Yom Kippur & Ha’azinu

Artscroll p.1100 | Haftarah p.1205Hertz p.896 | Haftarah p.904Soncino p.1159 | Haftarah p.1170

Volume 32No. 3

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In loving memory of Bayla Bat Gershon

“For on this day he shall provide atonement for you to purify you; from all your sins before God shall you be purified” (Vayikra 16:30).

Yom Kippur 9 October 2019 10 Tishrei 5780Ha’azinu 12 October 2019 13 Tishrei 5780Yom Kippur ends London 7.07pm

Jerusalem 6.51pmShabbat ends London 7.01pm

Jerusalem 6.47pm

Ha’azinu:

Sidrah Summary: Yom Kippur & Ha’azinu

United Synagogue Daf HashavuaProduced by US Living & Learning together with the Rabbinical Council of the United SynagogueEditor: Rabbi Chaim Gross Editor-in-Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Editorial and Production Team: Rabbi Daniel Sturgess, Rabbi Michael Laitner, Joanna RoseAvailable also via email US website www.theus.org.uk ©United SynagogueTo sponsor Daf Hashavua please contact Danielle Fox on 020 8343 6261, or dfox@theus.org.ukIf you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavua please email rabbigross@theus.org.uk

Yom Kippur Morning

From the first Sefer Torah, we read the beginning ofparashat Acharei Mot. This details the Yom Kippurservice of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), includinghis once-a-year entry into the Holy of Holies and theofferings he brought for himself, his family and thenation.This service included taking two goats on behalf ofthe nation. Lots were drawn on the goats, todetermine which one would be offered as a sin-offering and which one would be sent away into thedesert hills outside Jerusalem, where it plunged toits death. The Mishnah (Yoma 6:8) states that a stripof crimson cloth would be tied to the gate of theTemple. When the goat had reached the desert, ifthe nation's sins had been forgiven, the strip wouldturn white.Another feature of the Kohen Gadol’s special YomKippur service was that he did not wear any of thegolden garments that he wore during his normalservice.Maftir is read from the second Sefer Torah, from thesection of parashat Pinchas which details the extraofferings brought on Yom Kippur.

Point to Consider: Why does the Torah stress thatthe laws of the Yom Kippur service were given “afterthe death of two of Aharon’s sons”? (see Rashi to17:1)Haftarah

The prophet Yeshaya (Isaiah ch. 57) states thatwhilst God never ignores wrongdoing, the door toteshuva (repentance) always remains open.However, teshuva has to be sincere; fasting andaffliction carry little merit if one continues to mistreatother people.Yeshaya encourages not just keeping the laws ofShabbat, but also experiencing its joyousatmosphere, which can allow us to reach ourgreatest spiritual potential.

Yom Kippur Afternoon (Mincha)

We read the last part of parashat Acharei Mot,concentrating on the laws of forbiddenrelationships, such as with close relatives, or with

another’s spouse. Adhering to the laws aboutforbidden relationships is a critical factor in thenation’s well-being in its Land.

Haftarah (Mincha)

Yonah (Jonah), a Jewish prophet, is told to go to thenon-Jewish city of Nineveh to encourage its citizensto repent. Yonah refuses, instead boarding a shipbound for Tarshish. Yet, in a violent storm, the shipseems about to break up. Realising that his ownrebellion has caused this danger, Yonah asks thesailors to throw him overboard. A big fish swallowshim. After three days of suffering inside the fish,Yonah prays to God, Who instructs the fish to spitYonah onto dry land. God reinstructs Yonah to goto Nineveh. Yonah goes, warning the people ofNineveh of the need to repent. They fast and repent,yet when God forgives them, Yonah is distressed.God responds to Yonah’s reaction by teaching hima lesson in compassion.

