The Embrace That Purifies

Who has the vessel for this day?

The class begins in a verse from Yoel that speaks of Yom Kippur. The day of the Creator is great, the verse says, and it is awesome. And then it asks the question that organises everything that follows.

Notice what the question is not asking. Not who deserves. Not who behaved well enough. It is who has the vessel. The Light of this day is available either way. The whole matter is the capacity to receive it.

Rav Akiva, whose hilula is today

Yom Kippur is the anniversary of Rav Akiva's passing, and the kabbalists teach that the teachings of a great soul shine more powerfully on the very day that soul left this world. His best known teaching is the foundation of everything he taught: to love your neighbour as yourself. The second best known is the one that opens this day.

In this world, whoever wants to be purified usually goes somewhere, looks for someone, crosses some distance. Rav Akiva points at something else: for whoever is truly connected to the Light of the Creator, the purification of Yom Kippur passes through no intermediary at all.

The mikveh is not a place. It is the Light

Rav Akiva quotes a verse: Mikveh Yisrael Hashem. The mikveh is the body of water someone enters to become purified. But for whoever is truly connected, the mikveh is the Light of the Creator itself.

It is the same mechanism, one level up. You enter the water and come out clean of what this world left in you. Today you enter the embrace of the Light, and come out clean of everything. Michael Berg is specific about this: on this day you can enter in whatever state, with any impurity, any problem, any negativity, and leave completely purified. On the physical level and the spiritual one. That is the purpose of the day.

The embrace first. Purification is the consequence

Here is the inversion that changes the entire day. The Maharal of Prague explains the process by which the Creator is our mikveh, and the order of events is not the one we imagine.

And that has an immediate practical consequence: you do not need to find the right words. If you want to say the words of the connection, they help. But the essential thing is to close your eyes and see, envision, experience the embrace of the love of the Light of the Creator. That is all this day is about.

The one day you do not have to deserve

Every other day of the year, connection with the Light of the Creator is earned. You do the work, and the connection happens in the measure of the work. It is cause and effect, and it is fair.

Today, no. Today the Creator says to each one of us, regardless of who we are and what we have done: I want to unify My energy, My force, My love with you. A person can enter Yom Kippur as the most negative person in the world and still have the desire, make the connection and receive the complete embrace.

That is where the opportunity begins. And that is why Yoel's question is about the vessel, not about merit.

Why we fast: not to allow, but to not block

Here the Maharal corrects another inverted order. The five connections, the reading of the Torah, the fasting, going without leather shoes: none of it exists to allow the connection, as if it were the price of entry.

The fast is a step back from body consciousness, so the embrace arrives unhindered. That completely changes how you cross the day. You are not paying for anything. You are removing what was in the way.

The Opponent comes looking. And finds nothing

There is a well known line in the Talmud, and the Zohar treats it too: on Yom Kippur the Opponent has no permission to accuse. The common reading is that he takes the day off. The kabbalists tell something else, and it is more beautiful.

In Pirkei De-Rabi Eliezer, the accusing force asks the Creator for the chance to do its job, which is to find fault. And the Creator grants exactly one day a year. That day is today. It is not time off: it is the one day it has licence to look.

And then the most surprising thing in the teaching happens: the Creator listens to the testimony of the one who came to accuse. The very force that exists to find fault returns saying there is no fault, and out of that testimony come blessings. There is a concept that blessings are more powerful when they come not only from the Creator, but when the negative angels also send their Light. That is what happens today.

Seeing yourself as a tzadik, and opening the door to miracles

This is the point Michael Berg calls dangerous not to carry in consciousness. Today you have to see yourself as pure. Not as a self-esteem exercise: because it is what you are, and because your protection depends on it. If for one second a person thinks they are no good, that something is wrong with them, chas v'shalom, the whole process does not happen.

And from that comes the third gift. Miracles do not fit in this world. The system was created upon teva, nature, and the world has to run by nature. A miracle has no way of breaking in here.

This is the one state from which it is possible to draw miracles into the next twelve months. On other days it is far harder, because you are part of this world, and this world does not take in miracles. Today, no. Today you are inside the embrace.