Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful Thursday morning as we get ready, my friends, for Yom Kippur. Of course, we know that Yom Kippur is a day of Kapara, a day of Tahara. It is both. The Pasuk (verse) says, right? What does that mean? What does that mean? On this day, Yechaper. Yechaper, Kapara means clean, wipe. We’re going to get wiped today. Okay? Imagine you’ve got dirt; you’re going to wipe it off. Amazing. On this day, Yechaper aleichem (He will atone for you). Okay, so what is the next phrase? What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, letaher etchem, you’re going to be pure. Okay? What’s the difference between clean and pure? Is it just a synonym? What’s the difference? It’s very important to know the answer to this question.
Because really, really, it’s not the same thing. They’re two separate things: Kapara and Tahara. Rabbi Bernstein explains something very, very powerful. You know, we often understand that our sins are a result of our value system. Okay? That means that because we have certain values, those values cause us to sin. For example, if I don’t value praying very much, that will cause me not to pray. If I don’t think Shabbat is important, I’m going to break Shabbat. If I don’t think it’s important to be honest, that’s going to cause me to lie and steal from people. My values create my actions; they result in my actions being a certain way.
But the truth is, the exact opposite is also true. My actions can also shape my values. Yes, not only do my values shape my actions, but my actions actually also shape my values. What that means is that there’s something in psychology called cognitive dissonance. There’s a problem when there’s a gap in a person’s mind, when there’s a gap between what I’m doing and how I should be. We cannot live life thinking or knowing that we’re not living the way we should be. In my head, I’m supposed to be doing X, Y, and Z, and I’m not. I can’t live with myself knowing that I’m not doing what I’m supposed to. This is called cognitive dissonance: when there’s a disconnect between how I should be and how I am. And how do we bridge that gap?
Psychologically, there are two ways to bridge the gap created by cognitive dissonance. Again, here’s where I should be, and here’s where I am. There are two ways to bridge the two. One is to raise where I am, and the other is to lower where I should be. Yes? Both result in where I am and where I should be being at the same level. The question is, which one do we do? And unfortunately, many times, we do the wrong one. We lower the bar instead of raising people. We had a class in the past about this idea. And really, unfortunately, today we’re living in a time when we’re witnessing firsthand how the rules are changing: the things that we know shouldn’t be, the things that are inappropriate and incorrect. So today, what are they doing? They’re changing the rules. Today, they’re changing where we should be. Today, they’re making everything legal. They’re telling us, “It’s okay. You could do it. If that’s how you feel, then that’s what you should be.” Instead of raising people, they’re lowering the bar.
We should know this. I’ll give you an example: our thoughts. We have to realize that not every thought is a healthy thought, not every thought is a good thought, and not every thought is a true thought. Not every thought do I have to entertain, develop, and worship. Sometimes thoughts are bad. If it’s a bad thought, get rid of it. Sometimes we get too focused and too stuck in our thoughts. We sit and, you know, especially in today’s day and age, there’s so much therapy and so much internalization of our thoughts and ideas. We’re really very in touch with ourselves, but it can become a little bit too much. I start taking every thought that comes to me and every idea, and I have to start opening it up, analyzing it, scrutinizing it, and figuring out where this trauma is coming from, what it’s going back to. Then I sit, and my next 20 years revolve around this thought. And sometimes, sometimes it’s ridiculous. It’s just a thought.
According to the Kabbalists, thoughts are like clothing. What do you do with clothing? Some clothing is good. Some clothing doesn’t fit. What do you do with the clothing that doesn’t fit? Sometimes you can fix it; you can tailor it. But sometimes it’s just a bad shirt. You throw it out. You don’t have to—you’re not married to the shirt. You’re not married to the piece of clothing. You don’t have to stay with it forever. You can get rid of it. Sometimes, when we become too obsessed with certain thoughts, it’s as if that thought is me, and now I have to… It’s okay. You can just—it’s a cloud. It’s a black cloud. Gently push it aside. You don’t have to entertain every single thought and spend five years opening it up and psychoanalyzing it.
