The Last Words

Today's work is not forgiveness. It is the consciousness of the whole year

Michael Berg opens the day's class by saying what the main work of Yom Kippur actually is: to build the consciousness we will carry for the next twelve months.

To the degree that our consciousness is clear today, and our connection to the Light of the Creator is clear today, it will be strong and clear for the rest of the year. And since consciousness is everything, if it is strong, everything in our life is manifested with Light and with blessings.

Today's elevation is a gift, not an achievement

Today we do not rise by our own effort. We are elevated by the gift of this day, by the Light of the Creator, to the level of Moshe after the forty days and forty nights, which culminated on Yom Kippur itself.

Literally to the state of angels: the perfected state, in which no negative action we have ever done, not in this lifetime and not in previous ones, can hold our soul back from shining.

To know the purpose of anything, look at its end

Michael Berg teaches a principle of reading before giving the first secret: you can learn a great deal about the purpose of anything by looking at its end.

So: what is the last prayer of Yom Kippur? What are the last words we say, at Ne'ilah, as the day closes? Those words must point to the purpose of the whole day. And they are Hashem Hu HaElokim.

Two Names, one single experience

They are two different Names in the same phrase, and each carries its own energy. The first stands for the Light of the Creator shining clearly, when we feel the connection. The second stands for judgment, for disconnection, for the moments when we feel negativity.

To say that one is the other is to arrive at a state of consciousness in which, regardless of what is happening, the person feels only the mercy and the goodness of the Light of the Creator. What another person would live as judgment, this one lives as kindness.

Where the phrase comes from: Eliyahu alone on the mountain

The phrase comes from the Book of Kings, at a moment when the people were at their lowest spiritual point. Almost all had abandoned the connection to the Light of the Creator and followed the Baal and the Asherah. It was not only the people: there were no prophets left either. One remained, Eliyahu Hanavi, and everyone he spoke to tried to kill him.

He proposes the test and gives every advantage to the other side: they choose the offering and they go first. From morning until afternoon the thousands of prophets of the Baal call out, and nothing happens. Eliyahu, with humour, suggests they shout louder, that perhaps their god is asleep.

Then he calls the people to rebuild the one altar still left, takes twelve stones for the twelve tribes, and has water poured over the wood until everything is soaked, so that nobody could speak of a trick. And then he cries out his request: Aneni, Aneni. Answer me. The fire comes down and consumes the offering, the wood, even the stones, and dries up all the water.

The people did not only connect: they reassessed everything

When the fire comes down, the people fall and say the phrase. Michael Berg draws attention to what that really means: it was not merely a new connection. It was a reassessment of everything they had believed before. They recognised as false the path they were on, and only then did they come to truth.

And this is where the day touches us. If there was difficult experience in the year that passed, and there was, then however spiritual we were, we were not where we were meant to be. That does not belittle the work that was done. It serves one purpose only: not to repeat the year.

The second secret: transforming body into soul

We are made of body and soul. The soul is the part that wants to share, to connect and to do good. The body is the Desire to Receive for the Self Alone, the part that pulls toward harming others and, at times, toward harming itself. Life is the battle between the two.

But the purpose is not to choose the soul and leave the body as it is. Many understand it that way, and Michael Berg says that is wrong. The purpose is to transform body into soul. Every thought, every word and every action does one of two things: it raises the body toward the soul, or it lowers the soul toward the body. A thousand times a day.

What remains: the soul that shines forever

This is why it is said of Moshe, of Eliyahu Hanavi, of Yaakov and of Hanoch that they did not die. They so purified the body that it stopped being a barrier and became a garment for the soul. Michael Berg quotes the principle: that which has been raised to the spiritual does not die, and death reaches only the part of the body not yet transformed.

The pain of leaving is proportional to how much of the body stayed body. And there is more: when the body becomes soul, the soul shines forever. That is why the words of Eliyahu Hanavi still teach on this day, thousands of years later. It is not only the Light we bring into our own life over the next twelve months. It is the Light that stays in the world.