How to Become a super man, Yom Kippur Edition

 I was asked to speak before Ne'ilah this year, but plans changed. I had, though, already written the speech, so I figured I would post it here. Eat wisely today, pray intently tomorrow -- the sky's the limit.

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Gut yom tov and chag same’ach to everyone.

First off, I would like to extend a sincere Yashar kochacheim and thank you to everyone who helped make this minyan, and all the minyanim during the yamim nora’im possible. Having a shul is a luxury and we live in a day and age where we have learned to treat luxuries as rights and take them for granted. One way to deal with that is to stop and appreciate all those who make that luxury possible. So thank you to all.

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Over the years, having been present for a number of pre-ne’ilah speeches, I have heard and have imagined a variety of metaphors, and approaches. Fourth and goal. Bottom of the ninth. The shofar as a siren. The swan song. I have also looked at the prayer, “ne’ilah” in a few different ways – I’m sure you have heard them: the closing of the gates of prayer, the shoes we use as we travel on a path of repentance, even the burden we carry.

These all seem so scary and I have learned as a teacher that inspiring through fear is not always the most effective tack. Much like Judaism, teaching benefits from a combination of yirah, fear, and ahava, love. I think that there is a reason we say “chag same’ach”, accentuating the joy, and a reason that mishna 8 in Mas’echet Ta’anit, perek 4, has Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel saying that Yom Kippur is one of the 2 best days (yamim tovim) in the Jewish calendar. Just as the other day, the 15^th of Av is a day which involves wearing white, symbolizing purity and escaping a death sentence, so does Yom Kippur, and both days invoke the idea of marriage and partnership – between men and women, the Jewish people and the Torah and even the people and Hashem, himself. Today is a chag, and one celebrating a joyous connection between a king and his betrothed. We go out to dance in the field and now, the king is in the field with us.

I also know that, as an English teacher, my strength is in finding meanings that my students will say aren’t there, but showing them how those meanings, grounded even in a fanciful or “homiletical” way of approaching text, have the ability to bring to us some different level of understanding.

I was planning on going to Israel in November. As might be expected, those plans, unlike many airplanes, are up in the air. But I was thinking about the term for that trip recently: the Hebrew word for the journey is n’si’ah. The grammatical structure (another habit of mine is to break words down and rebuild them based on roots, affixes and conjugations – I’m a real hoot at parties) takes a two letter combination of samech ayin (SA) and works it into a noun. Sa becomes n’si’ah. The modern Hebrew word for “Travel” is turned into “a trip.” When someone is about to travel, we say “n’si’ah tovah” – have a great trip.

I thought about that when I tried to understand the word “ne’ilah.” It dawned on me that I could reverse engineer a similar process in its construction. If the end result of unpacking n’si’ah is SA, then couldn’t the result of a parallel breakdown (grammatical integrity notwithstanding) turn the heart of n’ilah into AL? AL is a wonderful word – sure it means “on” but we commonly use it to mean “up” or “above.” Modern Hebrew has it also mean “super” (which we all can connect to the phrase “up, up and away”). The airline is “El Al” which seems to mean “to the up” or “to that which is above”. So if that’s the essence of the word, then the noun form that is equivalent to “n’si’ahs” “a traveling” is “ne’ilah”, “a rising.”

We have made it through a long day of davening and, sure, we have to be worried that our prayers have not yet been efficacious. We have to redouble those efforts and put on our walking shoes. The gates are closing – fear the loss of opportunity. The king will not be in the field and we risk missing out on that positive and life affirming judgment. We have to shake in fear and stir our souls with the final shofar. Those last few slichot give us that chance to say we are sorry one more time.

But that can’t stand on its own. Our fear has to be complemented with love and our hearts have to soar in order for our message to rise up. Let us take this chance to say “ne’ilah” – let’s rise up together – let our tefillah be part of that Aliyah, that rising up in which we lift our voices and celebrate this best of days, when we solidify our place in Hashem’s presence for the upcoming year.

Chag Same’ach and N’ilah tova everyone.