So we have to understand this very important idea: sometimes our thoughts are not us. Coming back to our actions, sometimes they’re a result of our ideas, but sometimes they can shape our ideas. Coming back to cognitive dissonance: when there’s a gap between where I should be and where I am, the right thing to do is to raise where I am. I should be better. If I’m stealing, I should stop stealing. If I’m not loyal, I should stop being loyal. But sometimes we do the opposite. Sometimes we say, “No, if this is how I feel, if I have an urge to do this,” and we start writing up new rules that it’s okay. You could have something called open relationships, open marriages. You could have something called legalizing drugs. You could have a world where it’s okay to do these things, right?
This is, my friends, where Tahara comes in. Tahara means to realign my value system with Hashem’s, to bring back the correct values to my life. Because sometimes we change the values. We deviate. We change the laws. We have redefined our value system to fit our lifestyle. And don’t we all do that, by the way? Don’t we all do that? Ask an average person who doesn’t keep certain laws, “Why don’t you keep the laws?” “Nah, I mean, it’s not important.” Kosher. It’s all about clean, and I’m eating clean food. Right? So what did we just do? We took a law and changed the law. We made up our own Shulchan Aruch. And everyone does that, by the way, to a certain degree. A person says Shabbat’s not important, or Shabbat is important but this specific part of Shabbat is not important. You’re allowed to use the remote. You’re allowed to use your elbow. You’re allowed to ask the maid. You’re allowed to… You’re allowed to… As long as you don’t touch the door, as long as they open it for you, as long… Basically, what do we do? We look at our lives and what we’re doing, and we create the laws to fit around what we’re doing.
A famous, famous example that the Maggid of Dubna gives: a guy was once shooting arrows, and every arrow was bullseye, bullseye, bullseye—in the middle. Boom, boom, boom. A guy said, “Wow, you’re hitting every one right in the middle. How are you so good at that?” The guy said, “Very simple. Most people draw the target and then shoot the arrow. I shoot the arrow and then draw the target around it.” How many people in life do this? How many people in life do we know? And even we’re guilty. We shoot an arrow and then draw the target. We do things and then create the value system around those things. And that is a very unfortunate mistake. That’s something that we need Tahara for. Tahara means to realign my value system.
You know, when you’re on a plane, you ever see the flight pattern? It’s supposed to go like this to get from Miami to New York. Sometimes you see that the plane went a little bit this way. So what does the plane have to do quickly? Come back. But how big of a mistake would it be if, when the plane made a little bit of a left, the flight pattern shifted with the plane? Then the flight pattern would also say, “We’ve got to go here.” The guy would end up all the way in Seattle. You understand? So Tahara means having our value system intact.
When we say to Hashem, “Give us Kapara,” that means, “Please forgive what I did.” When we say, “Give us Tahara,” we’re asking, “Please help me reshape how I think. Help me bring back the correct values.” Because again, if my value system shifted, then it doesn’t help if I go back here. I’m going to wake up the next day, look at my value system, and say, “Okay, I should be here,” and I’m going to go back. So I have to go back, but first I also have to go here. I have to make sure that I’m readjusting what I’m supposed to be doing. If a person lowered the bar, the first thing they have to do is raise the bar again. And then they can go to the bar. Understand?
