The short speech before Ne’ilah as Yom Kippur comes to a close is the most difficult speech of the year. How can I in a matter of minutes attempt to bring the holiest day of the year to its spiritual apex?
What words can be said which will invigorate men and women who have been fasting for 24 hours and have been on their feet in fervent tefillah for hours and hours? How can I awaken the latent potential that exists in all of us to rise to the occasion at the closing of the gates and not allow the last precious moments of the day to be hijacked by thoughts of what’s on the post-shofar menu?
Tomorrow will already be too late; the time to act is now.
I made a shiva call just days before Yom Kippur. The son of the man who had passed away told the story of how his father Yosef Isenberg had been imprisoned in the Gehinnom of This World otherwise known asAuschwitz.
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