Question: What did the sailors do immediately after throwing Yonah overboard? (1:15) Answer onbottom of page 10.Ha’azinu is read on the Shabbat after Yom

Kippur

The first six aliyot are the Song of Ha’azinu, whichstarts with Moshe calling on heaven and earth towitness the warning that the nation will rebel afterentering the Land of Israel, forsaking devotion toGod for the pursuit of material possessions. This willlead to terrible consequences. Ha’azinu would thenbe read to the people, to remind them of the causeof their woes. The Song ends with God’s promise toavenge those nations who would attack the Jews. Inthe seventh aliyah, God tells Moshe to view theLand from the mountains of Moab and reminds himthat he will not enter the Land because he hit therock (see Bemidbar 20:12-13).

Haftarah

The Book of Shmuel records the beautiful Song ofKing David, who poetically relates the variousstruggles he faced, and how God always protectedand saved him. God’s kindness allowed David torise from peril to a position of respect and power.

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3In memory of Shmuel Nissim ben Yaacov

The Evil Within by Rabbi David Lister, Edgware United Synagogue

"I thus drew steadily nearerto the truth, by whosediscovery I have beendoomed to such a dreadfulshipwreck: that man is nottruly one, but truly two"(Robert Louis Stevenson,The Strange Case of

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde).

One of the most dramatic elements of the YomKippur service in Temple times was theceremony of the scapegoat. The High Priestwould designate one goat for God and anotherfor Azazel. The goat for God would beslaughtered and its blood would be sprinkledtowards the Holy of Holies. The goat for Azazelwas then taken out to the top of a high desertmountain, whence it would be pushed to itsdeath.

The Torah tells us that the scapegoat carried thepeople’s sins off into the desert (Vayikra 16:22).So who or what was Azazel and how couldsending a goat to its death make everythingbetter?

The Ramban (Nachmanides 1194-1270) explainsthis cryptic ritual with reference to the twin sons of Yitzchak: Eisav the bloodthirsty hunterand Yaakov, who is referred to in the Torah as an“ish tam”, meaning an ‘innocent man’ (Bereishit25:27).

Yaakov said of Eisav, “Surely my brother is anish sa’ir” (ibid. 27:11). The simple meaning of thewords “ish sa’ir” is ‘a hairy man’. Yet they canalso be translated as ‘a man like a goat’. Thegoat for Azazel, says the Ramban, symbolisesEisav.

There is also a hint to Yaakov in this Yom Kippurritual. The goat for Azazel had to carry off “alltheir sins” (Vayikra 16:22). The Hebrew termused is “avonotam”, which can be translated tomean ‘the sins of [Yaakov] the innocent’.

Thus, says the Ramban, the goat for Azazelsymbolised Eisav carrying off Yaakov’s sins.How could this be?

Perhaps the point is that on Yom Kippur wereceive the gift of spiritual clarity. We see that ourself-indulgence, our lust for power and ourunruly neglect of God’s will are just ‘the Eisavwithin us’. Robert Louis Stevenson was partiallycorrect that “man is truly two”: we have Eisavwithin us all. But we can cast Eisav out, and wecan cast out all our sins through this resolve torepent and start a new life.

The Ramban explains further that Eisav’s bloodlust is symbolised by the desolation of thedesert, because the greed and violence of Eisavwreak desolation on civilisation. Azazel meansthe ‘hard, strong place’, because the world ofEisav admits no kindness and no reconciliation.The goat’s shocking and sudden destruction inthe desert teaches that Eisav and all herepresents will not triumph.

Nowadays we have no Temple and no goat forAzazel. But the Azazel lesson endures for alltime, and the freedom to cleanse ourselves ofour inner Eisav and face down the ruin of ourown sin is something everyone can access everyyear for twenty five blessed hours, the holy andmighty day of Yom Kippur.

4In memory of David Yochanan ben Moshe

A Real Apology by Rabbi Pinchas Hackenbroch, Senior Rabbi, Woodside Park United Synagogue

In his book Sunflower, SimonWiesenthal recalls beingsummoned from his workdetail in a concentrationcamp to the bedside of adying Nazi, Karl Seidl.Tormented by the crimes hehad committed, Seidl told

Wiesenthal that he was seeking "a Jew'sforgiveness” for his past. In particular, Seidlremained harrowed by his involvement in setting fire to a house full of 300 Jews. He toldWiesenthal how he watched as the Jews leapt out of windows to escape the burningbuilding, whereupon he and his fellow Nazisgunned them down.

