* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
Yom Kippur is over, but the climax of this period is still ahead of us.
We tend to think of Yom Kippur as the most important holiday, culminating with the stirring Ne’ila service. Then it’s over, and we descend from the spiritual heights we attained and return to our familiar routine.
But that’s not true. In essence, Yom Kippur is only one day of the year, and the goal is to draw spiritual energy from it that will last throughout the other 364 days.
Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook wrote: “The days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot were given to teach us how to return to our mundane world.”
After a month of Selichot and prayers for mercy, after fasting an entire day and resembling angels, we are now approaching an important holiday bustling with drama and activity: building the Sukkah, purchasing the lulav and etrog, holiday meals with family and guests, noise from our neighbors’ sukkot, and children home from school.
It is now that we take all our prayers and requests, all the holiness, all the positive resolutions we took upon ourselves on Yom Kippur and put them into practice—assembling the sukkah planks, cooking, decorating the sukkah, and taking the Four Species -the lulav and etrog.
These peak days are called—life itself. So enjoy the coming days and appreciate how they teach us to takethe holiness of Yom Kippur and Neila from the synagogue into our private lives, here and now.
I wish much success as you prepare for the coming days.