They tell a joke about a fellow who borrowed $50,000 from his friend. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to pay it back, and he went to his friend. He said, “Listen, you know I borrowed $50,000 from you, but I have to be honest: there’s no way I can pay it back. I invested it in a deal that I thought was going to work. It didn’t work. I want to make some type of payment plan, some type of settlement, compromise, an agreement.” His friend says, “Okay, listen. What happened? I gave you the money hoping it would go up, and it didn’t. Okay, it’s fair. It’s understandable. So how much could you pay? Could you pay 50%?” “50%? I wish I could pay 50%. If I could pay you 50%, I’d be a king. Are you kidding me? I wish I could pay you $25,000. I don’t even have that. Are you kidding me? $25,000? When am I going to get $25,000?” The guy says, “Wow, okay. I guess pay me 25%. I’ll write it off.” He says, “25%? Are you crazy? I can’t pay you. What am I going to give you? 25%? $12,500? I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I’m sorry. I wish I had it. I don’t have that money. I don’t have it. You’re going to have $12,000 now.” He says, “Wow. Wow, okay. 10%. Can you pay me 10%? $5,000? I mean, it’s the bare minimum. How much less could I go?” The guy says, “Okay, fine. $5,000 I have. 10%. Yeah, we can do it for 10%. That’s very kind of you.” He says, “Okay, give me $5,000.” The guy says, “$5,000? I don’t have $5,000.” “What do you mean you don’t have $5,000? What are we arguing about? The whole time you’re begging me to go down, so I went down. Why do you ask me to go down if you don’t have the money?” The guy says, “Listen. Listen. Last night, I owed you $50,000. I couldn’t go to sleep. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I owed a guy $50,000. But now that I owe you only $5,000, with that I can go to sleep.”
A lot of times, it’s a very powerful joke. What do we do? “I can’t go to sleep at night knowing that I’m doing sins. It doesn’t make sense that I’m sinning. I’m a sinner. I’m a bad person.” Raise your hand if you’re a bad person. No one wants to think of themselves as a person who’s not living according to par, right? I want to be on par. I want to do… I’m eating the way I am and living the way I am, and it’s okay. Even a guy who smokes, by the way: ask every person who smokes, “What are you doing? You know that you’re killing your lungs? You know that you might not be able to see your grandkids? You know what you’re doing to your health?” What will they all say? Every person who smokes will say, “No, I have good genes. My grandpa lived to 110 smoking. It’s okay.” Right? So we’re changing the rules now. Smoking is bad. Every doctor will tell you that. And then we change the rules, saying, “No, smoking is not bad. Smoking is okay. For me, it’s okay. Maybe for you it’s not okay, but for me it is okay.”
So we need God to please help our heart go back to the original value system. Kapara means, “Please help me stop what I’m doing.” Tahara means, “Please help me start realizing that I need to reshape how I’m thinking.” My thoughts are also no good. My values are no good.
When we say these words, we bang our chest and say, “We strayed from Your commandments.” What does it mean? That simply means it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it. God, I did this, and it wasn’t worth it. I thought being with this person would bring me love and romance, and it didn’t. They ignore me afterwards. It only caused me to love my husband less, love my wife less. It caused me to be far from my children. I thought I could do these things and they would make me happy, and they didn’t. It only got me more addicted. It only made me unable to concentrate at work. God, it wasn’t worth it. I thought these things were going to be a certain way, and they weren’t. They weren’t. It wasn’t worth it, Hashem. That’s a simple level of what we’re saying.
But there is something much deeper. What does that mean? What does it mean for something to be worth something? The value of something, right? What is this worth? You know what we’re saying when we say these words? We’re saying, “God, not only did we sin, but we also got to the point that the sin wasn’t even a sin anymore. We no longer valued it. I used to, as a kid, think stealing was a horrible thing. I would look at people who stole and say, ‘How could they steal?’ Now, God, if I’m honest, I do steal. And you know what? I’m able to live with myself, because stealing is no longer a value for me. It’s not a value anymore.” And that’s part of the Teshuvah (repentance). We’re saying, “God, please help it become a value once again. Help me restore my correct outlook on life.”
And, my friends, we are very lucky, because we have—I want you to know this—something that is the original value system. You know, when a plane deviates, the flight track is still there. It’s still there. It doesn’t move. But what happens if you don’t have a computer? If you don’t have that line, what are you going back to? You don’t know. You change the line. Now you’re following your own line.