Wiesenthal’s response to Seidl’s plea forforgiveness was to turn his back and leave the room in silence. However, he writes that he remained continuously troubled about thelimits and possibilities of forgiveness.

Must we, should we, can we always forgive the repentant criminal, no matter how heinousthe crime? Can we forgive a person for crimescommitted against others? What do we owe the victims? Wiesenthal wrestled with his silence that day, and it haunted him for the rest of his life.

One of the most moving narratives in the Yom Kippur service is the account of the Ten Martyrs, the heartrending narrativedescribing in graphic detail the deaths of tenRabbis who lived under Roman persecution and were ultimately tortured to death.

This is the centre piece in the selichot section ofthe service, when we seek forgiveness andreflect on our past misdeeds, and one is leftwondering on what pretext these ten righteousmen were killed in such a horrific way.

The Midrash (rabbinic teachings) tells us that the Roman Prefect of Jerusalem at that time

noted that in the well-known Bible story, Yosef’sbrothers sold him into slavery, a crime whichshould have been punishable by death. This didnot happen and the Prefect decided to executethe rabbis in their place.

Yet we know that Yosef, towards the end of his life, reconciled with his brothers in Egypt. The great 14th century Spanish commentatorRabenu Bachye (1255-1340) offers a criticalinsight. He notes that the text does say thatYosef reassured the brothers, but it does not say that he actually forgave them (Bereishit50:19-21). Indeed, the brothers did not seekforgiveness. Rather, they wanted to draw a lineand move on. Asking for forgiveness would haveinvolved accepting responsibility, which theywere reluctant to do. The evil Prefect felt that the‘case’ was still not closed.

Today, sincere apologies, both on an institutionaland individual level, may be avoided by some forfear of negative repercussions and possible legalconsequences. The general advice such peopleespouse is to “never apologise, never explain”.

However, at the heart of the process of teshuva(repentance) is acceptance of our liability, which enables us to face up to our fallibility,which in turn enables genuine apology. Such an apology, said directly and with earnest intent to the person we have wronged, enables genuine forgiveness to be granted,leading to the healing of fractured relationships.

Merely expressing regret for an outcome of ouractions is insufficient and will not achieve thehealing that we seek of the broken relationships.

This takes us back to the dilemma faced bySimon Wiesenthal and thousands of othersurvivors, perhaps helping us to appreciate the difficult decision which Wiesenthal had to make.

Yom Kippur and Reaching Beyond Ourselvesby Anna Coleman, US Jewish Living Events Manager and Tribe Israel Team

5In memory of Harav Yisrael ben Eliyahu

“He [ Rabbi Tarfon, firstcentury CE ] used to say: ‘It isnot your duty to finish thework, but neither are you atliberty to neglect it’” (PirkeiAvot 2:20, green siddur p.534)

When we look at the world,we see many challenges which may seeminsurmountable. As Jews living in the UK in 2019,it would be easy to look at these challenges andsay: “there’s nothing I can do about them, so I won't even try”. However, in his teaching citedabove, Rabbi Tarfon declares that we have aresponsibility to tackle even those problems wemay not fully solve.

Yet which issues should we address? Perhaps we should worry about our own individualchallenges before helping others, or perhaps justour own communities, or even just the Jewishpeople. On Yom Kippur afternoon, we read Sefer Yonah (the book of Jonah), which toucheson this dilemma.

Yonah initially attempted to evade God’sinstructions to go to the corrupt non-Jewish cityof Nineveh, perhaps the greatest city in the worldat the time, and deliver words of rebuke. Somecommentators suggest that Yonah felt that thepunishments planned for Nineveh were deservedand it was this that lay behind his evasion.

God, however, had commanded otherwise andwhen Yonah eventually reached Nineveh, he wasimmediately successful in convincing the city’sleadership to change its ways. Yonah's words inNineveh were short yet powerful, showing theimpact even the simplest of messages can have.We should not think that just by doing a smallaction or saying a few words that we cannotmake a difference – something that might besmall to us may have bigger meaning or impacton others.

