed us not to eat, not to drink. And because of that, I will not give my body what it's asking for, I will not do the thing that I desperately desire to do right now."
And isn't that, in the end, what we need to do to avoid transgressions during the rest of the year? The ability to say "no" to our desires? To say "yes, I would love to eat non-kosher food, to watch TV on shabbos, to sleep with that beautiful woman" - to do whatever it is that our emotions and desires are pushing us to do - "but Hashem instructed us not to do so. And, because of that, I will not do the thing that I desperately desire to do right now."
I think so. And that may play into the reason for the Inuyim on Yom Kippur, in a few ways. First, the Inuyim are a demonstration, on this day where we stand before God and say "forgive us, we've changed," that yes, we can control our desires, that we now have self control, that we have changed. In Hilchos Tshuva, the Rambam writes that to do complete Tshuva, one must be faced with the opportunity to commit the same transgression, and face it down, do the right thing this time. Obviously, on Yom Kippur, its impossible to do that for all of the many mistakes we've made over the year. Not sure about you, but for me, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to cover each one, individually. So maybe, on this Yom Tshuva, the Inuyim operate as a stand in, a proxy.
Second, the Inuyim operate as an object lesson in what Tshuva needs to involve - overcoming the desire to violate Halacha, even when it feels like a burning, physical imperative, based on our recognition that what Hashem commanded, we must do. And, in that sense, the Inuyim operate as a training tool. Whether we would do it on our own or not on other days, at least once a year we are trained in how to do Tshuva.
And third, the Inuyim can operate as a chizuk during the rest of the year. There are issues that, frankly, I struggle with, aveiros I do, knowingly, more than I'd like to admit. (And no, I won't be saying what they are
). I've been working on them for years, trying to better myself, and it's not easy. The other day, I thought to myself "come on - you can manage not to eat on Yom Kippur, no matter how badly you want to, but you can't stop yourself from this?" And it worked. The desire to commit the aveirah didn't disappear, it didn't melt away - but it suddenly got put in perspective. Did I really want to do this as badly as I want to eat and drink come the end of Yom Kippur? Was my desire that strong? No - definitely not. Yom Kippur is a physical need, a pain. This was just a want - a strong want, but a want. And why didn't I eat and drink on Yom Kippur? Because I know it's against Halacha, that I'm not allowed to do so. Well, so is this aveirah. And with that thought, I was able to pull myself back from a ledge I'd fallen over time and time again.
I'm not sure if that approach will work every time (I hope it will), but even if it only works once, that moment of desire and strength taught me something about the Inuyim. That they can act as a source of strength long after the actual fast ends. And that's an idea I'll be keeping in mind as the day comes to a close this Yom Kippur, as I try to avoid looking at my watch.
In fact, I don't know about you, but for me, fasting can be a real distraction from tshuva, from tfila. By Mincha, my body is screaming at me like the plant from Little Shop of Horrors - feed me, feed me. My throat is parched, my stomach is rumbling, and it's hard to stay on my feet. By Ne'ilah, I have to fight with myself to avoid looking at my watch, reminding myself that Yom Kippur is a yom tshuva, that it's an opportunity I should be taking advantage of, that it's wrong to spend the last moments of the day counting down the time until I can eat and drink again.
And today I was thinking - maybe that's part of the point. After all, what are we doing by the end of the day, with our bodies screaming at us to eat, to drink, to sit down rather than standing through Ne'lah (as I and others have the minhag to do)? We're saying "no." No to our bodies, no to our physical needs and desires. We're saying "yes, I'd love to eat, I'd love to drink, I'd love to sit down. But it's Yom Kippur. And Hashem instructed us not to eat, not to drink. And because of that, I will not give my body what it's asking for, I will not do the thing that I desperately desire to do right now."
And isn't that, in the end, what we need to do to avoid transgressions during the rest of the year? The ability to say "no" to our desires? To say "yes, I would love to eat non-kosher food, to watch TV on shabbos, to sleep with that beautiful woman" - to do whatever it is that our emotions and desires are pushing us to do - "but Hashem instructed us not to do so. And, because of that, I will not do the thing that I desperately desire to do right now."
I think so. And that may play into the reason for the Inuyim on Yom Kippur, in a few ways. First, the Inuyim are a demonstration, on this day where we stand before God and say "forgive us, we've changed," that yes, we can control our desires, that we now have self control, that we have changed. In Hilchos Tshuva, the Rambam writes that to do complete Tshuva, one must be faced with the opportunity to commit the same transgression, and face it down, do the right thing this time. Obviously, on Yom Kippur, its impossible to do that for all of the many mistakes we've made over the year. Not sure about you, but for me, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to cover each one, individually. So maybe, on this Yom Tshuva, the Inuyim operate as a stand in, a proxy.
Second, the Inuyim operate as an object lesson in what Tshuva needs to involve - overcoming the desire to violate Halacha, even when it feels like a burning, physical imperative, based on our recognition that what Hashem commanded, we must do. And, in that sense, the Inuyim operate as a training tool. Whether we would do it on our own or not on other days, at least once a year we are trained in how to do Tshuva.
And third, the Inuyim can operate as a chizuk during the rest of the year. There are issues that, frankly, I struggle with, aveiros I do, knowingly, more than I'd like to admit. (And no, I won't be saying what they are
). I've been working on them for years, trying to better myself, and it's not easy. The other day, I thought to myself "come on - you can manage not to eat on Yom Kippur, no matter how badly you want to, but you can't stop yourself from this?" And it worked. The desire to commit the aveirah didn't disappear, it didn't melt away - but it suddenly got put in perspective. Did I really want to do this as badly as I want to eat and drink come the end of Yom Kippur? Was my desire that strong? No - definitely not. Yom Kippur is a physical need, a pain. This was just a want - a strong want, but a want. And why didn't I eat and drink on Yom Kippur? Because I know it's against Halacha, that I'm not allowed to do so. Well, so is this aveirah. And with that thought, I was able to pull myself back from a ledge I'd fallen over time and time again.I'm not sure if that approach will work every time (I hope it will), but even if it only works once, that moment of desire and strength taught me something about the Inuyim. That they can act as a source of strength long after the actual fast ends. And that's an idea I'll be keeping in mind as the day comes to a close this Yom Kippur, as I try to avoid looking at my watch.