You know, it’s a cute example. Have you ever prayed in a synagogue? When we pray in a synagogue, you’re supposed to face toward Jerusalem. If you’re in America, that’s east. Now, you wonder which way is east. If it’s a square synagogue, you look at the floor, see which way the tiles are facing, and face that way. You know which way is east. Sometimes you’re in a round synagogue, sitting in a seat, and you don’t know exactly where east is. If you were right in the middle, you could just look to the Heichal, to the ark. But what if you’re on the side? You always see everyone facing this way, and you have one guy facing this way. The guy’s at a 45-degree angle to the whole shul (synagogue). You ever see those guys? And the guy’s like, “What do you mean? Look, I’m facing straight.” It’s straight because you think it’s straight, because you don’t have anything to compare it to. You don’t have a reference.
As Jews, we have a reference. We know what our values should be. You know what that reference is? That reference, my friends, is the Torah. The Torah tells us where we should be. The Torah gives us that line. We don’t have to guess. We don’t have to think. That’s what’s so powerful and amazing about having a value system that’s divine, that’s from above, that’s from HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, blessed be He). I don’t need to guess. I don’t need to wonder. I don’t have to ask myself, “What should I be doing? Is this right? Is this wrong?” Very simple: open Shulchan Aruch. God said over 3,000 years ago, “This is the right thing.” And now I say, “Okay, that’s the value. That’s the right thing.” And now I know in my head, that’s where I should be.
The Tahara for a Jew is easy. It’s called opening a Sefer Torah. It’s called opening Halakha (Jewish law). This is exactly where I should be. When you don’t have Torah, it’s very difficult. Because what’s right? I have some scientists saying this, I’m saying that. Some politicians saying this, some politicians saying that. Some ethicists are saying this, some ethicists are saying that. Some philosophers say this, some philosophers say that. Who should I listen to? I don’t know who to listen to. But as a Jew, we have it so easy. We can restore our value system simply by opening the Sefer Torah and saying, “God, what do You want?”
So actually, the way for Tahara, right? V’taher li... What does that mean? V’taher libenu means, “Please purify my heart so I could serve you.” The way we can purify, the way we can realign our values, is by opening up a book, by studying Sefer Torah, by studying the laws, the word of God. What a gift that we have. What a gift that we have.
That’s why I’ll tell you a little, very, very cool thing right now. You ready? You ready for this? What day is Yom Kippur on the calendar? Very good. The 10th of Tishrei. Anyone know what else happened on the 10th of Tishrei? Something historically significant happened on this day. The 10th of Tishrei is also the day that we got the Torah. Remember, Moshe Rabbeinu went up to get the Torah. He came down with the tablets. He saw the people at the Egel and broke the tablets. He went up for 40 days. He prayed. God said, “Okay, bring up another set of tablets.” He went up on Rosh Chodesh (new month); he went up on Rosh Chodesh Elul, and he stayed for 40 final days. And the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul—when do they end? They end on Yom Kippur. And God said the words, Salachti kidvarecha: “I have forgiven you as you prayed.” I have forgiven you as you prayed. I forgave you. And therefore, God said to Moshe, “Actually, this day forever will be a day of forgiveness.” Yom Kippur for the rest of time is a day of forgiveness, the 10th of Tishrei. That’s why the day was chosen as Yom Kippur. Moshe was forgiven that day because it has a koach (power) of forgiveness. But it’s also the day that he brought back those tablets, that he gave us the Torah. Because the first step of Teshuvah is that you first need Torah. If you have Torah, if you have a correct line, if you have the bar, if we have the values where they should be, when you have the Torah as a model, something to look up to and live up to, then you can do Teshuvah. So it’s not a coincidence that the day of forgiveness is also the day of the Sefer Torah, of the giving of the Torah.