Rabbi Lord Sacks points out that while Yonahwas not the only prophet to speak to non-Jews,he was the only one to travel to a place such as

Nineveh and speak with the people there. Yonahteaches us the importance of accepting head-onthe responsibility of the challenges that we face,and not running away from them, howeverdaunting they may seem.

This past summer, Tribe took 16 teenagers toRwanda on a social responsibility trip, to meet,interact and volunteer with youth at risk. The group stayed at the Agahozo Shalom YouthVillage, which was modelled after Yemin Orde, an Israeli Youth Village set up to care for orphansafter the Holocaust. Agahozo-Shalom is a placewhere “tears are dried” and vulnerable youth can“live in peace”.

Over the ten-day trip, our Tribe teens wereimmersed in Rwandan culture, from waking up at6.30 in the morning to take part in the village run(where over 600 students, teachers and staff run around the village) to kitchen duties, libraryservice and running educational games.

Tribe participants observed Shabbat, organisedservices, prepared their own kosher food andhad study sessions with Rabbi Dov andRebbetzen Freda Kaplan, showing how it ispossible to live the practicalities of Jewish lifeeven when so far away from a Jewish centre,whilst positively contributing to the locality where they were staying.

Seeing the impact that our Tribe participants hadon the students at Agahozo-Shalom, we sawfirst-hand the realisation of the lessons from theBook of Yonah about reaching beyond ourselves.We did not finish the work, but at least, as RabbiTarfon taught us, we have not neglected to try.

6In memory of Rabbi Isaac Bernstein, Harav Yitzchak Yoel ben Shlomo Halevi

Timeline: Yamim Noraim, 1939by Rabbi Nicky Liss, Highgate Synagogue, Chair of RCUS

Eighty years ago, Jewishcommunities across the UK prepared for RoshHashanah and Yom Kippur.This was overshadowed by the outbreak of World War Two on 3 September1939, as well as the German

invasion of Poland which had cut British Jews offfrom their Polish relatives.

On the next page we reproduce a fascinatingletter written a week later, on 10 September1939, by the late Rabbi Maurice Lew, of blessedmemory, who was one of my esteemedpredecessors as the rabbi of HighgateSynagogue. Rabbi Lew was educated at Polish yeshivot and Jews’ College before hereceived semicha (rabbinic ordination) in theLand of Israel. He served communities in the UK and South Africa with distinction.

This letter was written following consultation with colleagues and with the guidance of ChiefRabbi Dr J.H. Hertz. It provides a fascinatinginsight into how our community faced thoseuncertain times.

The British public was all too aware of theterrifying, indiscriminate bombing of Poland by the Luftwaffe using Stuka dive bombers,which had already killed many Poles.

The UK government justifiably feared similarattacks and had published detailed guidance onhow to react in the event of air raids, includingblackouts, which made travel at night andcommunal gatherings at any time especiallyhazardous. This impacted on when it might besafe to hold communal prayers and is reflected in the service times which Rabbi Lew set.

The authorities also feared that the Luftwaffewould drop poison gas, such that by September1939 millions of gas marks had already been

issued to households across the country. Thesewere supplied along with instructions for people to carry their gas masks with them at alltimes until further notice. Rabbi Lew’s letteraddresses the governmental guidance,instructing members to carry their gas maskseven in the absence of an eruv, given thepotential threat to life should poison gas be used.

There are two items in the letter which I findparticularly striking every time I read it. Firstly,Rabbi Lew’s towering faith in very difficultcircumstances, which is a shining example to us all, and secondly, the cancellation of the Kol Nidrei service. One cannot but reflect on other testing times in our history when we were also not able to gather together.

How lucky we are to live under very differentcircumstances with the opportunities we are blessed with. Let us strengthen ourcommunities, especially by praying together.

We thank Rabbi Lew’s son, Professor Julian Lew QC, for permission to reproduce this letter.

