We Can Become Free Again

Nevertheless, the chagim always come with a certain stress for me, and not just because of the tight deadlines as the massive holiday issues are prepared for print. On the one hand, I could just move through the current list of topics, and those sure to pop up any minute — e.g., the Israeli strike on Qatar, the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. But isn’t a Jew supposed to be immersed in thinking about the Days of Awe at this time of the year? Isn’t that why we have been blowing the shofar — to awaken us to that task — since the beginning of Elul? And shouldn’t that be reflected in the topics addressed by a Torah Jew?

On the other hand, I have been writing about each of the chagim almost annually for more than 35 years, and it is hard to say something new. Nor do I imagine myself to be an original Torah thinker. What do I have to offer readers, given the proliferation of Torah shiurim easily accessible from talmidei chachamim of the first rank, including those featured in these pages, bearing original Torah insights?

In that proliferation, however, I have found the answer. I love to read. And at the very least, I can point to Torah thinkers whose ideas have inspired me in my avodas Hashem connected to the Yamim Noraim. It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this column that one of those contemporary thinkers is Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein, who has published seforim on all the holidays and on aggadeta, and multivolume works on Chumash, including the just-released From the World of the Meshech Chochmah (Mosaica Press).

TWO THEMES run through his more than 20 chapters on Yom Kippur in Teshuvah, his sefer on Elul and the Yamim Noraim. First, the need for rigorous, even scorching self-examination prior to Yom Kippur and on the day itself; and second, despite the multitude of our failings, that we are capable of becoming transformed Jews, ever closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Yom Kippur is a Divine gift to help us do so.