That’s why the fifth Beracha (blessing) in the Amidah, the Beracha of Teshuvah—when you’re praying for Teshuvah, you’re praying for your children, that they should stay Jewish; you’re praying for yourself, for your friend, for your sister, for your brother, whoever it is—this is the Beracha, the fifth Beracha. Anyone know how the Beracha of Teshuvah begins? Ready? You say it every day; you know it. First step, if you want to do Teshuvah: “God, please help me back, bring me back to Torah.” I need Torah. I need to have that value, the model to look up to. I need the original Torah so I can say, “This is it.” And then I can do Teshuvah. But if I don’t have the Torah, I can’t do Teshuvah. Because if you don’t have that original flight line, then who said that I should go here? I should just stay here. Who said this way is the right way? So first we need the Torah, and then we can do Teshuvah. What a beautiful idea. What a magnificent concept.
And the truth is, on Yom Kippur, when we bang our chests, one of the things we’re going to say is, “Hashem, we gave up Your Torah, and we traded it in for ours.” That’s one of the lines that we say. “I annulled Your Torah. I got rid of Your Torah. I no longer care about Your word. I chose my own. I wrote my own playbook. I wrote my own rules. I made up my own system.” And the first thing we have to do, before Kapara, is we need Tahara. Tahara means, “Please, Hashem, help me regain truth. What’s real? What’s right? What do You want from me? I want to live the way You want me to live. I want to do the right things. Help me readjust how I think. Help me get back the correct value system.”
You know, there’s a mashal (parable) that we’ve said many times, but it’s one of my favorite mashals. There was a fellow walking in the streets of London, and he sees that big clock there. Anyone here ever been to London? You see that big clock. It’s called Big Ben. He said to his friend, “Why do they put the clock so high? They should lower it.” His friend gave him a smart answer. He said, “I’ll tell you. The clock used to be low, but you know what happened? One guy walked by and saw the clock said 935, but he looked at his watch and his watch said 933. So he went over to Big Ben and moved it back two minutes. Then another guy walked by, he saw 933. ‘Okay, I guess I’ve got to change my time.’ And he changed it. Then the next guy saw 933. He says, ‘No, it’s wrong,’ and then everyone came and started changing the time, and no one knew the right time. So you know what they did over there in Parliament? They took the clock and put it up very, very high. They said, ‘Now, no one touch it. If your watch and Big Ben are different, don’t change Big Ben; change your watch. Your watch is wrong; Big Ben is right.’” Now everyone can have the right time.
What a beautiful example. You know, throughout the year, sometimes when Big Ben, when Hashem and our watch and our lives are not connected, what do we do? How do we fix that? How do we fix that? A lot of times, what people will do is go over to the Torah and start changing it. “This is okay. I heard this is only the Rabbanan (the rabbis). I heard this doesn’t really matter. I heard that if we had a Beit Din (rabbinical court), it would be different today. They didn’t have electricity back then. It’s okay. It’s kosher. What’s in it already? They didn’t need this. They made it up when they came to America,” right? And we change. We make up Halakhot, as if we spent 20 years in Kollel (full-time Torah study), studying Halakha, and we know every Shulchan Aruch and every idea. We change Big Ben.
And part of Tahara, part of our Teshuvah, on this beautiful day, is saying, “God, before I stop doing the wrong things, first I have to start realizing that I have to think the right way. I have to reshape my values. I have to redefine what’s right based on what You say, not what I say. I’ve got to make sure I have the right time.”
That’s why when we bring the Torah out, we pick it up high and say, V’zot haTorah asher sam Moshe (And this is the Torah that Moses placed). You know why we pick it up high? We’re saying to everybody, “Don’t touch the Torah! Don’t touch! Nobody can touch it! It’s up high!” Unless they’re the ladies in the ladies’ section; they can touch it easily. But we pick it up high: nobody touch it! This is the right thing. This is the right way to live. And when we have that example, when we have Big Ben, when we have the Torah that we can look up to, it gives us the right outlook on life. Then, of course, once we do that, we will be able to be chozer (return) in full Teshuvah, Be’ezrat Hashem (with God’s help).