Rabbi Maurice Lew

7In memory of Rabbi Maurice Lew, Harav Avraham Moshe ben Harav Yisrael Yosef

The History of Yom Kippur Customs by Rabbi Daniel Roselaar, Alei Tzion United Synagogue

8In memory of Rev Alan Greenbat OBE, Aharon ben Mordechai Halevi

Every siddur and machzorthat is published reflects a particular minhag(custom). As Jews havemigrated over the course of time, combined with the establishment of newcommunities and shuls,

minhagim have been transferred, imported andsubtly changed. People tend to be stronglyinfluenced by what they have grown up with orhave become accustomed to, and are oftensurprised to find that other communities docertain things differently.

Some of the most prominent differences inminhagim find expression in the High Holydayservices. The purpose of this article is to shedsome light on some of those differences.

A hundred notes are sounded with the shofar oneach day of Rosh Hashanah and many of usmight be perturbed if we went to a shul whereless notes were blown. This practice can betraced back to Rabbi Natan ben Yechiel of Rome(known as the Aruch, c. 1035 – 1106), who livedin the 11th century. It is associated with aMidrashic tradition that when the Canaanitecommander Sisera failed to return safely frombattle, his mother wept 100 times. Whilst thistradition is almost universal nowadays – apartfrom Sephardi communities where 101 blasts are blown – this was not always the case. Rashi’s grandson, Rabbeinu Tam (1100-1171),maintained that a total of 42 blasts was sufficient,whilst other medieval authorities deemed itnecessary to blow only 40 blasts in total. Themaintenance of these traditions until relativelyrecently is evidenced by the rubrics in variousBritish-Jewish machzorim printed in the 19th and20th centuries.

One characteristic of the Yom Kippur services isthe repetition of many of the prayers. The 13Attributes of God’s mercy are sung three times

before we take the Torah out of the Ark in themorning. This tradition is a Kabbalistic addition tothe prayer rite, dating from the 16th century andwas therefore absent from the editions of thesiddur and machzor of the the great medievalrabbis.

The 13 Attributes of God’s Mercy punctuate the other prayer services on Yom Kippur as well.The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 17b) cites Rabbi Yochanan’s anthropomorphic descriptionof the Almighty wrapping Himself in a tallitand assuring Moshe that when the Jewish peoplesin in the future, if they recite these verses theywill be guaranteed forgiveness. Of course this is not a formula in itself and the intent of thepassage is that these Divine attributes should be recited at the conclusion of the repentanceprocess, to “remind” the Almighty of Hiskindnesses and that He should be forgiving.

The Tur (Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher 1269-1340)cites the Gaonic practice from the 10th centurythat the the 13 Attributes of God’s Mercy shouldbe recited five times at each of the Kol Nidre andShacharit services, seven times at Musaf, sixtimes at Mincha and three times at Neila. Someother traditions maintained that they should berecited seven times at each of the first fourservices and 13 times at Neila, as the day isdrawing to a close.

Most machzorim have the tradition of reciting the“Hashem Hashem” verses four times at Kol Nidreiand eight times at Neila. Of particular interest tothe British-Jewish reader is the background to their reduced appearance in the Routledgemachzor and the traditional British-Jewish prayer rite. In 1892 the representatives of variouscongregations made representation to ChiefRabbi Hermann Adler for certain revisions andalterations to the order of services in theirsynagogues. The list of proposed changes wasquite extensive, as well as being quite radical insome respects; the Chief Rabbi convened a

9In memory of Rev Alan Greenbat OBE, Aharon ben Mordechai Halevi

committee to consider them. Amongst theinnovations that were authorised was to allow the13 Attributes of God’s Mercy to be recited onlyonce at each service, with the intention that thiswould allow them to be recited with greaterdevotion and less haste.

Another custom characteristic of British-Jewishcommunities is the minhag to blow the shofar atthe end of Yom Kippur following the post-fastMaariv service, rather than at the end of Neila, asindicated by many machzorim. In actual fact, thispoint is the subject of a difference of opiniondating back several hundred years. In the 14thcentury, the Tur referenced both practices andopined that the correct minhag is to wait until after Maariv before blowing the shofar, since it indicates that the fast has concluded and that it is now permissible to eat. Chief Rabbi Adlerwas keen to recommend that this practice be adopted, though not particularly on any stronghalachic grounds. In his words:

“It must be admitted that the arrangement thathas hitherto obtained is of a most unsatisfactorycharacter. In many synagogues the Maariv is read whilst the majority of the congregants arequitting the place of worship, or noisily preparingto do so. In those synagogues where the bulk of the congregants remain the prayer is read, I believe, as a rule, with unseemly haste”.

