Yom Kippur and Teshuvah (Repentance): The Secret of Humiliation That Brings the Geulah (Redemption)

Lesson No. 437 | Sunday, Parashas Va'eschanan, 9th of Av 5765.

A profound discourse explaining how specifically from the deepest states of humiliation, a person can bring about salvations and bring the Geulah (Redemption). Through the secret of the Ten Martyrs, the holy martyrs of the Holocaust, and the daughters of Tzlofchad, the deep difference between removing one's shoes on Yom Kippur and removing them during the days of the destruction of the Temple is revealed.

Anyone who merits to focus their intentions on the Ten Martyrs is guaranteed for himself, his children, and his children's children forever that he will experience no sorrow, no damage, and no tragedy. Not only that, but through this, it is possible to sweeten all harsh decrees and merit to see the rebuilding of the Holy Temple speedily in our days.

The lamentation "Sha'ali Serufah Ba'Esh" (Ask, O you who were burned in fire) was composed by the Maharam of Rothenburg, who sat in prison for seven years, from the year 5046 until his passing in 5053. He saw with his own eyes the terrible burning of the Torah scrolls in France, an event where massive bonfires were lit that illuminated the midnight sky like daylight, as the gentiles went from house to house, gathered the scrolls, and anyone who refused to hand them over was killed immediately.

The Burning of the Torah and Guarding the Eyes

The root cause of the burning of the Torah begins with a person's spiritual blemishes. The moment a person does not learn Torah for its own sake and walks in the street with open eyes, looking at forbidden sights, he comes with burned eyes and personally causes the burning of the Torah. It is better for a person to seclude himself in his home, not go outside at all, and sit and learn for sixteen or eighteen hours a day, while strictly guarding his eyes.

In the holy Zohar (Parashas Shlach Lecha), it is brought down that in the Holy Temple, it was forbidden to have any improper thoughts, and anyone who had such a thought would be expelled outside. The moment improper thoughts and forbidden sights are awakened, and a person intensifies the fiery lights of lust, at that very moment he causes the burning of the Holy Temple and burns all the Torah scrolls.

The Power of the Holy Martyrs of the Holocaust and the Ten Martyrs

The holy Zohar (page 195) says that a person must connect himself with those who were killed in sanctification of Hashem's Name. King David says in his prayer: "By David; to You, Hashem, I lift up my soul." When a person recites this verse, he must connect himself with all the Ten Martyrs and with all those who were bound and burned at the stake.

A person must know that the fact he is alive today is only in the merit of those who were martyred in sanctification of Hashem's Name, including the nine million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. These souls chose to descend into this world and suffer these agonies, because one burn in this world is better than a thousand or a million years in Gehennom (Purgatory). Before the soul descends to the world, it chooses its type of death in order to merit the Garden of Eden.

The entire reason we are here in the Land of Israel is only in their merit. These souls protect us and guard us right now; in their merit we live, and in their merit no one can expel us from Jerusalem. They knew that in the merit of their self-sacrifice, the Jewish people would reach the Land of Israel and build yeshivas here. As Rabbi Avraham ben Rabbi Nachman foresaw, that a hundred years after his passing, yeshivas would be established in the name of the holy Rebbe Nachman. Even back then, when no one saw any settlement here, they spoke in Breslov about the fact that a state would be established, and they even said that Rabbi Nachman of Tulchin would be the Minister of Finance if the state were established in his lifetime, for Rebbe Nachman left behind a Hidden Scroll (Megillat Setarim) according to which they knew everything.

Prayer from the Deepest Humiliation

The main thing, says the Zohar, is that a person should connect himself with the slaves and maidservants, as it is written:

"Behold, as the eyes of servants unto the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress" (Psalms 123:2).

King David made himself like a slave: "Incline Your ear to me, for I am Your servant." A slave is the most humiliated person—they took his parents, his brothers, and his children and slaughtered them before his eyes, and afterward sold him into slavery and forced him to run thousands of kilometers on foot under terrible beatings.

If this slave, or this maidservant, had known that one prayer of theirs from the peak of humiliation could bring the Geulah (Redemption) to the world and build the Holy Temple—they would have cast all the enemies down to the lowest depths of the great abyss. Specifically the most humiliated person, whom everyone persecutes and whose blood is spilled, it is his prayer that builds the Temple.

The Secret of the Letter Nun and the Daughters of Tzlofchad

Rebbe Nachman says that the word "kinos" (lamentations) shares the same letters as "tikkun" (rectification). Through the kinos, the letter Nun is rectified—the inverted Nun becomes a straight, elongated Nun. This is how the daughters of Tzlofchad merited an enlarged letter Nun in the word "mishpatan" (their judgment).

Why didn't Moshe Rabbeinu know the halacha (Jewish law) that a daughter inherits? After all, Hashem taught him the entire Torah! Rather, Moshe was in doubt regarding Tzlofchad. Since the congregation of Korach and the spies lost their portion in the Land of Israel, Moshe thought that since Tzlofchad desecrated the Shabbos publicly (as the gatherer of wood) or was among the Ma'apilim (those who presumptuously went up the mountain), perhaps he too had no portion in the Land.

For forty years, the daughters of Tzlofchad walked in terrible humiliation, suspected that their father belonged to the congregation of Korach or to the spies who have no portion in the World to Come. Specifically through this terrible humiliation, where they were the most humiliated in their generation, they merited the complete tikkun (rectification) and the enlarged letter Nun of the Fiftieth Gate of Holiness.

The Secret of Taking Off Our Shoes: Between Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av

This is the essence of the Kinos (lamentations), that we sit on the ground in the ultimate state of humiliation. There is a profound difference between Yom Kippur and the days of the destruction: On Yom Kippur, we take off our shoes because we are like angels, but on Tisha B'Av, we take off our shoes because we are at the peak of humiliation and have already run out of all counsel.

The shoe symbolizes the perfection of counsel and acquisition ("and a man would take off his shoe"). Now, as another year has passed and the Beis HaMikdash (Holy Temple) has not been rebuilt, we sit on the ground without any counsel. We read in the Kinos about the decrees of 1096 (the First Crusade), in which Jews were slaughtered and burned alive. These decrees came into the world because of the trait of Sodom—"what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours"—and a lack of giving tzedakah (charity), for when a person does not give tzedakah, he brings calamity to the world.

The holy Zohar says: Specifically now, when we sit on the ground like slaves and maidservants, we can bring about all the salvations. The Kinos will turn into a tikkun (rectification), and we will merit the enlarged letter Nun of the Fiftieth Gate (of holiness) and the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, speedily in our days, Amen.

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