His solution was quite extreme. Not only did hecite the Tur in advocating that the shofar blowingshould be delayed until after Maariv, he alsoadvised that the Ark should remain openthroughout Maariv as if it were a continuation ofNeila; that the service should be led by the samechazzan who led Neila and with the same“solemnity and impressiveness as the otherServices of the day”; and that the recitation of the“Shemot” usually said at the end of Neila (theverses of Shema Yisrael, Baruch Shem andHashem Hu Ha’Elokim) should also be moved tothe end of Maariv.

Related and radical proposals that the ChiefRabbi rejected as being too far removed fromtraditional Orthodoxy were the suggestions that

the Kol Nidre passage be omitted, that analternative Torah passage replace the traditionalMincha reading, and that Maariv at the end of the fast be altogether dispensed with. He did,however, permit a children’s service to be held onYom Kippur afternoon, with the proviso that noselichot be omitted in order to facilitate this!

Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler

The Song of History – Ha’azinuby Rabbi Michael Laitner, US Jewish Living Division & Finchley Synagogue

10In memory of Monty Richardson, Mordechai Avraham ben Nechemiah

One of the most significantelements of the prayerexperience is those familiartunes that we ‘always’ singthe same way, everyShabbat or Yom Tov. Eventhose sung just once a year, such as on Yom

Kippur, have their special place and connect us with past generations.

The music and the history which these tunesencompass provide a bridge from Yom Kippurinto the rest of the year, starting with parashatHa’azinu, which we read this year just three daysafter Yom Kippur. Ha’azinu is referred to as a shira(song) by the Torah (Devarim 31:19) and Ha’azinuitself references history, through the phrase“zechor yemot olam…” (‘remember the days past’ibid. 32:7).

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 31a) notes thatoriginally, part of the Song of Ha’azinu and thehistory therein was read every Shabbat morningin the Temple to accompany the Musaf offering,such that the entire passage was covered everysix weeks. This might have been due to theimportant historical messages that Ha’azinucontains.

After the destruction of the First Temple and thetransfer of communal worship to the synagogue,that practice was discontinued. Instead, the fixedcalendar of weekly Torah readings that we havetoday was instituted, which always placesHa’azinu to be read either just before or just afterYom Kippur. This placement might offer a clue toa message which the Rabbis wanted us toconnect to at this time of year.

To help us do so, the great Italian commentatorRabbi Ovadia Seforno (1475-1550), on our verse,also divides Ha’azinu into six sections. RabbiYitzchak Etshalom, a contemporary Americanscholar, has described these as a ‘roadmap ofhuman history’.

The first section starts with the introductory verse,which calls upon ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ to listen tothis song. We can suggest that ‘heaven’ and‘earth’ take us back to the initial reference to bothwords in the first verse of the entire Torah: “In thebeginning God created the heavens and earth”(Bereishit 1:1).

The creation of heaven and earth ultimately led,as described in Bereishit, to the creation ofhuman beings who would then have theopportunity to choose what type of society theywould build. The Seforno concludes by indicatingthat ‘zechor yemot olam’ charges us to think backto the Creation story, so that we remember God’sgoodness in creating the human race.

As we will soon start reading the Torah fromBereishit again, perhaps the Rabbis wanted us toread Ha’azinu now to appreciate the importanceof the past as we start to read the Torah and thestart of history again.

A friend asked the late Israeli Rabbi YehudaAmital (1924-2010), Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion for a message to take with him whenleaving the yeshiva. The Rabbi suggested that he take a ‘niggun’, a tune, from the prayers at theyeshiva to carry with him. As we move from YomKippur, I hope that the tunes and history of thatday, fortified by the song and history of Ha’azinu,help us to move to a joyous Succot and a blessedyear ahead.

Answer: They offered a sacrifice to God